Hotaru.
At first glance, she looked no different from the other Iron Cavalry girls. Their faces all shared certain striking similarities.
But in truth, she was the one who differed from them the most.
In a universe ravaged by the Swarm Disaster, she had somehow set foot on the Path of Remembrance, then crawled back out of NIHILITY with the help of her former teammates.
You thought that was the end of it?
No. Hotaru's story did not stop there.
Later, when the larva of an AEON awakened on Zieltworth she fought against it, part of its body sank into her during the battle.
So if anyone were to speak of "the most unique life-form in the universe," or "the person connected to the greatest number of Paths," Hotaru would undoubtedly take the top spot.
But although she was connected to multiple Paths, the Path that formed the essence of her current existence had never changed.
That was...
The Path that could still all things, the Path that could devour all things—NIHILITY.
It was a trait she had possessed ever since crawling out of NIHILITY, and it was also the reason her body could contain so many special Paths.
Because before NIHILITY, Paths were nothing more than power. There was no difference between them.
And yet, although Hotaru's body had been born from NIHILITY, the power of NIHILITY had always been more of a passive force to her.
At this very moment, that power began to throb without warning.
And the cause of it all was the little girl she had just seen.
The moment Hotaru saw her, it was as though she had entered some special state.
The girl was like a seven-colored sun, illuminating everything beneath the heavens.
That light seemed capable of brushing away every trouble, allowing lingering obsessions to finally be released.
Bathed in that radiance, Hotaru slowly felt the weight of the world fall away.
For the first time in a long while, Hotaru felt at peace.
But even though she had entered a state of calm, that did not mean "they" inside her had calmed down as well.
Under the shine of that light, the blood-red hands dwelling within her began to thrash wildly.
Hotaru knew exactly where those things had come from.
They were Sin Thirsters—obsessions born from the shadow of NIHILITY after Pathstriders died.
They endlessly repeated what they had done in life, all so they could finally find release.
And in life, these obsessions had guarded the weakest Hotaru. That was why they had always stayed quietly inside her before.
Whenever she encountered danger, they would appear passively and protect her.
But now, after encountering the radiance of this life, they began to crave release from it.
'Under this light... it doesn't seem to hurt anymore...'
'The radiance of life...'
'We want to become light too...'
Noisy whispers seemed to rise beside Hotaru's ears. Before she could make any of them out, a clamor suddenly erupted around her.
"Waaah! W-What is this?!"
March 7th shielded Kohane as she backed away again and again.
Good thing she had moved fast. Otherwise, the hands reaching out from Hotaru's body would have grabbed her!
Dan Heng also sensed something wrong when he saw those hands, especially the aura clinging to them. It made him deeply wary.
"Why is there an aura of NIHILITY?!"
Across the entire galaxy, who didn't know how dangerous NIHILITY was?
Why would anyone bring something like that here?
As he thought, he stepped in front of March.
The spear in his hand swept through the air, blocking all the hands lashing toward them.
But his actions seemed to anger those blood-red hands.
Their attacks grew faster and faster, and the angles they came from became stranger and stranger. The difficulty of Dan Heng's defense rose sharply.
"This isn't going to work!"
Dan Heng wanted to break away, but the other side's attacks were relentless, falling like rain and leaving him no opening to escape.
Most importantly, he did not dare let himself get hit.
Everyone in the universe held a deep fear of coming into contact with NIHILITY.
Even Dan Heng, with his mysterious identity, was no exception.
But his strength alone had its limits. Even with March firing an arrow from time to time, it was still hard to ease much of the pressure on him.
And then a gap appeared.
"Dan Heng, look out!"
March cried out.
Before Dan Heng could react, a hand suddenly reached up from below and clawed straight toward his face.
"Damn it!"
Dan Heng tried to turn his spear, but it was already too late.
The hand moved so fast that he felt a gale strike his face.
Under those circumstances, the faint outline of dragon scales slowly emerged on his face.
Moisture in the air began to gather around him.
This was no longer the time to hide his power. Dan Heng had no idea what would happen if that hand touched him.
But the power was still coming just a little too slowly.
Even though Dan Heng had done his utmost to use the Vidyadhara "cloud-water arts," he still felt that hand closing over his face.
"I didn't make it...?"
Dan Heng gritted his teeth. He could already feel the threat carried by that hand.
And at that instant, a streak of seven-colored light seemed to appear before his eyes.
It crossed between Dan Heng and the blood-red hand as though it had emerged from nowhere, without the slightest warning.
The instant the hand touched that thin stream of radiance, it began to collapse and split apart.
Dan Heng could see the hand continuously dissipating, and the aura of NIHILITY above it vanished as well.
But before he had time to be shocked, what remained of it still slammed into his forehead, sending him flying backward uncontrollably.
"Dan Heng! Are you okay?!"
March hurriedly caught Dan Heng and checked his condition.
What she did not notice was that the roiling seven-colored hue in Kohane's black pupils slowly sank back out of sight.
"I'm fine."
Dan Heng was very clear about the state of his body.
Other than feeling as though his head had taken a heavy blow just now, nothing else had happened.
NIHILITY had not left any trace on him.
But Dan Heng also knew one thing.
"That just now was...?"
His brows furrowed. The seven-colored stream of light surfaced in his mind again.
That sudden light was the key to why he was unharmed right now.
While Dan Heng was thinking, March's suggestion suddenly reached his ears.
"Dan Heng, maybe we should leave first..."
The entire floor was already in complete chaos.
Everything had happened too suddenly. Even the Iron Cavalry girls did not know why Hotaru had suddenly ended up like this.
But whatever the reason, stopping the current situation was clearly what they needed to do first.
After Dan Heng was knocked back, they successfully found an opening to cut into the fight.
So right now was the best chance for March and Dan Heng to get away from this dangerous place.
Dan Heng saw the situation and nodded in agreement with March's decision.
Although he still did not know what had caused the sudden incident, this place was clearly not safe at the moment.
It would be better to leave for now.
And so, the two of them took Kohane and left.
After they had gone far away, those restless hands of NIHILITY lost their strength as well.
The outstretched hands disappeared one by one into the air, and Hotaru, their source, lost her strength and collapsed to the floor.
The Iron Cavalry girls disengaged their gear and carried the unconscious Hotaru into the room.
"How is she?"
"She's fine. She should have calmed down."
"But why would she suddenly become like that?"
They discussed what had just happened one after another.
After all, Hotaru had never lost control in front of them before. This sudden incident naturally shocked them.
"It seems we'll only be able to find the answer from those two who just left..."
Shunji pulled up The Reverie's surveillance feed.
As they watched March 7th and Dan Heng flee through the camera footage, their gazes sharpened.
Find them.
...
In the end, Gopher Wood found no clues there.
Sunday's whereabouts were unknown, and that power had vanished as well...
The future he had looked up to seemed to have gone completely dark in that instant.
The only thing left to him was a Stellaron that had undergone some strange change because of two different powers.
"But what use is this thing on its own?"
What had happened before had already proven that a single Stellaron was nowhere near enough before Sora.
Although Sunday had not fully become the AEON of ORDER, his power had already far surpassed that of an ordinary Emanator.
Under normal circumstances, an existence like that should have been able to roam the universe without meeting an equal.
Yet in the end, he had still lost to Sora.
There had been many coincidences involved, yes. But a loss was a loss.
Still, even though he had failed, Gopher Wood had not come away with nothing.
He had summarized the reasons for that failure, and the most important point among them was that the ascension ritual had created too much commotion.
Before, he had always believed that the grander the phenomenon of becoming a AEON, the better. That way, more people would understand that a newborn ORDER had descended upon the universe once more.
But a great commotion would also attract dangerous people like Sora.
So if he wanted to use the Stellaron in his hands to complete the plan, then the first thing he needed to do was keep his objective from being discovered.
As for moving to another planet...
That would mean all his plotting over the past several thousand years had gone to waste. And whether any other place could meet Penacony's conditions was still unknown.
So Gopher Wood would not change locations lightly.
But if he wanted to succeed...
"Unless something can draw that man's attention away, this is impossible."
But what could attract Sora's attention right now?
Gopher Wood racked his brain and still had no idea what to do.
Until he returned to Penacony and learned what had just happened.
"The Astral Express clashed with Sora's people?!"
When Gopher Wood heard the news, he froze for a moment.
The first thought that flashed through his mind was, How is that possible?
How could the Astral Express possibly clash with Sora's group?
It was utterly absurd.
But when the image of an entire corridor on one floor of The Reverie being affected and left in ruins was placed before him, he had no choice but to believe one thing.
It seemed there truly was an irreconcilable conflict between the Astral Express and Sora.
And most importantly, once Gopher Wood overlaid everything that had happened before, he suddenly seemed to understand.
He had personally monitored the Astral Express after learning that they had left and returned to Penacony.
And what had he sensed at that time?
Fluctuations of Sora's power had appeared near the Astral Express crew!
What did that prove?
It proved that Sora had also been secretly observing the crew at the time!
Only, because Gopher Wood had been too frightened, he had fled immediately and had no idea what happened afterward.
But what had happened now filled in the rest of the picture for him.
The reason the Astral Express crew had gone to look for Sora was clearly because they had also sensed Sora watching them.
On top of that, the two factions already had old grievances between them, so after discovering this, they had gone there and caused a huge commotion as a warning!
"It all fits! Everything fits!!"
Why had the crew only sent two youngsters over there to make trouble?
Because someone had held Sora back.
And while March 7th and Dan Heng were making a scene in The Reverie, who had disappeared?
Sora, Himeko, and Welt. Those three had vanished.
From that, it was clear the crew had sent two people to hold Sora back!
That was why the two had managed to seize this excellent opportunity to issue a warning.
And the warning had worked very well. According to the Family members at The Reverie, someone on Sora's side had been carried to bed after the battle.
That clearly meant the crew had come out ahead in this clash.
If things continued to develop this way, then the conflict between the Astral Express and Sora should continue as well.
In that case...
"If Sora's attention is drawn to the Astral Express, doesn't that mean I can carry out my plan?"
Gopher Wood stared at the lone Stellaron, his mind somewhat dazed.
He never would have imagined such a perfect chance would fall right into his lap like this.
It had caught him completely off guard.
No. What if this is bait?
I have to observe a little longer!
As for confirming whether it was bait, that was simple. He only needed to look at the attitude Sora and his subordinates displayed.
If the conflict between them flared once and then disappeared without a trace, then the clash was almost certainly bait.
By the same logic, if a more intense contradiction erupted between the two sides afterward, that would prove the matter was real.
He could act then, and it would still not be too late.
Let me see for myself whether your two forces have truly come into conflict, or whether this is a lure meant to draw me in...
Gopher Wood began to wait.
...
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Himeko and Welt, who had been judged to be busy holding Sora back, were still riding the Compass toward parts unknown.
"Do you really think those three Nameless would hide these things at the end of the train line?"
Welt was already beginning to doubt this trip.
The train was still advancing, but at the same time, it felt trapped in a loop.
For example, Welt was certain he had already seen the greenery outside the window once before.
In other words, the train had stopped at this place before.
Yet the two of them still had not found the clue the other party had left behind.
"If it isn't on this train, then where do you think those three Nameless would have hidden the information?"
Himeko's question left Welt without an answer.
She was right.
If those three Nameless had made an agreement with Pom-Pom, then wherever they hid the item had to have a feature that juniors like them would recognize at a glance.
And for all Nameless, past and present, the train they rode was undoubtedly the most meaningful thing in their lives.
There had been many who, even after leaving the Nameless, still passed down the stories of that train.
From that alone, it was clear what the train meant to them.
So if they were going to hide something, this was the only place they would hide it.
But...
"Why have we gone around several times and still found no clues?"
Himeko could not help feeling puzzled when she heard that.
Because this truly was a problem.
The two of them had been waiting here for so long. Under normal circumstances, they should have found a clue by now.
But the situation was exactly the opposite.
They had gained nothing more than they had when they arrived—only some added frustration and helplessness.
And that frustration and helplessness had nowhere to go. They could only keep it bottled up inside.
"Haah..."
Himeko let out a rare sigh and leaned against the window, looking at the scenery outside.
The train was still traveling along its fixed track. Penacony beyond the window looked dreamlike and illusory.
The lights above, seen from afar, were like stars glittering in a sea of starlight, while the Compass itself seemed just like the Astral Express.
Just like it, sailing among the stars.
Wait.
Himeko suddenly realized something. She focused carefully on the scenery outside.
After leaving Penacony behind, the mist rising from the dreamscape's edge blocked their vision, making Penacony look almost like a starry sky.
And the Compass traveling through the mist likewise seemed to be moving through space.
Then there was the structure, which was almost identical to the Astral Express.
A possibility appeared in her mind.
"Welt, if we take Penacony as the starry sky and the Compass as the Astral Express, then what kind of thinking should we use to construct the puzzle?"
Himeko's words made Welt frown, but he quickly gave an answer.
"Find the common points, of course."
"Exactly. Find the common points!"
If the puzzle had been designed around similarities, then the differences between the two sides were the key to solving it.
Looking at the scenery outside, Himeko murmured, "Then if we're talking about the key difference between the Compass and the Astral Express..."
The answer left both their mouths at once.
"Warp!"
That was right. If Penacony was regarded as the starry sky, then one would be amazed to discover just how similar the Compass and the Astral Express truly were.
Both were trains traveling among the stars, and both carried passengers to their stations.
But the two were different, and that difference was extremely obvious.
The Astral Express moved through the galaxy by warping with the power of Trailblaze, while the Compass only moved along a fixed track.
It neither accelerated nor slowed down. It traveled eternally along a fixed route at a fixed speed.
Welt still remembered exactly when he had seen the scenery outside the window, and there had been almost no change.
That was clearly not something that would happen on the Astral Express.
"In other words, we have to make the Compass warp in order to find what those three Nameless seniors left behind?"
So this was the puzzle they had left behind, and the crucial step needed to solve it.
"It seems so. And the only thing that can make a train warp is the power of Trailblaze..."
So that was also the screening mechanism to determine whether the ones who came were Nameless.
It seemed they had not wanted the things here to be touched by anyone who was not a Nameless.
And now the puzzle had been solved.
Himeko and Welt exchanged a look, then poured the power of the Path of Trailblaze within them into the train.
Then, something incredible happened.
After the power of Trailblaze flowed in, the train seemed to burst with a different kind of vitality.
Woooo—!
The train's whistle echoed along the border of the dreamscape, like a cheer that had waited hundreds of years to ring out.
Immediately afterward, the train shuddered, as if a person waking from sleep had given a full-body shake.
Then its speed more than doubled.
Yet the two people inside the carriage felt no turbulence because of it.
Gradually, a familiar sensation enveloped them.
It was as though their bodies, minds, and even time itself were being drawn out and stretched.
That was the sensation that appeared when a train warped.
Enclosed in that familiar feeling, Himeko suddenly seemed to see figures passing by her side.
Were these afterimages of the past recorded by Memoria?
She looked at those afterimages. They seemed to be speaking, discussing something...
Unfortunately, what appeared before Himeko were only fragments of the past, and she could not hear their voices.
Suddenly, a violent tremor struck, shaking all those afterimages apart.
The Compass, which had always traveled along a fixed track, suddenly broke free of its route under the infusion of Trailblaze and plunged toward an unknown direction.
The next instant, the train vanished from the border of the dreamscape, and no one knew where it had gone.
...
"Haha! Young man, food's here!"
Hearing the call from behind him, Sunday could not help showing a helpless expression.
Then came a strong, forceful slap on his back.
Fortunately, it was him. Anyone else would probably have had the wind knocked out of them.
When he turned around, sure enough, it was the bearded man who had saved him before.
The man still wore his bold, hearty expression, though beneath the smell of food on him, there was still a faint, inexplicable odor.
Sunday keenly caught those smells and could not help frowning.
"You went to the battlefield?"
That odor was very similar to the scent he had sensed in certain war-torn information.
It was the smell of unease and panic.
"Hah, didn't expect that, did you?"
The bold bearded man chuckled.
"The War of Independence is raging out there. It just so happens I can do my part."
Hearing that term, Sunday fell silent for a moment.
The man ignored that and kept sharing his food.
He began talking about anything and everything, telling Sunday stories of the battlefield and the world outside.
Sunday sat beside him and listened as the man used his limited vocabulary to do his best to describe the brilliant world beyond.
Because by now, Sunday had already figured out what era he was in.
Without even realizing it, he had been sent three Amber Eras into the past.
Everyone in the universe knew that the sounds of Penacony's festivities had echoed across the cosmos.
But few knew that three Amber Eras ago, Penacony had been a controlled prison.
Penacony's history was rarely publicized, so even the people of this Planet of Festivities did not know much about it.
But because Sunday occupied a special position, he knew everything.
The War of Independence.
It was a liberation war begun by the criminal Hanunue, then spread in full by the Nameless Mikhail Legwork.
And the book he had read earlier had been personally written by Mikhail in order to expand the influence of that war.
From Sunday's current perspective, the content of that book was far too crude.
But to many of the prisoners here, it held great appeal.
After all, for them, gaining freedom and no longer being trapped in a cage was such a wonderful thing.
But what was the price?
Sunday could list a whole basket of costs off the top of his head.
In the end, though, he chose to keep silent.
Because he understood that this was not something he alone could influence, nor was it something this bearded man who had saved him could influence.
"...Though I hear the IPC might cut off the supply shipments here. No idea if it's true or not."
The bearded man shifted to the rumors that had been spreading recently.
If the IPC truly cut off Penacony's supplies, it would undoubtedly be a massive blow to this place.
Penacony's prison existed specifically for mining Memoria.
In other words, aside from outside supplies, the local resources on this planet alone could not possibly cover the enormous population across the entire planet.
If the IPC chose to cut off shipments, then a crisis was inevitable.
Sunday, however, showed no particular change in expression after hearing it.
Because during the liberation war, the IPC had used every kind of method in order to retake this place.
Cutting off supplies was merely one of the most common.
What Sunday had not expected was that this standard tactic, one that history had barely bothered to record, would bring such massive unrest...
He could clearly sense that the food the bearded man brought back was becoming less and less.
Even so, the man still divided some of it out to fill his stomach.
At another mealtime, the two of them chatted calmly as usual.
"Hanunue's people are constantly contacting other planets, and some folks are even saying they should become galactic pirates and rob supplies."
Sunday looked at him.
"You agreed?"
"How could I? Of course I refused! If a galactic pirate comes my way, I'd kill two for every one I see. How could I become one?"
The bearded man spoke with great passion. Sunday remembered that this man seemed to have been sentenced here for murder.
But after that brief burst of fervor, his mood quickly sank again.
"It's just that a lot of people seem to want to do that..."
Sunday understood that this was normal.
Before survival, a person's bottom line could be dragged lower without limit, even if it was trampled again and again.
That was also why he had created that plan.
Only, with this frail body of his now, forget implementing the plan again—he probably couldn't even stimulate a plant to grow.
It seemed he could only watch this supply crisis from the sidelines.
Food slowly became scarcer and scarcer, but those fighting on the front lines could still receive slightly larger portions.
During this time, Sunday's life could be considered normal. He was learning about the current situation through other channels.
Then one sudden incident dragged him back to that place.
There were many, many people in the room. Sunday could not identify all of them.
But he could see the bearded man in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by everyone.
Only, compared to before, one of his legs was gone.
"It's fine! It's just a broken leg. I'll get a prosthetic later and that'll be that!"
He still did not care at all.
But he had never considered that during this time of scarce supplies, even a prosthetic limb counted as an extremely precious item.
And so he ended up bedridden, still hollering away in that booming voice of his all day long.
Sunday's role and his had switched. Before, the man had fed him. Now, Sunday was feeding this man.
The man kept pestering Sunday, asking him to tell him what stage the war outside had reached.
"You're a patient and you're still thinking about all this? Wait until your body recovers a little before worrying about anything else."
As Sunday spoke, he looked down at the food in his hands.
Not enough. This little bit of nutrition was nowhere near enough.
Although he understood that having any at all during a time like this was already fortunate.
The IPC had cut off Penacony's supplies, while also intimidating many planets into not cooperating with them.
If this scarcity continued, wounded people like this would probably...
Sunday did not need to speculate about the evil in human nature, because he had seen these things with his own eyes.
Afterward, when the IPC judged that conditions here had reached the right point, they began using supplies as bait to buy over the people who had once raised the rebellion here.
As long as they believed in the IPC again, they could obtain supplies and have the evidence of their crimes erased.
Sunday had seen the IPC use this trick several times before.
And every time, it produced fairly good results.
According to his understanding, they should have accepted the offer openly while secretly making other arrangements.
Divide off a portion of the people to accept the supplies, then circulate them privately within Penacony.
But to his surprise, Hanunue, as the leader, actually chose to reject it outright.
Confused, Sunday specifically hid himself in the crowd to listen to his explanation. He truly did not understand why Hanunue would make that choice.
On the high platform, Hanunue, who had wolf-like features, did not notice Sunday, thin and frail as a pole.
He merely stated the present situation.
"I believe everyone here understands what we are, and why the IPC would ever treat us so well!"
They were criminals imprisoned in this place. To varying degrees, none of them had clean hands.
Everyone knew perfectly well why the other side was trying to buy them off like this.
If the IPC could arrange for them to be sent here, it could just as easily arrange something new for them all over again.
"But our current supplies probably won't last much longer..."
"Yeah. Even after cutting back this much, in a few more months we'll probably be facing famine."
The IPC had cut off supplies, and had even forbidden the surrounding planets from delivering anything to them.
They had become birds trapped in a cage.
"Please rest assured! The Watchmaker has already called upon his friends. Once they arrive, they will certainly ease our supply problem!"
Sunday was not interested in listening to such obvious empty promises and chose to leave.
...
Only, a few days later, he heard a rumor.
"Have you heard? The reinforcements the Watchmaker called for arrived! It's that train in the sky!"
The Astral Express?
With its ability to warp, it could indeed cross the IPC's blockade.
Sunday nodded in agreement.
But in the very next moment, he seemed to hear something inexplicable.
"Only, the guy leading them keeps looking for some 'Third Uncle,' and everyone's kind of confused..."
Third Uncle?!
What the hell was that?!
---
T/N: OH HE GOT SENT TO THE PAST
SO THE TRASH CAN COULD REALLY BE SUNDAY! OMGGGGG
T/N2: heres ur updates :3 meeting the 4 chaps a week quota :3 posting earlier so bonus chaps will be a longer waitttt >:)
bonus chaps
200 stones -> 1 chapter
400 stones -> 2 chapters
600 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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