The island nation shrouded in serene mystery, Arilleiya.
On a wide clearing prepared along the coast, one dragon and one knight lingered.
Peureiya and Regareuda.
A young dragon and the Dragon Knight who instructed her.
Even after months of teaching, there was an infinite amount yet to learn.
The habits of a dragon, and the mindset one must possess as a dragon.
The role of a demigod and guardian of this world. The manner of conduct.
While engraving such things into her body and embracing them in her heart, she also had to learn the Dragon Tongue, the dragon's breath, and more.
And so, today too, they were continuing their training without fail, when—
"......It is rowdy."
The center of the island was unusually noisy today.
The center of the island was quite far from the coast where the two of them were.
Nevertheless, Regareuda looked toward the middle of the island as though such a distance were trivial.
Peureiya followed that gaze and looked toward the island's center as well.
"Is it not?"
It was proof that she, too, was growing as a dragon.
The island of Arilleiya was not small, yet without even marveling at Regareuda's skill in sensing the disturbance from the center, she herself had grasped those signs using her own mana.
That was only fitting for a dragon.
Regareuda wished for Peureiya to grow beyond even that.
"Discern the reason as well."
"The reason for the disturbance?"
"Yes."
There were quite a few people who could sense something so simple as a disturbance, even without being a powerhouse on Regareuda's level.
A knight with sharp ki senses, or a mage who possessed a certain amount of mana... though there were none such here now, so they were beside the point.
At any rate, it meant there were plenty of people capable of detecting this level of commotion if they focused and expanded their senses.
"If you set your mind to seeing it, there is nothing you cannot see. Sensing signs should be as natural as breathing; you must do more than that."
"To be able to see whatever I wish, whenever I wish......"
Peureiya raised her head high and looked toward the island's center.
Given her high vantage point and excellent eyesight, the center ought to have been visible, but even for a dragon, pure eyesight alone would not suffice.
Nor was this the sort of thing Regareuda had demanded of her.
And so, Peureiya closed her eyes instead and focused her mind.
"Beyond merely sensing."
The only thing she needed was will.
The moment her will manifested, her mana surged.
The power of a dragon needed none of the complex procedures of the magic circles created by frail humans.
For mana understood the dragon's will and began to move on its own to carry it out.
That was the Dragon Tongue.
"Show me."
Upon the white canvas of Peureiya's closed eyes, the scene she wished to see appeared clearly.
An effect that truly merited the name of clairvoyance.
And within that revealed scene, she saw the figure of someone terribly familiar.
A person rising into the sky atop a snow-white winged horse, clad in splendid magic robes.
Having found him, Peureiya cried out with joy filling her entire being.
"Mage!"
Hio Pavlenko had returned to Arilleiya.
* * *
Having mastered the 5th Circle necromancy, Coffin of Death, the place he headed to was the elven kingdom of Arilleiya.
Since their parting in the Holy Kingdom had been their last meeting, it was Regareuda and Peureiya whom he met for the first time in months.
"Did you find what you were looking for in Hiberunia?"
"If you mean the Holy Mage's house, I found it. I was lucky."
In the span of a mere few months, Peureiya had become a full-fledged dragon.
Of course, by Regareuda's standards she still fell far short, but in Hio's eyes, she was impressive enough even now.
The true body of a dragon was a massive frame tens of meters across and over ten meters in height.
To control it freely and even wield the Dragon Tongue—she was truly worthy of being called a splendid dragon.
When Hio praised her thus, Regareuda turned his head to look at Peureiya.
"Compared to the ancient dragons who once guarded this world, she is still far off."
Regareuda was a cold, hard teacher.
Even after their long-awaited reunion, he insisted that promised training must continue and gave them no time to talk with Hio.
Peureiya, perhaps resigned, was practicing Dragon Tongue magic with a sullen expression, some distance away.
Of course, though it was said she was some distance away, her massive body meant she did not look very far.
"Her soul rank seems to have grown to match her body, and since it was the same soul, she seems to have finished adapting quickly?"
"That may be, but there is a serious problem."
Regareuda's expression as he looked at Peureiya was as stoic as ever.
However, if one watched him closely, they would know that what filled him was worry.
"A serious problem?"
"Her heart is too soft."
If her soul rank was weak and her size small, it was simply a matter of raising them.
Was not the soul of a dragon the foundation?
With Regareuda's teachings added to that, it would not be a difficult matter.
But her innate heart was something that could not be helped.
"You can tell by looking at her eyes."
Originally, as predators, as rulers, looking down upon everything from above.
The eyes of a dragon that must watch over all fairly as a guardian.
But Peureiya's eyes were far too clear for a dragon's.
Clear and pure.
She wanted to see those who should be watched from afar up close, and she deeply empathized with their hearts. She wished to grieve with them and rejoice with them.
While she quickly learned and mastered other things, such a mindset did not easily take hold.
"Thus, Peureiya is disqualified as a guardian."
A guardian must not be swept away by personal emotions.
Like the dragon of olden days who was said to have made a soul contract with a mage.
Was there not a tale of its soul being bound by the contract and forced to use its power according to the mage's desires?
A guardian must never be like that.
One must not become immersed and always watch from afar, yet Peureiya could not do so.
"So what if she's not a guardian? It's not as if anyone is forcing her."
"......Forcing her, you say."
"Yes. There's no need to be so bound by it. Peureiya is the last remaining dragon, and now it is her life to live."
At Hio's words, Regareuda fell silent as he watched Peureiya, then soon nodded slightly as if acknowledging the truth in them.
"Indeed, such magic no longer exists now."
"Hm? Such magic?"
"There is such a thing. A truly terrible magic that disappeared in ancient times."
The moment Hio tried to ask what it was—
"More importantly, Mage. What is your true business here?"
Regareuda's golden-yellow eyes turned to stare straight into Hio's eyes.
"I told you. There's a magic I'm researching, so I came to master it while also seeing your faces."
"It seems you still do not know. Lies are useless before a knight who wields Intent."
"......It's really a scam, this 'Intent' business."
"That you came to master magic is true. That you came to see me and Peureiya is also true. But the claim that those are your only reasons is a lie."
When asked how that was possible, Regareuda said he would naturally understand once he began to wield Intent.
Damn that Intent.
The sole clue to stepping into the realm of a true superhuman beyond the system's power.
As Regareuda said, there were three reasons Hio had visited Arilleiya.
First, to master the 'Book of Dragon Summoning' and test the magic on Peureiya the moment it was completed.
Second, to see how the two of them were faring.
And the last, third reason was—
"How do you handle this Intent thing?"
It was to seriously learn about Intent.
He had ascended to the 5th Circle in the realm of magic, and to advance further required more than simply having abundant mana.
They said enlightenment was necessary.
Intent was what he had chosen to obtain that hint.
And as expected, Regareuda gave the answer he had anticipated.
"That is not something you can handle simply by being taught."
A similar answer to what he had heard from Vitalianus previously.
"I know. What I want is something like simple advice."
"Advice."
"Yes. What kind of feeling it's handled with, or even just watching you use it from beside me is fine."
Enlightenment could not be spoon-fed by another.
He knew well that he had to awaken to it himself.
But would it not be far more helpful to have someone who had already walked that path beside him, rather than trying to awaken to it alone from nothing?
To that, Regareuda nodded without much hesitation.
"That is no problem. I shall provide what help I can while you remain here."
The place he would stay until the next raid was decided.
Researching the Book of Dragon Summoning in Arilleiya while simultaneously trying to grasp the feel of Intent.
It was the next task he had to carry out for the sake of his goal.
* * *
A room terribly vast, frighteningly high, and running to the extreme of splendor.
But now that every light had gone out.
With no light to illuminate the splendor, the splendor was meaningless.
—Can I win?
The room, no longer splendid with the lights extinguished.
Sitting alone there was Antipus Praman.
His original name was Phil Knight.
A name that no one in the real world—not the world of Ben Taiyal, but reality—would fail to know.
It had been so even before the Great Upheaval, and now it was even more so than then.
In a tall building where the city of New York could be taken in at a glance.
A dominator who stayed on the top floor, always keeping everything beneath his feet.
The king of a kingless nation.
A tycoon counted among the world's elite and a powerhouse of America.
The first Awakened and the strongest man in the world.
For his whole life he had received such praise and adoration, as Phil Knight and as Antipus Praman.
—No.
But in the unlit room, he was alone, clutching his head.
—I cannot win.
The violet space seen at the end of the Breakthrough Floor, and the figure of the one who had created it.
It was because that overwhelming presence, as though he had truly become a god, would not leave his mind and tormentingly rose again.
—I absolutely cannot win.
He had run hundreds, thousands of simulations.
The violet universe.
A space in which a dense aurora unfurled in rapture, and countless faintly scattered stars drifted.
Had he been able to sense the signs of it forming?
No.
At best, the omen had been a compressed vibrating sound, as though the air were being crushed.
Could he have avoided it?
Though using various skills meant it was not impossible, the opponent was the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
He would not simply stand by and watch, so this too was but a faint possibility.
Then, could he face him inside that space?
...Impossible.
The moment one entered that domain, its master was the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Other fools might have passed it off thinking it was merely a pretty space, a decent skill, but Antipus could feel it clearly.
That bizarre miracle which annihilated space itself.
What means could possibly oppose that?
No matter how much he thought, nothing came to mind.
His trait was Dominator.
Another name for it was Failure.
A Dominator must not have something he could not dominate.
There must not be another existence above the Dominator's head.
For would that not ultimately make him the same as the dominated?
The moment it became so, he would lose all the power accumulated as a Dominator and become nothing but a failure who failed to dominate.
"By whatever means, absolutely......"
He had to win.
Only by winning could his heart, grown accustomed to defeat, stir again.
"How, how can I......"
Because of this, whenever he tried to think of a way, that space would inevitably come to mind.
A space that could return everything to nothingness.
That was why he was holed up in his room, clutching his head and shrouded in darkness.
—Can I truly not win?
He did not know.
If asked what he did not know, it was whether these thoughts right now were truly his own.
He did not know if the voice he heard was truly one born from his own thoughts.
—Do you truly think so? There is a way.
Ever since leaving the Breakthrough Floor.
To be precise, ever since seeing that overwhelming space, the thought had wandered through his mind.
Were these truly his own thoughts?
—A way to easily defeat that detestable one.
But such doubts could not continue for even a moment before being pushed far away.
Could that be important?
Was he not so curious about the method?
The Supreme Heavenly Demon, who had always been above his head since the days it was a game.
Because he had never even guessed what method or feeling it would take to defeat him and bring him under his domination.
He stopped moving and focused his mind on the words inside his head, maintaining the posture of clutching his head.
As if it knew Antipus's heart.
A touch of laughter mixed into the gloomy voice in his head.
—The world will soon undergo a great upheaval. The light shall sink, and the darkness shall rise.
Even madness seeped into the faint laughter.
—Join the Abyss.
As if entranced, Antipus lowered his hands.
His legs slowly rose from his seat.
—Dominate the Abyss and become its king.
The voice was secretive, dismal, and sinister, yet—
—Make the Supreme Heavenly Demon kneel. Break the Supreme Heavenly Demon's neck yourself.
To Antipus—
—Take that power.
It felt incomparably sweet.