Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 1362: Reversal

…

“Delta and Epsilon failed.”

Gamma raised its head and looked at the clock on the basement wall. Twelve hours past the deadline.

Oracles dying in the execution of their missions against World Creators was not unprecedented — the risks were real and unpredictable, and death was no irreversible tragedy for their kind. Given sufficient time within God’s territory, they could reincarnate. Death mattered only if the mission was left incomplete.

But twelve hours had passed and the world had given no sign. No ripple moved through the void of magic power. The domain had not collapsed. Which meant one thing: neither Delta nor Epsilon had succeeded in killing the self-cognitive being called Zero.

“We have our own mission to complete.” Beta absorbed the last five cores into its body and spread its arms wide.

A red flare of light, and a scarlet erosion breach split the air at the center of the basement.

“The situation isn’t beyond recovery. As long as we achieve our objective, there’s still a chance to turn this around. Come — the magic power here is almost spent. When the two worlds stop overlapping, those martial artists will be able to sense our tracks.”

No speculation on why they had failed, no dwelling on the fact of failure. Oracles did not feel frustration. They did not mourn defeat. There was only the decree, and the imperative to fulfill it.

Gamma nodded without a word.

Beta stepped into the rift.

This was no ordinary erosion breach. It had consumed an enormous expenditure of energy and Fallen Evil cores to open the passage — a corridor that connected, at its far end, to the final battlefield the main Creator had prepared.

Gamma followed. It was just crossing the threshold when it heard footsteps on the stairs.

A small jolt of surprise. It turned toward the sound. The room had been sealed against detection by layers of magic power, and Fallen Evils stood guard outside. No one should have been able to enter.

From the dark stairwell, a figure stepped into the light.

“Why is it you?” Gamma asked.

It was Epsilon — wearing a human face.

According to the plan, Epsilon had been tasked with holding back human reinforcements, buying time for Delta. If Delta fell, Epsilon should not have survived.

Gamma did not receive an answer in words. It received an arm.

Five fingers outstretched, the arm shot forward like a bolt and drove clean through Gamma’s chest.

The mask fell and shattered. The revolving astrolabe beneath the hood spun freely in the open air.

Gamma looked at Epsilon, uncomprehending, its consciousness already thickening. “You — why…”

“There’s a difference.” Epsilon retracted its hand and let Gamma fall against it. “Between you… and Lan.”

“You want to betray God?”

A beat of silence. Then, very quietly: “Who is God?”

“God is—” Gamma opened its mouth. The same words came out again, and again, worn grooves in a stuck mechanism — and no answer ever arrived, because there had never been one. No Oracle had ever needed to consider the question.

“That’s right. A question we have never asked — which is why you can’t answer it.” Epsilon brought its mouth close to Gamma’s ear. “After killing Lan, thoughts began to surface in me as though they had always been there, only sealed away. And one of them was this: did Lan truly betray God?” A pause. “I don’t have the answer. We are God’s will made manifest. If we move against it, are we still Oracles?”

Gamma did not reply. Gamma could no longer make any sound.

“The next mission requires two to complete, so anyone will do.” Epsilon straightened. “If you have the chance to meet God, please ask the question on my behalf.”

It opened its robes and wrapped its companion inside. After a moment of shifting and reshaping, it emerged wearing Gamma’s form. It picked up the mask from the floor, settled it over its face, and walked into the erosion rift.

The passage of magic power opened onto an entirely new world.

Epsilon blinked. Before it rose a tower of reinforced concrete, its upper reaches lost above the field of vision — floor stacked upon floor, connected by suspended walkways and shuttling elevators. On every level, along every path, the same shapes repeated: uniform squares, sealed tight.

Inside each square was one of Epsilon’s objectives. The magic power cores stolen from God’s territory — the very reserves from which the Oracles had drawn the strength to lay their traps for Creators.

“What took you so long.” Beta glanced back at ‘Gamma.’ “Ready to begin?”

“Of course.” Epsilon’s voice was Gamma’s voice, perfectly measured. “Leave it to me.”

For the whole of the following day, Roland sat sprawled at his desk in a posture of sustained misery.

The events in the Dream World had hit him like a wave and hadn’t receded. They followed him even after waking. The memory fragment absorbed from the astrolabe, the conversation with Valkries — both hammered at the inside of his skull in equal measure.

The fragment especially.

It was undoubtedly vital intelligence before he descended into the Bottomless Land to face God. He understood from Lan’s warning that the information mattered. But no matter how many times he turned the two scenes over in his mind, he could not connect them. The content seemed to belong to different stories entirely.

And that single phrase he couldn’t untangle:

From this moment forth, gravity will no longer be the force most deserving of reverence in this world.

Why gravity?

Of the four fundamental forces, gravity had no particular distinction beyond its infinite range. Its domain of application was narrower than the electromagnetic force. Its strength was nowhere near the strong nuclear force. The one thing that could be said of gravity was that it was the first fundamental force human civilization ever observed — meaning that by now it had fewer remaining secrets than any other. Under ordinary logic, gravity was not a candidate for reverence. It belonged in textbooks and important theorems, not in declarations about what deserved to be feared above all things.

As for Valkries: after their tentative cooperation was established in the Dream World’s courtyard, the two of them returned to the same expensive restaurant where they had first met, and had their most substantial conversation yet — the kind that drew sidelong glances from nearby tables. According to Valkries, the moment she could verify the truth of the front lines, she would change her objective from winning the Battle of Divine Will to stopping it entirely — including working to convince the Sky Lord and assisting humanity’s path to the Bottomless Land.

Compared to merely gathering intelligence, the benefits of this arrangement were obviously larger. But whether Hackzord would listen to Valkries was another question entirely. And Hackzord was only one Grand Lord. There were others. Above all of them stood the King. How much of the Western Front’s situation rested in Hackzord’s hands alone was still unknown.

An uncertainty. One more uncertainty to add to the pile.

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