I Pulled Out Excalibur Chapter 257

War (1)

Carpe Diem, the Demon King of Lantation, was subjugated.

Akut, the Praise Horn, was subjugated.

As the domain's master disappeared, the sky began to clear. The black curtain drew back, the laughter and applause vanished, and silence settled over the wasteland.

"......"

In that silence, Gerd rubbed his chin.

"So the Carnival King's constellation was fake, and you pulled back the veil hiding it and saw the Carnival King's true face. Do I have that right?"

"Yes."

"You made it here even though no word was sent outside, and you already knew Akut was a traitor. That proves this information is valid."

Gerd nodded, satisfied.

"Your contribution is enormous. You found La Mancha, conquered it, and on top of that exposed the Carnival King's weakness and identified a traitor... saying your rit is great does not even begin to cover it. I will report this to His Majesty personally."

Looking at Akut's broken spear stuck in the ground, Gerd muttered, "A seat just opened up." He collected the corpse of the Annihilation Horn, dead with his heart pierced through, then continued speaking to Najin.

"Two of the four court jesters are dead. One of the two remaining is the Star of Scorn. The problem is the last one. You said you saw that constellation too?"

"I did, but I had never seen it before, so I do not know who it is."

"Can you recall its shape?"

Najin nodded and drew it on the ground.

A constellation made of nine stars.

Gerd, Karan, Yuel, and the Star Incarnation looked down at it in silence. None of them recognized it. It was their first ti seeing it too.

"This is strange. A constellation with nine stars should be well known, but I have never seen this one."

"Sa here. I have never seen a star like this."

Karan and Yuel tilted their heads. Around nine stars ant a considerable number of achievents, and fa usually followed. Yet the constellation before them was truly one they had never seen.

"I have never seen one like this either."

rlin looked troubled as well.

"......"

Najin stared at the drawing without a word.

When he first saw this constellation, Akut's betrayal had shocked him so badly he could not focus on anything else. But now, looking at it drawn on the ground, he felt like sothing was about to click.

It was a constellation he had never seen.

He was sure it was new to him.

So why did it feel familiar?

Najin frowned. A strange sense of deja vu crept over him. He had definitely seen this pattern sowhere. But where? He searched his mory.

"I definitely saw it sowhere......"

Just as he traced that mory, a voice brushed past his ears.

「Artman? That place still exists?」

「Strange. It should not have survived.」

The Helt Knight's voice. A conversation from long ago suddenly resurfaced, from when Najin had told him about his origins.

「Hidden? What was hidden there?」

「A corpse.」

「What?」

「A star's corpse was buried there. I do not know whose. It had eight stars, so it was definitely a constellation, but I could not identify exactly which one.」

The Helt Knight had told him that around two hundred years ago, a star's corpse had been found in the underground city of Artman. But for so reason, no records of it could be found in the current Empire. Even with Gerd's help, they found nothing.

「What did that star look like?」

「No idea. I was not part of that operation.」

The Helt Knight never told him what that star looked like. Still, for so reason, Najin felt the star in front of him had to be that one.

The number of stars was different.

He did not even know if the shapes matched.

But his instinct kept telling him there was a connection. Najin focused on every mory tied to the underground city. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his inner world.

As soon as he shut his eyes and focused inward, his Imagery spread out.

The landscape of the underground city, Artman.

After gaining six stars and reaching Blossoming, Najin's Imagery had expanded to more than double its old size. Inside that expanded world, wide enough to contain every corner of the underground city, Najin began to walk.

In the underground city, where neither starlight nor sunlight could reach, ore lamps hung in front of every house. The dusk-colored glow leaking from those lamps lit the streets. The people who had lost the sun rembered the outside world through that twilight hue.

In the underground city, ore lamps were starlight.

Following that starlight, Najin lifted his head. If he looked up, his own stars hung in the sky. For a mont, he extinguished them. When the stars went out, the underground city's ceiling ca into view.

"......"

Luminous stone, the raw material for ore lamps.

Those luminous stones were embedded in the underground ceiling. In Artman, Najin used to look at those stones and imagine stars. Because of that, even inside his Imagery, he could recreate their exact positions and shapes.

He had always looked up.

He had always looked at luminous stone and drawn stars in his mind.

When he was young, his hobby had been connecting one luminous stone to another on the ceiling to make constellations. Back then, he always thought:

"They all co out in the sa shape."

No matter where he started and where he ended, the sa pattern appeared with strange consistency.

Najin recalled that shape.

Then he opened his eyes.

What he saw was the nine-star constellation drawn on the ground. The two shapes matched perfectly. Najin's half-lidded eyes widened.

"The underground city."

Najin spoke.

"It is the underground city, Artman."

2.

Najin explained. He explained that he was from the underground city, the conversation he once had with the Helt Knight, and that he had seen a constellation like this there.

Even as he spoke, he clicked his tongue inwardly.

Even to him, the story sounded too convenient. If the last court jester was hiding in the underground city, that ant the entire Starlight Order could be traitors to humanity.

The largest of the three orders.

And one Najin had openly shown strong hostility toward.

It was already well known that Najin disliked the Starlight Order. He had publicly clashed with the Lighthouse Keeper. So from Najin's point of view, his words could easily be taken as slander against the Starlight Order.

"And there is no evidence."

His only evidence was eyewitness testimony: "I saw it."

Anyone would find that suspicious. Najin looked at the Transcendents watching him. It might sound like a lie, but it was true. He was just about to swear to that when:

"Do you have any other evidence?" Gerd asked.

Gerd looked straight at Najin.

His eyes were as cold as ever.

"...No."

"I see. Then are you certain?"

"I am."

"Then that is enough."

Enough for what?

Najin blinked, and Gerd jerked his chin.

"We move. To where the Starlight Order's main church stands."

"......What?"

"You said a traitor to humanity is there. What other reason do we need?"

"But we do not have evidence......"

"Aren't you certain?"

Gerd frowned as if the question itself was strange. Najin looked around. The other constellations gave off much the sa feeling. They were surprised by the possibility that the Starlight Order had joined hands with demons, but they were not doubting Najin.

"They are not doubting you because of everything you have done," rlin said.

"Are you undervaluing your own achievents?"

"What? What do you an......"

"Set everything else aside. Want to list only what you did recently?"

You shattered the Carnival King's mask. You exposed that the Carnival King had been distorting the Empire's history. You helped lay the groundwork for subjugating the Carnival King, and you pinned down the weaknesses of both the Star of Scorn Quixote and the Carnival King.

And that was not all.

Today, when this subjugation was about to end in failure, Najin arrived with the Star Incarnation and Yuel. He turned a battlefield that nearly cost them the First Horn of the Empire and the Sword Saint into victory. That was unmistakably Najin's rit.

"With achievents like that, who would doubt you?"

Evidence did not matter.

What Najin had done had already beco evidence.

"......"

Only then did Najin realize he had already climbed to that kind of position. He let out a small laugh and answered, "All right, let's do that."

Just as they were about to move:

Carpe Diem's stage fully cleared away, and the night sky returned to normal.

Flash.

The stars in the sky flickered over and over. The Star Incarnation, Yuel, Gerd, and Karan all stopped at once. They listened to the voices of other stars sending signals to their own. One by one, their expressions hardened.

"Well. This got more complicated than expected," Karan said.

"The Order of the Sword has been attacked. In the Kingdom of Latua, they breached the Order's sanctuary and killed multiple priests."

"The Starblood Sect as well. On our side, it happened in Zantium."

"The Starbody side was not attacked. But the High Priest was murdered. By demon contractors."

Their gazes naturally turned to Gerd.

Gerd's face had darkened.

"Latua, Zantium, Balvidia, Gobel. Four kingdoms have ford an alliance. They declared war on the Empire. I do not know the full details yet, but......"

Blood vessels stood out in Gerd's eyes.

"It seems the Praise Horn prepared this from the start. The third pillar of the Praise Horn's tower exploded. I am hearing it was an explosion close to an eighth-circle spell, right in the middle of the imperial capital."

An explosion. Then an assault launched the mont that explosion disrupted imperial capital security. Gerd confird it through signals from his close aides, then spat out the next words.

"His Majesty is currently in critical condition."

They struck when the central figures of each force were absent from their posts. There was no need to wonder who was behind these simultaneous attacks.

The Carnival King.

The star of rrint shone in the sky.

3.

In the center of the Empire's capital, one of the five pillars suddenly exploded, and every artifact within several kiloters shut down.

A massive mana storm tore holes in the security systems around the imperial palace. Assassins and dark mages exploited that gap and attacked, leading to an unprecedented disaster: the Emperor himself was left bleeding.

The attackers were subdued by imperial knights and the Fourth and Fifth Pillars...

But the Emperor of the Empire, Elwin, fell into critical condition.

He suffered burns, poison, and stone fragnts embedded in his flesh from the blast. The arm he raised to shield his face had blackened and shriveled.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! You still must not move! You need rest...!"

"Poison was on the attackers' weapons. Your Majesty, we must draw out the poison first...!"

Elwin, however, stood up after only one hour in bed. Ignoring the protests of his attendants, he summoned the Empire's officials to one place.

He headed for the imperial throne.

This was no situation where he could remain in bed.

One of the Empire's pillars had betrayed them, the attack ca as if it had been waiting for the First Horn of the Empire to leave his post, and as if that were not enough, neighboring nations declared war on the Empire.

"Hah."

Elwin let out a hollow laugh. More than the pain tearing through his body, rage made his blood boil hotter. With his oozing arm hidden under loose sleeves and his burned face covered by a mask, the Emperor sat on the throne.

To show that he was alive.

To show that the Empire still stood.

After taking his seat and receiving the full report, Elwin burst out laughing. He laughed so hard it felt like the imperial palace itself would wash away, and then his first words ca out:

"Looks like these bastards took the Empire for a complete fucking joke."

Elwin crushed the declaration of war in his fist.

"King Arthur founded the Empire for humanity, and until the day he departed for Camlann, he left one charge. Protect humanity. The Empire must stand as the axis that gathers humanity into one. That is an oath. An oath anyone who seeks the imperial seat must uphold."

Then Elwin laughed.

"The dark mages are not part of the humanity King Arthur spoke of. Neither are those who collude with demons. Why? Because they are beasts, not humans."

He tore the declaration of war into pieces.

Because it contained absurd drivel claiming the Carnival King should stand at the center as humanity's new axis.

"Those beast bastards bared their fangs at the Empire."

He rose from the throne.

"Summon every knight."

The Emperor shouted.

"From this mont, the Empire will annihilate everything on the continent connected to demons. Understood? Annihilation."

If they colluded with demons, contracted with demons, or even gave them the smallest help, kill them, regardless of the reason.

Turn everything connected to them to ashes.

If they bared their fangs at the Empire, they would pay the price.

"I declare the start of war."

The Emperor declared war.

The Royal Guard, the imperial knights, every person in the Empire bearing the na knight, all were mobilized.

They were knights, and knights had the duty to answer the summons of the Emperor, descendant of the Knight King.