Chapter 136 - CHAPTER 136:Aleister

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"Master."

Everyone looked toward Shen He.

His aura alone distorted the surrounding energy, creating a pressure field that weighed down the very space around him. With two Saints already incapacitated, Shen He's presence radiated an overwhelming divine force—one even the artificial angel forces didn't dare to provoke without reason.

But Shen He merely waved his hand, his frown deepening. He signaled the group to give him space, falling into silent contemplation.

Ever since his physical sanctification through divine Terrigen exposure and merging with Jeanne's holy artifact, his body had grown stronger, and with it, his memory—crisper, detailed, even across dimensions. And yet, something felt off.

The control system for artificial angels—originally through the AIM dispersion field emitted by the Misaka Sisters—shouldn't be operational. It required a virus to infect and influence minds attuned to the AIM field. Previously, Aleister had deployed this through Last Order, a terminal for the Misaka Network. But right now, Last Order was still safely contained under Chaldea's guardianship.

And Misaka Sisters weren't even responsible for the current AIM output.

Something is rewriting the laws.

"Dammit. If I knew I'd be transmigrating, I should've read the original Index novels all the way to NT and checked the fan wikis. At least stalked Aleister threads for theory breakdowns."

Before Shen He could finish that thought, the air cracked.

Within the ruined fragments of Academy City, a singular column of divine light tore through the heavens—a figure ascending like the last hope of a collapsing world.

An artificial angel.

Her form was resplendent in silver-white luminescence, with wings that unfolded in prismatic geometry, each flap erupting in dangerous bursts of fire and sanctified particles. Even from afar, Shen He could feel the quantum-level mana fluctuations that signified apocalyptic-grade destructive capability.

She looked down at them momentarily—not with hostility, but neutral recognition—before accelerating toward the upper atmosphere, leaving a white sonic veil trailing behind her, slicing through the clouds like a blade through glass.

"We can't wait. We're going to Aleister."

The instant that angel's gaze met theirs, Shen He had decided. There was no aggression in her eyes—only clarity.

It meant Hughes Wind Slash, the artificial angel, wasn't being remotely controlled. She was acting with self-awareness.

The Hughes that Kamijou hadn't yet neutralized must've been manipulated—decoyed by Aleister to mislead them.

"So we're finally going to face him?"

Accelerator, or One-Way Road, clenched his fists. His entire bloodstream felt like it was boiling.

Aleister Crowley—the mastermind behind the Absolute Ability Plan, the architect of their pain—was waiting.

"Perfect timing," Misaka Mikoto (Alter) murmured, a rare smile flashing across her usually cold features. But her violet eyes shimmered with stormy rage.

Aleister's name alone had ignited the battlefield's tension.

"Jeanne, heal Mikoto Alter during transit. Mikoto, link with the Amakusa sect. Coordinate with the Saints and Water God's entourage at the hospital. Lelouch, take Violet and mobilize Chaldea's perimeter. Prep for intercept—there may be Level 6 suppressor squads hidden in Academy City's ruins."

Shen He gave orders swiftly.

He knew the Artificial Heaven Project was already underway, and the artificial angels had moved beyond waiting. Aleister was drawing the final lines of his twisted spell.

There was no point in sitting still now.

The group split as planned. Shen He, Accelerator, Qi Mu Nanxiong, Kamijou Touma, Jeanne, and the two Rites dashed toward the fabled Windowless Building—the heart of Aleister's operations.

Though Academy City had been leveled in past conflicts, the building itself was still under Aleister's absolute surveillance. Stealth was futile.

Halfway there, a thunderous roar echoed.

From the horizon came the mechanical screech of supersonic drone fighters. Steel-winged constructs launched a barrage of black quantum swords. With their trails glowing red-hot, they looked like a meteor shower of war, targeting the team directly.

"Accelerator!"

Shen He shouted—not in anger, but anticipation.

Aleister sending drones to intercept them meant he still feared their strength. If he'd simply opened the door… then it would've implied Ives, the dimensional Archangel, was already deployed.

Accelerator grinned, then launched himself skyward. Controlling vectors, he redirected the kinetic path of incoming blades, twisting their trajectory with pinpoint precision. With a violent arc, he deflected every black knife across the sky, repelling them into the sea.

The remaining swords smashed into the earth, turning it into a cratered hellscape.

"Qi Mu, you watching?" Shen He called, flames flickering off his shoulders.

But Aleister wasn't finished.

Dozens of plasma warheads and mana-reactive missiles emerged in a haze from beyond the city, trailing white-hot combustion lines that split the sky.

Shen He calculated instantly.

He grabbed the two Rites and Jeanne and activated his multi-dimensional translocation gate, shifting to the Marvel World side of the nexus, while Qi Mu Nanxiong stayed behind to protect Kamijou.

Misaka Mikoto Alter's wounds had been healed by Jeanne's divine light. Even if hit, her lightning armor would neutralize most of the damage. Accelerator? Practically untouchable.

The bombardment was for him.

Only Shen He, whose strength relied heavily on divine martial arts and physical durability, could be threatened by area-of-effect bombardments like these.

They waited in the Marvel World for three minutes.

Then Shen He blinked back into Academy City, the air now choked with ash, the stone beneath him molten, and the sky scorched black. It looked like the epicenter of a tactical nuke.

He didn't pause. He sprinted straight toward the Windowless Building.

In this world, unless you possessed Accelerator's ability, absolute science couldn't stop high-tier mystic warriors.

Aleister, confined in his life-support system and stripped of functional magic due to the Chaldea-wide summoning ritual disabling long-range sorcery, shouldn't be a threat.

"Then what's that? A mechanized strike force?"

Accelerator saw it too. Dozens of anti-god mechs—gleaming with blue seals and powered by synthetic grimoires—marched forward.

"Leave these bots to me. You teleport."

"Good," Shen He nodded.

He had the same idea.

Qi Mu Nanxiong, calm as always, extended his psionic domain and pulled the team into his sphere. With a blink, everyone but Accelerator warped instantly, reappearing outside a tall, ominous structure.

The Windowless Building.

It looked like a standard skyscraper—except no windows, and its outer shell shimmered with reality warping distortions.

The two Rites saw it too: gray, twisting death lines writhing across the structure like worms, flickering in and out of reality.

But oddly… the building's front had an opening.

"Would a structure without windows even have doors?"

Shen He muttered. The inconsistencies were piling up.

According to Index lore, guests couldn't even see this building without being escorted by a high-tier esper.

Now? There was a literal door cracked open.

Kamijou Touma stepped forward, undeterred. "We've come this far. No point hesitating now."

He stepped through first.

Shen He followed, caution in his tone. "Everyone stay alert. Jeanne, cover your own six."

Then—darkness.

Everything disappeared.

No sound. No partners. The door was gone. Jeanne, Kamijou, the Rites—gone.

He stood alone, suspended in void.

Only a staircase of light remained beneath him, each step appearing as he walked, the one behind vanishing like data erased.

A linear path, with no retreat.

Shen He didn't panic. He kept walking, voice low but firm.

"Even now… you can still monitor us?"

He was talking to Aleister.

Because even now, nothing could sever the bond between a Master and their Servant.

"Artificial Heaven is essentially just a 'sect struggle.'" A faint voice echoed from the void ahead, serene and aloof. "It can be destroyed—not by external means—but only by the 'beliefs of rival systems.' However, I abandoned those long ago."

"So, the magic you wield now… it's not bound by traditional frameworks?" Shen He's interest was piqued. There was a flash of understanding in her clear gaze. "In essence, you've forged your own magical theory. You're among the greatest magicians in existence. In a few millennia, perhaps your name will be mythologized like Jesus, a divine anomaly of history."

In A Certain Magical Index, the foundation of the magical power system is rooted in belief—collective consensus layered over millennia.

Superpowers derive from personal realities, while magic is born from centuries of collective human belief, ritual, and archetype. Aleister Crowley, often seen as the grand architect of Academy City's systems, was both scientist and magician. He created the technological pathways that enabled supernatural development, crafting a new domain where esper powers could be cultivated from within, free from the constraints of religious belief. Some of these systems, detached from magical paradigms, naturally ignore constructs like Artificial Heaven.

The faint voice belonging to the unseen figure—an "outsider" even in this cosmic space—carried a note of philosophical doubt.

"You've completely transcended the foundations of this universe's laws."

"Only in your universe." Shen He ascended slowly, her tone tranquil and detached. "Faith crafts power. Personal reality rewrites external reality. All of that is just your universe's truth—but we don't belong here. We're not obligated to obey it. How much longer do I have to keep entertaining this illusion?"

He was under the impression Aleister would've manifested already. Surely this staircase should've ended by now.

Yet, step by step, the spiral staircase continued upward, endlessly.

A strange, intangible sense of ridicule tingled in his bones—as if the very world mocked his persistence.

"You've completely derailed my plan," Aleister's voice returned, low and grave. "You bent the flow of destiny, displaced Kamijou from the narrative's axis, and introduced entities foreign to this reality. Even the unmatched Demon God has been erased by your influence."

He paused there—strangely reluctant to speak the next part.

But the implication was unmistakable.

If something could erase a Demon God… then such beings truly existed here.

"Where's Ives?"

Shen He cut to the chase, his voice sharper now—this was the core of his concern.

The silence that followed was unnervingly long.

So long, in fact, that Shen He suspected the other had withdrawn entirely. He double-checked the mental link—an evolved version of telepathic communication developed in earlier chapters via Chaldean tech and Inhuman enhancements. His comrades were safe, accounted for. He reassured them: Don't interfere. Stay where you are unless the situation changes.

He kept walking. The silence was loud.

At last, the spiral stairway came to an end.

And beyond it—an endless, boundless void.

No… a cosmos.

It wasn't a chamber or a battlefield. It felt like floating in absolute nothingness—yet gravity still existed. Some unseen force kept him anchored to a specific height. Below, a vast blue planet. Above, a dome of radiant stars. Off to the side, a sun flared brilliantly, a golden inferno suspended mid-thought.

Shen He, despite his arcane intellect and merged consciousness with the Marvel-verse's quantum field, couldn't determine whether this was reality or a fabricated dimension conjured by something akin to the Dimensional Holy Grail System introduced in Chapter 82.

But such questions didn't matter.

The man standing before him did.

Long silver hair cascading down to his ankles. A surgical coat dyed in emerald tones. His appearance blurred human categorization—he seemed like every person and no one at all. An amalgam of all identities.

There was no doubt.

It was Aleister Crowley.

No longer confined to the life-support chamber. No longer suspended in the intersection of science and magic. This Aleister stood tall—anchored in existence.

"I was mistaken." Aleister's voice had the tone of someone emerging from centuries of contemplation. "I believed you were responsible for the erasure of the Demon Gods. I thought you had taken Ives from this world. But now I understand… You are a 'connected one.' Not the manipulator. Just another pawn… like Kamijou."

"Is that so?" Shen He didn't flinch. His expression was calm. "People like you are what I detest most—those who think they can puppet fate from behind the curtain. But humans aren't chess pieces. Even when following a 'predestined path,' we decide. Our will remains intact. From the dawn of civilization, hasn't mankind always been swept along by the tide of greater forces?"

He had considered the possibility.

That the power systems—magic, science, even godhood—were components of some grand orchestrated structure.

But such thoughts were irrelevant. Even ordinary people lived their lives within rigid frameworks: school, jobs, governments, disasters. They still forged ahead, fought crises, and made their own decisions.

When the storm comes, you fight. That's the only answer that matters.

"You're right." Aleister was silent for a while. Then, he nodded. "Even I was shaped by circumstances—my hatred, my failures, my philosophy. Everything I did… it was a reaction to the pressure around me. In the end, all of us are swept along by the currents of time."

"I'm not here to debate fate."

Shen He raised his hand.

The spear appeared in it—a monstrous thing imbued with twisted spirits, reforged through the Divine Furnace of Chaldea and baptized by Shen He's spiritual rituals. The tip gleamed ominously, thirsting for clarity—or blood.

He leveled it at Aleister.

"I don't care what your current state is—dead, alive, or some post-human fusion. You will answer my questions. And then, you'll help bring this war to a close. If you refuse… then all that's left is combat."

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