The Path Leading to the Stage (1)
A meteor shower embroidered the sky.
Hundreds of thousands of sky whales put on their final flight alongside their master. It may well have been their last voyage—and the adventure Icarus had postponed for nine hundred years. It was not only the sky whales who joined that adventure.
The nation that bore the name Helios.
Everything the Star of Heaven’s Drift had built.
In other words, the life of the man called Icarus.
Bearing all of it, Icarus took his final flight. The boy who had once dreamed while gazing at the sky chose to die flying through it. Until the very instant the heat of the stars melted him away, Icarus reached toward them—and he was able to smile.
……A meteor shower poured down.
Hundreds of thousands of strands of starlight cut across the heavens.
The end of the man who had drawn closer to the stars than anyone else was to become a star himself and fall. Scattering starlight, the Star of Heaven’s Drift plummeted. Becoming a meteor that crossed the sky, he put a period to his own life.
“…….”
Najin watched it all.
The Star of Heaven’s Drift, Icarus.
Born right after Arthur had thrown open the age of humanity, he was the man who, across the past thousand years, had come closer to Arthur than anyone else. He was a transcendent who possessed ten stars and had flown to the highest places of all.
We were alike.
Gazing at the meteor shower that embroidered the sky, Najin suddenly thought it. He and Icarus resembled each other. They had dreamed similar dreams under similar circumstances, and they had run toward the same destination. That was why Najin could not tear his eyes from Icarus’s end.
A human who had adventured toward the stars and, in the end, never reached them.
Maybe one of the endings that could wait for me as well.
Then did that life hold no meaning?
Perhaps it held none at all. He had forgotten himself and wandered for centuries. In his final moment he had soared high into the sky, only to fall without ever touching a star.
It had been an eccentric act, a foolish one.
Yet to Najin, at least, it was not. Watching the meteor shower that embroidered the sky, Najin found himself smiling without meaning to. The words Blue Spear had once spoken to him rose unbidden in his mind.
“There is no such thing as the greatest individual.”
“Even one who stands supreme in the present moment will, with the passage of time and the turning of history, become a foothold for someone else to climb higher.”
“So all of us are footholds.”
“Even a wretched life has value if the children who come after can learn something from it through us.”
Just as Icarus had once done, Najin reached his hand toward the sky. To some, Icarus’s life would be nothing more than eccentricity—but to Najin, it was not.
Clench.
Something caught in Najin’s hand. It was the first star Icarus had ever obtained, and the single concept that ran through his entire life.
The Star of Adventure.
It became Najin’s eighth star.
As hundreds of thousands of meteors fell together with ten stars, Najin seized his eighth. He could also claim the Star Relic Icarus had left behind, but that was a story for another time.
“……Haa.”
For now—
“Merlin.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go. A little farther.”
It was time to advance a little farther still.
2.
A battlefield packed with constellations that had descended either to kill Arthur’s successor or to protect him. The field of stars, where battles that split earth and sky had raged without pause, suddenly fell into silence.
They stopped fighting and looked up.
They had no choice.
Bwoooooooooooo…….
Together with a pulse that shook heaven and earth, every whale that had been rampaging across the battlefield surged into the sky. The constellations watched the Star of Heaven’s Drift leading the pod of whales as he flew toward the heavens.
One constellation who had lived long ages let out a sigh.
Others trembled in fear, whispering that the sky’s tyrant had returned, while still others marveled at the spectacle.
Then the star’s fall began.
The existence that had reigned as a natural disaster across the Outer Land for the past several centuries. The colossal constellation that no one had ever toppled, that had swept away countless constellations, that even among transcendents had been treated as an inviolable force……
The constellation of the Star of Heaven’s Drift was falling.
The fall of a Great Constellation who possessed ten stars. Plummeting amid hundreds of thousands of meteors, the Star of Heaven’s Drift’s constellation blazed pure white. In his final moment he met death not as a corpse, but as a constellation.
A vast hole opened in the sky. It was the void left by the disappearance of a Great Constellation’s constellation.
In that emptied sky, a new star rose.
“Heh.”
One constellation burst out laughing.
“It seems the Greatest Knight has obtained a new star.”
At those words the transcendents standing on Najin’s side let out dry laughs, while the faces of the constellations who had descended to target Najin began to turn chalk white.
How long had it been since he gained his seventh star, and already an eighth? Was that even a possible pace? Something had to be wrong……
Even as they thought so, some corner of their hearts was forced to acknowledge that bringing down the Star of Heaven’s Drift was an achievement worthy of the name. Toppling a star that even transcendents feared was, after all, a feat.
“As if that were all.”
Covered in blood, standing with one foot on the corpses of constellations, Anton Quijano laughed. Unlike the others, Anton knew Najin well.
The achievement that boy had wrought was surely far from a simple subjugation. That boy had a habit of restoring self-confidence to those who had forgotten themselves.
Anton could be certain.
In his final moment, the constellation called Icarus had been smiling.
“So then.”
With a sharp flick of his blade, Anton shook off the blood and leveled his sword at the stars before him—as if to ask whether they intended to continue.
The tide of battle had already tilted.
At that exact moment, a horn sounded abruptly from far away. A horn blast that cut across the battlefield. Several constellations flinched. It resembled the horn of the knight who had once been called the Horn Star.
As if answering that blast—
Bwoooooooooooo…….
A horn answered from beyond the Outer Land’s boundary line as well.
The Star of Heaven’s Drift was gone. The chaos of the battlefield settled. The momentum had shifted, and the current had reversed. That reversed current was now pushing back the Revelry Emperor’s forces.
In other words—
the situation was optimal for the Imperial army to intervene.
Chaaaaaaaak!
Someone crossed the Outer Land’s boundary line and swung a sword in the same motion. A massive blade of sword-energy, tall enough to seem as if it might touch the sky, swept across the battlefield, cutting through demons and the Revelry Emperor’s forces alike. That became the signal; beams of light erupted one after another.
The Continent’s transcendents charged onto the field.
With the First Star, Gerd Isabalt, at their head, the Continent’s stars began to rise one by one over the Outer Land.
Polar Night Star, Heavenly Sword Star, Heavenly Kill Star, Eternal Radiance Star, Pure Water Star……
The core of this operation was to reach the Revelry Emperor’s domain while preserving as much allied strength as possible. And with Najin’s subjugation of the Star of Heaven’s Drift, the first condition had been satisfied. Gerd leveled his sword at the fallen stars and roared.
“Death to the Empire’s enemies.”
Death to those who do not die.
Fear to the stars that know no fear.
“Annihilate the Empire’s enemies.”
With a battle cry the Imperial army advanced. Their blades alone could not reach transcendents, yet when the Eternal Radiance Pavilion and the other magic towers stood with them, the situation changed considerably.
The circles of archmages ground against one another in midair.
Mobile magic towers and batteries formed ranks in succession; magic began to settle into the knights’ armor and the tips of their blades. The constellations who had descended onto the battlefield glanced back, then broke into laughter and bestowed protection and blessings upon the children of later ages.
The tide of battle had reversed.
While the stars who had sided with the Revelry Emperor frowned and began to flee, they soon realized even that had become difficult.
Thud.
On the opposite side, across the frozen ground—
someone was walking toward them, stepping over thin ice.
The transcendent who gripped Excalibur.
The wounds they themselves had once inflicted were nowhere to be seen. He looked perfectly recovered, and there was not even a hint that he had expended power. After fighting the Star of Heaven’s Drift he seemed not exhausted but stronger still; the sight of Najin left them with drained expressions.
Under a sky where the Dawn Star—composed of seven stars……
no, now of eight—shone, they had no choice but to grit their teeth.
3.
Countless stars had fallen. Allied losses were not nonexistent, yet they were trivial compared to the enemy’s. In the process of retreat the enemy had been forced to lose several transcendents.
Once the wave that had swept through had been cleared away,
Najin sat on the edge of a tent and caught his breath for a moment. They had only just set foot at the entrance of the Outer Land; the Revelry Emperor’s domain still lay a long way ahead.
And……
—They still haven’t revealed their truly important forces.
With a soft glimmer Merlin materialized and settled beside Najin.
“The Star of Contempt never appeared.”
“Right.”
The Revelry Emperor’s main forces, headed by the Star of Contempt, had yet to show themselves. More than that, the Revelry Emperor herself had not intervened in the recent battle at all. Aside from punching a hole in the sky to aid the descent of the stars, she had expended no power.
She had simply watched the deaths of stars who would have become her allies.
What was she waiting for, what was she watching, that the Revelry Emperor remained silent? Najin’s brow furrowed.
“We’ll only know once we get there.”
These were things they would only learn upon arriving at the Revelry Emperor’s domain. The unease did not vanish, yet more than that, Najin realized the pounding of his own heart had grown louder.
Not much remained.
The Revelry Emperor who had always felt so impossibly distant now pressed close enough to touch. Najin clenched hard around the banner of the Golden Horn Knights bound to his shoulder.
Flutter.
At that moment someone entered Najin’s tent.
“Kirchhoff?”
It was Kirchhoff, Sword Master of the fallen kingdom of Rondinel. Stepping inside, Kirchhoff suddenly noticed Merlin seated beside Najin and his eyes went wide.
“I greet the great archmage.”
“Mm, good to meet you. Last knight of Rondinel.”
At Merlin’s words Kirchhoff flinched.
“You know of me?”
“Of course.”
Merlin pointed at Najin.
“I’ve been traveling with this brat, so whatever he’s seen, I’ve seen too. And even without that I could hardly fail to know you. Your name’s one I’ve heard often enough.”
“This is…… an honor.”
“You came to talk with the kid, right? Go ahead. Don’t mind me.”
Kirchhoff nodded and looked at Najin.
“Well now, I hardly know whether I ought to use honorifics at this point. The last knight of Rondinel greets the Greatest Knight.”
While Kirchhoff offered a splendid flourish of a greeting, Najin gave a bitter smile. When he gestured for Kirchhoff to treat him as usual, the knight finally exhaled and opened his mouth.
“To think you actually pulled Excalibur.”
“You don’t look all that surprised.”
“There are only so many things left that can surprise me. A twenty-year-old wearing seven stars—no, eight—is far more shocking to me.”
And so Kirchhoff continued.
“I hear you brought an army from the Continent.”
“Yes. Forces centered on the Imperial army, composed of renowned mercenaries and knight orders from every region.”
“I can guess why you marched them in.”
A nod.
“To shatter the Revelry Emperor’s stage effectively.”
“To shatter the Revelry Emperor’s stage, yes.”
Najin and Kirchhoff spoke at the same time.
There was a reason they had entered the Outer Land not as a small elite of transcendents alone, but at the head of Imperial forces.
“The Revelry Emperor’s stage is packed with the corpses of countless heroes. And the number of stars she herself holds already exceeds a hundred. A stage she unfolds is…… not the sort of stage any individual can oppose.”
Kirchhoff said. Just as he claimed, the Revelry Emperor had entrenched herself in her sanctuary…… and stepping inside that sanctuary was never an easy task.
A transcendent who possessed eleven stars.
Najin glanced toward Merlin. He could not know whether the Revelry Emperor was as strong as Merlin, yet she held the same number of stars. If a transcendent of that caliber set her mind to unfolding a stage…… it would be a trial none of them had ever experienced.
“And the focal point that will break through that stage will be you.”
Kirchhoff pointed at Najin.
“That’s what the Imperial army is for. If countless troops look only to you, gaze upon your star and offer their prayers, you will never be able to lose yourself.”
The Imperial army would serve something like the role of devotees.
They would maintain the path that had been carved open and support the transcendents as well, but the most important task was reinforcing the stage of the transcendents who stood upon the battlefield.
The will of a collective.
Najin intended to forge that will into a single sword and cleave the Revelry Emperor’s stage apart.
“That plan.”
And Kirchhoff said,
“Rondinel attempted something similar.”
“……What?”
“And we failed.”
Kirchhoff smiled bitterly and pointed at himself.
“The man standing before you is the case study of that failure.”