179 The Greatest Hail Mary In History

In that same vein of thought, Lu'um believed that Reed carried a remnant of that infantile, yet astounding genius. That was the conclusion she had come to after listening to Reed's proposal.

It was nothing short of spectacular insanity, as far as she was concerned. To some extent, she even doubted the sanity of her beloved. There was pure stupidity and then there was what Reed had suggested, Lu'um thought to herself. 

But the worst part of it all was that... she couldn't really find any justifiable reasons to refute his plan, even after triple-checking the hypothetical factors involved with the whole scheme. 

Though Lu'um hated it, she had to admit that Reed had indeed presented a solution that covered every single base she was worried about and then some. If it all went to plan, they'd even take care of the Itroch syndrome cases along with their little problem floating above the city. 

"You do know that this plan hinges on whether or not we'll actually be able to perform an administrative reboot or not, right? I don't have the credentials for that, so I won't be able to help you with that. And the amount of Anima that'd you need to realistically affect the entire continent is absolutely out of—"

"Then do you have any better ideas? If all you're going to do is complain, then go find me a city-sized wench so we can haul this back to Citlai," said Reed. 

He was starting to get a little bit irritated with Lu'um incessant worrying, which he felt was not helping anyone. Not one to miss an ironic situation, he suddenly realized how strange it was for her to voice such concerns and wondered if this was a recurring problem on her end whenever she proposed her own ideas to him. 

Reed was no stranger when it came to himself — he was well aware of his troublesome idiosyncrasies, particularly whenever they got into dangerous situations. He was a professional worrywart himself. Thus, it came with a heavy blow to Reed when he figured out that he must've always sounded like that to Lu'um in the past. 

There was nothing productive about someone who always doubted, criticized, and complained. 

...Is that how I'm usually like in these situations? Good lord, if I've been like that since the very beginning, then what sort of inhumane patience must she possess to have handled me nonsense for years? 

This all but confirms that she's a real saint. I would've blown my brains out if I had to deal with someone like me every time a difficult or risky dilemma arose.

...I should probably do something for her after this.

Lu'um, who had been preparing to give Reed a tongue-lashing, choked on her spit in moderate disbelief when she heard his apology. It'd been such a level-headed, polite follow-up that she scarcely believed it had come out his mouth. 

What the hell was going on today? Was it the city, the peculiar Anima, or some other unknown factor that was affecting his mental state? Or was she the one who was being affected in some strange way she couldn't discern?

He was not like himself at all. She preferred the coarse, free-spirited, and charmingly inconsiderate fellow that she had come to understand as "Reed". To her, Reed's raw, immature edges were proof that he was naturally himself and not a simulacrum. 

Rather than deal with something artificially whetted and constructed for a specific purpose, Reed was wholly himself, even if it came at the expense of himself or others around him. 

Reed had not forsaken his own personal identity to become something else, something unnatural and fabricated... like Him. 

Was it a sign of personal growth or had it been the rumbling of His footsteps beginning to affect him?

There was no way to whether it was one or the other. Not without intruding into his mind and finding out for herself, but that was something they had expressly forbidden each other from doing.

"...Is something wrong, Sweetcheeks? Look you, well, like you caught a bug."

"No, I'm fine," said Lu'um, quickly covering up her slip up with a calm smile. "I just found it a little odd that you'd come up such an absurd plan from nothing. Even I wouldn't have imagined it, to be honest."

And it was true. Not even she would have had the audacity to propose what Reed had envisioned. 

He sought to defy the order of imposed upon the continent in one fell swoop by... hijacking the Will of the World itself, if only for a brief moment.

His plan stemmed from his newly discovered connection to the titan beneath the earth and his ability to control it. 

Reed had only tasted it for a short while, but that had been more than enough for him to imagine doing the unthinkable.

It was an established fact that all Anima that flowed across the continent came to the titan itself as if it were its own blood. Without it, the Heavenly Barrier would shut down and all life would perish. 

In essence, all Chosen were merely microbes feeding on an insignificant sliver of the Anima that went to sustaining the Heavenly Barrier. Even the many cities modern Mulia had built amounted to nothing in the face of the outrageous amount of Anima that was constantly fed to maintain the continent's strongest and most important defense.

The world would continue to live another day so long as the titan's heart continued to beat, even if it was unconscious and injured. 

So Reed, the oddity he was, proposed the idea of using the brief period after they activated the reset node to commandeer the titan itself power something he had not used for a long time.

What he had sealed within himself in a layer of subspace two-hundredths of a millimeter in an unreachable direction to beings that existed in three spatial dimensions. 

The Divine Furnace had not left his side, even after all that had occurred since the Twilight War. It had bonded itself unto Reed's very existence, such that it had become an ever-present vestige of not so readily cherished.

For all practical purposes, the construct was divine in composition despite being made by mortal hands. As far as Reed comprehended, it was capable of far, far more than he or even Lu'um presumed to know. 

And it was the only thing he knew that could possibly handle the immense flood of Anima that they would redirect in order to realistically do what Reed wanted to do. 

He wanted to perform a one-way slingshot from Mulia all the way to Citlai by means of simulating the same method that Guiding Nails operated upon. That is, to create a non-euclidean bridge across the hostile vacuum of unbound existence that was the Outside. 

As if this were not outrageous enough, Reed had proposed directly connecting both the continent of Mulia and the isolated coast and archipelago that made up the islands of Citlai. 

In essence, Reed had proposed creating a temporary juncture between the two sealed dimensions for the express purpose of sending the geode of souls above Itroch back home to where it belonged. 

It was borderline— no, unquestionably insane.

The risk associated with inter-dimensional travel was enough to make most people want to wish for the Goddess's mercy, as it was often accompanied by a number of endings for those unfortunate enough to experience any kind of trouble in the process of traversing through the Outside. 

Though it was classified top-secret, it was not unknown to most Veteran Chosen of how the many horrific losses that the Four Empires endured when they began to experiment with the forbidden technology sealed within the Guiding Nails.

Reverse engineering the work of the Devil himself came at a heavy price... paid in blood.

Entire generations of early Chosen died dreadfully during that experimental phase, especially during the development of the Single-Use Extra-Dimensional Insertion Vehicle, or the Coffins, that were necessary for covert insertions into the Shadowlands. 

This, of course, was not even mentioning the unfortunate disappearances of certain warships that were never officially put in any public records. These ships that never existed set off on their maiden voyages, testing out the prototype reality-warping shielding necessary to cross the Outside, and then...

The Devil took what was owed to him.

And now Reed wanted to meddle in such a perilous undertaking with what little experience he had, the overly ambitious maniac. 

In many ways, Reed without his former abilities was, in fact, a much more threatening individual than before. His lack of power had forced him to think outside of the box in ways that he would not have previously imagined before. 

But to Lu'um, his resourcefulness and terrifying ingenuity were two elements that should have never met one another. She greatly preferred the linear, predictable way of thinking the old Reed operated on compared to this recently depowered nutcase. 

"...Even if we do manage to get enough Anima to power the entire operation, how do plan on creating a relay between here and Citlai, let alone the bridge itself? Do you even know how to do handle creating a compressed Tolai phase-stabilizing field across an undefined plane?" said Lu'um. 

Though Lu'um was certain that Reed's hypothetical plan could work, she was entirely sure that Reed had didn't have even the slightest technical expertise require—

"You're talking about the Tolai Metastability-Field Phenomenon, right? When Anima is given a 7th-degree fold under a state of excitation in a bounded spatiotemporal field. I would not have suggested this plan if I had not some inkling of the knowledge to make this work. Rest assured, I'm confident in pulling this off." 

Lu'um visibly shuddered in startled fear and said, "How did you—" 

"That expression on your face kinda hurts, you know. Why do you think I wouldn't put effort into understanding everything you've talked about? Did you really think that I just sat around and let you lecture me on your favorite topics without listening or caring about them at all? Wouldn't that make me an inconsiderate asshole that was only listening to your passionate rants out of mock courtesy because I'm your lover?" said Reed with a mildly annoyed expression plastered on his face.

The lengths he had gone to grasp a basic understanding of the topics Lu'um loved to talk about had taken up a sizeable chunk of his free time during the three year period they'd been in exile. At some points, he had even gone as far as to seek assistance from actual academic professors in the South. 

Unbeknownst to Lu'um, Reed had actually almost finished his higher studies and graduated from a university in the South before they'd left for the East. 

His formal graduation was going to be a surprise for Lu'um as a present of sorts. Reed had planned to spring it on her by taking her to his graduation ceremony in a few months' time. 

What could have been a better display of interest in her beloved's interests than to present her with a diploma in the field she loved most — Theoretical Anima Metaphysics?

"A-Ah... I-I suppose so, yes, that would be very true," replied Lu'um, in a bumbling fashion. 

Though Reed was by no means as knowledgeable in the particular advanced topics Lu'um preferred, at the very least he wasn't completely out of the loop. Thus, it slightly hurt his feelings when Lu'um reacted the way she did when he demonstrated that he understood her.

She had stared at him the same way one would have looked at a dog if it were to have suddenly responded that it understood the concept of gravity. 

"...Well, whatever," said Reed and peered down into the fissure. "Let's get this over with then. I want to get this done before we get them asking us questions."

His eyes were directed toward the Spirit of Bountiful Charity that hovered in the distance. Reed didn't want the meddling old man and crown prince getting involved with what he was about to do...

Because if they did, they'd surely object try to stop him from doing it. 

He threw himself over the edge of the enormous floating geode of souls without warning and fell into the abyss below before he yelled, "Hurry up, we don't have any time to waste!!!"

Lu'um was certain of it now in her heart, though she feared to admit it. There was something clearly wrong with Reed today. He was far too sharp and unpredictable, nothing like his usual self.

What in the hell is going on today?! I am hallucinating? Is this a long fever dream? None of it makes sense. Or is this reality? I don't know anymore... 

It was genuinely frustrating to feel like she didn't know anything and couldn't figure it out.

I can't imagine living every day like this... Like some animal in the dark, shuffling around blindly without a clue in the dark. 

When she wondered if this was how Reed usually felt, she bit her lips and muttered, "...I should probably do something for him after this."

The city was beginning to wear on them in a strange way, though neither of them knew it. Even five thousand years later, the City of Love had not lost its charm in a twisted, subtle way...