Darkness.
Olivia floated in this darkness, her silver long hair spread out, like a drop of milk falling into ink, slowly being diluted.
The hem of her bright yellow shirt floated up, revealing a bluish-purple fist print on her abdomen.
Bare feet, toes slightly curled.
She wanted to open her eyes, but her eyelids were too heavy.
She wanted to speak, but her throat felt stuffed with cotton.
The wound on the back of her head was still oozing blood, silver blood floating out from between her hair strands, condensing into perfectly round silver beads in the darkness, rising upward like rain falling in reverse.
She watched those blood beads leave her body, rising higher and higher, disappearing into the unseen depths of the darkness.
She wanted to reach out, but her arms couldn’t lift.
Then a light lit up deep in the darkness.
Golden.
The kind of gold reflected from snow on the highest peak of the Dragonrest Mountains when the first rays of morning sun hit it.
Pure, cold, enough to make one want to cry.
Golden light spread from the depths of darkness, like an invisible hand slowly pushing a layer of gold powder across a black canvas.
A silhouette emerged from the light.
A clock head, a gear body, pale golden light wings fluttering slowly behind.
Victoria.
She stopped in front of Olivia.
“Now, little princess.”
Victoria’s voice came from the clock head.
“You should already know the answer.”
Olivia opened her mouth.
The cotton-like sensation was still in her throat;
She couldn’t make a sound.
Silver blood beads were still floating up from the wound on the back of her head, one by one, passing through her scattered silver hair, through Victoria’s translucent light wings, rising into the higher darkness.
She looked at those blood beads, at Victoria.
The cotton in her throat grew fuller and fuller.
Then her back began to ache.
Something was growing out from between her shoulder blades.
Skin was being stretched open from the inside, bones pushed outward from the roots, muscle fibers torn apart and reconnected one by one.
Her mouth was open, a dry, airy sound escaping her throat—
Even her scream was blocked by the cotton.
The skin under her shoulder blades split open.
Silver light gushed out from the crack, like melted moonlight.
The light condensed in the darkness, extending outward from her back—
One, two, three.
Silver light wings.
The silver of the dragon race.
The edges of the wings carried the unique curvature of dragon wings, their texture pure light.
“As my descendant.”
Victoria’s voice came from the clock head.
The hands began to move, click, click, click.
“Return to your throne in glory.”
“What is that?”
Victoria did not answer.
Parts of her began to fall off.
The hands of the clock head fell off with a ding, tumbled in the air a few times, and melted into a golden light speck.
The largest gear on her chest loosened, slid off its axle, and as it fell, it decomposed into fine golden fragments.
Gears on arms, gears on legs, the countless large and small parts around her waist that Olivia had never counted—
All falling off.
Like a tree shedding all its leaves in autumn.
Golden light seeped through the gaps where parts had fallen off.
Deeper and richer than Victoria’s usual pale gold, like molten gold.
Light gushed from every gap, growing brighter and brighter.
The entire dark space was illuminated into daylight.
Olivia squinted.
Her silver pupils contracted into two thin slits.
In the light stood a little girl.
Golden hair the color of growing from the roots, the ends falling to her waist, gently swaying in the golden light.
Golden pupils—
Pure, molten gold.
She wore a white robe, its style so ancient that Olivia had never seen anything like it anywhere.
Barefoot, with a thin golden chain around her ankle, from which hung a small feather.
Behind her spread a hundred light wings.
As thin as dragonfly wings, as transparent as glass, edges shimmering with a pale golden luster.
Each one fluttered slowly, at different frequencies, combining into a strange harmony.
“I am the first generation Hundred-Wing Angel.”
The little girl spoke.
The voice was still Victoria’s.
Only that clear, ancient-rhythmed voice remained, echoing in the golden light.
“The God of Scales in this world.”
Olivia floated in the golden light, silver light wings fluttering slowly behind her.
The wound on the back of her head still oozed blood, but slower.
She looked at the little girl before her—
Golden hair, golden pupils, a hundred light wings—
And opened her mouth.
“I’ll be watching your performance from now on.”
Victoria tilted her head, golden hair sliding off her shoulder.
“Junior.”
She disappeared.
The golden light receded like a tide into the depths of darkness.
The hundred light wings flashed one last time, like a hundred pieces of shattered glass reflecting sunlight simultaneously.
Darkness closed in again.
Olivia was no longer floating in darkness.
She stood in the center of the ruins.
All the eyes on the stone pillars were lit.
Every line spiraling up from the base of the pillars was glowing—
Silver light, the same color as the blood oozing from the wound on the back of her head.
Light converged along the lines toward the tops of the pillars, growing brighter.
Von Brunswick stood before her, his gray-yellow earth magic still enveloping his fists.
His smile froze on his face.
He saw Olivia open her eyes—
Silver pupils, in the silver light of the ruins, bright as two moons just drawn from a deep well.
He saw the silver light wings spread behind her—
The curve of dragon wings, the texture of light wings.
He saw her right hand holding a gun-spear.
That gun-spear grew directly from her palm.
Golden body, white stock, the muzzle shaped like a blooming flower.
The gun body was engraved with lines—
Exactly the same patterns as the eye lines on the stone pillars, spiraling from the stock to the muzzle, converging at the edges of the petals.
Olivia raised the gun-spear.
Aimed the muzzle at Von Brunswick.
Pulled the trigger.
Golden light surged from the petal-shaped muzzle.
Pure light.
The light pillar pierced through Von Brunswick’s body—
Entering through his chest, exiting through his back.
The earth magic gauntlets dissolved in the light pillar like a thin layer of ice meeting boiling water, silently.
No sound escaped his throat.
His body began to disintegrate from the hole through his chest, like a sand sculpture blown away by wind.
Skin, muscle, bone, turned into gray-white ashes piece by piece, peeling off from the edges of the hole, dispersing around.
The ashes fell on the stone floor of the ruins, on the glowing eye lines of the stone pillars.
When the last ash fell, his eyes remained.
Those eyes looked at Olivia, their pupils retaining a final trace of consciousness—
Confusion.
Until death, he didn’t understand what had happened.
The gun-spear slipped from Olivia’s hand.
Before the golden body hit the ground, it began to dissipate—
From the stock, decomposing into tiny golden light specks, like the parts Victoria had shed.
The specks rose, merging into the shadows of the canopy.
Her hand was empty.
The silver light wings began to dissipate from her back, from the tips to the roots, one by one turning into silver light specks.
Her knees buckled, and she fell forward.
Silver hair spread across the stone floor.
The wound on the back of her head pressed against her own hair, silver blood slowly seeping out, spreading along the carved eye lines on the stone floor.
Her pupils dilated, the silver light fading from her irises.
Outside the city, in the forest.
The Urske diplomat rode on horseback, hooves crushing through underbrush with fine cracking sounds.
Two Urske soldiers followed behind—
Only two left.
Gray eyes behind goggles kept looking back.
The silver light from the direction of the ruins had disappeared, and the forest had returned to its afternoon stillness.
Only the sound of hooves breaking dry branches and their own heavy breathing.
“Sir.”
One soldier lowered his voice, gray eyes behind goggles still glancing back.
“What do we do now?”
“Leave Eldron first.”
The diplomat did not turn his head.
“Then report today’s matter to the Grand Duke.”
“Shouldn’t we inform the Imperial Guard?”
The diplomat abruptly reined in the horse.
The horse took two steps in place and stopped.
He turned around, gray eyes behind goggles fixed on the soldier who had asked the question.
The soldier’s neck shrank.
“Are you an idiot?”
The diplomat’s voice was very low.
“If His Majesty finds out about this, not a single one of our heads will remain.”
The soldier closed his mouth.
Gray eyes behind goggles drooped, staring at the horse’s mane.
“Officer sir.”
The voice fell from above.
The diplomat’s hand went to his sword hilt as he looked up.
On an oak tree beside the road, the hem of a dark-colored coat hung down from the branches.
Hui sat on a tree branch, back against the trunk, heterochromatic eyes watching him.
That golden eye shone unusually brightly in the tree shadows.
“Traveling all this way to Eldron.”
Hui closed the ledger.
“You must have some important business.”
“Who are you?”
Hui did not answer.
He stood up from the branch, then vanished.
The diplomat looked down and saw a throwing knife embedded in his chest.
The two Urske soldiers lay on the ground.
A throwing knife was lodged in each of their throats.
The blade had entered through the gap between the goggles and the top of the face mask—
The only part of their bodies not covered by armor.
Hui stood behind the diplomat.
The hem of his dark coat still swayed slightly.
He reached out and pulled the throwing knife from the diplomat’s chest.
As the blade left the wound, it made a slight, wet sound.
Blood dripped from the tip.
“After you die.”
He wiped the knife clean on the diplomat’s uniform.
“Make sure to tell your Imperial Guard this.”
The blade rubbed against the dark gray fabric, leaving a dark red streak.
“The ruins have already chosen their master. You Urske people better not interfere.”