I didn’t understand what Isaac meant.

"Tilt the world...?" I asked.

Perhaps realizing something was wrong, the two angels before us showed signs of unease.

"The heretical bird of the Apocrypha!"

"This place must be defended at all costs."

Naneow glanced at the crow with anxious eyes. I remembered that I had never told her about Isaac.

She twisted through the angels’ relentless attacks in midair with ease, her balance so flawless it seemed absurd. Against foes with six wings, she moved as though mocking gravity itself.

Isaac lifted his beak and gazed back at her. He said with a clear voice, "Naneow Tropin. Focus on the battle."

Isaac had never spoken like that before; the space he cloaked around himself vibrated precisely with his intent to produce sound.

Naneow scowled, unshaken by the phenomenon. "I am focusing, you ominous, unknown crow!"

Her confusion felt genuine because she truly had no idea what he was. One of the angels dropped to the ground, as if deciding aerial combat was not to their advantage. With their shield covering their entire body, they raised their mace high.

Brilliant golden light poured forth as the mace lengthened into a massive staff. The radiance above the angel's head flared brighter. Their white carapace seemed to shimmer, shifting into gold.

Naneow did not miss the instant of transformation. She pushed off the floor, her scythe slicing horizontally with blinding speed, leaving afterimages behind.

Bang!

Golden light scattered as her strike crashed against the shield, driving the angel’s arms high above their head. With their abdomen open, the creature twisted the rebound into a counterstrike, slamming the ground with brutal force.

Bang!

Naneow rolled nimbly across the floor, dodging the crushing blow. The elongated golden maul shattered the marble, burying itself to a depth of one meter.

Once Naneow wrenched the weapon free, she darted left. Her silver scythe arced down.

Clang!

No ordinary defense could have met it, yet the shield turned with impossible speed, as though it had always been there, and caught the blow. Its angle shifted almost at the speed of light. Even so, it could not withstand the hydraulic amplification of Naneow's scythe. The shield was knocked aside, and she seized the angel’s collar, pressing the blade low.

Crackle.

At that range, the scythe’s blade, etched with precise magical circuits, was aimed directly at the angel’s skull.

Swooosh!

A massive lance of light hurtled in, whirling as it flew. The throw carried enough power to obliterate everything within three meters of its impact. Naneow took a half side-step, redirecting her scythe just before the lance struck. She hooked the shaft with precision, spun it once, and hurled it back the other way.

Bang!

The returning lance smashed the temple door that the other two angels were guarding, but in less than three seconds, it had reappeared, settling back into the angel’s grip as if alive. Meanwhile, dozens more angels closed the distance swiftly.

That unnervingly smooth voice rang again, like crystal spheres rolling across stone. "What are you staring at? Spread your inventory. Follow me."

The sound came from Isaac, or rather, from the vibrations he commanded.

My inventory, orbiting around him as red, blue, brown, and clear-colored spheres, expanded in the direction of the approaching angels. What had once covered only Isaac unfolded in an instant to a span of five meters. Even at my current level, I knew that I could extend it.

I obeyed, spreading my inventory outward.

When I had trained before... hadn’t he told me to feel both sides of space?

Ten meters required hardly any effort.

Isaac’s sharp voice rang again. "You already wield this authority in your hands! Wider!"

I extended it to twenty meters. The edges wavered.

"Wider!"

At thirty meters, my concentration frayed. Holes appeared across the stretched space.

Isaac quickly and precisely instructed, "The inventory is bound to you. It’s shaped by your mind. Your will dictates its very structure. You govern the inventory."

"What are you saying?"

"Damn it, don’t you see? You alone can slip free of causality in the physical world! With your mind alone... you can summon phenomena from nothing! This domain is not a particle, nor is it matter. It’s decision itself."

Isaac extended his portion of the inventory, shaping its edges into a vast border. "I’ll pull it. You focus on maintaining it, and don’t let it break!"

The transparent barrier rippled with the sound of tearing cloth as the edges stretched. Where his border touched mine, the space spread wider, until the clear field spanned a full hundred meters. Yet it was refined and not forced, as though it had always been meant to unfold that way. The sensation was transcendent, as my mind expanded in an instant. The world before me felt impossibly vast.

"Good. Now, shall we leap?" Isaac asked.

Flutter!

The angels hesitated when the transparent veil spread before them, sensing something wrong. The golden spear that Naneow had barely dodged was already forming again in the hands of their leaders. Five lances rose at once.

Isaac let out a mocking caw. "Conceptualize this. All thrown spears shall be blocked."

The situation was dire, and yet I couldn’t grasp what he meant.

"What... does that mean?"

I can shape phenomena with only my mind? Is the inventory decision itself?

A resonant hum carried Isaac’s intent from the veil’s edge into me.

Swoosh!

Five spears shot forth, too fast to deflect one by one. I couldn’t stop them because I was still trapped in uncertainty.

Bang!

Yet the spears, blazing with light, struck the veil and bounced off as though they had been flung back by unseen hands.

The angels hovering in the air stared, bewildered.

Isaac tapped his beak sharply. "I blocked that."

It wasn’t sound, nor was it air vibration. For an instant, Isaac's domain had divided into five separate edges, intercepting each lance before restoring itself.

"If the leap is too much... then take the stairs first."

The angels faltered only briefly, then raised their hands again, forming new golden spears.

"From this moment..."

Their hands shone as more lances rose, radiant and sharp.

"The inventory rejects everything. You do not put in anything. Putting in something is an understood phenomenon."

Twenty-four angels raised their weapons, which were most of the swarm.

"Simple. Reject it."

I reject putting anything in.

The moment the concept took form, everything inside my inventory spilled out in a deafening crash. Gold, weapons, and books scattered across the marble floor. The space of the inventory, no, the space that held nothing at all, grew denser.

The angels raised their spears.

"Now... expand it!"

It wasn’t precise, nor was it symmetrical. However, rejecting a single, already-formed function and expanding that rejection was simple, especially when I followed Isaac’s order.

Wooong!

Zero transmittance.

The air that could not be held was forced outward. The hemisphere of rejection exploded open, leaving only Kinokhapden, Isaac, Miyu, and Naneow within. The pressure dropped. Miyu’s tense sweat, the metallic stench of scythe and shield clashing, all thinned and dissipated. Dew gathered on the marble. The angels were flung back, driven away by a force they could neither see nor resist.

"Good. Now stop. From here, build the stabilization model on your own."

"..."

Although I heard Isaac's instruction, dizziness fogged my mind. I could feel the angels pushed to the edges of my expanded inventory. Some tried to anchor themselves by driving their blades into the floor, but it was useless. In an instant, they were all expelled, hurled beyond the temple gates.

My concept of the inventory rejected everything, and that rejection alone banished them. Even the two angels guarding the inner door were tossed into the sky. They beat their wings frantically to stay aloft.

Thud!

Naneow struck Kinokhapden down, her wrist smashing the back of his neck. It was a one-sided beating. However, every time she tried to cut, the shield blocked it automatically, moving at the speed of light. In addition, the white carapace encasing him proved too durable to breach. Kinokhapden writhed on the ground, refusing to lose consciousness. Crawling on all fours, he tried to flee, only to crash against the barrier again and again.

With a shriek of desperation, he raised a spiked golden mace, charging recklessly. "Uaaahhh!"

Naneow merely hooked his leg, tripped him, and stamped his back.

Arms crossed, she looked at me. "What the hell did you just do?"

"I don’t know. I only followed Isaac’s words."

Crack!

"Gaaah!"

She pressed her weight down harder into his back. The angel convulsed and died.

Naneow glanced down at him, startled, and eased her stance. "Isaac? You mean that crow doll is really that Isaac, the Enemy of the World?"

"Indeed."

"Well, damn..."

Naneow dug into her pouch and pulled out a maple-leaf-shaped syrup bottle, sipping through a straw with a furrowed brow.

After a long sip, she muttered bitterly, "So all of this chaos is thanks to our great Isaac."

"Arrogant child... rummaging about ruins beneath the earth," Isaac muttered.

"Sorry, but he’s my comrade."

Naneow’s expression turned grave. "You do realize that thanks to your comrade, you’re now an enemy of the goddess, right?"

"She isn’t wrong."

"..."

I hadn’t wished for the world to tilt in this way.

Crackle! Crackle...

The angel’s corpse moved beneath Naneow's foot. The white carapace cracked with grotesque sounds as it shed into pieces. The compound eyes fused upward, while a new pair of eyes opened below. The antennae receded, replaced by heavy goat-like horns that jutted from either side of his skull.

"Uuugh..."

His six translucent wings melted into his limbs, thickening them grotesquely.

Naneow faltered, lifting her foot.

"What now?" I asked.

"Run! Who knows how many times they’ll change? We need to move before the others follow suit!" Naneow exclaimed.

"Tsk tsk... Fighting gods was always like this."

"Shouldn’t we run?"

"This place is designed so we cannot escape."

Naneow pointed forward. "Then hurry, before they all change!"

The transparent barrier was gone. The two angels guarding the shattered doors were already rising, their forms twisting slowly into the same monstrous shape.

"Neigh? Neigh?"

Isaac used his hypnotic voice to calm Miyu.

Perched on the saddle, he was already leading the way toward the gate.