CHAPTER 2
The Song Played by the Witch on the World’s Final Day: “Sorry I’m So Powerful”
1
Once, there were siblings who went by the name of Nebulis.
The three traveled to the largest nation in the world, the Empire, to make their fortune, but they were showered in astral energy in the Planet’s Navel, the deepest mining site in the world. Two of them became witches, and the third, a sorcerer.
The older twin, Eve, later became known as the Founder. The younger twin, Alicerose, as Nebulis I. And their younger brother, Crossweil, stayed in the Empire to serve the Lord as the Black Steel Gladiator.
And two of them had reunited for the first time in a century.
Imperial territory, seventh checkpoint.
The checkpoint at the nation’s border was presently engulfed by sooty air. The fence railing had been bent as though it were a gob of soft candy. Imperial tanks were overturned on the ground, and guns had been left abandoned by the retreating Imperial soldiers.
A single witch had brought upon this destruction.
“You wish to speak to me?”
Not a single member of the Imperial forces remained. In a blue expanse of sky so deep it felt like it could swallow her, there floated a tanned girl.
“What is it you want to talk about now, Crow?”
The Founder Nebulis.
As her dull golden hair fluttered in the wind, the greatest, oldest witch looked down at the ground. Below stood her younger brother, with whom she had fought and separated from.
Crossweil Gate Nebulis.
The original wielder of the astral swords had only one thing to say:
“A reflection.”
“A reflection?”
“Nothing goes as planned… Yunmelngen and I have realized that—very keenly, too—for the past century.” He let out a sigh. “I wonder when it was that I said this. Yunmelngen and I haven’t changed the Empire yet. But we found hope that we’ll be able to.”
“And?”
“Plenty of things happened in this land while you were asleep. Even after it burned down, the Empire revived. Actually, they didn’t just rebuild it—they accelerated their advancement of technology. From your perspective, the capital might even look like a city from the future.”
“And why do you think they did that?” His sister’s words were like thorns. “Get to the point, Crow. The Empire has only developed because they fear witches, right? It’s merely proof that they still view witches with hostility.”
“You’re right. I can’t deny that.”
He sighed again. He suddenly dropped his gaze from the sky.
“In the end, that was a miscalculation on my and Yunmelngen’s part. Since the day the capital was reduced to ash, the Imperials have hated witches and sorcerers. And they’ve become afraid of them, too… That’s why Yunmelngen and I stayed behind in the Empire and waited.”
Time would heal all wounds. It would heal the deep-rooted fear of mages in the Empire. And the powerful hatred the Sovereignty felt toward the Imperial forces. Both would likely fade.
Even if it didn’t happen in a decade or two, they had believed that perhaps things would change in fifty years, seventy, or maybe even a hundred.
“We realized later that this wouldn’t turn out the way we expected.”
He had repeated himself, not for his sister’s sake, but for his own.
“The fighting between the Empire and the Sovereignty has increased day by day and started to lead to skirmishes worldwide. Instead of fading, the rage has been inherited by the next generations. I wasn’t able to stop that from happening.”
Their largest miscalculation had been Lord Yunmelngen’s condition. After being possessed by the Planetary Calamity, like the Founder, the Lord had immediately gone into a slumber following their succession to the throne and woke only a few days a year.
“The only thing I could do was tell him what day it was when he woke and what had happened in the world while he slept. In the end, the Eight Great Apostles kept hold over their power, and the Imperial forces continued to expand.”
The same had occurred in the Sovereignty. After the death of the first queen, Alicerose, the Nebulis bloodline had split into three families. The three royal families each had lands under their supervision and possessed astral corps, and they were stockpiling power in order to fight the Imperial forces.
“Crow.” The Founder’s voice was harsh. “That’s not a reflection. It’s a confession.”
“…”
“I believe you told me before that you would stay in the Empire, and I had said, Are you still obsessed with that dream? It seems it took you a whole century to wake up.”
Hmph. The sigh that left her mouth melted into the raging wind.
“Crow, you and Yunmelngen were mistaken from the start when you tried changing the Empire from within.”
“I suppose that was the end result.”
“Yes,” she said. “So stay out of my way from now on.”
The Empire was unchangeable. Lord Yunmelngen hadn’t been able to change it in a century. The deep-rooted fear the Empire had of witches and sorcerers hadn’t been something that could be dispelled so easily. As long as it remained, the persecution of astral mages would likely continue.
That was why…
“I will annihilate the Empire.”
“That’s no longer necessary.”
Time stopped. They had both spoken at the same moment, and the tan girl floating in the sky had frozen, forgetting to even blink.
He hadn’t agreed with her. The words he had uttered were so different from what she had expected that, for a moment, her brain had stopped functioning.
“……What?”
“I’m not done yet; in fact, it’s the opposite. This is just the beginning.”
Crossweil went on the move. The Founder needed only a glance to see that the sword in his left hand was nothing more than a copy of the real black astral sword.
“A replica?” she asked.
“That’s right. I begged the Astrals to make it for me. The real ones are with Iska, after all.”
“…”
Iska.
Crossweil couldn’t help but notice that her brow furrowed upon hearing the boy’s name.
“So I heard you fought against my idiot pupil.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“You were surprised, weren’t you?”
“About what…?”
“In your eyes, what was he like?”
“Tsk.” The girl floating in the air opened her eyes wide. For a moment, she stared into the ether as though she was trying to recall something, but then she came back to her senses and immediately pursed her lips.
“I don’t remember him.”
“You don’t? I’m certain he was different from the other Imperial soldiers. For example—”
“Go back to sleep, Nebulis.”
“Next time you wake up, I bet the world will be in a better place.”
“Did he call you a witch?”
“ ”
“And why did he fight you? He didn’t challenge you for revenge like the Imperial forces or others from the Empire, did he?”
“ ”
“I think not. And I’m pretty sure you realized why I entrusted the astral swords to him, too.”
Crossweil had failed to change the Empire, and that was because he couldn’t draw attention to himself as a sorcerer with astral powers.
He had realized the only one who could change the Empire was an Imperial. That was why he needed a successor.
“Yunmelngen and I couldn’t do it, but he—”
“Croooow!”
The air trembled. The girl howled as loudly as she could, and the very sound of her voice had turned into a gigantic invisible shock wave that pushed everything away from her.
“…Crow…” She gritted her back teeth. “You couldn’t possibly dare to try telling me the same thing you did back then… Even after I’ve come all this way…you wouldn’t dare tell me to wait again. And all because you found a flimsy speck of hope in the Empire, a place that hasn’t changed in any way for an entire century.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Croooow!”
The Founder Nebulis’s right hand sliced through the air. It was astral wind. The gust of wind blew the cars away like fallen leaves, then turned into a gigantic front of air that headed straight for Crossweil.
He cut through the wind with his black blade.
“ ”
With her arm still raised in the air, the Founder stopped as though she’d been frozen.
But she wasn’t surprised. After all, she’d seen this happen in the past.
“So it’s not purely for looks, then.”
“No, it just seems like it has the same power, but it doesn’t have the most important function the astral swords do.”
Crossweil was expressionless as he held the black hilt of the sword. “This sword can’t fight against the Planetary Calamity. Only the true astral swords can do that. I know I don’t need to tell you that, but just to be clear,” he said matter-of-factly.
He looked up at the sky, at his sister, who continued to float in the air.
“According to Yunmelngen, as your little brother, it’s my duty to stop the world’s most ferocious big sister.”
At the farthest reaches of the Imperial territory, the two who had been siblings long ago clashed.
However…they had no way of knowing that at that moment, the Eight Great Apostles, the very ones who pulled the strings behind the Empire and Sovereignty, and the Imperial assembly itself were no more.
And…they had no way of knowing a true witch was starting her crusade to indiscriminately erase both the Empire’s and Sovereignty’s existence from the world in her merciless quest for world equality.
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