A flash-like burst of light swallowed Ren and Luman whole.

As he endured the force of crossing space through light, Luman’s skin split apart. Blood burst from the limbs that had already been severed once, soaking his entire body before spilling over and staining Ren in his arms.

The cloak turned red, and the hand holding Ren trembled violently.

This had happened before.

In those endless battlefields, when every last bit of power had run dry, and it felt like all he had left was one tiny handful of life sloshing around at the very bottom.

And once that handful ran out, naturally, he would never open his eyes again.

Luman ran after the light. Capillaries burst, and thick blood oozed from his nose and ears. Blood poured out of every opening in his body. Enduring the sensation of thousands of needles stabbing through his flesh, Luman focused on the warmth in his arms, and only that warmth.

His strength kept slipping away. A shrill ringing filled his ears, and the feeling in his hands and feet grew dull. Even the golden eyes that had once blazed with a vivid blue fire were slowly dimming.

To die trapped between the ruptured spaces he had torn through and crossed countless times—

perhaps it was a fitting end for the king’s third star, the one who had once searched for a path by lighting up the dark.

His light, the light of a Hero, was slowly going out. Maybe the time had come. After all, Luman’s final mission had only been to deliver a letter.

Well, this is enough.

If he had been alone, he might have accepted a death like this well enough. A little unfair, maybe. A little regrettable. But nothing in Luman could remain behind as attachment or lingering desire.

But now he was not alone.

In his arms was something precious, something he had never had before...

It didn’t matter if he died. If he could save Ren by pouring everything he had into him, down to the very last ray, then that was enough.

For the first time since he died, Luman prayed to God.

Please. Please hold on.

Please let me save the boy.

Please let this boy... live.

As Luman blurred and scattered into tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of thorn-like streaks of light, light began gathering to him again.

It was a special sensation. Like the feeling of meeting the “miracle of a Hero” when torn limbs were reattached...

No, even more special than that. It wasn’t the body being reconstructed... it was as if the light that made him, the Hero’s crystal bestowed upon him, was being reconstructed.

The light that had been faintly scattered like fireflies, blinking out one point at a time, slowly swelled. Then, as if starlight itself had poured down, it illuminated the darkness and flowed like the Milky Way, guiding Luman. He didn’t have to tear through the dark himself. The light pulled him onward. It felt like time was reversing, like the streams of blood he had vomited were returning to him, little by little.

They split through the space between darkness and light and fell—not into the ducal estate in the capital, but into some castle.

An ancient castle like a fortress, rising atop a cliff behind towering outer walls. Its spire-like towers stabbed so high they looked ready to pierce the sky, and amid the dense forest surrounding it lay Lacus.

As if it knew they had come and was greeting them, the lake’s surface ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) shivered. It was filled with the Milky Way that stretched across the sky, as if the stars themselves had poured into it, making the sight eerily wondrous.

It was a sight he should not have been able to see, and yet to Luman, it was as if Lacus stood plainly before his eyes.

For an instant, light drove back the darkness around the old castle.

Then darkness rushed in again and swallowed Ren and Luman.

It was darker than before. Darkness so thick it tightened around him, crushing the breath from his lungs.

The night at a duke’s estate shouldn’t have been this dark, which made it strange. But Luman had no room to think that far. His eyes flashed like a beast’s. The galaxy was still flowing through those golden irises.

Breathing pounded at his ears. Sound rang dully in his skull.

At this point, he couldn’t even tell whether the hot breaths were Ren’s or his own.

The very edge of exhaustion. With thought and reason nearly stopped, Luman straightened his knees like a machine following its last programmed command.

His eyes cut through the dark. This was not the great manor he had seen before. It was a castle he had never seen in his life.

Every window in the castle was dark.

Not a single handful of light leaked out.

Luman headed toward the place where the darkness was even deeper.

“It’s okay.”

Looking at Ren’s brightly pale face, pale as the moon, Luman gave back the words Ren had said earlier.

We’re here.

The light guided us, so it’ll be okay. Someone will help. I can still make it inside. Ren can live. He’s still warm, and his breath is still touching my chest.

Without realizing it, Luman smiled faintly and stepped forward.

The castle was right in front of him. If he could just use his ability one more time—

He took half a step into the darkness hanging over the castle, and white light began to flare at his toes.

Without a sound, a blade wrapped in blue light aimed at Luman.

“Who are you.”

“...!”

The sword drove straight for Luman’s heart.

One by one, flames rose into the air, and the figures hidden in darkness came into view.

Knights in armor had formed a ring around Luman, all of them aiming spears at him.

The spearpoints were trained densely on his limbs, throat, chest, eyes—everywhere. A few had already pierced him, and blood was running.

A quiet killing intent.

The darkness filling the garden was the private soldiers guarding Duke Gannion’s castle.

As the surroundings brightened, the sharp eyes gleaming from beneath those hidden helmets were fixed on Luman like finely honed blades.

Luman didn’t even groan.

A man saw the handsome face illuminated by torchlight, a face that did not blink once, and strode forward. The soldiers opened a gap for him.

“Who are you. I won’t ask a third time.”

A gray-haired man.

A strangely familiar face.

There was neither hesitation nor pity in those cold eyes that seemed made to overwhelm.

It was as if he didn’t even see the boy in Luman’s arms. His gaze was fixed only on the intruder before him.

As the man stepped forward, the knight who had stabbed Luman’s heart withdrew to the side.

“...”

When a Hero was not on an official mission, he was not allowed to reveal his identity.

Luman’s eyes stayed calm.

Kill me if you want.

Once I’m dead, the pendant they’ll find while searching my body will guarantee Ren’s life.

The gray-haired man took the sword handed to him and pushed it in.

No shout. No warning.

As if he were simply doing something natural.

A thread of blood ran down Luman’s mouth, and just as the sword tip was about to catch and tear into his heart, something snagged on the twisted edge of the blade.

The sensation of a foreign object against his fingertips.

The gray-haired man signaled with his eyes, then pulled the sword back out of Luman’s chest.

Blood sprayed out with a hissing burst.

None of them so much as blinked.

One of the soldiers stepped forward and searched through Luman’s coat.

“This—!”

“...”

The face of the man who checked the pendant hardened by the smallest fraction.

After pocketing the pendant, he pulled the paper skewered on the blade free.

Hurried handwriting. A signature.

Brief, concise contents.

Clearly Lady Coco’s handwriting.

The gray-haired man flicked a glance at Luman.

“Move these men inside and treat them. Second Knight Order, protect them and secure the castle thoroughly! First Knight Order, come with me to Lady Coco. Summon a mage!”

“Yes, Commander!”

At the man’s command, the knights moved in perfect order.

Every spear aimed at Luman and Ren was withdrawn, and soldiers brought a stretcher to carry them.

Only after Luman saw the man unfold the paper did he finally close his eyes.

Even as his body gave out, Luman did not loosen the hand holding Ren.

“He won’t let go.”

“Then move them like that for now and pry him off once we get there.”

“Should we call a priest?”

“Commander!”

“Save them without leaving aftereffects. That is my lady’s order.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Hurry.”

“Call the priest.”

“Yes!”

Servants holding torches ran toward the castle, and the First Knight Order finished readying for departure.

The sound of hooves quietly struck through the dark as they headed for the mountain where Lady Coco and the others were waiting.

The note Lady Coco had left said this:

<Save “them” no matter what. Come rescue “us.” Location: the cave beneath the cliff halfway up Mount Kelon. P.S. If you’re late, expect to lose your head.>

Moonlight fell across the pendant. The image of the grand estate changed under the light into the shape of an old castle holding Lacus within it.

***

Temar’s hand swept through empty air, but the light was already gone.

Gone like it had never been there.

Gone like a dream.

Temar’s blank dark brown eyes traced the place where Ren had been just moments ago.

After the blinding light vanished, the darkness sitting inside the hollow was blacker and thicker than before.

“Ren...”

A tormented voice.

As if he didn’t know what to do with the surging anger inside him, Temar’s presence spread through the hollow like it might swallow the whole place.

“Hey...!”

It’s okay, he said.

What the hell was supposed to be okay?

Temar knew perfectly well what the blood soaking his chest meant.

If even a little time was lost, if anything happened on the way, Ren would die just like that.

“Hey!”

Ren, dying?

How could someone who had always been there beside him just die?

Tap. Thud.

Something hit his body.

“Hey—!”

“My lady!”

“Let go! He’s not coming to his senses!”

By the time his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Temar turned his head at the pebbles flying into his thigh and chest.

The motion was strangely grotesque, like an ancient stone statue coming to life.

A body that looked even larger than before, as if it had doubled since the days they lived together, along with muscles that no longer seemed human. The scars crossing his body and the blood dripping from him didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

A man to whom blood and slaughter were ordinary things.

Eyes so numb and hard, like a cliff face, that it was hard to believe he was the same man who had screamed earlier. There was no trace of thought to read in them.

This was what a Hero looked like.

This was the appearance of the king’s seventh sword, the Hero Temar, the one who burned battlefields to ash and whose mere arrival sent enemies retreating.

Face gone pale, Coco admitted the fear she felt toward Temar.

It was a terror almost impossible to endure, not just as a young girl, but as a human being.

Even without a blade at her throat, if Temar so much as twitched a finger, everyone here would die.

Hugh had grabbed the lady’s arm to hold her back, and the physician who had fainted earlier had regained consciousness—but under that suffocating pressure, he turned his head away and pretended to have fainted again.

Though since the place he turned to happened to contain a neatly severed head, whether that was fortunate or unfortunate, he ended up fainting for real.

The stench of blood was so thick it made the nose ache.

Her flesh felt as if it were going soft with pain, but Lady Coco endured it and opened her eyes wide.

The fear I feel is only natural.

He’s a Hero, and I’m just a human.

But he’s also Ren’s brother.

So—he can’t go losing his humanity.

Then Ren would be pitiful.

“Ren’s not dead yet, and we’ll be heading back soon.”

“...”

“Get a hold of yourself! Stop turning the living into the dead!”

His thick lashes fluttered once.

Temar did not answer.

It was simply that Lady Coco’s words had been entered into him like input into a machine.

Her firm voice sank into him like an order.

Amazingly, Temar calmed down. As though the hurricane of emotion and anxiety that had swept through him had been completely cleared away and forgotten, his face turned neat and blank.

His swollen body settled. His wounds began to slowly close. The blood flowing from him began to stop. The oppressive force that had threatened the hollow seemed to be drawn back in, and the suffocating atmosphere slowly thinned.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Temar was calm, just like he had been when he first saved Coco.

As if nothing at all had happened. He looked like a spotless Hero again.

Too spotless...

enough to be frightening.

For a moment, Coco wanted to swear, but held it in and only shook her head.

She changed her mind.

Maybe a Hero was never human to begin with.

“It’s fine.”

Moonlight poured into the hollow, and with the darkness receding, the place grew much brighter.

Letting out the breath she had been holding, Lady Coco unconsciously gripped Hugh’s hand tightly.

Coco’s body was trembling.

But her face alone was perfectly clean.

Her violet eyes shone clearly.

As if the words she had spoken earlier hadn’t contained the slightest lie.

And yet the fact that all of this was only an act was something no one noticed, only because they did not want to know.

Even Coco herself.

Even Hero Temar.

How much time passed?

Just when it started to feel as if everything had been swallowed by the thick, clinging darkness.

Just when the thought they had tried not to face—What if something has gone wrong?—began creeping through their minds—

it seemed like they could hear a voice from somewhere.

Something like a faint echo.

And only then did they realize it.

The brilliant full moon was shining brightly into the cave.