Radiance began to bloom from the door handle, spreading through the surrounding space in an instant like ink dispersing in water. The moment I saw it, I called out to Adil in excitement.

“Adil, it’s the radiance! The one mentioned in that old book!”

“R-really? But I can’t see...”

“Yes! There’s definitely something in there!”

From his reaction, Adil apparently couldn’t see this radiance either. Just like the radiance I’d seen before, it seemed visible only to me. Meanwhile, its brilliance was so dazzling I could barely keep my eyes open.

The radiance filling the entire space began to envelop me. Perhaps because the door was its source, the light stabbing at my eyes was brighter than any radiance I’d seen before. Maybe that was why I could feel intense dragon energy coursing through my whole body. In this state, I could surely use dragon speech freely. I might even be able to open that door with it.

[“Open.”]

Full of hope, I spoke in dragon speech and pulled the handle with all my strength. But no matter how many times I tried, the door showed no sign of opening. Instead, the harder I tried, the more pain spread through my fingertips, as though they were being burned. It felt as if some unknown being beyond the door was warning me not to enter.

At first, I refused to give up. Driven to desperation, I finally asked Adil’s permission and struck the door with all my might using the Dragon Bone Sword. But the door still showed no sign of opening. The burning pain only grew worse. If neither dragon speech nor the Dragon Bone Sword could open it, nothing I did was likely to work. Disappointing as it was, I had to give up.

“Haa...”

The moment I let go, the searing pain that had been shooting through my fingertips vanished as if it had never been there. I felt hollow. There had to be something beyond that door that could answer my questions. Was I really supposed to leave it behind and walk away? I sighed, my thoughts in turmoil. But just as I began wondering what to do next, something happened.

The radiance that had filled the space moments ago gathered into a single point, then began taking the shape of a tiny fairy. Startled, I lost the strength in my legs and sank to the floor. Adil hurried over in alarm and helped me up.

“Are you all right? What on earth happened...?”

“J-just a moment.”

Adil waited for an answer, concern written on his face, but I was in no position to give him one. ‘How did that appear?’ The fairy, glowing with a clear, luminous light, looked like a young boy. He was only a little bigger than my fist. Perhaps the unknown being beyond the door had sent him as a messenger to tell me something.

“Adil, can you see this fairy?”

I asked, just in case.

“A fairy?”

As I’d suspected, the fairy seemed visible only to me. I briefly described what I saw, and Adil could barely contain his excitement.

“Perhaps the fairy you’re seeing is a messenger Lord Bellium secretly left here.”

“A messenger from Lord Bellium...”

Now that he mentioned it, the idea wasn’t entirely implausible. If Bellium had wanted to pass something on to later generations, leaving it behind this way wouldn’t have been so strange. When I nodded, Adil excitedly offered more theories.

“It might be another remnant of Lord Bellium’s consciousness that no one has discovered until now. Or perhaps—even more astonishing—Lord Bellium himself has manifested!”

Though he had no way to prove any of it, Adil bounced with excitement, saying this could be an incredible discovery. Perhaps amused by the sight of him, the fairy smiled. Whatever the theory, there was only one way to find out whether it was right. I approached the fairy, crouched down, looked him in the eyes, and asked,

“Who are you?”

Instead of answering, the fairy gave an unreadable smile, beckoned as though telling me to follow, and flew off somewhere.

“Adil, the fairy’s moving. I think we should follow him!”

“Right!”

Adil hurriedly gathered his things and followed me at a brisk pace. All the way there, he could hardly contain his excitement at the possibility of witnessing the historic moment when Bellium manifested. The fairy even glanced back from time to time, as if checking that I was keeping up.

And then, at last, he stopped. The place he had led me to was—

“Adil, is this...?”

“The passage to the lowest level, where Lord Bellium’s remains lie.”

Could this really be a coincidence? No. It couldn’t.

“I was going to show you around everywhere else first and bring you here last...”

Adil put his hands on his hips and groaned.

“But since we’ve come this far, I’ll change the plan and take you to the lowest level, where Lord Bellium’s remains are laid to rest, first. We were going there anyway. This place has layers of security magic too, though, so it’ll take at least a few minutes just to disable it and open the door.”

Sure enough, a magic circle so intricate it made my head ache blocked the passage down to the lowest level. Given the layers of magic circles guarding the relics earlier, that was hardly surprising. Hadn’t Adil said an artifact serving as an entry pass was essential to get inside? But that wasn’t all. The magic circle here was incomparably more elaborate than the ones elsewhere; even with the artifact, disabling it would take several minutes.

While Adil rummaged through his bag for the artifact that would disable the security, the fairy suddenly reached toward the magic circle. The moment he did, a gap large enough for one or two people appeared in it, as if by magic.

“Where did I put it...?”

Still searching for the artifact, Adil missed the astonishing sight entirely.

“Adil. Adil!”

I called to him excitedly and pointed at the magic circle, which had already been opened.

“Good heavens. What on earth...?”

Adil shuddered as though he had goosebumps.

“Th-that isn’t supposed to be so easy to open...”

He muttered, stunned.

But however difficult disabling the magic circle was supposed to be, the way to the lowest level was already open.

“Let’s go for now.”

I brought the bewildered Adil along and followed the fairy down. After what felt like a long descent through a narrow passage, I finally reached the secret lowest level of the Sanctuary.

The space was enormous—at a glance, it looked at least ten times the size of a soccer field. And there, squarely in the center, stood Bellium’s remains.

“Ah...”

A sound of wonder escaped me as I stood before the enormous skeleton. Its size was overwhelming, but that was not the only thing about it. Perhaps it had been exceptionally well preserved, or perhaps a dragon’s bones held something human bones did not. Looking at Bellium’s remains, I felt an indescribably majestic, overpowering presence.

Adil stood beside me, gazing at Bellium’s remains with tears in his eyes.

“It’s been so long since I last saw him. It moves me.”

Though he had seen the remains several times before, the feeling they inspired apparently hadn’t faded.

“And I’m excited too. If what the old book says is true, Lord Bellium may have been waiting all these years to meet you, Minjun.”

“It feels strange to hear you say that.”

“Oh, where is that fairy now?”

Adil was asking about the fairy only I could see—the one who had guided us here.

“Now that you mention it...”

He had been right here a moment ago, but I couldn’t see him anymore.

“Where did he go?”

That was when I noticed something.

Light remarkably like the radiance I’d seen before was shining from Bellium’s skull. Streaming out from inside his skeletal head, it almost looked like light blazing from eyes that had suddenly opened. Before I could say anything, Adil pointed at it.

“Could that be...?”

“Can you see that light?”

Ever since I first saw the radiance, I’d been told that no one in Elysium could see it. But judging by Adil’s reaction, he could see this light now too.

“Of course! That’s it—that’s the remnant of Lord Bellium’s consciousness I told you about!”

“Th-that light?”

At last, the radiance’s identity had been revealed.

“Yes!”

Like a devout believer meeting the god he worshipped, Adil dropped to his knees and prayed toward Bellium’s remains, tears welling in his eyes.

“Oh, Bellium! Our father, our savior, our eternal friend!”

How deeply moved must he have been?

“Adil, that beautiful light is the one I told you only I could see.”

“... Ah!”

Joy. Astonishment. Adil’s eyes widened. Then he said,

“Then perhaps—you might be able to hear Lord Bellium’s wishes, Minjun!”

Before we came to the Sanctuary, Adil had told me that a remnant of Bellium’s consciousness remained here, but it was so faint that communicating with him was virtually impossible. Perhaps this time, though, it might be possible.

“Then I’ll try.”

I gazed at the radiance shining from the skull like light from a pair of eyes and slowly drew closer, as though meeting his gaze. The closer I came, the brighter the radiance grew, little by little. My heart felt ready to burst, and my entire body seemed to boil like a furnace. Then I knew it instinctively: I would gain something meaningful here, whatever it might be. Before I realized it, I was standing right in front of the remains.

THUD-THUD-THUD!

My pulse raced so wildly it felt close to its limit. When I looked down at myself, my whole body was wrapped in dazzling radiance. As though entranced, I reached toward Bellium’s remains without thinking. I should have asked Adil first whether I could lay a hand on these sacred bones, but the thought never even crossed my mind. Before I knew it, I had reached out and touched them.

The instant my hand met Bellium’s remains, an unfamiliar light began to shine from my body.

But my light was a little different from Bellium’s. If his was a supernova, blindingly bright and brilliant, the light coming from me was like the Milky Way: dark space threaded with starlight until it formed a galaxy.

Immediately afterward, something—perhaps a hallucination, perhaps not—began to unfold before me. I saw a dragon who appeared to be Bellium while he was alive.