Breakthrough (1)

Nathan locked eyes with the steel beast. It brimmed with life and vigor. From its silver hind legs to those glass-marble eyes. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If not for the complete lack of moisture, they would have looked exactly like the eyes of a living horse. Rainwater clung to the curved surfaces and slid down, as if trying to make up for the deficiency.

Suddenly, he remembered the dark mare he had left behind on the Unclaimed Highlands before being abducted to the Heavens. What had become of her? Had she cleverly slipped her reins and safely returned to the unit? Or had she waited for him on that very spot until thirst finally felled her?

Whichever it was, Nathan had no way to check. No means to help. She was already beyond his reach. There was nothing in this world he could do about the things he had already lost.

But Aspen was different. Aspen was still alive. Still within the space where Nathan could run to and seize her.

The knight did not hesitate. He leaped onto the artificial warhorse.

Benny tried to read Nathan’s eyes. He might not even ask how she had prepared it. Nathan knew little about the technological level of the Heavens. But he was a knight. He would at least understand that forging plate armor required immense time and care. Sometimes hundreds of parts had to be crafted, assembled, and riveted.

And if something he had dismissed as coincidence happened twice, anyone but a fool would suspect inevitability.

Why did every suit of armor he received fit his body perfectly, as if made for him? What principle made that possible?

The collection armor he had worn while fighting the berserkers in Graveyard Valley—the one that had been on display in Benny’s bedroom. The armor he wore now, built on the structural principles of the automated prosthetic limbs. And the insulated armor he had worn against Mornid. He had given that one to Kilika a few months ago, but it too had been one of Benny’s creations.

What were the odds that a stranger he had known for only a few weeks would possess three separate sets of perfectly fitted vambraces tailored to Nathan’s exact measurements?

Through the gaps in the armor, Benny could see Nathan’s eyes. Just as she feared, they were thick with suspicion.

Unease gripped her heart and shook it violently. If I told you everything, what would you think of me? Would you come to hate me? What would I become to you then?

But Nathan asked nothing. Not a single word.

It really was just like a real horse. At Benny’s trembling answer, Nathan nodded and kicked the horse’s flank. The steel steed snorted mana-laced vapor and bolted past the alley.

Benny stared blankly after Nathan as he receded with the force of a charging chariot. Then she slapped both cheeks with her palms and slipped into another alley.

For your sake, I would do anything. First, what I can do right now is…

After confirming no one was around, she pulled an iron box from her pocket. The compressed mask of Somnus quickly expanded back to its original size. Benny slipped it over her face.

The virtual channel environment unfolded in every direction. She tried to connect to several nodes with nothing but eye movements, only to narrow her eyes at a glaring red warning.

The problem was that she had fallen into the artificial lake outside the building. Back then she had jumped in after thinking, If even little Nilly could do it, why can’t I? Looking back now, the real issue hadn’t been the height—it had been the device itself.

She compressed the removed box again and shoved it into her pocket, then pulled out a tablet. But the tablet had long since exhausted its lifespan after sending out a distress signal. As frustration boiled over, Benny suddenly felt that the ground beneath her feet had vanished. It was an extremely bizarre sensation—one a creature that lived on solid ground rarely experienced.

When she looked down, Santra’s veil was staring back at her. Through the pitch-black transfer gate.

Benny fell through the floor and slid across the ground as if sliding into home plate right in front of Santra. The entrance had been vertical, but the exit was horizontal. Fortunately, she did not roll across the rain-slicked floor. Instead, she landed on a warm carpet inside a windless carriage.

Still, having collided rather defenselessly with the floor, Benny lay sprawled for several seconds, unable to move. Only after a moment did she brush off her knees and stand, trying hard not to make a pathetic face.

The dwarf physicians who had been staring at the suddenly appearing Benny in shock lowered their heads again at Santra’s gesture. They resumed tending to the wounds with renewed focus.

Her complexion looked slightly better than before, but Santra still could not rise from the bed.

“Pardon?”

Santra extended a trembling hand and offered something. It was a large key. A blood-red key that symbolized the authority of the Great Arena’s master. Benny’s pupils shook.

The master of the Great Arena was a concept that stood at the absolute pinnacle of power in the Heavens. Countless powerful figures schemed and fought in the shadows for that seat. Whether Benny, who had thrown an entire corporation into the Winter King’s maw only hours ago, could bear that weight was something even she herself doubted.

Having said that, the woman let out a pained groan and turned her head away. The medical staff hurriedly administered painkillers and drew the bed curtains shut.

The warrior in red armor who had been standing guard beside the bed removed his helmet. A pale face bore a hollow smile.

Benny thought of the griffins that were probably still flying through the sky. Santra trusts me? Even though I just got her slapped with a poaching fine?

The warrior mulled it over for a moment, then added one more line.

Benny absentmindedly repeated the words. For a moment, Nathan’s face flashed through her mind. So she immediately cast the worry aside. Just as Nathan had done, there was something she had to do first.

The warrior offered his own terminal. Benny took it and immediately began tapping the screen rapidly.

The warrior’s smile widened. It was a dry smile, as if from hundreds of years ago.

------------

“Protect me!”

One of the Eleim corporate owners cried out in a tear-choked voice. He sounded as if he might stop breathing at any moment. Yet there wasn’t a single bruise on his face.

Several of his guards wiped away sweat and blood, grinding their teeth. We’re already doing everything we can.

Unlike Somnus and Santra, who had remained inside the courthouse after the trial, most of the corporate owners had not been caught in the building’s collapse. They had been following the royal representatives who had left in displeasure.

However, calling it a safe escape would have been inaccurate. They were now helplessly surrounded on the elevated highway outside the courthouse.

Monsters drenched in black liquid swarmed toward them like a cloud. They clambered over overturned carriages and fallen corpses. Straight toward the nobles, executives, and the guards standing before them.

The one saving grace was that the monsters were unarmed while the guards had weapons. Moreover, most of the guards were skilled enough not to tarnish their masters’ reputations. That was why they had not yet been overwhelmed despite never having coordinated before.

But there were simply too many. Knock one down and another took its place without pause. Every time their numbers seemed to dwindle, the creatures would shine their eye sockets an icy blue and let out a roar. It was a howl that summoned dozens more of their kind.

To make matters worse, these unidentified things feared neither death nor pain. Even after their limbs were severed, they would clack their teeth and lunge forward. It was enough to make anyone’s blood run cold.

Most of them, being natives of the Heavens, had no idea what a void fiend was. The few guards from the Lower World had only ever heard stories of such scenes. It was only natural that one by one they began to tremble and abandon their posts—trying to fight from farther back, driven by pain and exhaustion. The moment selfishness and fear shattered their formation, the balance collapsed.

The sound of weapons swinging on both flanks grew distant, replaced little by little by mindless howls. The Eleim guards sensed their impending deaths.

“…Only they were not chosen. Thus humanity, having learned it had no master, spoke with one voice: O gods, O great souls, why have you abandoned only us small and weak humans? Yet no answer came, and the mortal world sank into sorrow.”

And at that moment, the knight appeared.

A terrifying sense of weight drew near. It charged forward, crushing, shattering, and smashing the monsters on the road. The guards threw themselves to both sides with all their strength. Most of the corporate owners, however, could not react in time. Centuries of dulled crisis instinct and heavy backsides.

Nathan irritably manipulated the horse’s reins. Asking a plated mount to leap might have been too much, but the terrifyingly massive mechanical horse performed the maneuver exactly as ordered. Nathan sailed over the corporate owners’ heads and landed on the opposite side of the skirmish.

One of the guards, startled by the heavy thud behind him, swung his halberd backward. Nathan ducked beneath it, then for the first time that day drew the longsword Aspen had given him.

The Eleim who had swung the halberd turned deathly pale at the sight of the approaching longsword. But the premonition of death passed over his head and struck the void fiends behind him instead.

The longsword with its flowing wave pattern severed two or three necks at once. The horse’s forelegs, made of wrought steel, slammed down with high-carbon horseshoes. A terrifying dance that crushed the center of the road all by itself. The guards finally had room to breathe.

The multi-racial guards all wore similar expressions as they gladly stepped back.

“Crazy bastard,” one Eleim swordsman muttered, ducking beneath the flying head of a void fiend. “But what the hell is he even babbling about?”

“The Humanity Sect scripture.”

There were humans among the guards. A knight from a kingdom that had once been an ally of the Federation. He recognized it immediately. Those were the verses the Federation soldiers had recited. On the day his homeland had nearly fallen to the Abyss, the Federation’s relief forces had descended like clouds, all chanting those very lines in unison.

Though he had been abducted to the Heavens, he had never forgotten that day. Not for a single moment.

The void fiends powered by abyssal energy slowly began to react to the Humanity Sect’s scripture. They did not flinch as sensitively as high-ranking demons, but they unconsciously shrank back ever so slightly.

Yet even the slightest hesitation created an opening. Nathan mercilessly drove the full mass of his cavalry charge into that gap.

The weakness of a cavalry charge that had lost its momentum. The moment the charge halted. The monsters finally clambered onto the horse and dragged Nathan down. Void fiends hammered his plate armor and scraped its surface with their teeth.

While slashing, striking, and hurling them away, Nathan struggled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to recall the next verse. To forget the opening of the Humanity Sect scripture that he had memorized like a military cadence. Had he taken too many blows to the head? He might as well have forgotten his own name.

Reciting scripture while focusing on combat was difficult. If he did not finish the recitation, the effect would be minimal. The only remaining side effect would be ragged breathing for nothing.

So when someone behind him began reciting the next verse, Nathan felt an immense sense of relief. Yes, that was it.

The heavily armored knight whipped his head around. The human guard who had frozen in fear the moment their eyes met now gritted his teeth and moved to Nathan’s side. The two humans tore open a path of retreat. The black monsters shrieked and fell back, avoiding the weapons they swung. Like shadows fleeing from fire.

This might be their only chance. The guard unit clenched their teeth and followed the two humans, fighting as they went. They pushed and pulled their corporate and noble masters along to safety.

And the story continued.

Fly gods. Skewer gods. Even money gods. Humanity, having imagined countless gods that could not prove their own existence, eventually reached the point of killing one another to prove their own masters. As if mocking the fact that none of those gods truly existed, the Abyss freely butchered and devoured humanity. Even the mages turned away in disappointment at that hollow barbarism, leaving humans to oppose both their own kind and demons with nothing but individual strength.

The Dark Age. A tragedy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the ancient darkness.

Yet in the wilderness, a righteous man appeared and said: What we do not possess is not important. It is time to look back at what we hold in our hands. Humanity, lacking a central point of divinity, is paradoxically the most free and inherently sacred existence. Therefore, let us become the lantern that lights our own path.

An absurd heretical statement. Priests and kings burned both him and his sophistry before the year was out. Yet the man who had become charcoal astonishingly resurrected on the first day of the following year. Together with a girl so plain she would never stand out if left on the roadside.

And then came the holy moment that changed humanity’s future. The girl performed a miracle in the name of all humans and drove back the abyssal demons. Something no priest shouting meaningless names had ever achieved. The girl became the savior, years later the representative of kings, and eventually the first emperor of the Human Union.

There was a reason behind the strange proposition of an “emperor of the Union.” It stripped legitimacy from an ancient emperor who had sold the empire to the Abyss.

Finally, the grown saintess became the focal point of humanity. The moment she declared war on the tyrannical emperor who sought to force every human in the world to kneel beneath the feet of the Abyss…

The group reached one of the security outposts the Public Security Guard had established throughout the city. The Eleim corporate owners and nobles finally showed faint smiles as they were escorted to safety by the guards.

The bewildered guards looked back at the path they had taken. Shattered corpses of void fiends lay scattered across the road, and the remaining creatures had shrunk back, no longer daring to attack.

“We did it.”

The encirclement that had seemed impenetrable had been broken. By their own hands, no less. Guards of every race—Eleim and surface-dwellers alike—let out cheers. Overwhelmed by the joy and absurdity of having survived, they did not know what to do with themselves.

A few of them suddenly asked,

“Declared war? What happened after that?”

But Nathan was already far away. The knight trampled everything in his path without mercy and galloped beyond the road. Just as he had given no orders when he arrived, he demanded nothing as he left.

The knight simply muttered. Over and over. A single word.