CHAPTER 4
The Planet, the Vessel, and the Soul’s Oratorio
1
Red as blood, infinitesimal as snow.
The embers fluttered.
“…Wall!”
The faint embers almost seemed like a mirage. She saw them enter her vision; Alice had unconsciously created an ice wall.
A cinder burst, and great flames bloomed from it. The water in the underground lake evaporated. The bedrock below broke and exploded, sending clods of earth and sand up into the air. The sounds of the blasts hit her eardrums, nearly knocking Alice unconscious for a moment.
“…She’s…showing no mercy!”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay conscious even after nearly fainting. She shouted into the flames that engulfed everything before her eyes.
“Come out, Founder! I haven’t been hurt in the slightest!”
“No mercy? And here I was thinking I was being exceedingly charitable.”
The swirling flames disappeared as though they had simply been a bad dream.
“This can be seen as kindness, considering you’re an ice astral mage, after all.”
“You call this kindness?” Alice said. “Anyone other than me would have been charred to a crisp.”
“But I used it on you, so it is.”
From beyond the dying flames, a little girl stood barefoot atop the charred ground, a serious expression on her face.
“I saw your astral powers,” the girl continued.
“If you decided I’d be able to survive this, I suppose I should consider that an honor. But what do you intend to do to everyone other than me?”
Lord Mask was nowhere to be found. He had been standing between her and the Founder, so she hadn’t had the time to protect him with an ice wall.
…Any person engulfed in those flames wouldn’t leave a trace behind.
…Even Lord Mask.
Alice had a sudden premonition.
“Founder, the man standing there was one of your great-grandchildren. And you—”
“A gate astral mage need only teleport prior to the explosion.”
So that was it.
Alice clicked her tongue at the unexpected turn of events. Though they would have both been engulfed in flames had they been a second too late to react, in the end, she and Lord Mask had both survived by a hairbreadth. But that was hardly different from pure luck.
And the Founder called that being charitable, ancient tyrant that she was.
“…”
Alice looked around again. The once-bountiful well of the lake had evaporated, and she was now standing in a vacant underground hole.
Alice and the Founder. The two mages were illuminated by the faint light from the bedrock. There was likely a vortex under them. The astral light had seeped into the minerals and glittered like jewels.
“Founder.”
She stared down the girl wrapped in a worn cloak.
“I will say this as many times as I need to. You’re going to burn the Empire to the ground, aren’t you? No matter how much damage it does to the Sovereignty and neutral cities?”
“I don’t intend to answer that again.”
“Yes. But I’ll keep asking as many times as I need to!”
She pointed at the girl—at the living proof of their persecution a century before.
“I won’t ask you to suppress your anger. But if you were to unleash it, you won’t be the one who gets hurt. It’ll be everyone weaker than you!”
“…”
“Your old values have no place with the people who live in the modern day!”
“Then here is how I answer.”
The Founder Nebulis flipped her right hand, her palm to the ground.
“Do you know how much blood, how many tears we shed to create the Sovereignty? You know nothing of its history. You were simply born into royalty, so what kind of world do you even aspire to build?”
“Tsk… Those are fine words coming from you.”
“What do you know of peace when you’ve never experienced the age of despair?”
The ground rose. Four obsidian-black spires towered around Alice.
“What?! What is this…?”
“Enclose.”
The Founder snapped her fingers.
Black light spread from the four spires and engulfed Alice from all around.
Readvent Barrier—Planet’s Nucleus.
Sizzle…
“Ouch!”
The moment Alice touched the black barrier with her fingertip, sparks appeared. She couldn’t help but yelp when it scorched her skin.
“This is the end,” she heard the Founder say.
“Don’t underestimate me. I don’t know what this barrier is, but don’t think you can keep me locked away behind a curtain!”
Alice created an ice dagger in her right hand to cut the curtain. She started to slash at the black barrier around her with the blade. And it worked. But then the blade of ice disintegrated.
“……Huh?”
The dagger hadn’t broken, but rather, the ice crystals made from her astral power had crumbled and vaporized into nothing. Was it due to the high heat? No. If that were the case, it would have melted. It was as though something had corroded the astral power itself.
“It’s a cage that seals away astral power,” she heard the Founder say from outside the barrier.
Alice couldn’t see the Founder because of the dark curtain, but it was obvious whom she was addressing.
“The black rock accumulates astral energy. It absorbs any type of astral power, so once a mage is surrounded, they’re rendered powerless.”
“What did you just say…?”
The dome of black light. The ebon spires must have been the source of the barrier. So were they made from stone that could store astral energy, then?
“A century ago in the Empire, we didn’t have your stickers to hide our astral crests. So we created barriers to conceal ourselves. But you can also think of them as cages for containing astral mages.”
“This is…a cage?”
The concept wasn’t unknown to Alice. For example, the self-adhesives that mages used to cover their astral crests were made from something called Nebula, a substance that neutralized astral energy.
…But this is on an entirely different level.
…It can absorb any astral energy, no matter how powerful?!
In other words, it was the ultimate nullifying prison. Any mage who was surrounded by it could never escape. She had been trapped. She couldn’t believe the oldest and strongest mage would use such underhanded means.
“You coward! Let me out!”
“How unsightly.”
She could feel the Founder’s contemptuous glare from beyond the curtain.
“Sit tight. Wait until the moment I turn the Empire into a sea of flames.”
“…!”
“You’re useless without your astral power. Someone like you could never change the world.”
Before Alice could make a sound, the place where she stood was buried in complete darkness.
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