Clatter…
Clunk……
Somewhere, small pieces of rock quivered.
Imperial territory, Imperial capital Yunmelngen.
No one who lived here, the largest city in the world, had any way of knowing that a sprawling cave lay forty-five hundred seventy-two meters beneath their feet.
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Once, the place had a name: the Imperial assembly.
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Now no sign of the assembly was left.
The ceiling had disintegrated into rubble and collapsed, while the walls had been pulverized beyond recognition. Peering deeper inside, one could see earth scorched as black as ink.
Beneath the rubble was the wreckage of some destroyed equipment: eight monitors in total.
Those had been the vessels for the Eight Great Apostles, the individuals who had controlled the Empire in secret.
A century ago, they had been the nation’s sages, but after their living flesh decayed, they had digitized their consciousness to continue their pursuit of the power of the calamity, which lay dormant at the center of the planet.
The calamity’s name was LaSelahMilahUls. The Astrals knew it as the World Enemy.
Coveting that power for themselves, the Eight Great Apostles had advanced a plan to reach the center of the planet and had also started to experiment on astral mages.
However, in the end…
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“Good-bye, criminals of the past.”
“The Planet’s Navel and the Imperial assembly, the very symbols of authority. You’d want to go down together, wouldn’t you?”
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Elletear had betrayed them, leading to the Eight Great Apostles’ demise.
And so the Imperial assembly went down with them.
The floor had been rendered into bare earth, and a gigantic, craterlike indent was left where the assembly once stood. And in this massive hole—the Empire’s oldest vortex, once called the Planet’s Navel—there was empty space.
Nothing would come out of it again.
Nevertheless, the rubble had begun to quiver and rattle once more.
Was it the wind?
No. This space was over four kilometers underground. Not even a breeze could have disturbed it.
And yet…
The pebbles clicked and clacked as they steadily quivered.
“”
A light glowed.
Below the rubble, a monitor that retained its shape flickered on for a moment, then shut off again.
And finally…
…the pebbles that had been vibrating and clattering quieted abruptly, as though they had never moved at all.
Then the place filled with silence.
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Once again, the most frigid quiet in the world descended on the ruins of the Imperial assembly.
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Meanwhile, at the same time…
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The northern edge of the world’s continent.
To the far northern reaches of Imperial territory, even farther north than the Katalisk polluted lands, in the intense frigidity of the land covered in icicles, there was a massive hole.
This was the Gregorio vortex.
It was one of the oldest vortexes on the planet. Though astral energy had long since stopped surging out of it, there was no doubt the hole had glimmered with light in the past.
“It’s run dry. They all have.”
Snow fluttered by on the wind.
The wind also carried the voice of a dark-skinned girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. Her pearlescent hair fluttered in the breeze.
“The planet’s core is empty. There aren’t even astral powers left to emerge from it. All because of the calamity.”
She spoke as though she were telling a story. Her tone held profound wisdom, like she was orating a fairy tale that had been spun over scores of years.
And that, in fact, was the case. She had lived among the astral powers over a century ago.
The Founder Nebulis, the oldest and strongest astral mage, looked down at the empty hole in the ground. It was pitch-black, a place where no light could reach.
“What a horrible stench… That woman came through here.”
“You said it was Elletear?”
The Founder Nebulis stared into the hole.
Next to her was a man whose eyes, hair, and clothes were black—Crossweil Gate Nebulis. He was her younger brother and the first wielder of the astral swords, which he had passed down to Iska.
“I can’t smell it. Tell me more,” he said.
“About the woman, you mean?” The girl cackled. It was as though she was implying it was obvious. “Her odor is one and the same as the calamity’s. Like rotting earth. Like stagnant water. Like putrid meat. She’s no longer human.”
“I thought as much…”
Crossweil averted his gaze from the bottomless pit and looked above his head.
The sky had settled into an ashy gray. This was a common sight in the northern reaches of the world, where it was always overcast.
“I think you know this already, but I’ll say it again: I gave Iska the astral swords. All I have are crude imitations.”
“You fool…” His sister clicked her tongue at him. “That sword is the only thing that works against the calamity. Didn’t you have to beg the Astrals to make it for you?”
“That’s exactly why I gave it to him. I think you know that.”
“……Tsk.”
The girl clicked her tongue again. At the same time, she said nothing in reply as she jumped into the hole below her. “Don’t tarry. Hurry up, now, Crow.”
“…”
His sister left herself to the mercy of gravity as she descended.
Crossweil stared at where she had gone down.
“Why did I have to get stuck being an escort to the most feral woman in the world? You’ve forced many tedious tasks on me, but this is the final one, Yunmelngen,” the former guard to the Lord lamented, leaping into the hole.