What Is a Star?
To a star, gravity is submission.
Gravity is, by its very nature, the affirmation of existence.
All things that possess mass draw one another close.
And a star is the greatest mass of all.
It proves its presence by pulling others in—by the sheer form of gravitational attraction.
Thus, to fall under a star's gravity is to acknowledge that star's existence.
To be drawn by a star's gravity is to yield before its overwhelming mass.
And so, to a star, gravity is submission.
The lesser celestial bodies acknowledge the star's existence, are drawn in, and revolve around it—like retainers arrayed at a king's side.
And even for such a star, there exists a greater presence to which it would entrust itself.
As a moon orbits a planet, as a planet orbits a star, so too are stars drawn by greater stars.
Binding one another with gravity, they revolve and form clusters, flowing like a river—and this we call a galaxy.
A galaxy is a gathering of stars, the form of kings arrayed around something at their center.
Then what do the stars of a galaxy orbit?
What earns the right to become the star of stars?
"O star."
Someone's voice rings out.
"Greatest of stars, who has arrayed every star—star of stars."
At the end of that voice stands a man.
Hair black as the void of space. Eyes blue as the seas of Terra.
The man gazes into the empty heavens. He looks toward something far, far beyond, a place not even the speed of light can reach.
Everyone in the galaxy knows him.
All who stand upon two feet revere and worship him.
He is the greatest star.
The star that swallows stars.
The black giant star.
Every star arrayed itself around him.
Every celestial body acknowledged his existence.
The galaxy felt the birth-throes of that mass.
Star of stars.
King of the arrayed stars.
All beings who follow the law of nothingness call him…
"O Heavenly Horse."
The voice that names him trembles.
At last—is it achieved? The great work of the Demonic Sect. The dream of humanity.
And other voices rise in answer.
Martial artists who rose, as mere humans, to the throne of stars—the arrayed warriors—whisper.
"O Heavenly Horse."
"O One Who Goes Against Heaven."
"One who reaches the Martial God."
"One who fulfills the Martial God's will."
"Having shattered all things, become rightfully the king of all things."
"Reach it. Reach the heavens."
"O star. Our star."
All the stars whispered.
All the stars wished it.
And so the king of stars moves his body.
He raises his hand.
Toward something beyond, above the sky.
And thus Yeokcheon has arrived.
The inn.
As on any other day, Gong Ryun sits down to a meal.
"How does anyone eat this stuff when all it is is spicy?"
He sighed over the dish: some red broth into which spicy seasonings, meat, and a haphazard pile of vegetables and mushrooms had been dumped and boiled hard. Too modest in volume to call a proper hot pot, too slapdash in preparation to call a proper stew.
There was no aesthetics to the cooking, he thought. Its sole purpose seemed to be setting the tongue on fire with spice.
"Hahaha, Gong Ryun. Word's already out that you're the young master of the Sichuan Tang Clan. Shouldn't you at least be able to handle Sichuan food?"
Brigit, seated beside him, snickered.
"That you still haven't tried one of Terra's foundational dishes is a genuine shock to me. I'm glad I dragged you along after all."
On his other side, Un-rang chuckled as well. For the record, being an android, Un-rang was drinking a mala xiang guo–flavored nanobot beverage.
A few days earlier the three of them had gone out on a survey, nearly died to a Hydra, and only barely made it back.
After their return, the injured Brigit and Un-rang had gone to the hospital, finished treatment cleanly, and been discharged almost at once.
Because of the EMP, every objective on the mission slip had failed, but the circumstances were judged unavoidable and the failure was written off. They had even received a small consolation payment for eliminating the Hydra before it could spread further and damage the research facility more. That had only been possible because the client was an acquaintance of Brigit's. Connections really were useful.
They had immediately reported the Hydra nest to the quarantine team and were now waiting for the report bounty plus their own subjugation labor fee (the quarantine team being a public institution, the rates were lower than a private mercenary contract—but still decently profitable).
All of it combined was expected to come out to more than the original commission fee.
And today, the three of them had met again for a little after-party.
Confidence sat plain on every face. Back when they had been stranded, they had been half out of their minds and shaking.
Of all the luck—running into an EMP-type Hydra, every vehicle and comm device dead, injuries keeping them from even using light-foot techniques, nearly dying in the middle of the road like dogs.
Bad luck had stacked on bad luck. Live long enough and every strange thing under the stars happens to you. Still, hard times turn into memories once they pass, and for them it had already become nothing more than a good war story.
So the three clinked their drinks with relish, laughing and talking over one another with "Remember when—" and "Haha, yeah—."
This was youth.
"But are EMP types normally common? That was the first one I'd ever seen."
"Truly rare, I'm told. I've never even heard of anyone around me running into one."
"Good heavens."
If even the well-connected Un-rang said so, the thing really was rare.
No wonder the machines had had no EMP countermeasures and been completely helpless.
"Ah. That's because the mechanism of a Hydra's EMP is rather peculiar. It seems to contain something unscientific, different from the EMPs humanity builds. Even personal devices usually have at least minimal EMP shielding, yet this thing punches straight through it. If the type were even a little more common, research would have progressed and better countermeasures would exist… but EMP-type Hydras are so vanishingly rare that, from a cost-benefit standpoint, not preparing for them is the more profitable choice."
"So that was it."
EMP… How could a living creature fire a machine-killing wave? Gong Ryun could not imagine what evolutionary path that required.
Had one of the galaxies the Swarm shattered once possessed a machine civilization?
An evolution meant to counter machine civilizations?
…Wait a second. Then—
"Then they could evolve counters for martial artists too, right? Say, an area-of-effect Sangongdok breath or something."
"M-Merciful Buddha!!!"
The moment the words "Sangongdok breath" left his mouth, Un-rang recoiled in horror.
Brigit looked equally disgusted.
"Good grief. If something like that existed, humanity might actually have been in real danger. Fortunately no such case has ever appeared."
"Hmm."
True enough—if creatures that could blast wide-area Sangongdok waves started swarming in packs, humanity's downfall would not be surprising.
Then again, the cosmic Swarm might simply have been too unintelligent for that kind of analysis.
And not every Swarm creature even breathed weapons, so the odds were lower still.
Hydras were only one branch of the cosmic Swarm species.
The cosmic Swarm was the collective name for many evolutionary offshoots that shared a single ancestor.
There were many Swarm races. A rumor claimed that the number of evolutionary types equaled the number of civilizations they had destroyed, though that was probably false.
Just the ones Gong Ryun knew of included Hydra, Arachne, Cerberus, Manticore, Siren, Mimic, Basilisk, and Termite.
There were more, but he never expected to meet them and had not bothered learning the details.
The only races that commonly appeared on this planet were Hydra, Arachne, and Cerberus.
The rest were either fascinating for their traits (the machine-slaying Sirens, the imitating Mimics) or so infamous he had heard their names often (the largest species, the Basilisks; the most terrifying of all, the Termites).
"Though even if a Sangongdok breath did exist, martial artists who have reached the realm of 'stars' would hardly be troubled by it."
"Stars are immune to Sangongdok?"
"They are less human beings than completed worlds wearing human shape and walking about."
"Oh. That sounds cool."
"In the first place they require neither oxygen, nor water, nor meals, nor sleep. Of course they are immune to poison. Unless it is a poison art, no toxin can harm them. Would the sun be poisoned? It is something like that."
"So poison arts still affect them?"
"A poison art is less a poison than a martial art. The sun may not be poisoned, but if another sun that spews poison comes crashing into it—well, that would hurt. It is not the poison that hurts; it is the sun that hurts."
"What if a Swarm creature used a poison art? Ah. They can't. The Swarm can't use martial arts."
"Exactly so. The Swarm lacks the intelligence to use martial arts. More precisely, they cannot learn them. The Swarm grows as a species through biological evolution; no matter how many times they evolve their flesh, they can never evolve the ability to use martial arts. Martial arts are not biological evolution but acquired learning. One must sit at a desk, clutch one's head, and awaken to the truths of the universe. The Swarm could die and be reborn a thousand times and still never manage it. The very root of their species is utterly distant from martial arts."
"So I was fretting over nothing."
Gong Ryun took a sip of his drink.
Then Brigit brought up a question of her own.
"Speaking of the realm of stars and all this talk about realms—Gong Ryun, what's your martial realm right now?"
"Ah. My realm?"
"Yeah. You've already broken out of the Geumna-su one-trick box, and from what I saw this time your skill's gone up again. You're mid-to-upper tier among the mercs in this city, aren't you?"
"I'm at Hwa-gyeong."
Hwa-gyeong.
In the ancient days of Terra, that had been a realm at which one could contend for the title of strongest under heaven.
But in the present galactic age…
"What? Hwa-gyeong?"
"That's right."
"You? No way. How are you still only Hwa-gyeong? You're obviously stronger than an ordinary person."
In the galactic age, Hwa-gyeong was the realm of ordinary people.
More precisely, it was the stage one entered around high school.
Kids from big cities often finished Hwa-gyeong even earlier through advanced study.
"You still haven't broken through Hwa-gyeong? That's seriously weird. I figured you'd have left it behind by the time I got back from training. Why are you still Hwa-gyeong? You fought that Poisoned-Sword Girl, right? From the video she looked about early Hyeon-gyeong. Mid-to-upper mercs are usually at least Hyeon-gyeong, aren't they?"
"I don't really know myself."
"Weird. Still stuck at little old Hwa-gyeong."
Brigit was purely curious.