Karl Ulrich knew his master's temperament better than anyone. He was never a man of many words. He never volunteered what he wanted, what he intended to do, or what he was thinking, which had put Karl in a difficult position as his Royal Guard more than once. That was how reticent the crown prince was.

He was even more so with a sword in his hand. Given time to waste on idle chatter, he would sooner swing his sword once more. Yet today, that same crown prince was unusually talkative.

Karl Ulrich knew when the crown prince became this talkative: when he had a lesson to teach, or when he meant to crush someone publicly. His bout with the previous Count Ballorhard had been the former; his recent bout with the finest swordsman in the West, the latter. Today appeared to be another instance of the latter.

Karl watched the crown prince. His chin lifted arrogantly, he curled his lips at the fellow called a High Elf, cold anger and hostility gleaming in his eyes. He looked as though he had classified the High Elf as an enemy outright. That particular arrogance only appeared on his face when he confronted his enemies.

"I took a short nap, and when I woke, I found an interesting art making the rounds."

The crown prince poured mana into his sword. An Aura Blade, the proof of a Master, sheathed its edge. Brilliant and intense no matter how often Karl saw it, the light drew an involuntary surge of admiration from him.

But at that very moment—

THUMP, THUMP.

Karl's heart pounded. His Mana Circuits began to surge and resonate of their own accord.

HMMMM.

The crown prince's ringing sword changed its tone at the same moment.

"It's called the Mana Chain."

It was mana resonance: a power denied to those who refined mana in their hearts, permitted only to those who stored it in Rings.

"Whatever else it can do, this thing is exceptionally good at singing along with someone else's mana."

And among those resonating waves were Karl's own.

Eyes wide, Karl looked around. Several of his comrades wore bewildered expressions. Every one of them had served the crown prince for years and followed him to war. Every one had once joined that strange song resounding across the battlefield, singing until their throats felt ready to burst.

The War Poem. The name of a miracle the crown prince wielded alongside his Martial Spirit Hymns. Only then did Karl realize his Rings had responded to a War Poem.

There was nothing new about that. Karl had experienced War Poems several times himself. The only difference—a very minor one—was that back then he had joined willingly, whereas now he was participating regardless of his wishes. Setting aside, for the moment, whether forcing someone else's mana to resonate without their consent was even remotely possible.

Besides, the crown prince had not uttered so much as a single verse.

Karl's expression turned rueful. There was hardly any point in acting surprised now, when not one of the crown prince's miracles had been anything less than astonishing. At this point, even if he suddenly began using magic, it would be nothing to marvel at.

Regaining his composure, Karl looked at the crown prince again. And he understood. Today's bout was not simply about crushing the High Elf. The crown prince's eyes were telling them to watch closely: how elves fought, how he fought, and what they must do when facing an elf.

The instant Karl saw those eyes, he knew instinctively. All this time, the crown prince had been preparing alone for war with the elves. Before long, the day would come when they had to fight them.

Karl reproached himself. Not long ago, the crown prince had been carried back covered in blood after an elf attacked him in the very heart of the kingdom. Nor had much time passed since he had vehemently warned them of the elves' insidious nature and the danger they posed. Even if these elves claimed to have come to help the kingdom, Karl could not understand how he had forgotten that warning so quickly.

He must have been bewitched by their angelic appearance, deceived by their outwardly benevolent demeanor. Otherwise, how could he have lost all vigilance and left himself so defenseless?

A keen blade rose in Karl's heart. In unison, the auras of the Royal Knights surrounding the training grounds took on an edge. All of them must have grasped the crown prince's intent.

HMMMMM.

As the Royal Knights' auras sharpened, so did the ringing of the crown prince's sword.

"Good."

He smiled in satisfaction and readjusted his grip with both hands.

"Come."

His face rigid, the High Elf lowered his stance. And at that instant—

TAP.

The elf vanished. No, he merely seemed to vanish.

CLANG!

Karl turned toward the sharp clash of metal. The elf, who had been at the far end of the training grounds, was already in front of the crown prince, drawing back his sword. His blade blurred.

CLANG, CLANG!

Metal rang out again. His sword was so fast that only after the clash could Karl barely make out where it had thrust.

TAP, TAP.

Feet kicked off the training ground floor. The elf blurred again. The crown prince pivoted where he stood and slashed down behind him.

BOOM!

The elf was there, though Karl had no idea when he had circled behind. Letting his deflected sword trace a circle in the air, the elf thrust again. Another metallic clash sounded. The elf had already vanished from sight.

WHOOSH, SWISH.

A snow-white shadow appeared and disappeared around the crown prince, moving too fast for the eye to follow. In contrast, the crown prince stood tall, never shifting a foot. If the High Elf was a gale, the crown prince was a mountain. The gale raged as though to carve the mountain away. The mountain stood firm, turning the wind aside and casting it back.

Swords sang shrilly, spitting metallic clashes. Light flashed, and sharp whistles split the air without pause.

"What fidgeting. Where's that vaunted Sword Dance of yours?"

The crown prince sneered amid the unbroken ringing of blades.

"Since Your Highness has no intention of showing your hand, neither have I."

The first words came from in front of the crown prince, the last from behind him.

HISSS.

A silvery-white flash shone with a sound like a snake flicking its tongue. The crown prince, who had remained upright until then, suddenly bent at the waist and spun halfway around. Dark-blue sword light swept around him, shattering the training ground floor in an instant. Fragments of stone scattered and dust billowed up. More than a dozen metallic clashes burst from within it, then stopped abruptly.

Karl strained his eyes. The crown prince emerged, standing tall in the middle of the dust. He lowered his sword and looked at his own shoulder. Red spread swiftly across it.

After gazing dispassionately at his shoulder, he swung his arm once and looked ahead again, as though the wound did not concern him in the slightest. Apart from that reddened shoulder, he looked no different from when the bout had begun.

The elf did not. His neatly braided hair had come entirely loose and hung in disarray. His uniform, once as immaculate as a priest's vestments, was slashed into rags. He was a wretched sight, with nothing left of his earlier lofty elegance.

The elf smoothly raised a hand to stroke his neck, then frowned. His pristine white glove quickly soaked up blood and turned red. The collar of his uniform was already stained crimson.

"Your first wound, I take it," the crown prince said, watching him. "I hear High Elves consider it a disgrace to leave the first person who wounded them alive and whole."

The blatant provocation froze the elf's face. Then it became entirely expressionless, and his demeanor changed completely. The mysterious, benevolent elf was gone. All that remained was a ghostlike man, eerie eyes flashing through his disheveled hair.

Wind swirled around the elf. It was a chilling wind, like one blowing through a dank ravine.

GROOOOAN.

A spectral wail echoed across the training grounds, like the cries of the dead in the underworld. Gooseflesh rose all over Karl's body. Instinctively, he looked for the crown prince. Fortunately, that sinister aura did not seem to surprise him much.

"You said your Sword-singers were called the Whispering Wind. Fitting. This is exactly the sort of wind that would blow through a graveyard."

If anything, he seemed pleased. He added that they should hear what the winds of the underworld had to whisper.

"Remember, Your Highness, that everything that happens from this moment onward is of your own making."

The High Elf's voice was as sinister and uncanny as his transformed demeanor.

Rather than answer, the crown prince idly wagged his sword tip. The elf glared at him and let his blade hang down.

"Ahhh."

He began humming softly, then stepped forward, dragging his toes.

SHUFFLE, STEP. SHUFFLE, STEP.

The scrape of his feet layered itself over his low, eerie humming.

SCRRRAPE.

Then came the rasp of his sword scraping the floor. The bizarre sounds made the listeners' minds reel. Karl clutched at his constricting heart and staggered.

"Urgh."

Groans rose here and there, every one filled with pain, as though a nightmare were crushing them.

The elf's humming grew steadily faster. The intervals between the dragging sounds of his feet shortened. His sword scraped the floor with increasing urgency. The Royal Knights moaned in distress. Karl, too, gasped for breath, groaning over and over.

Just then—

HMMM.

A clear sword note pierced his ears. At the same time, his Rings began to resonate unbidden and pour out mana.

"Ah!"

Karl's clouded mind snapped awake.

But it lasted only a moment. The elf's melody began invading his consciousness again. Karl raised his hands, intending to cover his ears and circulate mana to resist that sinister song.

"Don't cover your ears!"

He would have done just that had the crown prince not shouted. But the crown prince told them to endure the pain, calling this a rare opportunity to hear a High Elf's melody.

"Remember how this feels."

He told them not to forget this moment. Before Karl could wonder what exactly he was supposed to remember, his Rings began to resound thunderously.

HMMMM!

At the same time, the ringing of the crown prince's sword soared.

* * *

I clicked my tongue. Before me, the Royal Knights groaned beneath the weight of that High Elf bastard's aura. Led by Karl, they were coming to their senses one by one and resisting, but their struggle was plain. The real Sword Dance had not even begun. He was only humming a melody. At this rate, once the dance began in earnest, it might bewitch them, and the melody might devour them.

I had to stop him now. And I was more than capable of it. His power was merely on par with the Overlord after its stature had been damaged. If I chose, I could crush him without even using Myth-grade Martial Spirit Hymns such as the [Poem of Bitter Anguish] or the [Poem of Creation]. Stopping this prelude to a dirge would be child's play.

But I did not. That would only end in a victory for me alone. What I wanted was something far greater.

「The elves to the forests, the dwarves beneath the earth.」

The covenant in the end-of-war declaration had already lost its power. Sigrun, who had left the forest and visited the kingdom uninvited, and the High Elf before me were proof. It was only natural.

In an age when even Myth-grade Martial Spirit Hymns were forgotten, reduced to meaningless songs, when the promises of the end-of-war declaration had become old tales no one believed, the prohibition imposed on the evil elves was as good as gone.

The breaking of the covenant was inevitable; war was fate. When that time came, humans would have to fight the elves again, as they had during the Great War. But this age was different. Knights who had transcended their stature no longer existed. Even the descendant of the mighty Marquis of the Azure Sky had only just approached Transcendence, without attaining it. If monsters like Sigrun emerged into the world and began running rampant, there would be no one to stop them. If war broke out as things stood, humanity's defeat was certain.

But the world did not condemn us simply to die. Martial Spirit Hymns might have been forgotten, but the humans of this age had a new power. The Mana Chain. A power of resonance, similar to the elves' melodies, yet different.

I gathered the mana released from my heart and formed a small Ring. As a mere imitation, it was incomparably less stable than the real thing, its waves faint, but it was enough to draw resonance from my heart. What I lacked, I borrowed from others. That would have been impossible had I not understood War Poems.

I looked at the High Elf. An esoteric art that an entire race had honed over countless ages was slowly taking shape. Compared with it, the song created by my false Ring and the Royal Knights' resonance was crude, with no rising or falling pitch, only variations in strength.

But—

"I am not wrong."

I was certain. This power was not mine alone.

It was an insight my uncle had given me when he made his Rings sing and resonate with my Martial Spirit Hymn of his own accord. It was the path that Winter Castle's countless Rangers and knights had shown me. An art that countless humans had refined while I slept, until at last they established it as a single discipline. The Mana Chain was another sword humanity had newly gained after Martial Spirit Hymns.

STEP.

At that very instant, the elven swordsman began his Sword Dance with a staggering step.