Najin hurled his sword high into the sky and drew his spear. The instant he gripped its shaft with the hands that had held his sword, he thrust it forward. Every movement flowed seamlessly into the next.

Battering Ram.

The instant Najin thrust his spear, everything in the city stopped at once. The cityscape folding toward Najin and Argo, the wave of bricks and buildings, even the raining arrows—all were held in place.

The stillness lasted only an instant. The briefest of instants.

Neither magic nor Mystery had brought it about. It was merely a deadlock created by force and impact acting in precisely the opposite direction. Naturally, that deadlock did not last long.

CRR... CRRRRACK...

The force erupting from Najin's spearhead was stronger than the force folding the city. The balanced scales tipped in his favor. The tempest bursting from his spearhead pushed the folding city back the other way.

KRRRRRRAAAASH!

The tempest ground the wave of buildings and bricks to pieces. The rain of arrows cleared. Like a ship's prow cleaving waves and smashing through ice, Battering Ram shattered every last obstacle blocking Najin's path.

Argo's eyes widened at the sight, as did those of Schmitz and the priests of the Order of the Starbody standing behind them. Anyone's would have. It would have been strange not to be astonished by a single strike piercing through a city surging toward them like a wave.

"..."

Najin silently reached upward. The longsword he had thrown high into the sky before unleashing Battering Ram fell straight into his outstretched hand. Catching it, he looked ahead and clicked his tongue.

'He would have smashed through that bell tower too. I'm not at that level yet.'

-The Star of the Horn? Or the Star of the First Horn?

'Both of them. I think either one would have pierced all the way through that bell tower.'

-They're both transcendent beings.

Which meant he still had a long way to go.

Merlin gave Najin a sidelong look that said, 'What is he talking about?' Argo, standing beside him, wore much the same look.

Of course, Argo could not read Najin's thoughts, but he could at least tell that Najin was not satisfied with the strike he had just unleashed.

'He looks dissatisfied, as though that wasn't enough.'

Argo looked ahead. A cityscape with a broad, clear road lay before him. He glanced at the boy who had opened a road straight through the center of the free city of Pavane and laughed in disbelief.

That wasn't enough? That? In what possible way?

He wanted to demand an explanation, but there was no time. At the far end of their unobstructed view, a devil had appeared before the bell tower.

Orgis, the Knight Devil.

The moment Najin saw the devil's true body, his face twisted. Was this what they meant by a devil made of knights? He understood its name at once.

Orgis was not humanoid. It more closely resembled a beast crawling over the ground, except that unlike an ordinary beast with four legs, Orgis had many. A great many.

Roughly forty legs sprouted from each side. Those legs were made of knights' body parts. Heads, legs, arms, torsos... The corpses of countless knights served as legs supporting Orgis.

A devil made of knights.

Moving on knights' arms and legs.

A devil held aloft by knights.

Its very existence was a desecration and mockery of the concept of knighthood. Najin felt the back of his neck tighten. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Sir Argo."

Their gazes briefly met. Words were unnecessary. They already knew the plan. As soon as they nodded to each other, Najin and Argo kicked off the ground and began to run.

2.

As Najin and Argo began to run, Orgis moved in response.

There was no need for eighty legs simply to walk. Humans lived their lives on two legs, and beasts managed perfectly well on four. Yet, as though mocking them, Orgis moved using all eighty.

It looked at once like a rolling ball and a spider scuttling along a wall.

-Ugh, uuugh, bleurgh!

While Merlin retched at the grotesque sight, Najin clicked his tongue. Ridiculous and bizarre as its movements were, he could not deny their efficiency.

Dozens of hands seized buildings and pulled its body forward, then dozens of feet kicked off the ground to accelerate. Closing the distance in an instant, Orgis lunged at Najin.

'Left. Right. Diagonal. Spears, swords, maces, chains. Six diagonally, then seven, then three...'

Najin's eyes darted rapidly.

He calculated the dozens of arms and legs Orgis was swinging, the weapons they held, and their trajectories. He finished those calculations in an instant and was about to move when—

FWUMP!

Hidden limbs shot out of Orgis's back. Najin frowned as the number of attack directions instantly doubled. It was too late to calculate. He moved first.

Seven spears thrust toward him. Five arrows fired. Eight maces, twelve longswords, five greatswords, three rapiers, seven war hammers...

All those attacks came almost simultaneously. Spears thrust, swords slashed, axes chopped down. The arms sprouting from Orgis's back drew longbow strings without pause, and the projectiles they fired were not ordinary arrows, but the longswords and rapiers the knights had held.

CLANG, CLATTER-CLANG!

Each individual attack was insignificant, but the power they produced in combination could not be ignored. Though Najin faced only one devil, he felt as though he were fighting dozens of knights at once.

Knights in squads. Well-trained knights launching coordinated attacks. Knight orders that had once flown different banners now moved as one beneath the banner of the devil Orgis.

The knights' weapons no longer shone. As corpses, they could no longer produce sword aura or aura. The devil's demonic energy took their place.

Pitch-black, gleaming demonic energy replaced their sword aura. Enveloping the knights' limbs and the weapons they held, it burned black.

"..."

Najin's expression hardened as he faced them. Corpses defiled, insulted, and made ridiculous. The devil before him reminded him of another devil.

The devil of revelry. The Emperor of Revelry.

Wasn't this exactly the sort of thing that madwoman would do? Remembering the jesters she commanded, Najin gritted his teeth.

"Sir Argo!"

As Najin shouted, Argo darted in from Orgis's flank. His thrust struck precisely through the opening Najin had created while blocking the attacks, drawing a little blood from Orgis.

Argo planted his foot and spun.

He twisted his body as he swung his sword. A second strike flowing from the first. Atanga's swordsmanship. Just as that second attack was about to draw more blood, Orgis leaped far backward.

ROOOAAAR!

Having opened the distance in an instant with its dozens of legs, Orgis roared and drove its limbs into the ground. At that moment, the city throbbed with a great pulse, like a single living creature.

Once again, the city began to "fold."

But unlike before, it did not surge toward them like a wave. Buildings and bricks gaped like open jaws, glaring at Najin and Argo as though guarding the area around Orgis. They remained half folded, with narrow gaps left between them.

Both men knew exactly what would happen the moment those jaws caught them—the moment they were "wedged" between the upper and lower jaws.

The Knight Devil had unleashed Bookmark's power.

Argo smiled bitterly at the sight. He had faced the same situation some twenty years ago. Back then, too, Orgis had spread the Masterpiece's power around itself in just that fashion.

["About that."]

Argo remembered what his fellow knight from the same cohort had said then.

["Couldn't we turn it against the thing?"]

As he spoke, his comrade had pointed at the Knight Devil.

["Let's go, Argo."]

["Yes. Like you said, we're weaker than that thing. Damnably weaker. It devoured senior knights far stronger than us. But is that any reason to retreat?"]

["I'll ask you again, Argo."]

["Do you think that's a reason for a knight of Atanga to retreat?"]

["How can we call ourselves knights if we get scared and back away just because our enemy is strong? I'm a knight. What about you, Argo?"]

Argo smiled as he remembered that exchange. Back then, he had been unable to answer his dear friend's question, but now...

Argo looks ahead.

The enemy is formidable, ranked among the strongest Sword Seekers. The nightmare of that day stands there, stronger than it was twenty years ago. Back then, it had only folded trees and rocks at most. Now, it folds an entire city.

All the better.

Argo's lips curled upward at the thought. There was no need to answer aloud. He gave the answer he had been unable to give twenty years ago through his actions.

TAP!

Argo kicked off the ground and ran. This was not like that day, when he had watched his dear friend's back as he charged ahead. Argo ran at the very front.

'I am a knight too, Ivan.'

He could not let Ivan be the only knight.

'This time...'

Argo smiled as he sensed Najin running after him.

"You follow me."

3.

Masterpiece No. 4, Bookmark.

The activation conditions and abilities of Bookmark, barely uncovered through the sacrifice of dozens of knights, were as follows.

Just as a bookmark was placed between the pages of a book before it was closed, the Masterpiece Bookmark activated when wedged inside something. The problem lay in the excessively broad scope of its power.

Bookmark could fold anything its owner perceived as a "book." Absolutely anything, provided it was not a living creature with a soul.

Depending on that perception, its power could extend to trees, cities, land, villages—there was no limit to how broad its scope could become. That alone made it dangerous enough... but if that were all it did, it could not have killed dozens of knights.

Dozens of knights had died during the Masterpiece's retrieval because of the ability Bookmark activated when something was wedged between things.

An object caught between pages. Something tucked into the folds of a book. The Masterpiece Bookmark defined such an object as a bookmark. In other words, the instant a target was wedged between things its owner perceived as pages, that target became a bookmark.

An impossibly thin sheet.

A bookmark in the shape of a human.

The girl who had discovered the Masterpiece by chance had fallen asleep thinking that her bed and blanket were just like the pages of a book, and that she was lying between books.

["Mom, Mom? Mom, where did you go?"]

As a result, when the girl opened her eyes, her parents lay beside her, transformed into bookmarks. It was no different when she went outside the village. A village full of bookmarks. At that point, the Masterpiece began to run wild. It had recognized the entire bookmark-filled village as "a single book."

That was the truth behind the Masterpiece retrieval operation that had killed dozens of knights. Those were Bookmark's abilities, revealed through the sacrifice of dozens of knights and a hundred soldiers.

["So the Knight Devil took that power."]

After hearing the account, Ivan had spoken.

["Look closely, and you'll see that devil doesn't include itself in the area it folds. The owner of a Masterpiece should normally be exempt from its power."]

["In the end, the Knight Devil is a devil made of 'knights' corpses.' And it gets its strength from those corpses."]

["We thought of them as parts of Orgis's body, but what if Orgis sees them as tools?"]

In that case, Ivan had said with a smile...

["Argo, there's something we're good at, isn't there?"]

["Parrying."]

["Let's knock them aside. Toward those 'folding' parts."]

Remembering those words...

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

With a single longsword, Argo swept around Orgis's reaching limbs and the weapons they held, knocking them aside. In the past, blocking even one attack had left him sweating. Now, he could deflect three weapons at once.

Parrying.

The technique of knocking aside an opponent's attack.

Atanga's swordsmanship aimed to defeat an opponent head-on. Thus, parrying was both its foundation and one of its most important principles.

Naturally, having learned Atanga's swordsmanship, Argo was adept at parrying. Yet "adept" alone was not enough to describe his skill.

After the failed pursuit of the Knight Devil, Argo had devoted himself still more deeply to parrying. He had become consumed by the technique. Now, some twenty years later, his parrying had reached a singular point.

CLAAANG!

Argo's parrying did not merely knock aside or repel an opponent's attacks. With exacting precision, it guided them to the point he desired.

Caught in the sweep of Argo's sword, Orgis's limbs bent in strange directions.

The "pages" formed from parts of the city tried to close over Argo, but what they trapped was not Argo. It was the limbs of Orgis that he had parried.

CRUNCH!

The pages closed over Orgis's limbs. In that instant, three of the limbs composing its body turned into thin sheets. Najin darted in without missing the moment and neatly severed the parts that had become bookmarks.

For while cutting off a devil's limbs was difficult, cutting through bookmarks was all too easy.