Chapter 107: The Constellation's Work 2
Chapter 107: The Constellation's Work 2
Fallen Constellations. They didn't just hinder human progress—they got people killed.
And even when humanity managed to identify them, the only response available was pitifully weak.
A Constellation, stayed in its own Sanctum. The only way to physically manifest was through a Descent Ritual, and unless you killed the body that appeared through some special method, there was no attacking a Constellation at all.
Would a Fallen Constellation, unhinged enough to attack humanity in the first place, ever accept a Descent summons?
So the only real countermeasure was hunting down the Incarnations of Fallen Constellations.
An Incarnation contract cost 100,000 points. A price nearly impossible to afford on the basic income of 1,000 points a month, assuming a Fallen Constellation's Incarnations had all been wiped out. And that 100,000 was just for the contract itself—factor in the time it took an Incarnation to grow and the points needed to support them, and the real cost was far higher.
Which meant there was no way to eliminate a Fallen Constellation. Humanity settled for sealing their activities by killing their Incarnations instead.
Something the Incinerating Tyrant would never accept.
"His Majesty desires total vengeance. Not merely the removal of an Incarnation. Total. Vengeance."
The wise and gentle husband of the Empress, beloved by the masses as a paragon of virtuous partnership—a man who had burned scores of planets because his wife was killed. A man who, if you counted the soldiers who died in his wars and the citizens incinerated on the planets he purged, had burned through a body count that climbed past the billions and into the trillions.
Would a man like that accept some lukewarm containment measure?
I had no idea what possessed the Heart of the Exiled Serpent to cross the Incinerating Tyrant. But one thing was clear.
The reason their behavior never changed was that the retaliation always landed on their Incarnations and never touched them directly. They'd been sealed into a cryo-capsule and exiled—no memory of drifting through space suffering any real psychological damage. They just blinked and woke up a Constellation, didn't they?
"Why me?"
"You are a Dream Walker. The only one who can reach a Constellation protected within its Sanctum."
That single sentence erased all my questions.
No matter how powerful the Emperor's warships, no matter how unbreakable the loyalty of his personal guard, none of it could breach a Sanctum. He needed someone to handle a fellow Constellation, and it just so happened that a Dream Walker he knew was conveniently nearby. So he'd use me.
That raised a different question.
"Revenge for what?"
Was the victim this time an Incarnation of the Incinerating Tyrant's? Or did the Heart of the Exiled Serpent have a prior record of messing with his people? The Incinerating Tyrant ranked among the most powerful Constellations on the continent. Why go after an Incarnation of a Constellation like that? This wasn't some thrill-killer who murdered for pleasure with nothing to gain. If it were, they wouldn't be called the Heart of the Serpent—they'd have earned a different name.
But the answer that followed was so idiotic it left me speechless.
"Because an Incarnation who had refused a contract with him subsequently contracted with the Incinerating Tyrant?"
"Yes."
An ego grossly disproportionate to ability. The foul temper born from the gap between that bloated self-regard and a miserable reality.
Put yourself in an Incarnation's shoes: wouldn't you obviously accept an offer from the Incinerating Tyrant? It was a contract with the Incinerating Tyrant. Even Han Ye-ji, who knew so little about Incarnations she'd been taking advice from a customer at her convenience store, knew who the Incinerating Tyrant was. And this bastard had held a grudge and killed someone over that?
"I'm... having trouble finding words because of how staggeringly stupid this is..."
"His Majesty confirmed the facts several times before his wrath fell."
Even the most elite assassin—could they really escape unscathed once the Incinerating Tyrant's sights locked on? To throw away an assassin skilled enough to run rampant inside the Academy itself, all over a rejected contract. As if confirming my thoughts, the sunlight streaming through the window suddenly vanished.
"His Majesty said he would not burden a child still learning to walk with difficult tasks."
A statement that bordered on disrespectful to say to a Constellation, but this blunt, fiercely loyal guardsman recited the Emperor's words like a tape recorder. Not a single thought spared for the impact those words might carry. Whatever reaction I gave, he'd just keep saying his piece.
"He says to bring him the perpetrator intact and then infiltrate the Heart of the Exiled Serpent just as you did to His Majesty. He added: as long as the eyes and brain are intact, that's sufficient."
I drifted over to the window and looked up at the sky.
What was blotting out the sun wasn't clouds.
It was a colossal warship.
※
Mages on broomsticks came swarming through the sky. Beastkin, their forms edging closer to true beasts, bared sharpened teeth and snarled. Less security guards than an agitated hive of bees, a half-starved pack of wild dogs—raw-edged hostility on a hair trigger.
Facing them on the other side: titanic steel-armored figures who ignored all of it completely.
Not one steel armor—many.
"This is Academy airspace! Withdraw that warship immediately!"
"His Majesty desires the swiftest possible arrest of the culprit in this incident."
The security team lead, veins bulging in her neck as she shouted. The hulking steel armor still reciting his script. Every one of those massive mechanized suits looked identical, so I couldn't even tell which one had been speaking to me.
The Incinerating Tyrant had flown his warship right over the Academy without the faintest regard for its protests. Mechanical soldiers descended from the hull, a ship so enormous it eclipsed the sun itself. Jetpacks on their backs spewed blue flame as flying robotic troops scattered in every direction across the Academy. The sheer menacing force of it made the instructors step aside and clear a path against anyone trying to block them.
'So do I just wait, then?'
This wasn't a situation where I'd be the one doing the capturing. The Incinerating Tyrant didn't want some Incarnation—he wanted to punish the Heart of the Exiled Serpent directly. So I'd just practice my abilities on whoever they dragged in.
This seemed like a good time to finally tackle the Nightmare exploration I'd been putting off. Stimulating a nightmare and bursting it to collect nightmare fragments. Obviously, doing that to my own Incarnations felt wrong, and gathering them from innocent citizens was a crime—so I'd shelved it. But an Incarnation the Incinerating Tyrant personally hauled in? I could do whatever I wanted.
What kind of nightmare would that Incarnation be carrying?
"This is His Majesty's will."
"The Academy was established by the consensus of all four continents!"
"His Majesty has come in person. Nothing supersedes his presence. Neutrality without the power to enforce it is not freedom—it is license. Had you rooted out the culprit earlier, none of this would be happening."
The mages and beastkin on security detail stood frozen, at a loss. It wasn't an invasion—a Constellation had shown up personally, declaring he would find whoever murdered his Incarnation. Hard to block that.
The vessel blotting out the sun was larger and more ornate than the battleship I'd seen before. A flagship. The Emperor coming in person didn't seem like a lie.
"What's going on?"
"You are all right, aren't you?"
As I watched the standoff, the two Incarnations who'd quietly positioned themselves behind my back threw out questions. Of course. Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun had both watched this whole mess unfold from the moment I unrolled one strange scroll-letter. They hadn't missed a single word drifting in through the open window, but making sense of it was another matter. One piece of paper, and their Constellation starts muttering to himself. The Incinerating Tyrant's personal guard shows up at the door. A spaceship floats overhead. Far too chaotic to parse. Even the sharpest observer would struggle to piece it together.
"The dead Incarnation, it seems, was a child the Incinerating Tyrant had his eye on."
"Ah... I see..."
"The island search is for the culprit too, I take it?"
Setting aside how Lee Ha-rin went all slack and swoony over a man—was her talent actually real? Or did she just hold a special contempt for Constellations who messed with Incarnations, betrayers of humanity? Claiming the Emperor was doing this for a single not-even-contracted-yet Incarnation felt like massive overkill.
I half-listened to Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun murmuring behind me while keeping an ear on the shouting erupting outside the window.
"Are you not being excessively harsh?"
"What's excessive is the Academy's security. That building, I'm told, is a Temporary Sanctum for the Constellation who held the Descent Ritual. So how is it my little brother's corpse was found less than two hundred meters from a Temporary Sanctum? If the Constellation hadn't discovered it, he'd have been written off as an unexplained death, wouldn't he!"
A sharp male voice rang from inside one of the armored suits. Loud enough to carry clearly without me even focusing magic into my ears. With a shrill hiss of venting steam, the armor shifted threateningly. Before the Academy security personnel could even react, the other guardsmen trained their guns on him first.
"Brother, we understand your grief at losing family—but do not attempt anything His Majesty has not commanded."
At that flat, chilling warning, the guardsman who had stepped forward fell back. The Academy side had no comeback either—just a pained, stifled groan. Whatever else they might say, how could they argue with someone whose family was killed yesterday by their own incompetence? What could you possibly say to a grieving relative driven half-mad because their family died in what was supposed to be the safest place in the world?