As Najin raised his sword, he thought about how little he could hear or see.

Relying on Merlin’s whispers and the direction she pointed out, he took his stance. His half-closed eyes were looking not at reality, but within himself. Najin immersed himself in his own inner world.

The mental image gathered on his sword scattered motes of light. Golden flashes burst over the unsullied, pure-white sword aura. An aura of white and gold coiled around the longsword’s blade.

Pain throbbed, and Najin frowned. Even raising his sword was a struggle. He could easily predict what would happen after he swung it. He would probably spill blood and collapse. Wasn’t the mere fact that he was still standing already something close to a miracle?

He wished that miracle would last just a few seconds longer.

His sword hand trembled violently. Merlin firmly laid both her hands over his. Her touch had no substance, but he could feel her emotions: worry, anxiety, and encouragement that was a little stronger than either. Najin smiled despite himself.

‘Merlin.’

“Yes?”

‘Thank you.’

“Just words?”

“Then treat me better,” Merlin said with a sigh.

Najin steadied his breathing. Before he knew it, his hand had stopped trembling. The moment it was still, he swung his sword.

First Horn: Triumphant Return.

Najin brought his sword down as Alderan had.

2.

A battlefield upon which countless constellations had descended.

Overhead, more than a hundred stars shone, each in its own color. This was a battlefield where even the most formidable transcendent beings were reduced to bit players.

Naturally, there was no place here for Najin, who had yet to reach transcendence.

Everyone thought so. No one paid any attention to the boy slumped on the ground behind them. There was no need to spare a glance for someone who could not even step onto the stage. But Najin would not let them keep ignoring him.

Najin’s star shone.

The light it produced was absurdly weak compared to the Constellations’ starlight. It could fairly be called insignificant—a young star that could not even form a proper constellation.

Yet even so, Najin’s star shone.

A star shining pure white.

The Constellations were drawn to that pure light. For a brief moment, silence fell over the tumultuous battlefield. Mid-swing, mid-thrust, even as they drew their bowstrings, they stopped everything and looked back.

Drawing starlight to him, the boy raised his sword.

A boy who had not reached transcendence imitated it.

The moment Najin brought down the sword he had raised high into the sky, sword aura erupted from its tip. Pure-white light raced across the battlefield, trailed by a swarm of golden motes. It swept through the jesters and surged toward the Emperor of Revelry.

The Constellations who witnessed the strike widened their eyes. That blow had unmistakably approached transcendence.

Of course, any one of the Constellations gathered here could deliver a more powerful strike. Not one of them was weaker than Najin. But they felt it instinctively.

That was different. They could not explain what made it different, but their intuition told them that this strike, made of pure starlight, deserved to claim the leading role on this battlefield.

“Open it,” someone murmured.

“Open a path.”

That murmur spoke for them all. Shouting, the Constellations drove the jesters back. Actors reduced to bit players hurled themselves at the jesters, opening a path so the boy’s sword aura would not lose speed.

The supporting cast knocked aside every spell and technique the jesters unleashed to block his sword aura. As though bewitched, Constellations who treasured their starlight so dearly spent it to clear the way.

They opened, cleared, and swept the way, making a path.

Along the path they made, Najin’s sword aura raced.

“How dare you!”

Quixote moved to intercept the strike, but Yuel and Kirchhoff stood in his way. Until moments ago, they had held the leading roles on this battlefield. Now, they yielded those roles to Najin.

They pushed aside the final obstacle.

The way to the Emperor of Revelry lay open.

Borrowing Merlin’s eyes and ears, aided by the stars, Najin’s sword stroke finally crossed the battlefield and reached the Emperor of Revelry.

CRACK!

Caught in the sword aura, the Emperor of Revelry’s mask split.

A few severed strands of her hair drifted through the air. It was no meaningful damage, far from a mortal wound. But the Emperor was not the only thing Najin had cut.

Alderan’s helmet.

Najin had cut through the helmet the Emperor had placed on Alderan’s head. Split in two, it fell away. His sword aura, carrying pure starlight, swept away the threads the Emperor had cast over Alderan’s head, if only for an instant.

... Under normal circumstances, Alderan Basaglia would not become one of the Lost. He had burst his own heart, and Najin had cut it. With his heart cleaved by pure starlight, he had met a true death. Under normal circumstances, that was how it should have been.

But the Emperor of Revelry had brought Alderan back to life.

Using her authority, she had bound his torn heart back together, making him move as one of the Lost. To turn him into a jester, she first had to revive him. Her plan was to make the revived Alderan her jester.

An unforeseen factor disrupted that plan.

Najin had swept away her threads. What remained where those threads had been was one of the Lost who had not yet become a jester.

The Lost man’s hand twitched.

The Lost were those who forgot themselves, craved starlight, and repeated the actions they had performed in life. And what Alderan had done in life... was simplicity itself.

The instant his helmet came off, Alderan’s body moved in a sudden rush.

His hand shot out in the blink of an eye and clamped around the Emperor of Revelry’s throat. Holding her by the neck, Alderan Basaglia straightened his bent knees. He rose, lifting her into the air by her throat.

Alderan Basaglia was a knight.

Alderan Basaglia was the Empire’s foremost warrior.

A knight never compromised with devils, and the Empire’s hero never bowed before its enemies. Even as one of the Lost, he had not forgotten his mission.

A knight killed devils.

The Empire’s hero killed the Empire’s enemies.

As Alderan strangled her, the Emperor of Revelry showed something other than laughter for the first time.

Shock. Fear. And joy and fervor.

Conflicting emotions colored the two halves of her face. Soon, countless jesters rushed Alderan to rescue their mistress. They pinned his body down, pulled at his arms, and fastened threads to him.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Throwing off every hand, Alderan rampaged among the jesters. He would not release the Emperor’s throat from his savage, beastlike grip. Crushing the jesters charging him, Alderan Basaglia roared.

Even dozens of jesters rushing him were not enough to stop Alderan. Without so much as holding a sword, he tore them apart barehanded, then slammed the Emperor into the ground by her throat.

BOOM!

A great crater gouged the earth.

He did it again and again. Even as the jesters tore at his arms and ripped his skin, he did not stop.

CRUNCH! THUD! BOOM!

With Quixote joining them, they finally subdued Alderan and freed the Emperor from his grip... but in doing so, they created a tremendous opening. Before being Constellations, everyone gathered here was a transcendent being. They had reached the realm of transcendence through countless battles.

They would not miss an opening.

“Now’s the time.”

“Now.”

The tide began to turn.

And the Emperor of Revelry...

Freed from Alderan’s hand, she rubbed her neck, where the marks of his fingers remained. With her mask stripped away by Najin and her bare face exposed, she was no longer smiling. She raised her head and looked at someone.

“...”

Her gaze was not on the Constellations charging her. Nor was she looking at Alderan, who shrieked like a beast in Quixote’s grip. She glared at Najin, standing farther away, beyond them all.

The boy who had severed her threads.

Someone outside the stage, someone she had never even taken an interest in, had upset the battlefield. Slowly, she ran a finger down her cheek. Blood stained its tip.

Najin’s strike had split her mask and wounded her face.

He had made her bleed, however slightly.

Her first blood in 150 years.

It had been no less than 150 years since her true body behind the mask had been wounded. The Emperor of Revelry felt a torrent of emotions toward this being who had appeared in Alderan Basaglia’s wake, who might become her natural enemy.

Najin’s gaze met hers.

“Quixote.”

The Emperor of Revelry extended her hand and pointed at Najin.

“Kill him.”

3.

After swinging his sword, Najin collapsed without seeing the result. Blood pooled where he fell. The price of imitating transcendence without having reached it was steep.

“Stay... wake...!”

Merlin’s voice sounded distant. His eyelids kept trying to close. He strained to keep his eyes open, but they shut as drowsiness overwhelmed him.

He blinked, closing his eyes and opening them again.

“Hey!”

Merlin’s voice rang out loudly. Najin realized he had briefly lost consciousness. Through his hazy awareness, he saw someone standing before him.

“Are you coming to your senses?”

Noticing he was awake, the figure spoke. That voice was familiar, devoid of inflection. It was Yuel Razian’s voice. She looked back at him.

Najin could not understand why she was standing before him when she should have been deep in the battlefield.

Had she read his unspoken question? Looking straight at him, Yuel spoke.

“The battle has changed,” she said.

“The Emperor of Revelry was trying to retrieve that Lost one and flee, but she changed course. All her jesters began charging at you. It seems that devil wants you dead.”

She pointed ahead. Countless jesters were rushing toward them, their eyes gleaming. The Constellations blocked their path, while Kirchhoff and Yuel held them off.

“That devil, so preoccupied with her own safety and minimizing her losses in any situation... is willing to suffer losses to kill you. How curious.”

Yuel swung her sword impassively.

“My patron deity tells me to protect you. There is no need to go so far as to order me, but she remains a nuisance. In any case...”

Every time she swung her sword, screams echoed across the battlefield. In a clear voice utterly at odds with those echoes, Yuel spoke.

“You were magnificent. It was not the transcendent beings who changed this battlefield, but you, who have yet to reach transcendence. You may take pride in that.”

As she spoke, Yuel looked back at him.

“Najin.”

Najin opened his mouth but could not speak. His voice would not come out. Yet as though she had never expected an answer, Yuel smiled at him. It was the first radiant smile she had shown him.

A smile of barely containable delight.

“You never fail to entertain me.”

If the Emperor of Revelry feared unforeseen factors and hated those who introduced them, the woman before him stood at the opposite extreme.

A murderous fiend who delighted in the unpredictable and adored those who brought it about.

The order’s executioner laughed. She laughed aloud, as though nothing could delight her more. Still smiling, Yuel said lightly,

“Rest.”

She let her sword hang at her side.

“There is much I would like to discuss with you, but it can wait.”

Turning her back on the boy who had leaped onto the stage and done more than his allotted role, Yuel swung her sword. Najin had exceeded expectations. He had accomplished what none of the countless stars gathered here had managed.

The world called those who turned the tide of battle heroes. By that measure, Najin was a hero.

And, as it always did, the world exulted in a hero’s presence. The Constellations gathered here were no different. Now they bore names such as crows, hunters, and opportunists... but they, too, had once been heroes.

On the battlefield where a hero was born, the stars shone.

To imitate that hero.

The transcendent beings were, in turn, imitating Najin, who had imitated transcendence. The stars shining in every color overhead staked their lives on achieving a great feat.

The sword aura Najin had unleashed had not brought victory to a war as Alderan’s had, but it had created a turning point toward victory.

However imperfectly, Najin had lit the beacon of Triumphant Return.

Countless stars were drawn to that beacon.

They clung to Quixote’s legs, hurled themselves at his warhorse to unseat him, and tore into him heedless of their own bodies being impaled. Thus they began to close in on the Emperor of Revelry.

It looked more like madness than anything else.

The flames one boy had kindled spread. They were engulfing the battlefield.

“...”

Watching the scene, Najin slowly closed his eyes. His mind was hazy. He wanted to join their ranks, but he had no strength left to do so.

Forcing his eyes open one last time, he stared across the battlefield. By chance, his gaze met the Emperor of Revelry’s.

No, it was no coincidence. She had been watching him all along. The moment he looked at her, their eyes were bound to meet.

Their gazes crossed.

Clouded eyes stained with every color and eyes shining white-gold reflected one another.

The ten-star ruler of the Outer Lands and the four-star boy who had only just set foot there glared at one another. And instinctively, they knew.

They could never coexist.

They suddenly realized that neither could bear to let the other live—that each was the other’s natural enemy.

‘Without fail.’

Najin and the Emperor of Revelry had the same thought at the same moment. Their backgrounds and beliefs were entirely different, yet the conclusion they reached was exactly the same.

‘I will kill you. Without fail.’