Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume12 Chapter6 (section)

=== Part 1 ===

In an instant, cracks seemed to run through space. Something like heated iron bit through them and forced itself within.

Screams of pain rose from Orba’s mouth. Zafar’s parasitic existence was already inside him, and now some other foreign substance was creeping in. It felt as though his skin was splitting and his muscles were being torn off, and unable to bear the agony, he screamed.

''Guaaaaah!''

Zafar also appeared to be experiencing the same excruciating pain, and the old man’s face, drawn from stars, was also being pulled about and distorted.

Orba and Zafar, the two whose spirits’ were occupying that space, looked over at the same time. From the other side of the cracks running through space, a wave of even deeper darkness was surging forward.

It too contained stars of various sizes. Some burned blue, others shone red, others still twinkled gold/with a golden hue.

At the same moment –

There was another person, in a separate place, who was also witnessing the expanding ocean that was about to utterly engulf Orba and Zafar’s consciousnesses.

Guhl Mephius.

On the lowest floor of the temple to the Dragon Gods’ faith in Solon, the Emperor, likewise confronting a sorcerer, fell to the ground and writhed around, froth bubbling at his lips. The sorcerer’s own body was right before him, but its consciousness had been released from it and was attempting to infringe on Guhl. The protective walls that should have been able to defend his soul were easily broken through, and the outside intruder was gradually crawling into him.

The pain was unimaginable. It was, so to speak, the same kind of fight that Orba was currently experiencing. Someone other than himself was forcibly pushing into his body and mind, stealing Guhl Mephius’ own self, and ‘transferring’ it to another being.

Guhl – the emperor who had reigned over all of Mephius for so long – writhed on the temple floor, wailing uncontrollably. He even felt that if he had known that he would experience pain so intense, he might have preferred to let a foreign enemy invade and be put through the fires of their aggression.

''Anyway, what attachment do you have left to this world?'' A voice whispered enticingly. Yet even so, Guhl twisted his body until his bones snapped, and clawed at the floor with his nails. As a human being whose instincts were surfacing, all he could do was resist.

Then, during that strange struggle, Guhl ‘saw’ without seeing. Or perhaps it was the past, the memories, or the historical knowledge of the one who was trying to encroach on him. As he watched, Guhl’s spirit was filled with a dark ocean inlaid with lights.

Within that darkness, something advanced, roaring thunderously.

It looked both like a huge pyramid, and like a large, ceremonial warship.

At long last, having crossed the sea of stars, what appeared before Orba, Zafar, and Guhl was a vivid blue sky. No sooner had it landed on the surface in a thick cloud of dust, that it turned into a city whose countless grey spires pierced the heavens.

''That'' however did not seem to be welcome on this earth. From what Orba could see, throngs of strange, repulsive creatures immediately started attacking the city.

Although the way they ran on the ground with two legs was entirely human-like, scales grew all over their hides, they had long tails, and, more than anything, they had the projecting snouts of reptiles. Their black eyes that looked like glass marbles goggled and rolled about as they moved; they held long, two-pronged spears, and descended on the city like an avalanche.

It was not only the creatures’ appearance, but also the fight itself which seemed mysterious in Orba’s eyes. When the creatures, which looked like some kind of cross between dragons and humans, brandished their spears, the pointed tips released flashes of blueish light. That light drilled holes in the ground and penetrated through rocks, yet it bounced off the walls of the city time and time again.

On the other hand, the warship, which had transformed into a city once it struck the ground, was carrying out a strange counterattack from within its structure. With no sound either of wheels or of cogs being turned, part of the wall spontaneously removed itself, and a cluster of gigantic needles appeared from inside of it. They then emitted red flames before soaring into the sky, drawing trail of smoke behind them.

The needles chased after the enemy as though they possessed a will of their own, and exterminated the creatures while sending soil whirling up like columns of water.

''That’s…

''For a second, Orba forgot even the pain that was tearing his body apart as he gazed at the strange spectacle. And while he was staring, night arrived without him realising it, then, in the space of a blink, the morning sunlight had swooped down.

The fighting repeated incessantly.

The city had already crumbled, unrecognizable compared to its original form. Its solid walls had turned into debris, scattered here and there, and many of its spires were broken. Above all else, no human figure, or even a hint of their presence, could be seen within.

Its aggressors were nowhere to be seen either, and only the desolate wind seem to blow there.

No –

''There’s… someone.''

Orba could see a tiny figure clambering over the walls that had turned to rubble, and heading towards the central part of the construction.

It looked like a young man.

That slender figure vanished inside the building through a fissure that ran through its central section.

Decades must have passed in the blink of an eye, for when the figure emerged once more from inside the fissure, the youth had turned into an old man with white hair.

The old man held up what he was holding. Curved in shape and gleaming white, it looked like the fang or claw of some giant beast.

“Magnificent,” he whispered, in a voice so clear that even Orba could hear it.

There were no other sounds. Thinking about it, not only were there no humans in this forest, there were no birds or beasts, or even any sign of any other living creature.

“This planet… the Dragon Gods and their civilisation have given me so many approaches that science could not. It’s hard to believe that I used to play with those codified formulas. Paths open one after another, and each and every time, a hundred… a thousand new doors appear before me. There is no doubt that what I seek lies beyond that endless line of doors. Yes, if I can unravel what the Dragon Gods were attempting to perform once they perceived the signs of their own degeneration, even the dream of immortality might be… Even the ideal world that everyone dreams of but that no one has ever been able to build. But it’s not enough. The time allotted me in my lifespan is absolutely not enough. No… ten, twenty lifespans would still be insufficient.”

''...''

“I need a new body. If I inject the data that I obtained from the ruins into this ‘claw’, I might be able to digitize my soul and inject, or transfer, it to a new body. So that I can verify the link between the Dragon Gods and the Ryuujin tribe. Even that would be miraculous, but it is not yet perfect immortality. To find what I seek, I still need to pry open so many doors. And for that, one day, I will definitely set foot in ‘Barbaroi, the land of savages<ref>The kanji stand for “the land of barbarians” (蛮人たちの地) and the furigana read “barbaroi”. As an added note, “[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian barbaroi]” is ancient Greek and was the name given to other cultures, who were usually seen as uncivilized by them. It was later adopted by the Romans (as was most of Greek culture) and is the root of the modern word "barbarian.</ref>’, where the living witnesses to the ancient civilisation still reside.”

The old man smiled faintly.

“That humans were led to this planet… yes, it was fate. Destiny. It was necessary for evolution. I will create a new history with my own hands. Even if it takes me hundreds, thousands of years. Humans will be freed from the shackles of flesh and attain the spiritual nature of gods, then a perfect society will surely emerge on this new planet.”

Uncertain of what it was he was seeing and hearing, Orba had simply been washed over by the flood of information, but now, for some reason, strong emotions suddenly welled up within him.

''I will create history… a world'' – the revulsion that he felt at the old man’s words, at the smile curling across his lips, made him want to reject them with all his might.

In the end, however, Orba’s powerless emotions were left adrift as the scene he was witnessing, along with the old man’s laughter, were soon carried away by the wind, and the entire land itself soon vanished.

Just before it did so, an old man’s scream overwhelmed his hearing.

No, not the same old man that he had been watching just a moment ago. The one who was screaming was Zafar. He had been the first to succumb to the almost unbearable pain of those indescribable scenes – of the information flowing directly into his mind.
“What… is this? What are you showing me? Damn you… who are you? Who are you!”

Repeating the questions that Orba had previously had for him, Zafar groaned in agony. As though in inverse proportion to his suffering, Orba could feel the agony slowly receding from his body. Instinctively, he understood that Zafar was being separated from him.

In this vast expanse of space, which might be the universe itself or mountains in the night, pillars of flame now erupted upwards from all sides.

The sky was the colour of dawn, the stars were scattered over it like drops of blood, and even the horizon burned red.

“Your Highness!” Pashir’s voice struck against his earlobe.

When Orba opened his eyes, he was met with a feverishly hot wind, dazzling light, and the feel of something soft. The area was surrounded by fire. The soft sensation came from Hou Ran’s body, which was covering his torso. He closed his eyes for a second and didn’t move. Judging by the startled faces nearby, it seemed that he had lost consciousness.

“You’re well.”

“Yeah,” Orba replied hoarsely.

He felt as though his body and consciousness were still not quite aligned with one another, and he was slightly dizzy.

“What… happened?”

“That is what I would like to know…” although confused, Pashir briefly explained what had happened after Orba lost consciousness.

“And Ran?”

No sooner had the mysterious girl kissed Orba, than she had fainted as though her strings had been snapped, and had fallen inert on top of him. Orba had apparently regained consciousness immediately afterwards.

He gently laid her on the ground. Although he could not could make any logical analysis of what had happened to him, he could easily guess that Hou Ran had saved him.

“Uwaaaah!”

A man’s shriek was heard, and in the same instant, the surrounding area was engulfed in screams.

Pashir’s expression went tense, and he stepped in front of Orba to shield him. His hand reached for the sword at his waist, but the once undefeated gladiator showed a tinge of fear on his face.

A soldier had been ripped apart lengthwise. The corpse tumbled to the ground, dark red blood streaming out, but the assailant was nowhere to be seen. Taking up defensive stances, the soldiers carefully scanned the surroundings.

“Thirteen.”

Whose whispered voice was that?

This time, it was a soldier standing right in front of Pashir who collapsed forward. Cries of pain were heard immediately after.

When Pashir looked down, both the of the soldier’s feet had been amputated at the ankles. Yet he himself had not realised this, and was attempting to stand up, falling forward again and again as he clawed at the ground.

Pashir and Orba both gasped.

They both saw it. An arm suddenly seemed to stretch out from the soldier’s shadow and scythe towards his chest. It tore through his armoured torso as though cutting through paper, and the soldier died amidst pools of blood.

The arm was sucked back into the ground and disappeared from sight.

“Fourteen.”

Beyond all doubt, it was Zafar’s voice.

The soldiers with seized with frenzy. Those who had witnessed the same scene as Orba and Pashir jabbed their spears deep into the ground. Even supposing there was someone lying hidden there, were those really the actions of sanity?

No… in that sense, Zafar was probably no longer sane either. Orba naturally had no way of knowing it, but the sorcerer had already cut down as many lives as the Mephius’ elder had given him permission to, and had greedily devoured the ether from them.

“Fifteen.”

Orba could feel the hair on his body stand on end with horror at the sound of that voice. He felt as though he could see that shadow which had been absorbed back into the ground and which was running through it. Moving just like a snake chasing prey, the shadow homed in on Hou Ran, who was still lying unconscious.

Using his sword as a staff, Orba hauled himself to his feet. But his body had yet to catch up with his consciousness, and he collapsed.

The shadow was already drawing up to the nape of Ran’s neck. The arm extended out.

Whereupon, there was a flash of steel – Pashir had struck. He too had noticed the shadow, just like Orba had, and had been waiting for the arm to appear. His blow was like that of a scythe harvesting crops, yet in the next instant, Pashir’s sturdy body staggered backwards. The tip of his sword had broken off. The shadow changed its course and now dashed straight towards him.

Pashir forced strength into his numbed leg muscles and jumped back. Yet this fight was unusual enough to make even a man like him misjudge distances. The arm appeared from the ground at an acute angle and cut through his shin guard, giving the impression that Pashir’s entire body was stretched out in the air.

By then, Orba had finally managed to stand up. He had, however, lost sight of the shadow. Because the soldiers holding torches were moving about in every direction, he could not visually chase after it.

“Bring me fire,” he yelled, but be they Mephian or from Dairan, the soldiers were too terrified of the unknown assassin to listen to him. If this had been, say, Safia, the capital of the Grand Duchy, the reaction would probably have been a little different, but even though this was also Ende, the people of Dairan unfortunately had virtually no opportunity to come in contact with sorcery.

Orba’s eyes suddenly stopped at a point on the other side of where the soldiers were running around chaotically.

There was a single Baian. Ran must have ridden it. Even though the area was strewn with blood and flesh, it was paying no attention to that and had its head lowered towards the ground. Only its eyes were squirming left and right.

Faster than intuition formed a thought in his mind, Orba started to run.

“Milbak!”

Being called to like this for the first time, the dragon raised its head with a jerk. Clearly, it recognised its ‘name’.

As Orba got closer to it, it now, conversely, lowered itself to the ground. He jumped onto the dragon’s back without a second’s hesitation.

Instantly, a fiery impulse coursed through him.

The Baian roared once, then kicked at the ground with its thick legs. In a few bounds, it reached Pashir’s side. Anyone who didn’t know better would believe that the dragon was about to eat him.

Orba unsheathed the gleaming sword at his waist.

“Move, Pashir!”

It was unclear to what extent Pashir understood what that order was about, but he rolled away from where the Baian landed.

As the dragon’s feet struck the ground, Orba put the sword into an underhand grip and thrust it into the earth’s surface. Once it had pierced through the solid-feeling crust, it found living flesh.

“Gaaah!”

It was almost exactly like spearing a harpoon through the water’s surface, and hauling a large fish into the boat. A living human appeared in a spray of earth and dark red blood.

Even as he was convulsing from where the sword had pierced through him, he gave a wave of his arm. His hand seemed to be enveloped in a flash of black lightning. Orba guessed instinctively that he intended to use it to break the sword’s tip, and quickly pulled back his blade.

“You asked me who I was,” Orba’s steel stood at the ready.

For the first time, he was seeing the old man who called himself Zafar in the flesh. Therefore, Orba had no more reason to fear the enemy. Not when he had steel in his hand and an opponent made of flesh and blood.

“If you want to know that badly, I’ll tell you. I’m…”

Zafar gave a low groan and sprang towards Orba. And as he was leaping, Orba swung his sword.