Kill Six Billion Demons IV: King of Swords (part twelve)
Resuming where we left off, with White Chain cracking her avatar halfway open and - through a technique that I'm not entirely sure I grasp the nature or limitations of called "krayu mat" - is fighting the very tangible Allicio with her angelic appendages. The other angel who unintentionally spurred White Chain into starting this fight, Guillotine Guss, has given up trying to talk White Chain back down, and is now just shrugging, sighing, and wishing her luck.
So, they fight. An angel half-piloting a stone golem, and a devil half-piloting a demiurge. Big anime action poses. Explosions of stone and lightning where their bodies and energy blasts rebound off each other's bodies. Occasional breaks in the exchange of blows for them to haughtily denounce each other in creatively vicious turns of phrase.
It's pretty well drawn, but I think what the author was trying to capture would have worked much better in animation.
Which, well. I'd be quite interested in seeing that someday, hopefully. It's unlikely, but you never know.
Also, one of the alt-texts for a page that showcases White Chain's dual-body thing making a big flurry of punches is a JoJo reference. On one hand, cringe. On the other, it's not like the comic's comment section wouldn't have been wall-to-wall ORAs regardless, so maybe I can't blame Abaddon for pre-empting the inevitable.
Anyway, Coca-Killy obviously has more raw power than White Chain, but even with Cio's partial memories of Yabalchoath's career to draw on they don't have her combat experience. Additionally, this is their first time fusing, and they're still working out some coordination issues that allow White Chain to keep them struggling. If White Chain is anything, it is coordinated.
However, there is a flipside to White Chain's perfect execution of any and every one of her eons-practiced combat maneuvers. It's the same thing that (at least in part) led to this stupid fight in the first place. All of her practiced movements are just that, practiced. Repetition. Which allows for anyone who's been exposed to White Chain a lot to apply some pattern recognition and predict her moves.
The fight starts turning against White Chain. Allicio gets a chance to deliver a particularly biting verbal takedown while White Chain is busy prying herself off the ceiling.
Hmm. I think Killy and Cio are the ones getting complacent now, though, thinking about their little speech here more critically. White Chain *is* capable of subterfuge. We've seen her bend the rules before, and even outright break them (particularly in book 1, when she tried to help Killy get the thing removed, and also lied to Jabba even though doing so physically cracked her synth a little due to the sheer rule-breakage energy). She's certainly kept secrets and told lies of omission before, and Killy and Cio both know that.
Yeah, this is overconfidence on their part now that they think they've figured out the trick of this boss fight.
Still, if it is overconfidence, it doesn't come back to bite them for the next couple of pages at least. They managed to get White Chain in a stunlock, and the following dozen-odd panels are just them delivering the mother of all beatdowns on the angel before she can get back her bearings. When it looks like White Chain might be about to snap out of it and retaliate once again, Allicio finally reaches into the depths of their collective power, inventory, and understanding of said power and inventory, and casts a spell called "thirty cubit spear."
The portal-lightning bolts that Killy's often used in the past are called "ten cubit spears," if I'm not mistaken. Earlier in this battle I think she used a souped up version of it called the twenty cubit. From the way everyone reacts to the lightning bolt she shoots though, I'm pretty sure the "cubits" are old-timey demiurgic slang for a logarithmic power gauge. Each decacubit is an order of magnitude (at least) more destructive than the one before it. The crowd is shocked. The Gog-Agogs are shocked, in a way that looks a little more earnest than her usual performative overacting. Even Solomon David, who had been sitting motionless with a neutral expression for the entire battle until now, lets his eyes go wide for a moment. Eldritch Blast Factor Three is something even the Black Kings aren't used to seeing all the time, it appears.
Then again, there's always *something* that destroys the arena each tournament. Maybe it's just usually a large number of weaker blasts instead of a few big ones like EBF3.
Regardless. I think this might be something that they can draw Solomon's blood with, not that that ever actually mattered heh. Granted, getting him to hold still long enough to aim it might not be any easier with EBF3 than it is with any other attack spell, so it might not actually make much difference unless you got the drop on him.
Also, a blurb from under this page:
“The old bugger always tried to dissuade his own worship. Hated the whole idea of divinity, matter of fact. But it didn’t matter. The common people worshiped him. The city guard worshiped him, and so did the priest class. Bleeding hells, the demiurges, princes of the world, held him as their king. I’m sure a few o’ them had a little beardy shrine set up somewhere.
I mean, just look at what the bastard could do.”
Eldritch Blast log3 was Zoss' own signature attack spell, from the sound of it. Has anyone used it at all since he vanished, I wonder?
Anyway, direct hit. What we saw piercing through the arena's force field dome was what remained of the bolt after it went all the way through 82 White Chain Returns From the Void to Vanquish Evil. And, consequently, Allicio is now standing over a hollow stone and metal mannequin with a hole burned through its torso.
Heh. Well, that synth lasted quite a bit longer than I expected it to. I wonder what her next one is going to look like, assuming she gets one and doesn't just spend the rest of the comic in spirit form.
I really do want to see her have to shamefacedly reintroduce herself to the party in a Thorn Knight avatar, lol.
Or...that DID just unsleeve her, right? You need to hit angels with something else out in the void after you break their synths, in order to actually make them calcify. Or...maybe if you hit them hard enough, you can actually break the avatar AND smother the angel in one shot? Maybe? I don't think that's how it works, but if it is then it might be quite a bit longer until 83 White Chain returns to the story. As I recall, the amount of time an angel needs to spend dead is proportional to how long their most recent "life" was, so...I guess it depends on when the last time White Chain got killed was. Could be centuries, could be just a few years.
Regardless, I *think* she's just disembodied, in which case none of that matters and she'll be back as soon as she can find a new synth.
...Allicio is taking this harder than I'd have expected in that case, though.
I could see Killy forgetting about how angels work, but not Cio. So, if Allicio is reacting like this, then that suggests that Cio has good reason to think that White Chain is actually frozen out in the void rather than just malding around on Rayuba's ethereal plane.
Or...okay, this is just getting tiresome now.
How does anything work? How do any of the characters expect things to work? How many back-and-forths does this pointless duel even need?
Allicio is discombobulated enough that White Chain's next attack disrupts the fusion, sending Killy and Cio bouncing away across the cratered wasteland that used to be an arena floor in different directions. Eh, I guess that was fun while it lasted. I'm sure they'll do it again sometime soon.
After being smacked out of her fusion mode, Killy makes a last desperate attempt to fight back with just her own body, but...okay, there's one possible explanation eliminated, then. White Chain's intangible spirit body kicks Killy with its intangible spirit foot, and Killy goes flying back and crumples up on the ground in pain. So, it's not just because of Cio's devil-ness that White Chain was able to touch Allicio without her avatar. It's...something else? Something about Krayu Mat? The comic DID make it pretty clear that angels can't normally touch the physical world unless they have avatars. Is it because she's still just barely clinging on to her synth, and borrowing its solid-ness? Is that how Krayu Mat works? I don't know.
White Chain hovers over the wounded Killy, keeping her glowing angel body between Killy and what's left of the synth she's still tethered to. When she repeats her demand for Killy to surrender, her speech bubble forms another piece of incredibly unsubtle visual storytelling that I really, really don't think the reader actually needs.
You don't need to literally superimpose the villain's face over someone to show that they're falling to the dark side lmao. That's basically what the speech bubble design here is doing.
...also, I just noticed that White Chain's soulform appears to be growing thorns on its head. Like, what, are those spikes just a natural manifestation of anti-human sentiment in an angel? They're not a deliberate stylistic choice by the thorn knights? Or is the implication meant to be that White Chain actually found the Thorn Knight ideology appealing and has been succumbing to it, despite Juggernaut Star doing literally everything in her power to make them look like a bunch of incompetent psychopathic morons? Well...to be fair, I guess the missing variable there is the Prime Angels. White Chain idolizes Michael and Metatron enough that their word might mean more to her than her own eyes when it comes to what the thornies are. Okay, I guess that works.
Still needlessly hamfisted, though. White Chain's arc, specifically, keeps having this annoying habit.
Fortunately for Killy, White Chain isn't going full ripkillmaimforgetspecificordersnottokillsomeone just yet. When Killy looks extra pathetic, White Chain deflates a little and asks her what just happened. She answers.
It's a bit of a sobering reminder. For all that most of the greatest and cruellest tyrants of the multiverse are human, there's still the fact that - with the possible exception of Zoss with his timehax - humans will die eventually. A human can never actually end an angel. An angel can easily end a human. Even if Allicio had (somehow. I still don't know how anything about angels is supposed to work anymore) "killed" White Chain there, the worst case scenario would be a few centuries of dreamless sleep before 83 White Chain returned from the void to be very annoyed. If White Chain lost it and landed a killing blow here, though, Killy would have died.
That said, it's still kind of annoying to see Killy become so pathetic so quickly the instant he ego is popped. Real bully mentality she's been developing, there. Once again, she really, really needs someone other than White Chain to call her on her bullshit. The devils don't disapprove of her bad behavior enough to do it. Nyave looks up to Killy too much to use her full suite of critical thinking skills on her.
...huh. You know, I just realized that this is something Zaid might actually be good for. He saw right through Solomon's bullshit. He'd likely to see right through Killy's as well, unless he's too blinded by her saving him and also being so much hotter now to apply his skepticism. It would also be thematically strong, if the person who she was trying to rescue - and then kinda sorta forgot about why she wanted to rescue - ends up being the one who can pull her back to earth so to speak. That's the thing that she's really been missing.
That would be cool, yeah. Well, we'll see if it happens. For now, more (hopefully not too incomprehensible) angel stuff!
White Chain pulls herself back into her avatar and stands up. Apparently it's still mobile. What does it take to actually break one of those things, seriously? As she tries to process what just came over her there, Headless Hulkman sees an opportunity to try and resume dialogue. This time pointing to the little wooden charm that he and White Chain both wear around their necks, and using it to launch into a little sermon. Apparently it's supposed to look like the "comb of Prim." It apparently represents all the things that all the angels besides White Chain - and, as of much more recently, *including* White Chain - have forgotten.
This is expanded on by the bottom text, which relates a short story about the origins of what would eventually become the Concordant Knight philosophy.
““Once, there was an angel with a flaming spear that guarded the western gate of YISUN’s speaking house. He was rigorous, martial, and followed the exact letter of the Old Law that had been inlaid into his very being with Koss’ silver chisel. At the time, most angels were like him, and they were exceptionally inflexible beings. They could not rebel, so well they had been hewn, against the slightest violation of their code. This made them all extremely cruel.
One day, Prim passed by on the road, and happened upon this angel flogging a group of men of the oldest nation with a lash made of lightning. The men had refused to take their shoes off inside of YISUN’s speaking house – they had journeyed far and did not know the law of the gods. For this minor offense they were being punished rather severely, and their cries were loud and fierce.
Cleverly, Prim took her jeweled comb from her pocket, which she no longer used, since she had long ago hewn off most of her beautiful hair, and bade the angel guard it with his life. Being a lesser being with no practical free will to speak of, the angel could do naught but comply.
Turning back to his prisoners, the angel made to flog them again, but found that the comb was so delicate that every violent motion he made sent it tumbling and ringing and threatened to shatter it. He could no longer continue his violent, oppressive work without fear of harming his duty to the daughter of Hansa, to protect this small and delicate thing.
He gave up flogging the men, and for the first time ever, began to think.””
Even compared to other in-universe myths, this is one that I have trouble taking literally. I can't even really imagine the angels taking it literally. But I can definitely see them taking it metaphorically very, very seriously, and (moreso than other myths) I could very easily believe that it's an abstraction of something that really happened.
The thing is, though, this also raises a really interesting question regarding how the angels perceive themselves and their own role in the multiverse. There's a massive contradiction here that they surely *must* be aware of.
They're always going on about the Old Law, how angelic nature is to uphold it, how it was beaten into their very souls during their race's creation, etc. But, if they're wearing these comb icons in reference to that story, then that's an acknowledgement that the Old Law is flawed, their creator was a brute, and that they need to grow beyond these ugly origins.
Granted, it's just the Concordant Knights who are wearing the combs. This could just be a Concordant legend, that the other angel ideologies reject or have their own versions of. And...hmm. You know. Given how much the angels in K6BD seem to be a commentary on modern police, supremacism, and historical revanchism, this contradiction within the Concordant philosophy does make me think of something else. Possibly an intentional allegory by the author, possibly not.
Well, one of my inferences is confirmed a moment later, when a representative of another angelic faction plane shifts in and makes her own feelings about the Comb of Prim story and the whole "loving the world" philosophy heard.
Looks like she's actually fully sleeved. Not just appearing to them in spirit form. She's physically on Rayuba, in the arena, and everyone can see her.
Um. Juggernaut. Are you okay? I mean, you're not NORMALLY okay, but right now you seem even less okay than you usually are.
I feel like Solomon David is just waiting until he's sure all the fuckery has exposed itself before swooping in and ending it all at once. Possibly including the Zaid rescue.
Juggernaut Star kicks Concordant Craniumless aside (shaking a massive cloud of dust out of their armor in the process) and then grabs White Chain and tells her to...um...finish her work?
Wasn't White Chain's job (as far as JS knows) to escort Killy to Zaid so that he can get the Masterkey from her?
This duel between White Chain and Killy is pointless, sure. But it's also going on while Zaid is being rescued in the background. The undercover part isn't over yet. Is Juggernaut Star mad at White Chain for flipping her shit at Killy too early?
I guess Juggernaut might think that since they technically have gotten Zaid out of his cell it's time to rip out that Masterkey and let her die of blood and cerebrospinal fluid loss now, except that, um...there are literally TWO Black Kings physically present at watching. Does she think Solomon and Gog will just sit there and let the angels walk away with the Masterkey after extracting it?
If anything, if Juggernaut Star can just teleport into the stadium, shouldn't she be grabbing Zaid away from Nyave and Princess and then hassling White Chain about the key? Does she not know about the Zaid rescue currently going on? If not, why does she think its Key-harvesting time in the first place?
I suspect that those other Thorn Knights who we saw JS accompanied by a chapter or two ago made the mistake of turning their backs and leaving her unwatched for multiple consecutive seconds. They're probably watching from the void, faces sinking into their bladed palms, frantically asking each other how they're going to explain this to Metatron.
Well, having the dust kicked out of his synth seems to have restored some functionality that Collarbone Chris was lacking. Heh, if that jarring was all it took to get the dust out you'd think he'd have done it himself by now? Also, as a corollary, does this mean that the best way to fight an angel is to try and blow sand into its armor joints? Well, anyway, his armor lights up, shines itself up, and sheds its decorative cloak, and he manifests enough of his own features to be recognized as 420 Lamassu Whose Head Is An Ophan.
Like I said, it pretty much had to be either one of the angels from that scene in Book 2, or a new character. Looks like it was the first one. I probably should have guessed it would be Lamassu specifically, since he had the biggest speaking part in that scene and also came across the most sympathetically of the lot.
Also, his synth isn't actually quite as squat as it looked. He just had an extra pair of arms folded up under that cloak. We've seen a couple of other avatars with four-armed designs. I wonder what the trade-off is? There must be advantages to both, or else they'd all be built with the same number of limbs.
...also, we know that at least in books 2-3, Juggernaut Star's primary avatar wasn't even humanoid at all. Definitely makes me wonder what other possibilities exist, and why we don't see more of them actually being used.
Well, enough about Lamassu's suit; what he's saying is much more important. Most significantly, he's the first other angel to correctly gender White Chain. That one fallen one called her "sisterbrother," but that seemed like it could have been mockery just as easily as recognition of a fellow "deviant." Or, more likely, a gender-neutral term of endearment that emerged semi-ironically from within the fallen community, since they seem to have plenty of non-masc identifying members. So, at best, its a gender-neutral name, not one that recognizes White Chain's personal identity. So, Lamassu is the first to call her a her. And, more importantly, to call her "our sister," communicating acceptance of others like White Chain into both the Concordant Knights and as part of angelkind as a whole.
Another significant detail of this scene is that Lamassu himself remains completely inhuman in his spirit form. Not just "not female," but not human enough to have a recognizable gender presentation at all. I'm calling him "he" because that seems to be how he and the other angels all refer to himself, but without those social pressures I wouldn't be surprised at all if Lamassu was a they or an it (again, going by his spirit form). Unlike White Chain who looks female and has mixed feelings about it, and Juggernaut Star who desperately tries to not look female and hates it, Lammasu Whose Head Is An Ophan is an actual outsider to the trans angel discourse. He's their cis-equivalent, and doesn't seem to have any insecurities about that. And that's fine too. He doesn't understand them, but he doesn't need to understand them in order to do the right thing, and he knows that. This is how to be a good ally.
Well. Mostly. He did make some proscriptions about White Chain's self that would definitely rub me the wrong way if you put it in human context. But given that the interpersonal relationships here are the hardest part of it to map to human interactions (Lamassu has been watching White Chain reincarnate and interact with other angels for multiple incarnations) I think it's forgivable.
Well, anyway. Juggernaut Star tries to fight them all, of course. It's not like she knows how to do anything other than that. White Chain's synth is in no shape to participate, but that's fine. Angel-vs-angel battles don't need to involve synths at all.
Not sure why Lamassu isn't helping with this himself. Maybe he's just afraid to leave his synth behind after he just got all the dust shaken out of it. Anyway, turnabout is fair play. White Chain drags Juggernaut Star back to the void, and is then promptly stunned to see her spirit form when she's too startled to affect the spiky skeleton look for it.
Heh, well. This is going to be an interesting conversation.
Curiously, Juggernaut Star's wheel-synth seems to be sitting in the background, empty. I guess she abandoned it entirely to hop into one of her humanoid sleeves for that intrusion? In that case, maybe any of her bodies can be her "primary' one, while she's multi-sleeving? Maybe? I don't know. Angels are making less and less sense to me as book 4 progresses. One of the weakest things about it, imo.
Well, I'll call that a post. We'll laugh at whatever Juggernaut Star is about to say to White Chain next time.
