Maximilian explained the operation the Sentinel Knights would take part in from within their secure chamber.
They would save the Zerpha monarchy. Cut down the traitors who had launched the coup and restore order as masters of the continent. Aid the innocent people crushed by poverty and oppression amid the civil war.
Their justification was a handwritten letter sent directly by Crown Prince Alonso.
The benefits, meanwhile, were more than ample.
The Empire would collect the price of this favor someday, without fail, and this would also serve as an important test for the Sentinel Knights.
Knight Awakening. This would be the first battlefield on which to verify its practical power and potential.
"The Republican faction's offensive is currently concentrated on Gandela."
It was the point on which the fates of both the Republican faction and the Royalist faction hung.
The Republican faction had already swallowed up strongholds along the river through nighttime crossings. Yet thanks to the Royalist faction's timely troop redeployment, their advance had been halted before Pannel Ridge, Gandela's final gateway.
It was a limestone rock field where even a shovel could not bite. The Republican faction was feeding troops into that bare rock field as it forced its way upward, while the Royalist faction held the ridge.
Either way, the battle could not last much longer.
"Therefore, the core of this operation is as follows. We will coordinate with those within the Royalist faction..."
While the Royalist army engaged the enemy head-on along the ridge and held their attention.
"...we will descend behind enemy lines and strike at their heart."
The knights would descend in scattered formations into the enemy's depths, targeting the command headquarters and river-crossing points. There, they would test the Empire's sword.
How sharp a blade are we? How swift are our legs?
"This operation depends on volunteers. Any knight who does not wish to participate, raise your hand now. There will be no record and no penalty. If you do not wish to take part, raise your hand now."
No matter how long he waited, no one raised a hand.
"Understood."
With that, everyone gathered in the room had volunteered.
"For security reasons, individual descent points will be issued directly to each knight at a later time. Battlefield maps will be distributed in full today. Anyone who has not completely memorized them by the pre-deployment inspection will be excluded from the operation, regardless of reason."
The briefing was over.
Silence settled over the room.
The tension was stretched tight. Yet beneath it flowed a quiet excitement, something wholly different from pressure.
"..."
Everyone glanced around the room. Some of the younger knights felt as if they were dreaming.
Names and faces they had only seen in Empire Point textbooks, school journals from their cadet days, or academic papers.
They were gathered in the same room as those people, looking toward the same operation.
They themselves were among that list.
It was a strange feeling.
They were afraid, yet exhilarated. They felt as though they were being crushed, but their shoulders straightened instead.
"The operation's name is..."
Kairon, commander of the Sentinel Knights, spoke.
"Spear of Heaven."
Royal authority was power bestowed by heaven. The name was both a punishment for the leaders who dared defy that heavenly mandate and a literal description.
Soon, a spear would fall from Zerpha's night sky.
* * *
The World Expo was still in full swing in Prozen. The Imperial Pavilion remained packed every night, as did the Eastern Pavilion, and the two giants continued drawing in tourists.
Yet beneath their shadow, another nation's exhibition hall had begun attracting quiet attention.
At first, painters, critics, collectors, and self-styled intellectuals eager to seem distinctive had visited it. These days, even ordinary tourists circled it on their maps before seeking it out.
「Zerpha National Pavilion」
"What kind of pavilion is this? Zerpha? Where even is that country?"
"Oh... This place looks interesting."
"Can we take pictures here?"
Visitors moved slowly between enormous murals and iron sculptures, but most came to a complete stop before one particular painting.
「Guernica」
A massive black-and-white oil painting. Its sheer height was overwhelming.
After staring up at it for a long while, visitors crossed to the painting opposite it and found themselves gripped by an even stranger feeling.
「Where the Light Points」
Some art critics had already called it a masterpiece among masterpieces. It was Pablo's finest work, praised again and again by Prozen's foremost gallery.
Interpretations of the figure on the canvas varied.
Some called it a portrait of a saint. Others saw it as an omen of disaster. Some claimed it showed the darkness harbored by the Empire's Aran, while others called it the image of a completed human being, something everyone imagined in their hearts but could never reach.
Pablo gave no answer to any of those interpretations. He only said, "It's a person, isn't it?"
By the time Pablo Sovakin's name began circulating across the continent, his manager was racing up the stairs at an atelier on the outskirts, a short distance from the exhibition hall.
"Pablo! Pablo~!"
Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and the voice trembled with joy.
"Pablo~!"
It was his manager. Pablo frowned, brush in hand.
"What is it this time?"
"Look at this!"
The manager held out a stack of bids from various galleries.
"The entire continent wants your paintings!"
"..."
Pablo's eyebrows drooped in disinterest.
The paintings he had made in his youth were now priced at more than a year's living expenses at the time, while an even higher price had already been attached to the still-wet painting on his easel.
"Those are only the initial offers! If they start bidding against each other, it'll go even higher."
Art dealers were now competing by adding premiums, and some impatient ones had already put down advances.
"Sell them however you want."
"Then, about 「Where the Light Points」..."
"That one's not for sale."
Pablo had painted it himself, but it was a work that did not suit the idea of anyone owning it.
Perhaps his future self, far down the road, would be ashamed that he had painted the man at all.
"...Of course I told them that. Why sell something that's obviously going to become more expensive over time?"
Then the manager cautiously handed him something else.
"And... I thought you should see this."
It was a newspaper, brought from Zerpha itself, one published in territory controlled by the Republican faction.
「The Revolutionary Iber Army Crosses the River: Gandela's Liberation Is Imminent」
...At dawn on the 25th, our heroic Iber Army carried out a river crossing, broke through enemy lines, advanced forty kilometers, and captured thousands of prisoners. The victory of the revolution is in sight...
─────────
Pablo quietly read the article.
"...Pablo. The Republican faction might win."
"..."
Without saying anything, he raised his eyes and looked for a moment toward the sky over his homeland beyond the studio window.
Under that same sky, someone was crossing a river while someone else was dying on a ridge.
"...Bring it back after the war ends."
The Royalist faction scorned Pablo as a shattered painter, while the Republican faction condemned him as an accomplice of the monarchy. Yet in truth, there was only one thing he stood for.
War is wrong.
「Guernica」 depicted what war had destroyed, while 「Where the Light Points」 depicted the one who would start the war.
The two paintings had never said different things.
...
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire and blazing flames covered the ridge. Shells and bullets tore through earth and flesh, while flashes of mana-laden light flickered between them.
Swoooosh!
A blue, spinning lance arced through the air.
Kraaaaash!
It exploded in the middle of a trench. Sandbags and men were thrown into the air as one mass.
"Damn it! This is Hill 481, the left slope has been breached! Requesting support! Requesting support!"
"Fire! Fiiire!"
At the officers' shouts, the entire trench line erupted. Riflemen pulled their triggers until their shoulders felt torn apart, while machine-gun crews swept the foot of the ridge until their barrels glowed red.
Bang! Bang bang bang!
Upon that curtain of fire came the warfare of this age.
Boom! Kraaash!
Howitzers roared incessantly from behind the ridge, while tanks crawled up from below the slope and fired directly into the trench line.
Whoooosh! Crash!
When a tank flipped over and burned from a mana explosion, infantry climbed behind its wreckage, using it as a shield.
Soldiers pressed themselves behind low walls built of piled stones. Each time shells struck the rocks, shards of metal and stone burst into the air.
"Charge!"
"Cough... Save..."
"Don't worry about them! Keep moving! Move!"
Bodies rolled down the slope. Explosions burst around them. Bone fragments and flesh scattered in every direction.
No one could tell who was advancing. They could not even distinguish one side from the other. It was simply a battle that ground human beings into dust.
The ridge at Gandela was soaked in blood.
...
In the dark night, Crown Prince Alonso stood before a table with a troubled expression.
"..."
The red line on the map had remained stalled around Gandela for days.
But did that mean they were holding firm? Or that they were collapsing?
Every night, the amount of ammunition and the number of lives consumed by the ridge's defenders were reported to him.
The Royalist faction's elite corps had deployed to southern Zerpha alongside the Imperial Guard. They were preparing for their next advance.
Should he summon them back by royal decree? Should he defend Gandela even if it meant leaving the south exposed?
"Haah..."
The chief of general staff and the ministers of defense cautiously addressed the sighing crown prince.
"Please do not worry, Your Highness."
"The Empire will act soon."
"...But we have already received too much."
Gratitude and fear were equally mixed in the crown prince's voice.
They had received supplies, weapons, and soldiers.
If they asked for an even larger army, would the Empire truly permit it? Even if it did, how long would it take to raise troops at home and bring them across the mountains? Could Pannel Ridge endure until then?
And how could they ever repay such a favor in the future?
"...Please wait, Your Highness."
The ministers only repeated that he should wait.
That was precisely the order they had received from the Empire.
"Wait."
Without knowing what would arrive or how it would come, they simply waited...
* * *
The home of Ruin, a newly appointed knight.
In its small armory, a place effectively half owned by the bank, lay a single sword.
It was his father's keepsake. His father had been a soldier.
The family's sword.
Ruin looked at it and sank into thought.
He could already draw the terrain of his descent point with his eyes closed. He had committed not only its location but even its shape perfectly to memory.
"..."
But what was this feeling running through his body?
It was hot yet cold, the chilling sensation of his first real battle, like being cut by a blade.
"Are you afraid?"
Ruin turned toward the voice.
It was Bek, his Yaken attendant.
Most Sentinel Knights employed at least one Yaken. Some cadets even began seeking out compatible Yaken during their Empire Point days. That was the kind of relationship knights and Yaken had become.
"...I don't really know."
Doubt over whether I could do it.
The certainty that I would cut down people for the first time.
Those emotions tangled together inside him.
"You only need to put what you've learned into practice. Follow where your conviction leads you."
"...I suppose so."
Ruin smiled faintly and nodded.
He fastened his sword at his waist and tucked the knight-exclusive helmet under his arm. He had long since changed into the descent suit that also served as armor.
"Let's go."
"Yes."
The two got into the car together.
Their destination was the Imperial Air Force's Third Airfield.
While Bek drove, Ruin looked down at the helmet on his knees and steadied himself.
Once he put this on, the world would grow distant from me.
His instructor had said this.
"Become one with the Empire."
So even fear was not mine. There was no need to be afraid in the first place. I am the Empire, a Sentinel Knight.
"We've arrived."
Before he knew it, they had reached their destination, and Ruin stepped onto the asphalt.
"Sir Knight."
Bek grinned through the window.
"I'm looking forward to the celebration dinner."
Ruin smiled faintly as well.
Then he followed the approaching soldier's guidance.
Thud. Thud.
He reached the entrance to a corridor.
"Loyalty."
The soldiers guiding him halted smartly before it. This was an area even they could not enter.
"Good work."
Ruin replied solemnly and walked on alone.
Thud.
It was a long, dark space.
The stagnant air seemed to weigh down on his shoulders.
My breathing echoed loudly in my ears.
Thud.
It was strange.
Training had pushed his entire body to far greater limits than this. He had endured every pain and every desperate night.
Why did this ordinary corridor feel so much heavier than those days?
Thud.
As tension tightened around every nerve in his body, he saw someone's back not far ahead.
The same uniform as his.
The same helmet.
One person walking in silence.
A Sentinel Knight.
Thud.
Ruin followed the figure.
Without realizing it, his steps quickened by half a beat.
He recovered the stride fear had slowed.
Thud. Thud.
The heels of two pairs of military boots struck the floor side by side.
The person ahead did not turn around. Ruin did not call out either.
Thud. Thud.
Little by little, "they" appeared.
One from a branching corridor.
Two from the next corner.
Three from a landing.
Thud. Thud.
They joined naturally, as if they had always been together.
No one spoke. No one looked at anyone else. Yet all of them shared the same destination.
Thud. Thud.
The overlapping footsteps grew louder.
One set of steps became five, and five became ten.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Before long, a single sound of footsteps filled the corridor.
As the footsteps deepened, Ruin's heart seemed to swell.
Fear...
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Fear was being trampled beneath military boots and forged into something else.
A sense of unity, where one became the whole and the whole became one.
Thud.
Then, as the end of the corridor began to brighten.
Thoooom!
The view opened before him.
Ruin let out a rough breath.
An open vista.
A hangar with a steel-framed ceiling soaring high overhead, mana stones casting white light.
Countless knights stood in elegant formation beneath that glow.
The sight, like a single sword, seized Ruin's chest in an instant.
Thud.
He flinched and turned at the sound of footsteps. Knights had entered behind him without him noticing. There were knights ahead, behind, to his left, and to his right.
...That's right.
He stood here now as a Sentinel Knight.
The moment he realized it, an indescribable feeling wrapped around his entire body.
His eyes burned.
My fear had scattered somewhere within that formation and disappeared. In its place, the heartbeats of the knights filled my chest as though they were mine.
"..."
The Empire's flag hung at the center of the hangar, Sentinel banners on either side, swaying heavily in the night wind.
Yet as though they had all agreed beforehand, the knights were looking at one place.
At the end of every gaze stood one man.
Moonlight flowing through the open hangar doors settled on his shoulders, tracing the outline of his pitch-black uniform with a faint silver edge.
A figure who did not bend beneath countless responsibilities, but seemed instead to stand willingly upon their weight.
A back that drew the Sentinel Knights' focus through presence alone, without a single word.
The man who had led them here and would now lead them beyond that sky.
His name, as he stood alone looking up at the Empire's flag.
...Maximilian Albrecht von Ebenholtz.
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