The City of the Abyss, Atman (2)
An underground city built beneath the earth.
It was a place where no light seeped in, where sinners were discarded—a hell the Holy Light Church had constructed to punish them.
At least, that was what Najin had always believed.
But beneath hell lay another hell. The bottom of the bottom, the lowest depth where discarded things were discarded once more, a city raised at the end of the bottomless pit. Najin gazed upon the city built beneath the underground city.
It was a city that did not suit the word hell at all.
Pure white. Buildings of pure white rose upon stones of pure white. Under a blue sky the flawless city of pure white caught the sunlight and shone brilliantly white.
Deep beneath the underground, in a bottomless city where neither sunlight nor starlight ought to reach, there existed a sky that should never have existed in an underground city. Narrowing his eyes, Najin thought:
A tomb of stars?
"I don't know," Merlin answered his muttered words.
"It's a tomb and yet not a tomb. Ambiguous. Rather than a tomb, it's more like something that has locked itself away…"
She was gazing at the architecture with a complicated expression. Najin followed her gaze.
A city wrought entirely of white.
But there was one exception.
The enormous lighthouse standing at the city's heart was not white. At its summit, instead of white fire, a dark-crimson flame flickered and writhed. Najin furrowed his brow.
A lighthouse is the architectural symbol of the Holy Light Church's chief deity—the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Creation.
That was why the Church had always devoted itself to ensuring every lighthouse could pour forth pure white light. The mere fact that the Church's greatest power, Eurypylos, was called the Lighthouse Keeper was enough to show how sacredly they regarded the structure.
A lighthouse that always shines with pure white light.
Holy Light—starlight. A lighthouse that shone with the light of stars.
And yet, why?
The lighthouse raised in the Church's deepest place was scattering dark-crimson light instead of white starlight. If it was starlight, it was still starlight. There existed one constellation—only one—who possessed a dark-crimson star.
Merlin raised her hand without a word.
Her fingertip pointed at the lighthouse.
"That."
Her eyes were wide; she spat the words as if chewing them.
"That's the Star of the Abyss."
The lighthouse blazed with the same light as the Calamity Star belonging to the Witch of the Abyss, ruler of Camlann. It had been no coincidence that Merlin sensed the Abyss's aura when she fell here. The light of the Abyss was leaking from that lighthouse.
"What in the world is this… No—why is the light of the Abyss sitting in the middle of the Continent? This is something that must not exist. Something that cannot exist."
Merlin swept her hair back. She seemed to be trying to calm herself with several deep breaths, yet her emotions still spilled into Najin, uncontainable.
"A thousand years ago Arthur traded everything she had to seal Camlann. I and the Round Table have guarded that seal for a thousand years. The seal is intact. Cursed things from Camlann sometimes leak into the Outer Land, but…"
She ground her teeth.
"That light should never be able to spill outside."
Beyond the Outer Land, into the very heart of the Continent. Looking upon the starlight of the Abyss that had infiltrated even this place, Merlin burned with rage—and it was a thoroughly justified rage. An event had occurred that could render meaningless the seal her comrades had forged by staking their lives.
Merlin.
She steadied her breath. Barely mastering her feelings, she nodded. This was a moment that demanded cold judgment.
Najin was no less stunned.
He had expected something to be hidden beneath the underground city—but the Abyss? The connection to the Revelry Emperor was suddenly secondary. Something far greater stood behind the Church.
What was he supposed to do now?
Just as the thought formed—
Creeeak. Clank.
The massive iron gate barring the city's entrance swung open of its own accord, as if inviting Najin inside. His eyes narrowed.
This place has, at least halfway, the nature of a tomb of stars.
In other words, from the moment Najin set foot here, the master of this space had already recognized him.
"…"
Najin remained silent. He could see no way out. The only road was the one stretching before him.
Dangerous. Unpredictable.
But…
There was still only one path.
He exchanged a glance with Merlin and nodded.
There was no choice but to go forward.
As if declaring it would not bar any who entered, the city's main gate stood wide open. Najin passed through it and stepped inside.
The moment his foot touched the pure white city—
"I'm going to create a Church."
Someone's voice reached him.
"Human lifespan is short! Don't you think it's far too short? What are you supposed to accomplish with a mere hundred years, honestly."
Najin looked toward the source of the voice.
"They say becoming a transcendent frees you from lifespan, but even then, once you pass a hundred and fifty you have to leave. That makes it meaningless. This place—the Continent, the starting point where every transcendent is born—has to change for any of it to matter."
A woman stood there.
Silver hair cascading down her back, she sat perched against a wall, speaking to someone.
"So I'm going to create a Church."
"If I create a Church I can steadily reshape the Continent for a hundred years, two hundred years, hundreds of years."
"Then I'll be able to achieve my plan as well."
Najin looked at the person she was addressing. A man who resembled her sat nearby. He shrugged and smiled.
"So saving a single nation isn't enough?"
"Not enough. The Continent is enormous!"
"So you mean to change this entire land?"
"Yes. It's chaotic, isn't it? There are too many dark corners in the world. Places no one's eyes reach, places left behind—illuminating those places is precisely what I must do."
These were the memories of the constellation who had created this city. Najin knew at once who the figures in the memory were.
He could not identify the woman.
But the man speaking with her was someone Najin recognized.
"So will you help me, Eurypylos?"
The Lighthouse Keeper, Eurypylos.
Eurypylos walked.
As he walked he recalled the past. The past is always beautified and fondly remembered, yet Eurypylos had no desire to beautify his own. It was not a past that could be wrapped in the word beautiful.
It was a foolish story.
Nor was it a grand one.
It was the story of dreamers who had truly believed they could change the world. Eurypylos advanced with one eye closed.
"I'm going to create a Church."
"So will you help me, Eurypylos?"
The beginning had not seemed bad.
"Thank you, Eurypylos!"
She had always been overflowing with drive—a woman whose actions outran caution, unlike himself who carefully weighed every step. Journeying with someone who moved without a shred of doubt in what she believed right had been a joy.
They saved people suffering under a tyrant.
They slew black mages.
They destroyed demons and restored peace to cities.
At times they intervened in wars between nations and helped soldiers who only longed to return to their families.
They never doubted they were performing good. They reached out to the abandoned, took their hands, and raised them up. As they repeated such deeds, something that could be called a force began to form of its own accord.
She named it a Church.
"The Holy Light Church."
Borrowing the name of the Holy Light Church that had once existed long ago, she founded her own. Gathering those who would share her will, she pressed forward.
"We are doing the right thing."
Convinced that she herself was good.
"No. They are the ones in the wrong."
"This war is wrong."
"This is wrong."
They advanced, and advanced further still.
"It is the right thing, isn't it, Eurypylos?"
From some point onward she began asking him more and more often. From some point onward Eurypylos fell silent in answer. Even by his own reckoning he no longer knew.
Saving a single human is easy. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand? He could do it. He had done it. He had even built a perfectly ideal city—he possessed the power for it.
But once the number passed a hundred thousand—
Once the scale swelled from a single city to an entire nation, it became endlessly close to impossible. No matter how ideal the city one created, corruption took only an instant. The weak could never become good.
The people who had suffered under a tyrant became tyrants themselves and oppressed the weak. The village they had restored to peace by killing black mages destroyed itself once the wealth obtained by offering children to those same black mages ran out. They thought they had ended a war, yet after the war more humans died from internal strife than had died in the fighting.
In the end, that was how it was.
Nothing truly held meaning. Performing good did not guarantee a good result.
"What is it? Why? Why do they do such things? I can't understand. Do they have no hearts? Shouldn't they at least do this much? I never asked for anything difficult. Was I asking for something so grand?"
She began to doubt.
Eurypylos, conversely, resolved his own doubts.
"You expected too much of humans."
Eurypylos muttered.
"People aren't that good. There are occasionally a few who are especially good; most humans only know themselves. I don't even think that's bad."
She was an idealist.
Eurypylos held no particular ideals.
"Probably a difference in starting points. You grew up seeing good things. You grew up seeing beautiful things. Having experienced only the good, the beautiful, the perfect, the world could only look beautiful to you."
Eurypylos gave a short, dry laugh.
He was the opposite.
He had been born in the lowest, filthiest place, abandoned by his parents, and had climbed to the heights by his own strength alone. Thus Eurypylos knew.
How filthy a human could become, how ugly, the fact that the existence called human was not originally good at all.
"I believed it could become beautiful."
Eurypylos exhaled a long breath.
"But I suppose it never was."
That was the conclusion he had reached several hundred years earlier. What expression had she worn when he delivered it? That day she had seized his collar and spoken.
"No."
"I can prove it."
She only needed time, she said.
Because she still lacked experience, because she still had not seen enough, because there were still so many things she did not know.
So give her time, she said.
"Wait."
She told Eurypylos—who expected nothing of the world and felt no interest in living—exactly that.
"I'll show you."
I'll show you.
That everything can be saved.
So wait until then.
That was the pact Eurypylos had made with her and with the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Creation. Simply waiting. Waiting for the day of salvation that would someday arrive.
"…"
Eurypylos's steps halted.
"Is this it?"
The man who had stopped muttered.
"What you called salvation."
Eurypylos laughed.
Najin advanced while glimpsing the memories.
The closer he drew to the lighthouse—
The nearer he approached the structure that held dark-crimson starlight, the more his senses screamed. Hair stood on end. Nerves prickled; bloodshot veins rose in his eyes.
And at the place where Najin finally arrived, a woman stood.
Leaning against the lighthouse, master of this city, the one who had summoned him here…
"Are you the Lighthouse that Illuminates All Creation?"
The chief deity of the Holy Light Church.
The Lighthouse that Illuminates All Creation.
"I used to hold that name."
"It seems you no longer do."
"The lighthouse still remains outside, doesn't it? It's simply no longer me. I didn't need it, so I gave it to another child. Sold it off for quite a handsome price."
"…The Revelry Emperor?"
"I believe that was the name."
Pure white hair and dark-crimson eyes.
"Then," Najin said, looking at the woman before him, "what should I call you now?"
"I am still a lighthouse."
"…"
"A lighthouse always lights the way. Looking at where the lighthouse points, people come to understand where they must go. In that case, I am still a lighthouse."
Nine stars shone in the sky.
"The Lighthouse that Illuminates the Abyss."
The Lighthouse of the Abyss smiled.