The Ominous Throne

That behavior — denying a hierarchy that was glaringly obvious.

"White King, caw. I despise word games, caw. If you mean to move me as you please, then I have no reason to remain here, caw."

That so-called seat of a Lord.

That so-called mandate of the White King.

If it was not equal, none of it was needed.

He declared it plainly: he would not stand beside anyone who trafficked in wordplay.

The White King's mask trembled.

"……So. If I play word games, you'll kill me? This White King?"

He laughed as though the notion were absurd. But it was a laugh thick with murderous intent.

Who in their right mind would openly threaten to kill him — and do it to his face?

It was a reprimand: stop the games and treat him properly.

No one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had ever spoken to him this way. The White King was genuinely stunned.

Truly, the situation was escalating by the moment — climbing toward its most extreme pitch.

And yet the more it did, the more leisurely I became.

I shrugged and lowered my hand.

The water was already spilled, and neither of us meant to scoop it back up. All that remained was to pour a fresh cup.

How it would be poured.

Who would pour it.

That was what we would settle from here on.

"Sit upon the throne, White King, caw."

Sit upon the throne. Upon the seat prepared for you in the White King's Hall.

At my words, the Four Lords and the White King both looked briefly puzzled.

Telling him to sit the throne — was that not an acknowledgment of his kingship?

The highest seat in this place. Was I volunteering to become a subject?

In that instant—

To speak properly, we needed to sit at the same table.

The White King in the White King's seat.

"And I shall sit in mine, caw."

I in mine.

Now then. Let us decide who pours the water next.

It falls short of a radiant prefix, but for the present situation, this will do well enough.

I took my seat with deliberate calm.

The Ominous Throne of Light.

The Throne of Light acquired wildly different prefixes depending on what was offered as sacrifice. The "Ominous" prefix had been raised by sacrificing two Extreme Iron Swords.

Weapons I would no longer need once I entered the Mountain of the Cultivator and began raising proficiency in earnest. How fortunate that I had prepared them in advance.

The moment I sat, the Four Lords' eyes began to tremble.

"Ahh……!"

Medusa's reaction was especially dramatic. Blindfolded across every eye, she could not see — and for that very reason, she perceived essence all the more clearly. Confronted with a form that was omen itself, she could not help but moan.

Dae-to-ryong, the Death King, and Gungi stared on in equal disarray. Every one of the Four Lords was reacting to the Ominous Throne of Light.

And the White King?

That was when someone cut in.

"Enough."

The figure stepped precisely between the White King and me.

It was the Death King. He planted himself between us and took up the role of mediator.

Having told me to stop, he turned his gaze upon the White King.

"I shall ascertain the Black King's intentions myself. And Your Majesty — you must recognize that the Fifth Lord is not like the other Lords. Unlike us, he has received no grace from you, has he?"

The Four Lords who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠followed the White King owed him great debts of favor. The Fifth Lord was different. From the moment of his appearance, he had never received the White King's grace. Even the "city" promised as a gift had yet to be designated. On the contrary, he had seized a city of his own.

The Abyss Labyrinth — the land of the Old Empire, the place where Sword Saint Ryleigh had sunk.

Therefore, he stood as an equal. He could not be commanded by force.

The Death King looked at me again.

"And you, Fifth Lord — cease as well. In the end, it was you who accepted the seat of a Lord rather than that of a Star Guardian. If you make enemies of us all now, you will find yourself in difficulty too."

He was right. Returning to the Star Guardians at this point was impossible. The Giant of Extinguished Evil would not sit idle if I did. Turning Kramdel into an enemy on top of that would leave me surrounded on every side.

What is he doing?

At the same time, a red line rose in the hollow right socket of the Death King's skull — visible only to me. The red line formed a caret.

……A wink?

Was he seriously winking at me right now?

Still in that state, the Death King continued.

"I do not fail to understand the Fifth Lord's feelings, but the remarks clearly crossed a line. You know as well as I that when both sides push to extremes, collision is inevitable. Do you truly want a war? Was it not genuine equality you desired — not word games?"

That, too, was not wrong. Summoning someone at will and forcing work upon them was a far cry from an equal relationship, no matter how you looked at it.

And the one who had stepped in was the Death King. Personally, I wanted to maintain good terms with him.

Even so—

"It is the minimum condition for my becoming a Lord, caw. I have no need of a seat that is not equal, caw."

I stressed it once more. When I had first become a Lord, circumstances had piled up and I had failed to pin this down properly — but I would not back down until this condition was made certain.

And so I passed the ball to the White King.

Equality. I asked for nothing more.

So, White King — what do you think? Do you consent to placing you and me on the same line?

"……You truly are a creature who has lost all fear."

He had never met anyone who charged ahead so completely without a safety net. Confidence in one's own stature was part of it, but not the whole. This one had simply always been this way — fearless, and fond of challenging everything that stood in his path.

Even if the opponent were a god, he would behave no differently.

Where in the world had a crow this mad come from? If he were merely mad, the White King would have killed him a hundred times over already — but the unreadable omen he carried made him troublesome in the extreme.

"I like that spirit. But there will not be a second time."

And so the White King took one step back. Taking that unwavering spirit as his measure, he would forgive a single overstepped remark.

In the end, the one who had first erred — speaking one way and then another — had clearly been himself.

But there would not be a second time. This was the last.

I lived.

……I let out a deep, private sigh of relief. This much was not bad. No — it was excellent.

I truly aged ten years in a moment.

Being alive was, in itself, already a success. If the Death King had not intervened, it would have gone all the way. Had the bluff been a little too thick?

And if it had gone all the way, the result was obvious. At best I would have destroyed a single Mystery, and my body would have been split clean in two.

Thank the heavens the Death King had stepped in. This was why I could never dislike him. The wink was a bit much, though.

"Good, caw. Only now are we properly prepared to hold a conversation, caw."

"……Fifth Lord."

The Death King pressed me in a tone that said, I just patched this up — what are you doing? Did I want the atmosphere to sour again?

But now it was fine. Sitting as equals meant we could also deal in more than equality.

"White King, caw. If I recover the fang you have lost — what will you give me in return, caw?"

The posture was set. Now let us speak of what each of us actually needed.

The lost fang. If I brought it back, what would he give me?

"……Even after I said there would not be a second time, you say interesting things."

The White King's eyes turned to me again — as if to ask what kind of slander this was, and to warn me not to misspeak again.

But denial was useless. Any player would know the truth. It was displayed outright in the Golden Rule Shop — as one of Wilhelm's spoils of war.

Of course, it required a Thousand-Hour Fragment, but depending on the compensation the White King offered, I might well consider the purchase.

A complete Golden Rule.

I possessed a complete Golden Rule — a perfect Golden Rule of an entirely different order from shattered fragments.

After Randolph left the White King's Hall, the chamber was quieter than it had ever been — like a world in the wake of a violent storm. A strange current ran through it: wrecked, yet calm.

Peculiar.

The White King sat upon his throne, chin in hand, and recalled the storm of moments before.

That mad crow. The Fifth Lord, Randolph.

In the wake of his passage, the White King's thoughts were in disarray. Peculiar. Unpredictable, one might say. Never had the word suited a being so perfectly — save for him.

The Knight King, Wilhelm. He was the same.

The two were clearly different. Wilhelm was human; the Fifth Lord was a corpse-crow. The powers and traits they wielded were entirely their own. Yet they shared something in common: each carried something that outstripped the White King's own premonition. Beings not easily defined, bearing an unreadable omen whose true nature could not be known.

But he is different even from that one. This feeling is a first.

The White King was feeling something now that he had never felt while facing Wilhelm. No matter how long he turned it over, he could not name the emotion.

Only after tapping his temple and thinking for a long while did he understand.

……He is reading me. That is why I felt this way.

Wilhelm had not known him. Randolph, however, acted as though he already did. That mad crow, the Fifth Lord, was seeing straight through him.

—……How rude, caw.

At their first meeting, Randolph had read his skill. Realizing the White King was using an observation-type skill, he had gone cold and spoken of "courtesy." Even then, the White King had merely thought him an interesting creature. Randolph's authority to destroy Mysteries had been only a mild object of caution.

But what Randolph had shown today shattered every notion formed from that first impression. It was not merely skills. The crow was seeing through everything about him — even the face beneath the mask. Deeper still. There was no doubt he was piercing even those deeper domains.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠claim that he would kill him for idle tricks. The White King had decided to overlook that bluff once.

I…… tensed up?

Perhaps it had not been a mere bluff at all. The presence of Baal and the Throne of Light — those two alone had been startling enough. But if they were only the tip of the iceberg?

And so he had tensed by instinct. At the bottomless possibility the crow carried. A kind of tension he had never felt before.

"Hahaha!"

Having finally grasped the nature of that peculiarity, the White King burst into wild laughter.

How entertaining.

How long had it been since he last felt tension toward anyone? Even Wilhelm had ultimately fallen within the scope of his premonition. That extraordinary martial force — overwhelming enough to crush everything underfoot — still sent a thrill through him when he recalled it, yet even Wilhelm had failed to kill him.

Randolph, however, stood outside premonition. Ominous, yet not quite ominous. Strong, yet not quite appearing strong. He had placed the crow at his side — and yet, perhaps Randolph was the only being who could kill him.

The only one who could kill me.

That was why he had reacted so strongly to the word kill. Unpredictable. That mad crow who could fly in any direction had, by pure instinct, made him realize he was the sole existence capable of ending him.

Of course it was a feeling he had never known. The crow had seen through him, stepped beyond the domain of premonition, and directly implied his death.

"Your Majesty……?"

Dae-to-ryong, who had remained in the White King's Hall, looked on in bewilderment at the sudden peal of laughter.

Wiping the mirth from his face, the White King addressed the First Lord.

"Dae-to-ryong. In your eyes, what do you make of the Fifth Lord?"

"A creature who will one day cause great trouble. Measures must be taken before then."

"I think the same. Measures must be taken."

Dae-to-ryong held a fierce hostility toward the Fifth Lord — that mad crow who ran wild without knowing his place. A creature not worth swallowing in a single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gulp, who still had the gall to strut. Toward the Great Earth Dragon, who made no effort to hide his feelings, the White King nodded.

"I will establish a warp to the Labyrinth City and formally decree it in the White King's name. And I will accept the Fifth Lord's bargain as well."

"Y-Your Majesty? What are you saying?"

Dae-to-ryong recoiled in shock. This was what he meant by taking measures? His entire bearing said he could not possibly accept it.

But the White King was unmoved.

"Left alone, he will turn against us before long. Before that happens, we must bind him with favor in advance. As the Death King said."

"If he turns against us, I will kill him myself."

"Do not. I have no wish to lose you."

"……By that, do you mean that I would lose?"

"Yes."

At the White King's certainty, Dae-to-ryong's face crumpled.

The strongest among the earth dragons — the being called the mightiest of them all.