City of the Abyss, Atman (4)
Excalibur would not come free.
The sword that had been drawing itself from empty air caught with a hard jolt, as if snagged on something, and refused to emerge any farther. Only the hilt clenched in Najin’s fist showed; the light-filled blade remained buried in the air, utterly still.
Najin frowned.
No matter how hard he pulled, the sword would not yield. The Excalibur that ought to have blazed with brilliant light the instant his hand closed on it did not glow at all.
What is this…
Najin had drawn Excalibur before. He had been chosen by the Sword of Selection and had been acknowledged by Merlin, master of the Round Table. No one could deny his claim.
【······.】
Najin lifted his head. At the crown of the lighthouse that towered over the city, a hole had been torn open; through it, a knight looked down upon him. Their eyes met.
Only the arms and face were visible.
The Knight of Betrayal—Mordred.
The gaze of the Round Table’s traitor was sharper than a blade, cold enough to freeze the blood. Under that stare Najin felt as though every layer of himself had been pierced straight through to the bottom.
A power so vast it made the body tremble.
A transcendent greater than any being Najin had ever faced. Only a fragment of Mordred’s true body had forced its way outside the sealed space, yet the entire space groaned and threatened to collapse around it.
An existence whose sheer rank could not be contained even by the stage of a nine-star transcendent. That existence was trying to break free into the very heart of the Continent.
That, at least, must be stopped.
Najin knew it in his bones. He had to stop it. No matter the cost, the monster could not be allowed to walk free.
If Mordred were loosed upon the surface—if the chaos already sown by the Revelry Emperor were compounded by Mordred—it would not end in mere turmoil. The Continent would shatter. Countless lives would end, and the boundary between the Continent and the Outer Land, the entire seal of Camlann itself, might begin to come undone.
Apocalypse. Ruin. Extinction. The dark words flickered through Najin’s mind. He clenched his fist.
Gritting his teeth, he hauled on the sword with everything he had.
He knew the truth. As he was now, he possessed no means of stopping them. He could not even stop the Lighthouse that was dragging Mordred outward, let alone Mordred himself. That was why he had reached for Excalibur’s power.
If he could wield the holy sword, he could force a change.
Clack.
Yet for that very reason—
Excalibur only resisted him all the more fiercely. Najin could not fathom why. Why, at this most critical moment, would the sword suddenly refuse to leave its sheath of air?
“Mordred was a knight of the Round Table.”
Merlin’s voice sounded inside him.
“Excalibur was completed with Arthur’s star and the stars of the Round Table. The stars of those who once sat at the Table are set into the blade. They are set there, yet…”
She ground her teeth.
“That is not the only reason you cannot draw it now.”
Then what?
“Mordred has declared that Excalibur is ‘Arthur’s sword.’ Not yours—Arthur’s.”
Najin stared at the sword of which only the hilt had emerged. Arthur’s sword. Arthur’s Excalibur. He had never yet revealed that he was its master. In the eyes of the world, Excalibur still belonged to Arthur, not to him.
Mordred had pointed that fact out.
Through the star of his own that was embedded in the blade, he had pronounced judgment.
You still lack the qualification.
Mordred, the Knight of Treason, had always been the knight who tested a king’s worthiness. To ask whether the king walked the right path, and—if that path was wrong—to stop the king even if it meant rebellion: that had been Mordred’s role.
That role was Mordred’s authority.
Mordred’s authority crushed down upon Najin.
Had Najin already declared that he had drawn Excalibur, or had he possessed power enough to ignore Mordred’s authority outright, he could have drawn the sword. As things stood, it was impossible.
A constellation of eleven stars.
A transcendent of overwhelming rank.
That gulf of rank bound Najin’s body like iron chains. Merlin clenched her teeth. Nothing that was happening had been foreseen by anyone. The chains of the Round Table still sought to bind Mordred as he tried to step beyond the rift, yet—
The chains of the Round Table could not hold him.
Because he had once belonged to the Round Table, because he was human, the seal that bound the cursed ones of Camlann who had strayed from the natural order worked only loosely upon Mordred.
“Aha… ahahahaha!”
The Lighthouse’s laughter echoed through the city.
The Lighthouse that Illuminates the Abyss.
Burning every one of its stars and all the power it had hoarded across more than four hundred years, the Lighthouse guided Mordred. Through its own light it shone the radiance of Camlann.
Mordred was being dragged free.
The Knight of Betrayal was returning once more to the Continent.
In the lightless underground no one could see the sky, yet beyond the earth the heavens themselves were in turmoil. Constellations thrashed; the stars bound to the Round Table shuddered; the Round Table, sensing the anomaly, began to move.
But it was too late. Far too late.
They could not abandon the border of Camlann, and projecting their power into the very heart of the Continent was nearly impossible. As if she had been waiting for precisely this instant, the star of the Revelry Emperor flared.
Hundreds of stars surged, shifted, and whirled.
Constellations tangled and collided; chaos piled upon chaos. The Revelry Emperor’s curtain blinded and deafened every other star. As though such a disordered, chaotic stage were her natural theater, the Revelry Emperor and her jesters began their advance.
Cackle, cackle-cackle-cackle!
The eight stars of the Lighthouse that Illuminates the Abyss.
And the single star the Revelry Emperor had given her.
Nine stars blazed in dazzling glory and hauled Mordred toward the outside world.
A situation no one had anticipated, a plan prepared across centuries, the confusion engineered by the Revelry Emperor and dozens of stars, a Continent already engulfed in war—every circumstance meshed like interlocking gears and raced toward the worst possible end.
Najin abandoned the undrawn Excalibur, seized his own sword, and was about to charge the Lighthouse when—
In that very moment—
Tap.
A single footstep rang through the city.
2.
The Lighthouse that Illuminates the Abyss.
For long ages she had dreamed of this very day.
The original “Lighthouse that Illuminates All Creation,” who had built the underground city to affirm even the lowest of humanity and prove that even they possessed worth, no longer stood in this place. She was already broken. Her star had rotted so thoroughly that she could no longer remember the moment or the manner of her fall.
She had hoped of her own free will, and been disappointed of her own free will.
Why did I ever yearn for salvation?
She no longer remembered.
The Continent was peaceful enough if left alone; why had she cried out for the salvation of mankind? Why had she undertaken so troublesome a labor while preaching humanity’s salvation?
The reason would not come.
If so, it was a memory she had no need to recall.
The Lighthouse, dyed in the light of the Abyss, looked up at the sky and rejoiced. He comes—the Knight of Treason. The purifying fire that will sweep away the filth of the world is coming. The Witch of Camlann herself has sent her knight to this place so that the salvation I so longed for may at last be fulfilled!
Tap.
Thus gazing at the sky, the Lighthouse—
Tap.
—heard the approaching footsteps and looked down. There, walking through the city toward her, stood a human. White hair. Golden eyes. The instant their gazes met, the Lighthouse’s eyes widened.
…Even among countless faded memories, some refuse to lose their light. The memory of that man was one of them.
“It’s been a while, Lighthouse.”
“Eurypylos!”
The Lighthouse smiled warmly.
“I’m so glad you came, Eurypylos. I wanted you to be the first to see it… but a guest arrived first. Still, I’m glad the second one is you.”
As though she truly welcomed him, she smiled at Eurypylos. Not a shred of hostility touched her expression. Of course not. Eurypylos had always stood at her side, no matter the circumstance.
“Looks like a great deal has happened.”
The Lighthouse Keeper shrugged as if he had long since given up trying to stop her, then cast a thin smile around the city. A city that pulsed as though it were a single living creature, the existence of Camlann it sought to birth into the world…
And—
“······.”
—the young man who was glaring this way. Eurypylos looked at Najin with eyes utterly different from those he turned upon the Lighthouse: eyes gone cold and still.
Najin clenched his teeth.
The Lighthouse, Mordred, and now the Lighthouse Keeper as well—he no longer knew what he was supposed to do. Leaving Najin to his confusion, the Lighthouse Keeper spoke.
“So.”
He regarded the Lighthouse.
“Is this the salvation you spoke of?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a little different from what I imagined.”
“Well, I’ve realized the truth myself.”
The Lighthouse spread her hands wide and began to speak.
Of the horrors she had witnessed.
Of how she had finally seen the bottom of humanity of which he had spoken, of how worthless a life form mankind truly was, of how human nature was evil in the end, and of how the only salvation left for them was not redemption but incineration—the burning of them all.
“I was wrong from the very beginning.”
She laid out the long tale.
“Wasn’t I? I simply expected too much of humans. I’ve come the long way around, but I’ve reached the answer at last. Isn’t that enough?”
“Is that the answer you offer?”
The Lighthouse Keeper merely asked the question. When the Lighthouse nodded, he smiled.
“One last question.”
“Ask anything.”
“Why did you cry out for salvation in the first place?”
At that question the Lighthouse could give no answer.
Because she no longer remembered.
One second. Ten seconds. One minute.
The Lighthouse, who had answered every previous question without pause, fell silent for more than a full minute. When that minute had passed, the Lighthouse Keeper spoke briefly.
“You’ve forgotten, then.”
He smiled.
The Lighthouse’s face hardened.
“Does it matter?”
“Well. It mattered to you, at least.”
“And to you?”
“Why are you asking me about your own dream?”
“Then I suppose it wasn’t that important after all.”
“······.”
“So, Eurypylos? Will you come to this side?”
The Lighthouse smiled.
“You were always on my side. No matter what I did, no matter which wrong path I chose, you always helped me. Even when everyone else cursed me, you alone affirmed me.”
“I did.”
“I am the Lighthouse, and you are the Lighthouse Keeper. The one who guards the Lighthouse.”
“I was.”
“Come with me, Eurypylos.”
The Lighthouse held out her hand. Eurypylos regarded her in silence, then lifted his gaze to the false sky. Looking upward, he opened his mouth.
“People, you know… living a long time doesn’t make you wise. Sitting locked in a room for hundreds of years doesn’t make you wise either.”
He murmured.
“I chose immobility. Immutability. The fruit of immobility turned out to be of little worth. Even if you refuse to move, refuse to change, the world simply flows on as it pleases.”
His gaze dropped.
He looked at the Lighthouse.
“Then what of the answer offered by you, who chose change and accepted so many things? Did you grow wise? Did you become wiser than I? I hoped you would. I believed you would. I entrusted the value of my four hundred years to you. I believed that if you found the answer, my four hundred years would have meaning.”
The Lighthouse Keeper smiled bitterly.
“Seems it wasn’t worth much after all.”
“Eurypylos.”
“If there is one thing I have learned across the years—”
“Come this way.”
“—it is that the world is not divided into right and wrong, and it does not split cleanly into black and white.”
Tick.
“I affirm you.”
The clock that had been rewinding came to a stop.
“But I cannot affirm everything about you. What is wrong remains wrong.”
The Lighthouse stretched her hand toward the Lighthouse Keeper. The city heaved and rose like a great wave, crashing down upon him.
Before the onrushing city, the Lighthouse Keeper spoke quietly.
“Four hundred years of standing guard… that should be enough.”
312 years, 3 months, 21 days
114,066 days
One hundred fourteen thousand, sixty-six days
“I’ll retire.”
The second hand that had only ever moved backward now turned forward. With the spinning second hand, the minute hand, the hour hand, the numbers that marked the days, the needle that pointed to the months, the digits that recorded the years—all began to dwindle at terrifying speed.
One hundred fourteen thousand, sixty… and five days.
The time he had accumulated blazed pure white.
One day remained to him.
“You.”
Eurypylos looked at Najin.
“Duck.”
Immediately after, the city split apart.
3.
The moment Eurypylos swept his arm, a storm erupted. There was no other word for it. A colossal torrent of power smashed the city that had been surging toward him into fragments.
Within the raging storm Najin dropped low, drove his spear into the ground, and held on. While he was still blinking, trying to catch up with what had just happened—
Thud.
Someone came to a halt beside him.
“Lighthouse Keeper.”
“Didn’t you hear? I just retired.”
“Eurypylos.”
“Yes.”
Najin did not ask what this meant or why the man now stood on this side. He simply threw one question.
“You said the Holy Light Church was the reason you lived, didn’t you?”
What is the Holy Light Church to you?
To that earlier question the Lighthouse Keeper had answered briefly: an old friend, and the reason for his life.
“I did.”
Eurypylos let out a breath.
“That’s why I just abandoned it and came here.”
The instant Eurypylos closed his fist upon empty air, a weapon settled into his grip. The weapon once wielded by the hero who had raced across the Continent and quieted its wars. Eurypylos’s beloved halberd.
“The situation appears rather complicated.”
“First we need to stop that from opening.”
“Agreed. I have confidence in my skill, but that existence is another matter entirely. Once it is free, I doubt we can stop it.”
And then—
Eurypylos frowned.
“I don’t think the other side intends to stay quiet either.”
The passage to Camlann that had opened in the sky.
Mordred, who had been looking down from that passage, stopped its expansion, seized the rim of the rift with one hand—and with the other stabbed into his own chest.
With a gush of dark-crimson blood, Mordred tore out his own heart.
He hurled the heart beyond the passage. Eurypylos immediately swung his halberd at the flying organ, but the strike never reached it.
The instant it crossed outside—
Flesh formed around the heart. The body completed itself in a single breath; the moment it swung its sword, Eurypylos’s blow was nullified. Najin stared in silence at the being born from Mordred’s heart.
High above, through the hole torn in the sky, Mordred still watched this place.
Then what was the thing standing before them?
It was Mordred’s clone.
Just as a constellation creates its great warriors and apostles, Mordred had sent a clone of himself into this place through his own heart—to buy time for his true body to emerge.
Or—
To kill Najin by any means necessary.
A clone forged from the heart of an eleven-star constellation.
Even though it was only a fragment divided from the true body, it radiated the same aura as a transcendent. Eurypylos gave a short, incredulous laugh. Najin could not laugh. To that existence, Eurypylos did not even register. It seemed to care nothing for whether its true body escaped or not.
Even if it meant losing its heart.
Even if it meant growing weaker.
Even if it meant accepting any risk—
It would kill the one who had drawn Excalibur. That death-resolve was palpable. An unfathomable killing intent crawled up Najin’s spine.
“······.”
Mordred’s clone closed its fist upon empty air. Clone or not, the will that moved it was Mordred’s own.
Crrrk.
Blood-red starlight stretched thickly, like clotting blood.
What took form in the air was the sword that was Mordred’s very emblem. Once it had been a sword Arthur herself had carried, the blade she had used when she knighted the members of the Round Table… yet it had been seized by Mordred and stained a dark crimson.
A jet-black blade. Etched into that blade, a single blood-red star.
Along that blood-red star a constellation pulsed like living veins.
A sword that resembled Excalibur, that approached Excalibur more closely than any other.
Clarent.
The Knight of Treason leveled his sword at Najin.
As though asking a question.
As though demanding once more whether he was worthy.