“Skill—‘Heaven (天上)’ is being activated.”
The darkness recedes.
Whether it is night, whether storm clouds hang overhead, whether one’s heart is stained with darkness—it matters not. The goddess’s touch shines down upon all in equal measure.
A providence that begins from the heavens.
A warm and, at the same time, rapturous miracle began from the skies above Hibernia.
“Ahh…… Goddess.”
The captain of the guard at the center of the Order sank to his knees.
Within the manifested hand of god, he shed tears and worshiped her.
“This is……”
Irina, too, felt the divinity brimming within that touch.
However, because she had lived with an immense amount of divinity within her more than anyone else, she realized that what lay within the golden light was not purely divinity alone.
Even so, this was undoubtedly a miracle, and Irina also closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, and drew up the divinity she possessed even further.
Such divinity gently melted the hearts of all.
A tranquil golden light that washed away unease and worry just by being seen.
Yet while it softly enveloped everyone, it was also resolute toward beings that were not permitted within it.
When everyone began to wear peaceful smiles, to worship, and to pray.
There were only two beings that stood in opposition to divinity.
—You seem to have steeled your heart, then.
Only two suffered in agony within this sacred domain.
A dragon and a dragon knight.
Ariel, the dragon stained by the Abyss, and Regarda, who had willingly become undead in order to protect that dragon.
Even amid pain that must surely have been burning through his entire body, the two eyes staring directly at Hio did not waver.
“……I’m sorry.”
Behind him, Ariel could be seen writhing.
No, now she was merely a black dragon that had become one of the Abyss Monsters.
Regarda slowly turned toward Ariel.
—Mage. I will no longer do anything I will regret.
Though the outside of his body was crumbling little by little into powder and scattering away, though it must have been agonizing, there was not even the slightest hesitation in him.
—So if you have made your choice, then give it everything you have.
—Even if my body burns away in the process.
Aura slowly began to rise from Regarda’s entire body.
—Even if I die, do what you must without hesitation.
The vivid yellow aura blooming from the yellow spear carried his will, became a dragon, and roared.
Then, as it was swung wide in a horizontal arc—
—I shall do the same.
The light of Heaven was cleaved apart.
* * *
There are memories one cannot forget, even if one wishes to.
No, because I am a soul already dead, everything comes back with perfect clarity.
When I trace back to the beginning of my soul, there is always one being at my side.
The ruler of verdant green. Ariel, the wind dragon.
The day Ariel vanished from that thread of memories was something that happened in the span of a single day.
We had spent a long time together, yet that long time was erased in an instant so brief.
—You are going to the village?
Yes, that day, I had left the dragon’s nest and gone down to the village.
Though we had enough food, the ingredients I liked were nearly gone.
So I had nodded to Ariel.
—You really do like those. They never suited my taste at all, though.
What had I answered to that question?
I had merely smiled faintly and said I would be back.
If I had known that would be the last conversation we shared in our peaceful daily life.
If I had known that it was a dreamlike everyday life to which we could never return, I would have sat facing her and talked endlessly, softly, for as long as time allowed.
—Have a safe trip.
Ariel, sitting in the dragon’s nest, reading a book she must already have read countless times.
Because I did not know that the bright smile she gave me would be the last, I left the nest as I was and headed for the village.
I went to the village and obtained the ingredients I liked.
And by the time I left the village smiling like a fool, the calamity had already occurred.
The sky where the dragon’s nest lay was the darkest black in the world, and the aura emanating from it was a dreadful, ominous aura unlike anything I had ever felt in my life.
I threw aside even the ingredients I had gone to such trouble to obtain and ran, and the scenery I saw was filled with things I could not understand.
Even the directions where the nearby red dragon’s nest and sky dragon’s nest lay were in a similar state.
The closer I drew to the dragon’s nest, the thicker the chill-inducing aura became, like the Abyss itself.
And so I arrived at the dragon’s nest.
Ariel’s condition was terrible.
Though she had returned to her original draconic body, a pitch-black aura, dense enough to be seen with the naked eye, had soaked deeply into her, and her expression was horribly twisted.
Even so, there were no traces of battle.
She had been struck down one-sidedly, in so brief a time that Ariel had not even been able to respond.
Did such a thing make any sense?
Of course, there was no time to ask that.
—You…… will you prepare the sealing rite for me?
Words slowly forced out as she endured the pain.
Even then, her eyes still shone with mystic light.
There was no chance to talk, nor any time to ask anything.
Instinct told me that the situation was being decided by the second.
All I could do was clench my fists so tightly they felt as if they would shatter and hurriedly prepare the sealing rite.
A sealing rite I had learned only as knowledge, one I had thought I would never have cause to use in my entire life.
What was I supposed to say?
Once the sealing rite began, she would fall into an endless sleep, and who knew when I would see her again……
Perhaps she might not awaken even before I died.
But seeing Ariel with her eyes closed, resisting something, I ultimately could not ask anything.
Only this.
“Even when you wake again, I will be in front of you.”
That was the promise I made.
—You need not push yourself so hard.
Was the sorrow that flashed through Ariel’s eyes as she fell asleep because she had foreseen the unbearably harsh future that awaited me?
After that day, I guarded the front of the dragon’s nest.
Idiot. Moron.
I guarded the sleeping dragon’s nest alone, endlessly lashing myself for having laughed and enjoyed myself without fulfilling my mission.
Even when winter came, even on days when the drizzling rain fell as a cold rebuke.
When I was hungry, I caught insects and ate them; on days when there were none, I tore up raw grass and chewed it.
And when even that was absent, I simply guarded the nest with nothing at all.
The war later called the War against the Aberrants broke out not long after.
The whole world was stained black.
It was the same aura as the one that had appeared at the dragon’s nest, though far fainter.
And yet even with only that much, they say the world was driven to the brink of destruction.
Of course, that was something I learned later. At the time, I simply continued guarding the dragon’s nest.
With the vivid yellow spear Ariel had gifted me in hand.
Though my clothes frayed, my hair became wild, and my body grew so thin my bones showed…… I did so to fulfill, even now, the mission I had failed to complete.
They say regret is regret because, no matter how early it comes, it is ultimately too late. But I did it so that I would regret no more.
As if sentencing myself to punishment, I kept watch.
It was not entirely in vain.
Perhaps because the tide of war had worsened, those things called Aberrants appeared nearby often enough.
Though I swung my spear with a body that was breaking down and protected the dragon from them, my chest felt heavy.
Because I could see the end.
My vision blurred, and my body gradually ceased to obey me.
Death was near.
In the end, I had not protected a single thing.
The promise I had spoken like a vow to myself, my mission, the being most precious to me—in the end, I protected none of them, and only death drew closer.
My strength had long since passed its limits, my arms and legs had no place left uninjured, and scabs clung to my body here and there.
But the thing in the worst state was my heart.
Heavier than my eyelids gradually closing, heavier than my body that would not move, my heart was heavier still…… and even as I died, I could not leave that place.
And just before I collapsed completely and perfect darkness came, what I heard was—
—So the fragment was here.
A voice that, for some reason, put my heart at ease.
—Child. I shall give you a chance.
His name was Kreutzwald.
—Carry on your mission.
* * *
Can a spear carrying one’s will cut even that which has no form?
The light of Heaven covering the sky.
The vivid yellow aura bisecting it.
“……What in the world.”
Words caught in his throat.
He had been preparing, thinking Regarda would somehow defend against it or attack Hio himself, the caster……
But to think he would cut apart the light of Heaven itself.
The strength drained from him.
—Still, it does not seem he has broken the skill itself.
As Purnell said, the severed light of Heaven was slowly filling back in.
From the very top of that high sky, the golden touch was still descending, so unless its source was destroyed—
Unless Hio’s mana and divine power ran out, this would continue to torment Regarda and Ariel.
—Graaaaaaah!
Ariel writhed in the agony of her soul being extinguished.
At that, Regarda swung his spear once more.
The light of Heaven that had been filling in was cut away again, and for a short while, the pain would surely lessen as well.
But that was, quite literally, only for a short while.
Light was bound to shine down again, and as long as Ariel was in pain, Regarda would continue swinging his spear at her side.
The same remained true even though Hio had concentrated the skill as much as possible on Ariel and poured it out upon her.
The soul of a high-ranking dragon.
And, little by little though it was, Regarda’s existence was blocking it for her.
The amount of time they endured was different from that of the other Abyss Monsters that had been helplessly extinguished whenever Heaven had been unfolded until now.
And when that repeated a few more times—
“……This is.”
Ariel’s writhing had visibly lessened.
It did not look as though her strength had run out.
It was only that the aura he sensed from her had grown even stronger.
She was continuing to grow even while in danger of having her soul annihilated.
The aura of the Abyss, and the dragon’s ability to govern it.
“At this rate……”
If this continued, would he not fail to resolve anything and instead only make the situation worse?
The dragon’s aura had grown stronger, and Regarda’s plan to neutralize her would become even more difficult.
If Heaven stopped working, matters would become complicated in many ways.
It was just as Hio fell into deep thought.
Fwaaaa—pure white light surged upward from below.
Light that began precisely from the center of the Order.
Irina, whose presence he had forgotten.
By her independent judgment, she had used the divine protection not for defense, but to assist and join in.
The golden light of Heaven and the pure white divinity merged, shining down with even greater radiance.
Raising the divine power stat did not strengthen “Heaven.”
It only allowed its duration to be extended.
Yet pure divinity, untainted by any other impurities, had joined that Heaven, and its quality had risen greatly.
In other words—
—Graaaaaaaah!
The dragon had begun to writhe again.
—……Ariel.
It meant Regarda’s bodily collapse was accelerating even further.
Within the domain of Heaven, he had wrapped himself in aura to protect himself as much as possible, but could one cover the sun with the palm of one’s hand?
Simply enduring while displaying such martial prowess in the midst of a domain that was the natural enemy of the undead was already close to a miracle.
Regarda put down even his spear and approached Ariel.
—Just a little…… endure just a little longer, Ariel.
He filled both eyes with the sight of her writhing in agony.
As if he cared not at all that his own body was burning away with hers.
“Regarda.”
Hio spoke to Regarda.
A heaviness he could not quite hide leaked out with his words.
“Hurry and get out of there.”
No matter how Regarda had endured for a thousand years.
Even if he was the ruler of the western sea and a dragon knight…… there was no way for him to withstand such a feast of divinity.
If this went on, he too would vanish together with the dragon.
But Regarda did not even turn his gaze and merely answered calmly.
—Perhaps this was the natural order all along.
If before Ariel had suffered in the light of the Abyss, now she suffered in the light of Heaven.
As he took that sight into his eyes without missing even the slightest moment, the words he spoke were steeped in an unbearably deep emotion.
—It was nothing more than my greed.
Mission, duty, all of it.
In the end, had it not been because of his own regret, because he wished to lighten the burden in his heart?
Ariel, having lost both her mystique and her dignity, suffering in such agony.
Was all of this not something that had begun from his choice?
At last, Regarda turned and looked at Hio.
It was hot.
His heart was hotter than his burning body.
So hot that it ached, cold and piercing.
What he had realized at the very end of a thousand years was, in the end, only an even deeper regret.
“There is surely still something left for you to do. So hurry and come out.”
—No. This was the fate that should have already come to pass a thousand years ago.
A thousand years ago.
Because he had not fulfilled his mission, the ending had been stretched out long.
A cruel story that had only worsened.
—In the end, I accomplished nothing, and protected nothing.
His body burned away endlessly.
—What a truly worthless life it was.
The strength gradually drained from him.
Regarda’s body was crumbling.
Ariel’s black soul was being extinguished.
Hio kept every bit of that process in his eyes without missing a thing.
Regarda’s hollow eyes, as if he had let everything go.
His body turning into light.
Ariel’s soul, on the verge of annihilation.
Her writhing, growing faint.
Because he had taken all of it in at once, he could only find it strange.
Ariel’s soul had held out for a long time, but in the end, it was on the verge of disappearing.
And so her agonized writhing was also becoming faint.
Then why—
Kwaaaang!
How could she produce such strength at the very end?
Why had that final struggle, of all things, forcefully shoved Regarda away?
Why had Regarda, sent flying like that, landed outside the domain of Heaven?
And just before her eyes closed completely, why was the dragon’s gaze—
“……”
Fixed on Regarda?
He could not understand.