182 Wanna See How Big My _____ Is? (2/2)

What worried everyone above at the moment was what had just happened, though. For some inexplicable reason, Lu'um had put it back from whence it came in the strangest position.

Why?

No one knew, but the tension on the Spirit of Bountiful Charity had reached a fever peak. The readings they were getting from beneath Itroch were enough to prompt an emergency retreat and an immediate recall from all ground crew, a certain trio included...

As far as they were concerned, the city was set to blow up in an unholy explosion. Or perhaps some unknown anomalous disaster. If all went well, then nothing would happen.

Either way, something was about to happen and Velvund couldn't risk his subordinates' lives, even if personally he wanted to stay and witness it for himself. He might've been able to withstand whatever was to come, but they would not be able to do the same...

On the frontlines, a terrible scene was already underway and it could no longer be stopped. It was starting to get... hot. Extremely hot. The temperature below had already hit a point the scenery in the fissure had turned into a true hell. In a literal sense.

But that wasn't a problem for Reed... because he couldn't feel anymore. He had forcibly shut off the screeching in his mind — his nerve receptors — trying to tell him that he was in mortal peril.

Not one to shy away from suffering, Reed somberly smirked as inspected what was left of him at the moment. His skin had already turned a shade of black and possessed a texture reminiscent to that of charcoal. ...Well, what little remained of it.

Whatever hair he once had already been burnt into ash long ago. Most of what remained of Reed was desperately trying to fight back against the... living, breathing monster he had created.

Only the most important organs necessary to keep him alive were given priority regeneration — his heart, brain, spine, and lungs. Everything had been discarded. Any unnecessary senses had been cut off, as they had only been slowing him down. Distracting him from what he needed to do.

Encased in a sphere of cooled Anima, a lump of reforming flesh continued to work without stopping. Reed had not stopped, even though fear had almost overtaken him several times.

He couldn't afford to mess up, after all. What he was constructing could not afford to have even a single flaw. A single defect would spell an unfortunate end for himself and anything not on the other side of the continent.

But that was an obvious fact, given the amount of energy that was at play.

When Reed detected the geode of souls, he immediately set his plan into motion and sent out a multitude of enormous chains of Anima to drag it further down into the depths of the fissure. He needed it as far below as possible for what was to come.

Loading complete.

Was it a stupid idea or perhaps, an extraordinary one? To be quite frank, not even Lu'um knew the answer. It bordered the line between pure genius and insanity, if she had to be honest.

At the very least, she would have never come up with the idea to turn the entire continent...

Into a gun.

That was the whole plan, in a nutshell. Reed was to turn the continent into a gun for the express purpose of sending the geode back to where it belonged. And now Reed had everything required. His grand plan was to build a big fucking gun.

He had a gun barrel — the fissure itself.

He had gunpowder — a direct connection to the source of all Anima in Mulia, the female titan.

And he had a bullet — the geode of souls.

Everything that was needed had been gathered and set up as planned. While Lu'um had been charged with loading the geode back into the fissure, Reed had been at work reshaping the fissure itself to handle the tremendous forces that would be at play.

It was hot. Hotter than the surface of a star beneath Itroch. Reed's work, which involved the manipulation of a massive bounded field (Tolai field) of twisted spacetime, had almost reached completion.

The idea was that unfurling the bound field would propel whatever was caught within it through a hole through reality and onward. What concerned Lu'um was what would take place after the bullet was fired.

Firing the bullet was one hurdle, but aiming it at the correct target was another problem in itself. How does one accurately aim a gun at a target that doesn't exist in reality? At a target that exists outside of it?

That was the main quandary, but Reed had devised his own makeshift solution. He'd manually adjust the trajectory by personally... riding his bullet to its destination.

Pure insanity. Had anyone aside from Lu'um heard Reed's plan, they would have thrown him into an asylum. Locked him up for his own good and the safety of the world. Velvund would have probably lost his damned mind if he knew the truth...

Thankfully, he would not be faring the infinite alone. His other half would also be along for the ride, apprehensive as she was about it. Rather than allow him to venture into the Outside alone unsupervised, she'd be there to keep him safe.

”...Look at you. You're barely alive. Is this what you meant by, 'I've got this under control?'” said Lu'um as she descended to where Reed lay waiting, atop the geode of souls.

”I'll be fine. I've already activated the reset node, so we only have a couple of minutes before it boots me out of control. Are you ready?” replied Reed via his thoughts.

Once the bullet was fired, the reset node would take care of repairing the damage that caused the Itroch Syndrome and resolve the issue at Itroch once and for all.

And he'd set it all off with but a single thought. The final part of the assembly was none other than... himself — the trigger.

”I'm ready,” replied Lu'um as she settled herself around Reed, or what was left of him.

”Then, let's not waste any more time. Hold on, it's about to get real crazy, real fast...!” said Reed, positively giddy in anticipation. Whether it was the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the onset of some form of madness, or something else was unknown.

Whatever it was, it had taken Reed hostage and it terrified Lu'um to the bone.

”Ready....”

”Steady....”

”Go.”

And then... they were gone. It'd begun. The world's largest gun fired off without a hitch.