Pillars of Ita

"Maryland/Loren, now!"

In different times and spaces, two voices speak at the same time, intersecting with each other, as if traveling through time at a certain moment.

Beneath the swirling snow and winds, in the ancient legends of the Treasure Staff Coast, a king once perished in a treacherous plot, black crows brought plagues, the twin moons and stars intersected, and the dead awoke from their tombs.

The long blast of the horn once echoed through the bay, and the endless army hunted in the cold forests. Evil blood flowed through those fertile fields, and one day, the dark enemies will return.

Just as the proverb shows.

The young man clutched the object to his chest, his gaze greedily fixed on the bright light in the snow. His golden eyes, as bright as flames, were locked in combat with a man wielding a broken sword.

'Ancient enemies, they will surely return—'

Do not betray the blood and blood of your heart.

But what use is the blood of a hero?
This only left his family trapped in that barren, cold land, where countless people died during the dark winter.

The curse of Rogers will end in my hands from this day forward.

From this day forward, I am me, and they are them. The ancient, resentful fate will no longer confine them and their descendants to that cage.

This is my path.

Maryland made up his mind and took out the object from his pocket—an exquisite artifact, like a pointer to destiny.

An old star tracker.

The figure in the wind and snow seemed to sense something and suddenly turned around in this direction.

……

Loren's calm gaze fell upon the sword in his hand—a plain and unadorned sword whose original owner had likely fallen somewhere on the battlefield long ago.

As for his own sword, it had long been lost, and the sword Leonard had given him was also lost in the battle. The tall and imposing knight from the Gulmod family was walking up, looking at the two of them with some surprise.

He was unaware of the inside story, and Fang Zheng could not possibly have the time to explain it to everyone—especially those who came later.

He was covered in blood and had lost sight in one eye.

Loren gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, thrusting it downwards into the ground before raising his head again. His deep gaze hardened, his calmness sending a shiver down Fang Zheng's spine.

The latter gently lowered the magic glove, as if all the stars were gesturing to the young man. The stars in the sky turned to dust, and Loren watched with some admiration as the countless constructs disappeared.
That symbol of a miracle achievable by human effort—in the not-too-distant future, the holy son chosen for them by Marlan might truly break that ancient prophecy.

The stars will eventually fall silent.
The pillars of the stars will fall one by one.

The flame of the Privy Council will be the first to be extinguished.

“No need to apologize,” Loren said. “In this fictional history, if we never existed, then thank you for giving us a reason to exist.”

"This is not about sacrifice, but about rewriting. If the dragon plague ends because of this, the sacred flame of the Privy Council will one day be rekindled..."

“People will remember this moment one day, and this fragment of history will transform from falsehood to reality. So this is not a farewell, but a writing of meaning.”

Duro's sword is never afraid of bending;
I only fear growing old in the box, becoming rusty with the passage of time.

Fang Zheng nodded slightly. The core of the magic array was already in his hands, while Toragotos had trapped himself and had long since perished under the barrier.

All the stars were extinguished, and the dark saints could not bring it back to life; what it suffered was but a fraction of the torture the Numerin elves had prepared for Lifgard.

Just as the holy sword severed the dragon's head, those who kept their oath drank the blood of madness, and from then on, the seed of evil flowed only in the blood, while its original master vanished into history, leaving only a parable.

As long as reason prevails, the dragon will never return.

More than two years have passed since Fenris, and Fang Zheng never expected that this cause and effect would end here. Everything from the past is still vivid in his mind.

I still remember that it was also the opportunity that led Miss Nightingale to join them.

All his thoughts eventually dissipated. He looked up at the barrier in mid-air that was dissolving, and the elemental storm seemed to be ending.

After the clouds dispersed, the starlight behind them remained dazzling and flawless, while the fallen star had already dipped below the horizon.

Three meteors marked the location of Vo-Salastiel.

Fang Zheng raised the magic glove again, merging his will with the magic circle.

He raised his hand and pressed it down heavily. The moment his five fingers touched the ground, countless golden streaks of light spread out from the square.

Twelve enormous magic circles appeared one after another beneath each of the city gates of Vol-Salastiel, their golden light shooting straight into the sky, together forming the first outer ring of the fortress.

Then the light extended inward, forming the second ring of the creation spell, stretching from the inner city all the way to the central square, covering most of the city.

The last thing to light up was the central magic array.

Selgios watched silently from mid-air as the golden river flowed along the city's streets, an invisible force seemingly shaping the soil and forming tracks.

The soaring golden light spread along the track, until it connected with each other, until it covered most of the city, until it enveloped the entire Vor-Sarastil.

Beryl caught up, but she saw no surprise, anger, or regret in her eyes, only a deathly silence.

Calm, composed, even indifferent.

"Selgios, what are you doing?"

"It's not dead—"

"what?"

“I did not come to see it,” Selgios said for the first time. “It is all my sins, and I must pay for them myself.”

Having said that, Beryl looked at the commander of the Sons of Saltbone, the great explorer of the Gulf, and turned away without even glancing at the ruins of the spire.

They flew towards the direction of the sacred mountain.

She hesitated for a moment, then seemed to understand something and flew over as well.

When the blood-red harbinger of doom appeared in the sky,
When former enemies return.

The world will eventually come to an end.

Two hundred and seventy years after the Holy Flame was extinguished, the eleven scepter bishops of the Oath Court, holding their silver scepters, gazed upon the apocalyptic scene through the rain.

The city seemed to be on fire.

And above the sky are countless stars.

The stars are falling, just as the pale moonlight is descending.

In the darkness, another gaze was also directed towards the direction of Vol-Salastiel, its owner pressing the heavy blade of his sword to the ground as he looked toward the rising pillar of light.

As if sensing something, his usually dull eyes flickered slightly, and memories from countless days and nights ago flooded his mind.

Gunther Brandbald looked up and glanced briefly at the two beams of light flying in mid-air. Selgios and Belel were arriving at this place.

"What? You said that idiot from the Brandbald family has disappeared?" Baldoma instinctively became alert and glanced into the dark rain.

"He didn't run away, did he?"

"No one can escape, but that fool won't. I think he'll fall into their hands."

“Shut up, all of you,” Bishop Baldoma interrupted them sharply. “So you didn’t stop those people at all? You are the sword of Duro, the knights of the Temple?”

Marlan may not have cast a single glance here.

Otherwise, how could the Holy Flame have been extinguished three hundred years ago?
They were nothing but a group of abandoned people. The knights looked at each other, and among their opponents were two men who were more like the Dullaw Knights than they were.

One of the little girls wielded the blessing and power of Ori. The other, a cat-woman, possessed Templar swordsmanship even more formidable than any of them.

“Your Excellency, we have done our best to delay them,” the knights couldn’t help but argue. “They will arrive here in at least a quarter of an hour.”

A quarter of an hour could not alleviate Baldoma's unease. He felt that everything tonight was deviating from the original plan, whether it was the sudden arrival of the team or the missing young people from the Brandbald family.

He looked at the homeless man not far away. The middle-aged man, who used the alias Kobelflick, remained as calm as ever. "Can't we hurry up?"

“Don’t worry, everything is still in the plan,” Art replied. “I know who they are and why they came.”

……

Maryland was stunned. He couldn't be sure if the person wielding the broken sword before him was still human. Just as he couldn't be sure if the flowing, muddy monster was truly the legendary Dark Lord—Lifgard.

Amidst the surging, rotting flesh, only one golden pupil looked down upon each of them, as if supported by countless tentacles of black mud, standing like a spire.

Before that monster stood not so much a person as a middle-aged man whose body was half-rotten.

He was still wearing a proper captain's coat, though the collar was worn and frayed, and the clothes looked faded and worn. He held the shattered sword in one hand and turned to look at them.

"You are……"

Elisa recognized the other person.

But the man clearly did not recognize Miss Nightingale, because he had never seen her in that bygone era; his gaze remained fixed on Maryland's hand.

"You brought it back..."

Maryland took a step back, stung by the gaze, and instinctively gripped the star tracker, pressing it against her chest. "...Who are you?"

"who am I?"

The middle-aged man lowered his head and repeated a sentence.

“You are the commander of the Sons of Saltbone, the great explorer of the Gulf… Sel Gios.”

Elisa looked at the man across Maryland with some surprise, her gaze shifting back and forth between the commander of the Saltbone Children, as if trying to figure out what had happened.

This was in 1007, two hundred years after the Holy Oath of the Pivot Flame was removed from the Twelve Paths of Enlightenment.

Amidst the swirling snow, above the crowd, those golden pupils coldly observed the scene, seemingly without any intention of launching an attack.

……

No one expected that the moment Kobelflick—or rather, Art—opened the door, a golden stream of flame would sweep out from inside.

The former was caught off guard and pierced by the stream of flames, flying backward.

Then Baldoma saw clearly that it was a spear gleaming with golden light, as if forged from flowing golden blood, which melted into the rain after piercing the wanderer.

Then people saw a pair of eyes in the darkness.

In the deep hall, those eyes resembled those of a wild beast imprisoned in chains, their slender pupils gleaming with a cold light as they stared at everyone before them.

It was like two twinkling stars falling into the dark dust. The moment it slowly opened, everyone seemed to hear the wailing of the entire world.

But that wasn't the one Baldoma had imagined—

"How can it be!?"

Beryl, who was in mid-air, let out a gasp.

She already knew about Selgios and Fang Zheng's plan, and she had also witnessed the creation circle being completed, drawing all of Livegard's power from the Noumelin elves' barrier.

The phantom of the Dark Lord is still lingering in the sky above Vol-Salastiel, but how could it have reappeared in this place?
One lives, the other dies—this is the ironclad law of the Dragon Blood Curse, and the reason why the Oathkeepers used the Holy Sword to sever the head of the Dark Dragon, thus ending the Dragon War.

"But how could it still be alive..."

She was asking herself, and also about Selgios, who was not far away.

But the commander of the Son of Saltbone seemed not to hear, and directly drew his sword and slashed downwards.

A sword beam several thousand meters long slashed diagonally across the rain, but before it could touch the temple of Tririel, it was blocked by an invisible force that deflected it.

A faint voice came from the darkness.

"You still came back..."

Baldoma stood frozen in place, almost unable to believe his ears. The voice coming from the depths of the hall was that of a woman.

To be precise, it was a young girl's voice, though slightly hoarse, as if metal were vibrating, and golden eyes slowly emerged.

Dark silt gathered in the hall toward the owner of the golden eyes, coalescing into her body, long hair, limbs, and long skirt, finally transforming into a woman.

Her long, jet-black hair was like silk, her golden eyes were like stars in the night sky, and her pale skin was like snow porcelain, but her arms and forehead were covered with ugly scales.

Like a burned scar, it still radiates a dark red glow.

She looked up and smiled slightly at Selgios in mid-air, "My dear—brother."

At that moment, Beryl finally remembered the girl's name.

“Nietali Gios…” she couldn’t help but blurt out, “She’s your sister. Shouldn’t she have died long ago? How come she’s here?”

Sergios seemed to be trapped in those layers of illusions.

He froze on the spot.

The false past and the real past overlap in memory, and the curse of dragon blood spreads once again across the land of the bay. People say it is a curse brought by his father.

The curse of the Geos family.

He deserved the praise of a hero, but died in an dishonorable accident.

He was obligated to reclaim his family's honor, but that curse struck them once more—

“Sel, your father once quelled another plague before his death, and now the fate of Perahvin has once again fallen on your shoulders.”

He looked at the elderly official, whose swollen eye bags were covered with a bluish-gray tinge resembling lividity. Over the long years, he couldn't even remember the man's name.

He used to hate these people to the core, but their worn robes, once adorned with gold thread, are now just loose threads.

He turned around and watched as the girl placed freshly picked marigolds into a ceramic vase, the molten gold petals brushing against her sister's wrist, casting a shimmering shadow there.

"What I want is not fate, but responsibility, Your Excellency Glensol. Please restore my father's honor."

"Ah, your father never lost his rightful reputation; Mr. Casimir has always been the most respected explorer in the Parliament."

The official's face was left with only a fawning smile.

That fake smile now overlapped with the girl's smile. "This is what you owe me, Sergios."

"If you hadn't brought back the Fountain of Youth, I wouldn't have died."

“You have reclaimed the family’s honor,” her voice gradually turned cold, “but you have left me here, but dear brother—I don’t mind.”

"Because one day, you will pay for all of this."

"The power you stole from my bloodline," she said, enunciating each word clearly, "and the honor you stole from me, it's time to return it all to me."

Baldoma instinctively took a step back.

This movement caused him to bump into the cold corpse behind him, making his heart tremble. The dangerous guy who seemed invincible to him had actually died so simply?

He knew, of course, that Kobelflick was just an alias, and he also knew that this man was extremely dangerous, but he had offered the court a bargaining chip that it could not refuse.

— To render the curse of dragon blood harmless and to reignite the holy flame.

The sacred oath of the Pivot Flame has been far removed from the center of power for far too long.

So long that they have even forgotten that glorious past, so long that people only remember the priests of the Oath Court as nothing more than a group of greedy merchants on the sea of ​​emptiness.

Once upon a time, they were also one of the twelve pillars, the most proud holy guards of the Miro Palace.

But this very person who made promises to him died so easily?
Baldoma stared stiffly at the dark gash on the wanderer's chest—and only slightly later than Berel, he realized who the woman who had attacked Kobelflick was.

However, this event is never recorded in history. In the scrolls of the Sons of the Gulf, Sel Gios's sister died in Porahvin, which had nothing to do with him bringing back the Fountain of Youth.

Because she passed away long after that, before that she, like her brother, was active as an explorer in the Gulf region and left behind many records.

But what's going on here?

Baldoma felt his mind was in complete confusion. Was what he was seeing the reality that was happening now, or the past in history?
But if this is the past, why was all of this never recorded in the history of the Flame Tower? Why was it never recorded in the war that took place three hundred years ago?
He was so shocked that he didn't even notice that not a single ray of starlight had ever escaped from the cold corpse behind him.

...(End of chapter)