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Black Spire (2)
rlin's eyes always sparkled. Even though she’d lived for a thousand years, energy suffused her voice, and every movent she made brimd life. When you thought about it, it was a strange thing.
A hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years, when seeing a human who’d lived for so long, the idea isn’t of soone living but of dying. Although there were a few exceptions, most transcendent beings who’d lived for so many years were more simply enduring than anything else.
To keep from eroding, to keep from breaking, to keep from becoming one of the Forgotten, to keep from becoming a Fallen Star, they endured an eternity but still flaked away.
rlin was different. Despite having lived several tis longer than other transcendents—for a full thousand years—she was always full of life and living each day to the fullest.
"You are… You, who are you?"
However, Najin couldn’t possibly describe the rlin before him as alive. Her ghastly blue eyes were voids; the stars always visible within were nowhere to be seen. Those dead, empty eyes couldn’t have possibly felt a aning to life.
"I asked you a question." rlin gestured at Najin. Crossing the distance of several dozen ters in an instant, Najin was pulled right in front of her, unable to resist in any way. Grasping his neck, she spoke. "Who are you?" Her dark-blue eyes bored into him.
* * *
Looking at her up close, the difference between the rlin before him and the rlin Najin knew wasn’t just in the aura she gave off; her appearance was also slightly different.
If the rlin he knew looked like a girl in her teens, the rlin before him was closer to her twenties—a slightly more mature woman who’d lost her youthful look. Unlike his rlin’s short hair, the rlin of the past’s hair grew out long, reaching down her back.
Najin felt rlin's fingers on his neck. They were cold, not the warmth of a living person.
"I am…" Najin spoke. "I am the Free Knight, Najin."
"A Free Knight?"
"You should be able to tell by my clothes.” A thousand years might have passed, but Free Knights hadn’t changed their uniform once in that ti. He never thought the fact would be helpful in this way. With that thought, Najin pointed to rlin's fingers gripping his neck "I'd appreciate it if you'd let go."
rlin silently let go of Najin's neck. "Why is a Free Knight here? Didn't you hear from the Round Table? They should have warned you never to approach the depths of the Outlands."
"I did hear that."
"Then why are you here? Do you not value your life?"
To be honest, it wasn't that he wanted to be there; it was closer to being dragged, but instead of saying that, Najin thought for a mont before speaking. "My guide pointed this way."
"Ha. I don't know who your guide is, but it's clear they're incompetent." rlin scoffed. She turned her gaze away as if she had no interest. Grabbing the fainted witch by the hair, she dragged her off sowhere.
"Where are you going?"
"What does it matter to you? Why? Do you feel so sort of sympathy for this witch? Do you think I'm being too harsh?"
"I didn't think that. You must have your reasons for doing what you're doing. You aren’t the type of person to do sothing without reason."
rlin halted in place and turned. "What am I?"
"You're rlin. Great Archmage rlin."
At Najin's answer, she gave a precarious smile. "Right. That's right. I'm Archmage rlin, the holder of the second seat of the Round Table and Arthur's guide. No, I guess I can't be called a guide. How is this a guide?" She scoffed at herself. Sneering in self-loathing, rlin threw the unconscious witch into a deep pit.
A foul stench billowed up from the corpse-filled hole. There wasn't just one or two of those pits. Everywhere he looked, there were only corpses. Of course, Najin realized all those corpses were witches, demons, and demon contractors.
'Slaughterer.'
He rembered sothing rlin had once said. She often used the expression 'slaughterer' when she spoke of her past with a self-deprecating laugh, saying she was the one who had killed the most demons and witches in history.
Regardless of whether Najin was watching, rlin continued with her task. She stretched her hand toward the sky; then, she clenched it as if grabbing sothing. The fainted witch twitched and convulsed violently. As if having regained consciousness, the witch struggled. Since her mouth was frozen, she couldn't scream, making her movents look all the more desperate.
The witch’s face contorted in pain.
It took a little while for Najin to realize what was happening to the woman. He looked at rlin, who had her hand stretched toward the sky, and then at the sky above. The mont he looked up, he couldn't help but gasp at the scene that surpassed all imagination.
A giant hand was ripping a constellation made of seven stars from the sky, scattering starlight as if tearing away flesh.
rlin swung her clenched hand, the seven stars following the swing, one after another. When Najin looked around, he saw it wasn’t just those few stars, but dozens of stars were plumting. The frozen land where rlin stood was filled with the corpses of stars. Though the night sky should have been filled with them, but a single star remained: Arthur's star.
rlin was tearing out all the filthy stars that dared to position themselves near Arthur's star.
"You there." rlin pointed at Najin. "If you don't want to die, you'd better leave this place. They'll be here soon."
What was coming? There was no need to ask such a question. The sky began to tear, and witches on broomsticks appeared in rows.
Dragons, witches, demons, those who fed on chaos and confusion filled the sky. As if they could no longer stand by and watch rlin's atrocities, they had co to kill her.
A sneer hung on the lips of the lead witch. "Do you really think you can handle all of us by yourself, without Arthur?"
Dozens of constellations and their hundreds of apostles filled the sky with their stars.
"Your story is over, rlin." Still in the air, they looked down on her.
rlin didn’t even do them the courtesy of returning their stare. Without giving them a single glance, she raised her hand to the sky and swung down.
As if unable to replicate the scene, the dream recreating rlin's mory shook violently. The world started to creak and then collapse, echoing in Najin’s ears with its death cries.
Before the world completely ripped apart, Najin saw the sky itself falling as rlin brought down all of those who dared to look down on her.
Finally, he saw rlin’s face, looking so fragile that she could collapse at any mont
With that last image, Najin woke from the dream.
* * *
Blink.
As soon as he woke from the dream, Najin gasped for breath. His heart was pounding like crazy.
'Just now...'
He wasn't just waking up from a dream but had been thrown out. Still, the Black Spire seed to recognize even that as a clear, as it didn’t block his path. Najin barely managed to steady his breathing and looked around.
Anton was there, kneeling with his head bowed. It seed he hadn't woken from the dream yet.
– Hey, hey! Are you okay? Can you hear ? Your mind is...
rlin was urgently trying to speak with him.
Najin looked at rlin. The rlin he knew well, different from the one in the dream, was there. He opened and closed his mouth a few tis. The words didn't co out easily. How should he explain this?
In the end, the first thing Najin said was neither here nor there. 'Did you see it too, rlin?'
– What? You lying there completely limp?
'Not that. A hand or sothing pulled sothing out of and showed a dream...'
– I rember up to that point, but was there more after that? All I saw was you lying there.
It was rlin's mory, but it seed rlin herself hadn’t been there. Najin gave a bitter smile at rlin’s worried gaze. It was a familiar sight, and he felt a sense of relief as he spoke. 'I saw your mories, not my own.'
rlin's body stiffened.
– Wh-what?
She was horrified, her eyes wide.
– When? mories from when?
'Let's talk about that later.' Najin looked toward the next floor.
When rlin had explained the Black Spire, she’d said that a single dream continued on and on. If so, would the dream continue from where it was cut off if he went to the next floor? If that was the case, there was sothing he had to ask.
'rlin…'
– No, just when did you see?
'Can I use Excalibur in a dream?'
She went silent for a mont and gave him an intense stare.
– I don't know why you're asking that, but you probably can. It wouldn't have been possible if the witch Malkuth was alive, but now that she's dead, the dreams you have in this tower are nothing more than illusions.
Right. That's all he needed. Najin nodded and slowly got up.
– So what did you see in the dream?
'The rlin from when you had twelve stars.'
The mont he said that, rlin's face turned deathly pale.
– How… did you? I don't even rember that.
'You said it yourself, rlin. The mories this tower shows are from the most painful tis.'
The Mystique that resided in the Black Spire, Reminiscence—the Mystique the witch nad Malkuth possessed—was overlaid onto the tower after she died. Just as its original owner had wished, the Mystique presented a nightmare to all challengers who entered the tower.
The most terrible mory, the most intense mory, the happiest mory—the mory changed depending on the challenger or the floor, but in Najin's case, for so reason, he seed to be seeing rlin's most terrible mory, a past that even rlin herself had forgotten.
rlin's face went from pale to ghostly white. It was far from the sha or embarrassnt that ca from soone else seeing one's past. Najin, who shared so of his emotions with her, felt terror and fear.
rlin was feeling fear.
'rlin?' Najin looked at her. The mont his eyes t with the fidgeting rlin's, she bit her lip hard.
– Let's get out.
She grabbed Najin's arm and pulled. Although her body had no substance, he could feel her urgency.
– Let's get out, quickly. Huh? We've co this far, so that's enough. You don't have to climb all the way to the top of the tower.
rlin's eyes were trembling.
– I said let's go. Please, huh? Can't you just listen to for once?
'rlin, calm down for a second...'
– I'm telling you, let's go!
As if surprised by her own shout, she covered her mouth. Not knowing what to do, she looked at Najin as her fingers trembled. Her gaze trembled with anxiety. Hands shaking, she gripped his arm and pleaded.
– Please. Can't we just… stop here. Just here?
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