War (2)
The Revelry Emperor moved.
The presence that had lurked behind the stage, scheming in the shadows, now stepped into the light. Some would call it sudden. Others would say she had grown impatient. Those who truly knew her thought otherwise.
They knew the truth.
The Revelry Emperor revealed herself only in the moment she was certain of victory.
She was no warrior who thrived on frontal combat. Nor was she a gambler who leapt into fights with slim odds. She was a schemer and a hunter. And like any hunter, she would wait as long as it took for a sure kill.
A hundred years. Two hundred. Three hundred.
She dug her traps. Prepared her weapons. Subverted her enemies and multiplied her allies. For this single quarry, the Revelry Emperor had spent long centuries laying the groundwork.
She had planted jesters inside the human kingdoms. Generation after generation, those jesters had seeped quietly into the royal houses. Before anyone noticed, the rulers had become the Revelry Emperor's puppets.
She had unleashed a demon contractor to sow chaos in the Empire. As Demon King, she was master of every demon; those demons became her eyes and ears, gathering intelligence. Every demon contractor hidden across the Continent was her spy.
All that labor, all that patience—aimed at hunting the Empire.
And beyond it, the entire Continent.
The ruler of the Outer Land would not be content with the Outer Land alone. She dreamed of advancing into the Continent—the land from which Arthur had driven the demons a thousand years ago. The preparations to make that dream real were finished. The Revelry Emperor rose from her throne.
"Carpediem is the bait."
"Lure the Empire's pillars—beginning with the Empire's First Pillar."
"Crush them all in one place."
The Empire's First Pillar. The Annihilation Pillar. Caron, master of the Sword Church. Eliminate them all in a single stroke.
The Empire would lose three of its pillars. Of the five Transcendents it boasted, only two would remain in an instant. The Empire would scramble to beg the three Churches for aid—but that would be futile. She had already prepared for that as well.
Once that was done, it would be finished. Assaults would press in from both inside the Continent and without. Robbed of its pillars, the Empire would collapse.
The plan was perfect. The calculations were perfect. There was not the slightest room for a variable to intervene. Therefore, there was no possibility of failure.
There should have been none.
A variable had appeared. Staring at the star that had abruptly revealed itself and ruined centuries of her planning, the Revelry Emperor smiled. Smiling, she raised her arm.
As if daring it to stop her this time as well.
As if asking whether a boy who had not yet reached Transcendence could possibly hold back the wave a Transcendent unleashed.
The curtain rose upon the stage.
On a stage filled with laughter—where laughter alone held value—the Revelry Emperor pressed her mask into place.
"My beloved jesters."
At the edge of the Outer Land, the Revelry Emperor raised her arm.
At precisely the same moment, in the heart of the Continent, the Emperor raised his.
"Knights who know honor."
Two emperors spoke as one.
"Laugh. Applaud. Sing."
"Slay the demons."
They swept their raised arms down. Their goals, their races, their creeds—everything differed. Yet the word both uttered was the same.
"War."
2.
The stars blazed fiercely.
Beneath a brilliance that stung the eyes, Gerd stroked his chin. The Empire's First Pillar narrowed his gaze and took stock of the situation.
Sorting through the reports flooding in from his aides and the Empire's constellations, Gerd clicked his tongue.
The situation was bad.
The nations surrounding the Empire had declared war, and the Transcendents belonging to each were advancing on imperial soil. No other nation possessed as many Transcendents as the Empire, yet every one of them fielded at least a single Transcendent.
Four Transcendents were marching on the Empire.
Had all five of the Empire's pillars still stood, they could have handled the threat and more. But two pillars had already fallen, and Gerd himself—their center—was away from his post.
Not good.
Gerd's brow furrowed.
This is what she was after from the start.
Carpediem had been bait all along. Confirming the board the Revelry Emperor had laid out sent a chill down Gerd's spine.
If, by any chance…
His gaze shifted to Najin. It was not hard to imagine what would have happened if that boy had never intervened—if everything had unfolded exactly as the Revelry Emperor planned.
How much of this was planned? From where to where?
Gerd spoke, brows still drawn tight.
"The situation is poor."
"…"
"An army containing at least four Transcendents is advancing on the imperial capital. We can hold them—but not for long. And they are far from the Empire's only enemies."
The demon contractors still hidden across the Continent.
The Revelry Emperor's jesters and the forces she commanded.
"Everything is aimed at the Empire."
"I see."
"I will head for the capital. For now, repelling the invaders we can see takes priority."
Gerd scanned the surroundings. The other Transcendents seemed to share the same thought. Each of their churches was under threat. Putting out the fire at their own feet came first for them all.
"And you."
Gerd looked at Najin.
"What do you intend to do?"
The old man's eyes were cold and still.
"We can still salvage this. Originally, by the Revelry Emperor's plan, both Sir Caron and I should have died here—yet we both live. That means a variable has entered her scheme, and the outcome has already escaped her calculations."
If Caron and Gerd entered the war, the tide would tip in an instant. It might take time, but they could still prevent the Empire's fall.
"…However."
"Yes."
Najin spoke.
"That assessment excludes the Holy Light Church, doesn't it?"
"You are correct."
"Beneath the Holy Light Church, in the underground city of Atman, a court jester with nine stars is hiding. The moment that constellation joins the battle…"
"The field will tilt. It will become a hard fight."
Even now Gerd was receiving reports from his aides. According to them, the Holy Light Church had suffered no attack and shown no movement at all.
"At present the Holy Light Church is swallowed by light. Completely cut off from the outside—we can obtain no information. Contact with the knights stationed there has also been lost."
They had simply sealed themselves away.
Perfectly isolated from the outside world.
Whether they were ally, enemy, or mere bystander remained unknown.
"If, by any chance, not only that unidentified constellation but the entire Holy Light Church has fallen into the Revelry Emperor's hands… then the Lighthouse Keeper may have turned against us as well."
"We cannot dismiss the possibility. I judge it highly likely myself."
If that conjecture proved true, the situation grew far more tangled. Eurypylos, the Lighthouse Keeper, was a man who could face every Transcendent of the Empire at once and alone. Should someone of that caliber begin to move, the chaos would spiral beyond control.
We lack information.
Gerd thought it again. The intelligence was insufficient. They needed to grasp the Holy Light Church's movements—needed to know how it would act.
But how?
Someone would have to infiltrate the sealed Holy Light Church and bring back word. And the light enveloping the church was almost certainly the Lighthouse Keeper's work.
To break through a Transcendent's barrier and enter…
One would need to be a Transcendent of equal standing.
"We are short on information."
Or a being of near-Transcendent caliber.
"Someone will have to go inside and bring word back."
Gerd regarded Najin in silence.
"You mean to go yourself?"
"Is there anyone else who can?"
Najin shrugged.
"It is dangerous."
"I know."
"Your opponent is the Lighthouse Keeper. And by your own account, a nine-star Transcendent is hiding in the underground city. Even obtaining information—let alone fighting—will be extraordinarily difficult."
"I know that as well."
"I can only call it reckless."
Gerd spoke flatly.
"You will die."
"There's no law that says I must."
Najin smiled.
"Every road I have walked until now was a road where I might have died. Places others called certain death."
It was the truth. Every path the boy before him had taken had been a killing ground. He had simply survived them—again and again—breaking through the trials by surpassing his own limits.
"If someone has to do it,"
Najin said,
"there's no law that says that someone can't be me. And I have my own reasons for going there."
Gerd looked into Najin's eyes. There was no wavering in them. They were the eyes of a knight who had already made his decision. Gerd did not try to stop him further.
He simply acted as the Empire's First Pillar.
Quietly, Gerd raised his sword. The gesture was both a sword salute and a knight's salute. By right, the Empire's First Pillar owed a salute to no one but the Emperor himself.
Yet Gerd saluted Najin.
Because a knight who, of his own will, walked into a battlefield where the odds of returning alive were slim deserved that respect. Gerd tore a strip from his own cloak and held it out.
"I entrust this to you."
Embroidered on the cloak were the Empire's crest—and the emblem of the Empire's First Pillar.
Without a word, Najin bound it to the shaft of the Cross-Star Spear. The cloak bearing the Empire's symbol became a battle standard and fluttered in the wind.
No further conversation was needed.
Gerd and Najin each set out toward their destinations. The other Transcendents did the same. They promised to regroup once the immediate situation was settled, then walked toward the places they each had to reach.
Upon the board the demon had laid, they moved.
In directions the demon did not desire. In ways she could not have predicted. As if declaring they would not dance to a demon's tune.
3.
Najin walked.
He walked, and walked again.
The moment the Transcendents left his side and he was alone, he spoke.
"Merlin."
-Yeah.
There was no need to look beside him. His guide was always walking with him. Najin addressed her.
"Thinking about it…"
-Go on.
"It took a long time."
-Did it? Doesn't feel that long to me. Barely two years have passed.
"It felt like several times that."
-Well… the time we spent inside the constellation's dream was pretty long, so maybe more did pass.
Merlin shrugged.
-Two years, sure—but for only two years, an awful lot happened. Never a dull moment.
"That's true enough."
-So?
With a long stride Merlin pulled a step ahead, then turned back. Looking at Najin, she tilted her head slightly. Blue hair spilled over her shoulder.
-Worried?
"It'd be a lie to say I'm not."
-Scared, then?
"A little."
Merlin smiled faintly.
-Regret it?
Najin shook his head.
"Not at all."
He was afraid. He was worried. But he did not regret it. He believed this path was the right one.
-Then that's enough.
That's enough, she said.
Merlin took Najin's arm and pulled him forward.
-Let's go.
With his guide, Najin walked on.
Toward the place he had been born.
Toward the place his story had begun.
-Oh, right.
Merlin looked back at him. As if something had just occurred to her, she smiled.
-Happy birthday, Najin.
The boy who had left the underground city at eighteen had turned twenty. The youth who had become an adult kept walking.
Across the Outer Land and onto the Continent.
Across the Continent, toward the place where the Holy Light Church's main cathedral stood. And farther still, deeper down—toward the underground city where no starlight reached.
To let them know.
To let them know that he had returned.