The boy does not know how brightly the stars shine.

The boy does not know how warm the sun is.

The boy had never enjoyed what everyone else took for granted. He had been born in a deep underground city where neither starlight nor sunlight reached. Even when he looked up at the sky, all he could see was the dark ceiling of the underground city.

Born among discarded things, the boy dreamed. Gazing at a ceiling without stars, he yearned to have a star of his own. To become someone who shone wherever he might be. To possess a brilliant light, like the knights and heroes in fairy tales. With a worn, tattered storybook in his hands, the boy dreamed.

Even knowing that dream could never come true. Even knowing it was a desire far above his station. The boy could not let it go.

2.

The first thing children in the underground city learn is how to give up. More precisely, it is less something they learn than something they come to realize... From a very young age, the children of this city suddenly understand that they will rot here for the rest of their lives. That they will never escape this city.

Nothing they do will take them to the world above. Naturally, they learn to give up and resign themselves to their fate. It does not take long for the eyes of dreaming children to grow as murky as the fog blanketing the underground city.

Najin was no different.

Najin knew about his talent. He had always said he did not place too much faith in it, but he had some idea of just how immense it was.

'How could I not know?'

Najin had sharp eyes. He was observant, sensitive to changes in other people's expressions, and quick to read a situation. That was why he had always noticed how Offen and Ivan reacted with amazement whenever he swung his sword, whenever he did something. How they sometimes forced that amazement down and treated him as though he were nothing special. Najin was not stupid enough to miss their intentions.

He knew. All of it.

He knew his talent did not belong in this city. He knew it was abnormal even in the eyes of powerful men like Ivan and Offen. He knew Ivan was wary of his talent and trying to control the pace of his growth. He knew it all.

He had merely closed his eyes and stopped his ears, pretending not to know.

'It wouldn't get me to the world above anyway.'

No matter how brilliantly his talent shone. No matter how immense it was. In the end, he would have to rot in this city.

That was why Najin had always resigned himself to his fate. Even when he saw a light before him, he did not reach for it if it lay beyond the line. That light was not meant for him.

Resigning himself. Giving up. Forgetting. Shaking it off.

Time and again, the boy had whittled away his confidence. Yet no matter how much he stripped away, one thing remained.

His longing for a star.

Najin looked ahead. There stood the dream he had never been able to let go of. Excalibur, the holy sword that had been there at both the beginning and the end of The Life of Arthur, a symbol of King Arthur himself. The moment he saw that sword shining like a star, Najin knew instinctively that he could not strip this away too.

'I don't care how badly things go wrong.'

The boy lives for today.

As the eyes of dreaming children so often do, Najin's eyes shone in that moment. Not with the dim sunset hues of the underground city, but with platinum light, like a star.

Crossing the line Ivan had drawn for him, crossing the boundary the powerful people above had drawn for everyone in this city, Najin gripped the sword tight.

The instant Najin grasped the Sword of Stars, the thirteen stars engraved on Excalibur's blade sparkled. Star linked to star, forming a constellation.

Then came a sound.

BOOM.

The holy sword began to ring. Its majestic resonance, heard for the first time in centuries, shook the underground city. But it was not only the underground city that shook.

No one here could know it, for the stars were hidden from view, but the moment Najin grasped the holy sword, the celestial bodies in the night sky trembled. The greatest constellation, motionless for hundreds of years, had risen.

3.

On the vast grasslands of the Empire of Britain.

Gerd stopped mid-swing and looked up. The once-quiet night sky was shaking. Amid that roiling sky, he felt the seven stars he had hung there tremble.

A swordsman who possessed stars, though he had not become a Constellation. The old man known as the empire's greatest swordsman and its only Sword Master smiled up at the sky.

At the highest point of the Order of the Sword.

Karon paused in tending his sword and looked toward the window. Beyond it stretched the vast night sky. Feeling the six stars he had hung there tremble, he put down his sword and approached the window. He opened it and looked out. At the center of the turbulent night sky was the constellation his order worshipped.

The Constellation, the Sword of Selection.

The constellation that had remained silent for so long was stirring violently. Karon let out a low murmur at the sight.

The master of the Order of the Sword, Karon the Sword Saint, instinctively knew he had lost his chance to obtain the holy sword.

At the execution grounds of the Order of Starblood.

Yuel had been drinking from a bottle, her bloodstained sword hanging at her side, when she suddenly looked up. She had felt the six stars she had hung in the sky tremble. Finishing her drink, she set the bottle down with a sharp tap and twisted her lips into a smile as she gazed upward.

Yuel Razian, executioner of the Order of Starblood.

With one more person to kill, the murderous woman looked up at the night sky and burst into laughter.

Those qualified to attempt selection through the Trial of the Stars looked up at the night sky and realized that someone had completed the trial.

And then there were the astrologers who studied the stars and the astronomers who observed their movements. The Gray Tower, where they gathered, was thrown into an uproar by the constellations' unexpected turbulence. Countless constellations were heaving violently. They were horrified, for the Constellations had never stirred so dramatically...

But when they realized that a single star was causing all of it, they could scarcely believe their eyes. A star that had not moved once in hundreds of years was moving.

The greatest star. A constellation composed of thirteen stars.

The Sword of Selection was surging into motion.

They were not the only ones looking up.

Everyone, adults and children alike, raised their heads to the sky. They marveled at the trembling night sky, while some were afraid.

The sky shakes.

The stars churn.

The resonance that had begun in the underground city deep beneath the earth reached beyond it, to those who lived on the ground above, and farther still, into the night sky.

The turbulent night sky.

The smaller constellations screamed as they were swept along by the movement of the greatest star. Those that held their places within that immense current remained silent. The silent ones had become stars long ago, in the age of heroes. They were the ones who had crossed the continent with King Arthur.

They understood that the great hero who had led an age had moved. They sensed that the course of the age, halted by Arthur that day, was about to move once more.

And another Constellation...

The constellation closest to the Sword of Selection, the one who had accompanied King Arthur from the beginning of his journey to its end, the one who had sealed away the original Excalibur.

The Constellation, the Staff of Selection.

Merlin, the Mage of the Lake, opened her eyes wide.

Excalibur, which should have lain quietly at the bottom of the lake where she dwelled, was scattering light. It was the first such change in hundreds of years.

Centuries ago, at the end of their journey, Excalibur had lost its light along with its master. After the First Knight returned it to the lake, it had never shone again. Yet now it was scattering brilliant starlight.

Merlin's lake turned platinum.

Then, in a flash, Excalibur dissolved into light and scattered.

The original Excalibur sealed at the bottom of the lake, and every copy of it scattered throughout the cities on the surface, all dissolved into light.

The scattered lights converge toward Excalibur, now the only one.

No one can see that procession of light. Not even Merlin. Only a certain boy who has passed the Trial of the Stars is permitted to behold it.

It had happened in the blink of an eye. A change in a fleeting instant. Merlin knew better than anyone what it meant. And because she knew, she bit down hard on her lip.

Someone had completed the Trial of the Stars.

The holy sword that had chosen no one for hundreds of years—Excalibur had selected its master.

In other words, someone had appeared. Someone who would succeed her king. Someone who would write the next chapter of The Life of Arthur, left unfinished that day, had finally appeared.

Merlin was not the only one who sensed it.

At the end of the world lay Camlann, the abyss where stars fell. It was where Arthur's journey had ended, where he had sacrificed himself to bring everything to a halt. The beings in that land where time did not flow also witnessed the shaking of the night sky.

The cursed dragon stirred.

The Witch of Fallen Things smiled.

The traitor of the Round Table rejoiced.

And the stars that had fallen in the distant past raged.

In this moment, all those who had fallen into the underground city, the countless powerful figures who walked the earth above, the transcendent beings shining in the night sky higher still, and the cursed things of Camlann at the end of the world—all turned their attention to the change wrought by a boy in the lowest place. To the ripples he had set in motion. To the changes he would bring.

CRACK!

The sword is drawn.

By a single boy.

BOOM, BOOOOM...

The sword begins to ring.

By the hand of a boy who had possessed nothing.

The sword's ringing resonance. The swirling starlight.

Starlight more brilliant than anything flooded the city of those who had forgotten the light of the stars. A wave of starlight washed the underground city of Atman pure white. Amid that flood, the boy adjusted his stance.

Recalling a passage he had read over and over in his storybook, Najin held the sword just as King Arthur had.

Arthur had drawn the sword no one else could draw with only one hand. Though he exerted no strength, the sword had slipped free of its own accord the moment his hand touched it. It had acknowledged Arthur as its master.

It was the same for Najin.

The instant Najin grasped it, Excalibur slid out of the rock of its own accord. Trailing platinum starlight as it emerged, the holy sword had selected the boy.

SHING.

At last, Excalibur revealed itself in full. A blade shining platinum. Thirteen stars adorning its length. The holy sword that had lost its light so long ago was shining in the boy's hand.

The shining sword heralds the beginning of a new history.

History, frozen for hundreds of years, began to move. New sentences began to appear in <The Life of Arthur>, which had remained unfinished for centuries, waiting for its next chapter to be written.

The name of the boy holding the Sword of Stars was Najin.

From a place where no stars could be seen, the boy who had kept reaching for them had finally grasped a star.

4.

Having cut his way through the surging addicts and escaped the mine tunnels, Ivan stopped mid-swing and looked up. There were still countless addicts to cut down, but in this moment he could not help himself.

A star had risen in the underground city of Atman.

Majestic bells resounded through Atman. Brilliant starlight overflowed. It was a sight the people of this city had long forgotten.

"..."

Offen, Ivan, even Horse, who had been fighting the two of them—all looked upward in silence. Starlight erupted from the center of the underground city and soared into the sky, reflected in their eyes. None of them could look away.

The dreams they had left behind in the world above were there.

With the rising of the star, the underground city's ceiling ceased to be a ceiling. Its dark expanse was now a vast night sky. Gazing at the star shining alone within it, Ivan gave a hollow laugh.

Ivan, the Knight Who Chased the Stars.

The knight who had once borne that name rejoiced before the risen star—and despaired. He thought he knew who had created that starlight. And he knew what would happen next.

"Najin, you goddamn brat," Ivan groaned. "What the hell have you done?"