Something invisible had been set up there.

“Do you see now what it means to be a temple? I tried to make it as visually obvious as I could.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Why were you acting like I should have understood this already? I’m pretty sure I’m not the only idiot about this stuff.”

“It is high time you removed your dunce cap and made an attempt to learn. Use your head. The royal family remade their fortress into a ship so they could travel the world’s seas with all this on hand. That should tell you how important it all is. The temple was not built for the ship’s purposes. The ship was built for the temple’s purposes. So it does not matter if it is out in the open. This is far more secure than a nuclear shelter made by digging deep underground and pouring in special cement.”

It was a giant decagon.

The floor(?) below his feet was not just flat. It had something like grooves dug into it. And they did not form the H of a heliport. They reminded him of the indentations for the rails at a railroad crossing, but these were much more complex. There were straight lines, curves, and a lot of intersections. The messy collection of lines was like the stamp used to cover up personal information in a letter or the invisible masks displaying a face to hide the wearer’s identity. By combining so many different symbols, their individual meaning was lost. Each individual one could be something as simple as a pentagram or constellation.

Coronzon stood up from the green suitcase and dragged it behind her as she walked slowly around the large space. The wheeled suitcase made it look like she was drawing out the white lines to prepare the schoolyard for the athletic festival.

“Forty-four varieties of pentacle, the sigils of angel names, and a pair of equilateral triangles. None of the stuff here matters. Good, good, good. Everything I need is here. I only need this full set of Enochian tablets. It is fortunate they did not destroy the lines after learning that this could be used to draw out apocalyptic power. I can omit a few steps in restarting it now.”

A light sound rang out.

She had unlatched the green suitcase and casually thrown out its contents: the crown, the sceptre, and the stone as large as a dresser drawer. Hamazura did not know how antiques should be cared for, so he could not decide whether or not the sea breeze was bad for them. But when the Great Demon’s long blonde hair wriggled, it lifted up those items like they weighed nothing at all.

“Hand over the sword. It is a necessary part of the Ceremony of Mo Athair.”

“Kh.”

“You are free to refuse, but a key is no more than a key. You cannot acquire the treasure without opening the chest. And you will not have another chance at this. Do not forget that your decision here could forever close off the path to saving Dion Fortune, boy.”

Of course, Coronzon was not someone Hamazura could overpower. Once she let go of him, there was nothing he could do.

That meant the Sword of State was a crucial bargaining chip.

On the other hand, he could not work up the courage to do anything about it. Plus, it was true he had no real choice in the matter. He could try to threaten her or persuade her, but what happened if she got fed up with him and called off the deal?

This was not about who would win and who would lose.

Even with the tarot cards and even if he was given this entire ship, he would have no idea where to begin. It would be like having a suffering patient and an operating room but no doctor. He could not fail to save the girl after coming this far. If he did, he could hardly complain if people blamed his decision for letting her die.

He had to recall why he had knocked out his girlfriend and come all this way.

What had he risked all this for?

(If it comes down to it, Coronzon should panic if this…temple(?) is attacked. It’s hidden, so there must be a reason why it needs to be hidden. I know one of her secrets, so that’s better than nothing.)

“Okay…”

“Very good.”

The temple was positioned between the blue sea and sky.

Coronzon grabbed the sheathed sword with her long hair and placed each of the items on the floor. It looked like she was positioning them based on some kind of rules. The sword, crown, and sceptre were at the corners of an equilateral triangle. The heavy Stone of Scone was a short distance away.

As soon as she did, the floor glowed white.

“Wah!?”

“Stepping on it will not actually do anything, but it will distract me.”

A sticky light came from some of the straight, curved, and intersecting lines running along the floor. Something switched between the appropriate rails to travel along the correct path, but Hamazura could not tell what exactly that something was or what exactly it would cause.

“Now, then. I suppose we should start with the basics.”

Coronzon put a hand on her hip and spoke casually.

She made it sound as unimportant as something she was humming while eating.

“First, I will set up the magic circle. Then I draw a Tau inside and divide that into ten sectors.”

“?”

This was separate from the important-looking triangle and extra point.

Lines of pure white light ran through only the necessary straight and curved lines crawling along the floor. A white circle surrounded Coronzon in no time.

That sinister face appeared using her long hair as a screen.

“A sword in hand and a camphor flame on the floor symbol.”

What did that mean?

Coronzon raised a hand as if hailing a taxi and there was a sound like something slicing through the air. Something like a meter-wide plate smoothly moved over from the edge of the decagon. Instead of having wheels on the bottom, it appeared to be floating. There were two things on the hovering plate. One was a ceremonial sword without a blade. It looked a lot flimsier than the Sword of State. The other was a metal plate of powder that looked like little more than incense.

Coronzon did not even glance down at the courier at her feet. She held her hands out and the antique items rose into her grasp like a magnet was pulling them.

She lit the incense in the center.

The smoldering was no larger than a cigarette, but the sea breeze did not seem to affect it.

She stood on the edge of the white circle and slowly walked counterclockwise.

“Fire, water, wind, earth, and invisible ether – the five great elements. Begone from this place.”

She whispered.

She whispered and continued on.

“The sun, Mercury, Venus, the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn – the seven planetary forces. Begone from this place.”

She made three full circles for each group.

“Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces – the twelve zodiac influences. Begone from this place.”

Her counterclockwise circles stopped there.

She quietly closed her eyes.

“Eliminate the kingdom used for priming. Then erase its foundation, glory, victory, beauty, severity, and mercy. Drive out its understanding and wisdom and finally negate all influence of the crown. Begone from this place.”

Something audibly sliced through the air.

Coronzon had walked to the center of the circle and stabbed the sword into the floor. That extinguished the camphor flame. As if she had stepped on a dropped cigarette butt.

“With that, I have eliminated the twenty-four forces and ten spheres. This temple is now prepared for a single purpose and can make progress without influence from anything else.”

There was no actual light or noise.

In fact, the glowing white circle vanished and the temple made from a large heliport was wrapped in a desolate silence. That was the change. Enjoying stillness mean understanding the concept of zero and nothingness. Just like a shrine or temple forgotten by the flow of time, the very space here had acquired a strange presence. And it was at a level where even ignorant Hamazura could sense it.

As it was, the temple was no more than an empty box.

Only by following the appropriate process would it gain the functions it needed for a powerful ceremony.

That meant the three Honours of Scotland.

And the Stone of Scone.

Hamazura realized the sinister face had vanished from Coronzon’s hair.

The demon whispered using just her beautiful face.

“Well, now is not the time to draw out its true purpose. Using it for defense would be the better option for now.”

With some kind of preparations complete, she turned back toward Hamazura who could not keep up if she did not explain.

“Why are you just standing there? Your fate will be decided here.”

“But what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“Let me see Dion Fortune.”

She said it so simply that he initially blinked in confusion. It took him a moment to realize she meant the 78 cards in his pocket. The back-alley doctor had asked to see the patient and he had already paid her price by giving her the Sword of State. He quickly pulled the cards from his pocket and Coronzon snatched a certain girl’s lifeline from his hand.

She breathed a sigh of exasperation when she saw the thick rubber band holding them together.

“It is too late for you to back out now, so I suppose I should explain. The avatar I created to descend from the four worlds does not restrict me from using human magic like with God’s Right Seat, but it will still reduce the burden on me if I let you handle the ignition.”

Just as she said that, she spun a finger around and a different large plate from before crawled over along the floor. Those devices must have assisted the performer by keeping their hands free. This time it was not a sword or incense. The meter-wide plate carried a few crystal balls and a light source that used fire. The setup was fancy, but it appeared to be a projector.

Coronzon crouched down, placed the 78 cards on the projector’s glass panel, and spun her hand around. Like a stage magician, she spread the cards out in a perfect ring.

“Do not mistake this for the Wheel of Fortune. That is just one card in the Major Arcana.”

She made sure to warn him, but Hamazura did not know what the cards were called.

He only felt a throbbing in his chest at the word “fortune”.

When she slid the cards along the projector’s glass panel, the light reflected somehow or another to display an enlarged version of the Arcana ring on the floor. The light source looked horribly unreliable and the sky was so bright, yet the image appeared clearly.

“Now, this is the design diagram for the grimoire.”

With that, Coronzon snapped her fingers again.

The fire providing the light changed color like a firework. It became a vivid green. It was like when the stains were highlighted in a detergent ad. A sticky light much like glow-in-the-dark paint appeared all over the neatly-arranged cards.

“And these are the intentionally applied scratches and creases. They are impurities unnecessary for the basic grimoire. In other words, these parts define Dion Fortune as an individual.”

Hamazura gulped quietly.

He still did not understand what she was doing, but the mention of that girl’s name had a greater impact in his heart. The blonde woman shrugged.

“I said it was like a record’s grooves before, didn’t I? I have visualized the marks too small to be seen by human eyes. If these are returned to their original state, Dion Fortune should appear once more.”

He had finally found it.

It was like grabbing at a cloud, but Hamazura Shiage’s goal was in sight.

“And with that said, can you see what is happening with these marks?”

“Hey, wait.”

The green light displayed the tiny marks that stored the data like the grooves on a disk. He could not allow those to be altered, but they appeared to be slowly moving like slugs.

“Should those be moving!?”

“Of course not.”

It was not that the marks were growing in number.

It was the opposite.

It was slow, but the marks were vanishing from the surface of the tarot cards. The cards were being repaired to their original state. The process simply gave the illusion of slow slug-like crawling.

“An original grimoire cannot be destroyed by humans. Even if you can temporarily damage it, it will automatically absorb power from the ley lines to repair itself.”

Coronzon tapped her foot on the floor where one of Dion Fortune’s marks was projected.

“But that only repairs the original grimoire aspect of it. It does not care about Dion Fortune’s personality. I was not interested in having these cards provide knowledge as a grimoire. I had redirected that ability in a harmless direction in order to construct and preserve the artificial personality, but…because some idiot worked a little too hard and took a direct hit, that stopper was broken in Mathers and the others. As things are, the auto-repair function will erase all of the small marks on the cards and they will return to being blank slates. They will be pure and meaningless original grimoires.”

“…What do I do?”

She would become a blank slate.

Everything creating that girl would be erased.

As if she had never existed in the first place.

“There has to be something I can do, right!? How do I stop this!?”

“That is obvious.”

Coronzon lightly waved a hand and another large plate smoothly approached along the floor. They seemed to be responding to her gestures. The meter-wide plate carried something like a rolled-up carpet.

She grabbed it and spread it out in the sea breeze.

“C’mon, sit on this.”

“What is it? A yoga mat???”

“It was used by a royal princess. That thought gets your perverted blood flowing, doesn’t it?”

He was unsure what to say to that.

“The tarot is repairing itself by constantly absorbing power from the ley lines as an original grimoire. And tarot is still tarot. While it can function as a grimoire, it was designed as a fortunetelling spiritual item.”

“?”

“You only need to redirect the flow of power. You can stop it from absorbing power from the earth by sending it magic power refined in the human body. Then it will function as a spiritual item rather than a grimoire. That will stop the auto-repair function.”

“Wait a second. Power? Redirect the flow?”

“This is only a stopgap measure until Dion Fortune has been restarted as herself. It is the same as pulling the cord on a chainsaw. Once the cycle has begun, it can switch back to the ley lines. In fact, constantly refining magic power is no easy task. That is why magicians only do it for a temporary combat mode.”

“But wait! What’s this about doing something in the human body? You make it sound simple enough, but you need to tell me what to actually do! I can’t just climb onto a broom and fly!!”

“I believe it was Dion Fortune who tried to explain Kabbalah using yoga as an example.”

That was enough for Hamazura’s shoulders to shake.

A cruel smile spread across Coronzon’s lips.

“Relax your shoulders and take deep breaths. All you are doing is refining your life force into magic power. That is the foundation of all magic. I am not talking about the combat format designed for situations were a moment’s delay could cost you your life. You have all the time in the world in this large temple, so it is not hard at all. What matters is maintaining the proper pose and breathing. I will guide you through a proper meditation using the correct symbols and signs.”

“…”

“Do you still not understand? Think of it as getting personal exercise lessons from the instructor girl at the gym. If you still have trouble, then you only have your own lack of focus, lung capacity, and flexibility to blame.”

Yes.

It sounded simple enough.

And it would be for an expert magician with plenty of training.

But you must not forget that the issue here was not even one of expert vs. amateur.

Hamazura Shiage was an esper and espers were fundamentally incompatible with magic.

“I’ll try…”

Coronzon did not mention any of that.

She only told him how to do it. She did not provide redundant safety measures or any kind of warranty.

The Great Demon was not concerned with what he wanted.

She only needed human magic power as a convenient ignition.

“Then do it, boy. You want to save Dion Fortune, don’t you? You have a way of doing that right here. No tools or talent are necessary. Only your body and a bit of effort. So why should you hesitate?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

In the end, Hamazura Shiage was quick to answer.

Coronzon smirked, but…

“I know this probably isn’t going to end well for me, but that’s fine. So tell me, Coronzon. What can I do to follow your plan?”

“…?”

This was a slight deviation.

He was not naively rushing in with clouded eyes and grabbing at this thread of hope without understanding the risks.

He did understand.

He understood everything, but he was still accepting the risk. This was different from Crowley or Mathers. This was a reaction she had not seen in those who had known the risks, summoned a Great Demon, and then angrily refused to obey.

Had Coronzon noticed?

Had she noticed the brief moments when Hamazura reached into his pocket and felt the perfectly ordinary stick of gum there?

Had she noticed when he had gained courage from that simple action?

“Tch.”

The blonde woman quietly clicked her tongue.

“Fine. I will explain it step by step. But once you start, you cannot stop before it is complete.”

“Yeah. But are you okay with that? You didn’t hijack this ship for me. You have your own thing to do, right?”

He was still like this even now.

Coronzon did not think he had a disturbing level of good will. This strange sense of solidarity was something born in the dark back alleys.

They were accomplices.

That word did not imply a master and a servant, so it stung a little for Coronzon. That sting came from not knowing what kind of interpersonal distance to keep from someone. He would not let her hold his head down.

She may not have needed to explain this to him.

So when she opened her mouth, was it to return him to the usual format and regain the initiative? A silent demon would gain nothing because the humans would not blindly believe them.

“This works toward my goal as well, so do not worry. The three Honours of Scotland and the Stone of Scone are necessary components of the Ceremony of Mo Athair, but I would also like to use pure human magic power for the ignition. You only need to provide the initial tug of the chainsaw’s cord. I will handle the rest. So our work is linked.”

“I see. That’s fine then.”

“To be clear, the world will be destroyed when my work is complete. Are you sure you want to say that is ‘fine’?”

“…”

“If you do not understand, allow me to enlighten you. My name is Coronzon, my number is 333, and my nature is dispersion. Just as the angel of water is revealed using no more than water, I exist only to obstruct the bonds of the world and naturally break down all of creation. I will be intentionally harming every part of the world to create scabs and then I will tear them all away while here in the United Kingdom. That will cause the world to boil over and create a frenzied state in which everyone will work to destroy each other. From neighborhood brats to nuclear warheads, all seven billion people will face their greatest enemy and drive each other to mutual self-destruction. Just like the game of old maid, I will send enemy against enemy until they destroy the entire world. That would still leave the isolated jokers who do not naturally break down, but I will crush all of them myself. Not a single person will escape.”

She really was a Great Demon.

A dangerous but seductive and alluring smile appeared on her face.

That sweet and ruinous flower did not at all suit the beige habit.

“While all those fools are focused on the visible chaos, I will take my time preparing for the end. I am the Great Demon lurking in the Abyss of the Sephiroth. But ascending the tree is not the only way to use it.” She pointed her thumb at the center of her chest. “I obtained this physical body and descended the tree. The humans drowning at the bottom level only ever think of ascending it, but the connections go both ways. I started higher up and I can freely come and go, so this temporary level does not matter to me. Having a physical body is not a bad thing since it provides practical benefits in this world. And it allows me to reach the physical and scientific layer at the very bottom where all other phases are folded up.”

“The bottom?”

“Yes. Imagine the universe at the point when the geocentric model said the other planets revolved around the earth. That is different from current mainstream astrology, but this is about some simple mental exercise. …But make sure this hypothetical does not confuse you. Now, with that model, the forces storing up mystical and supernatural power pour down on the earth from outside of the planet, but the earth in the center is a perfectly ordinary hunk of dirt. That is the earth’s surface where we are standing now. If you removed that, the world would lose its center and it would fall apart, correct?”

Coronzon raised her slender index finger and slowly spun it around.

When she did, a few of the large plates around them began to rotate. They appeared to be representing the view of the world before it was proven that the planets revolved around the sun.

“By passing all that power through this foundational layer, that ‘bottom’ layer can be broken and removed. From there, all other phases will be destroyed along with this one. Without the core, the other forces cannot maintain their revolutions.”

She clenched her fist and took a step from the center.

With their directions from the “core” gone, the large plates scattered blindly and bumped into each other.

A single action caused it all to fall apart.

“Aleister apparently wanted to save humanity by destroying every other phase and leaving just this one behind, but I am the opposite. By removing the ‘bottom’ layer at the center, the phases for all mythologies and religions will be destroyed. That is the Ceremony of Mo Athair. Nothing at all will remain afterwards.”

Hamazura had no response to that.

He did not understand it, but he was not enough of a fool to miss the scent of danger hanging in the air.

He could not keep up when discussing things on the level of saving or destroying the world. He was more focused on the people right in front of him. That might be getting his priorities backwards, but it was a common thought process for humans. For example, if this ship were to sink, he would be more worried about finding a scrap of wood floating in the icy ocean than about how the sinking ship would affect the overall conflict. Humans were small creatures with narrow viewpoints.

These two were accomplices who were both using the other. Once one accomplished their goal, they would abandon the other.

…Or it should have worked that way.

No one should have agreed to help Coronzon once they understood her plan.

“What do I have to do? What’s the first step to save Fortune?”

“I will tell you the proper pose first. Start by sitting on that mat.”