I didn’t know where I was.

I definitely passed out from neural overload...

Yet I was standing atop a mountain, looking down at the world.

And below that mountain—hell had broken loose.

[“-----!”]
[“---, ---!”]
[“■■■■■!”]

Two-headed ogres.
Flocks of monstrous birds blackening the sky.
Humans whose bodies were veined in black blood.
House-sized centipedes armored in white chitin.
Golems made from twisted heaps of corpses.

A horde of beasts and humans, distorted, asymmetrical, grotesque.
Banners marked with horrific sigils.
That horde was advancing.

“Hold the line!”

Their destination—the cities of our house.

Some I had visited, others only heard of.
But on every city wall flew the same flag: black field, blue sword and star, white lightning bolt—
the banner of House Astrios.

No.

The Blue Knights fought valiantly, but the tide of monsters overran them.
Before a golem made of corpses, the Astrios banner fell.

It was night.
The sky blazed with brilliant stars.
And as each city collapsed, a handful of those stars fell as well—
burning across the heavens in long, glowing arcs.

No, it can’t be.

One banner after another broke.
One star after another burned.

I couldn’t see beyond the horizon, but I knew—
the same disaster was unfolding everywhere.

“Graaagh!”

The screams carried endlessly from beyond the skyline.

Soon, only a few stars remained—
large ones, brighter than all the rest.

Among them shone the bluest and most radiant of all—
the Guardian Constellation of our house,
the Star of Thunder.

Relief flickered in me—
and vanished at once.

Rumble.

Black clouds began to gather in the night sky.

[“Kyahahahaha!”]

Whee-e-e-eng!

A cloud of wailing spirits and vermin—
a living storm of a hundred billion crimson eyes rolling in the dark.

It devoured the final stars one by one.
The red star, the bronze, the green, the azure, the twin golds—
all were swallowed by that massed cloud.

By then my gaze had fixed upon the last city still standing.

White walls gleamed beneath the starlight.
The great metropolis—Astrion.
My birthplace.

But the Star of Thunder’s light no longer reached it.

The crimson-eyed cloud and the twisted army surged toward the city.

[“Let all the splendor you deceivers have built upon your false foundation be brought to ruin!”]

At their head stood a tall figure,
wearing a towering conical hat and a black hooded cloak,
howling with laughter.

Before I knew it, I was standing right in front of him.

The figure seemed unaware of me.

I tried to see his face,
but the darkness was too dense.
I tried to lift his hood—
but my arm wouldn’t move.

Flash!

From the sky, a single blue bolt pierced the clouds.

Pale light flooded the world.

The Star of Thunder.

For a split second, I saw the man’s face.

Not above the nose—but a distinct scar marked his cheek.

“Ugh—!”

A stabbing pain like an awl through my eye—
and I woke.

“What the hell…”

I jerked upright like a spring.
My breath rasped, harsh and uneven.

Must’ve been too tense about the Oath Ceremony.

It must have been a nightmare.

The Star of Thunder rejecting my vow.
Carving a Stigmata into my right eye.
Declaring a twelve-stage Hero’s Journey, commanding me to become Emperor.
Making Stage 1 the very adoption into the main house I had refused only a week ago.

Every possible disaster that could befall me—
that dream had them all.

Impossible.

Just imagining it made my right eye throb.

It was only a dream—
I had made a moderate vow, received moderate power, would be knighted as a Blue Knight.

Then I’d join some comfortable unit like the Royal Guard or Inner Defense Corps,
be adopted by a respectable elder through Andromeda’s introduction,
and shed the label of illegitimacy for good.

That happiness, already within reach, couldn’t possibly shatter over something so absurd.

Can’t sleep again, though… I might as well—wait. Blood?

I wiped my face.

Sticky, dried blood smeared across my palm.

Startled, I looked around.

Why… am I in the infirmary?

Not my room.

I leapt to my feet.

Tall mirrors stood all around, letting patients check their condition.

“No…”

Blood drenched the right side of my face.

Burst capillaries, perhaps.

But that wasn’t the problem.

The pattern burned into my gray iris was a thousand times worse.

Circles, sigils, and strings of runes faintly glowed with pale light.

A Stigmata.

Maybe I’m still dreaming. Please let this be a dream.

I ran trembling fingers over the skin around my eye.

The mark pulsed, luminous and real.

Step.

Footsteps approached.

“—, —.”

“—!”

“—, —, —!”

Voices—several people. Many.

I have to hide it. Hide the Stigmata.

If word of it spread, the whole “Hero’s Journey—Twelve Stages” thing would spread with it.

If anyone learned that my mandate was adoption into the main house and eventual ascension to the throne, my life would become hell.

I ripped a sleeve from my black ceremonial uniform.

Wrapped it around my head, crude as it was—it would serve as an eyepatch.

“Kyrie of Astrios! Confess your crime!”

The infirmary door burst open.

“Elder Rakul?”

A lean, tall man with the rigidity of bamboo glared at me, eyes blazing.

“Explain yourself!”

Behind him stood Andromeda, other direct-line heirs, adoptees, several peers, the elder’s attendants, and senior Blue Knights.

The priests who ran the infirmary lingered at the back, cowed by their presence.

“Of all people, I never thought you would do this. Defy the Family Head’s word and maim yourself?”

“Elder, please—look at the situation first,” someone murmured.

They all looked utterly bewildered.

Realistically, apology came first.

I knelt.

“You foolish, insolent wretch! His Lordship himself warned against self-harm vows before the ceremony—yet you swore bodily mutilation? You don’t want to be knighted?!”

“Bodily mutilation… vow?”

“Yes!”

“Me?”

“Who else? You failed to emerge even after an hour, so Lady Andromeda went in herself. Everyone saw her carrying you out, blood pouring from your right eye!”

At last I understood the situation.

Damn it.

So the ceremony had ended.

I’d been dumped here unconscious while they finished the rites.

And now they all thought I had taken a bodily-mutilation vow.

Seeing the blood from my right eye, who wouldn’t?

The mirror had shown plenty of it—enough for a convincing misunderstanding.

“Why would someone like you take such a vow? Burn your own eye for a little more mana? Do you not know why that practice is taboo now?”

“Because Blue Knight tactics now prioritize mobility over firepower.”

“Exactly—and yet you still did it! What do you think this is, a thousand years ago?!”

That type of vow had been fashionable in ancient times—
pledging never to use one’s right hand, or even offering it outright.

A vow far heavier than a few gold coins, and its return in power was immense.

There was a time when half the elders had been one-armed or one-legged.

But as Elder Rakul said, the art of war had changed.
Mobility trumped brute power now.
The Family Head had even formally forbidden such vows before the ceremony.

“You deliberately ignored His Lordship’s words. Do you know what that means? You’ve broken the house’s hierarchy and order. A thousand lashes with an electric whip might not be enough!”

So that was how they all saw it: Kyrie, the fool who defied the Family Head for power and blinded himself.

“If you’d just offered a few fingers, we’d already have you strung up for punishment.”

Fantastic.

“But no, you had to make it this big a spectacle. Fainting before the Family Head, carried out on the Heir Apparent’s back—utter disgrace! Speak. What possessed you to do this?”

Rakul looked down at me, daring me to answer.

What now?

I was the one stunned.

All I had done was collapse after the Star of Thunder branded me with the Stigmata, granted the Base Privileges Heavenly Thunder Body and Voice of Transmission, and forced upon me the vow of the throne.

If fainting were a crime, I was guilty.

But even if I hadn’t fainted, I would have needed to cover my eye regardless—to hide the Stigmata.

Think rationally.

I shut my eyes, inhaled, opened them again.

I can’t speak of the Star of Thunder. If I show the mark, they’ll demand the vow’s contents. Any lie I invent won’t fool veterans like these.

I looked past Rakul at those assembled.

“Andromeda.”

She looked stricken, pity and confusion mixed on her face.

My peers stared with awe and disbelief.
The other direct lines and adoptees—open hostility.

“I think I get it,” someone whispered. “He’s always wanted to be adopted, but they refused because he’s illegitimate.”

“So he ripped his eye out in protest? That’s rebellion against the Family Head.”

“Ridiculous. Does he think blinding himself changes his blood? This kind of violent delusion is exactly why bastards shouldn’t be adopted.”

The murmurs pricked my ears like knives.
Their contempt burned.

Then—an idea came to me.
A disastrous one.

Damn it.

If I spoke it, I’d destroy that dream of an easy life—
the elite posting, the quiet success already within reach.

But that dream was already gone.

Even without the Stigmata and the throne, it’s over.

I was already the fool who defied the Family Head for power.

And with the Stigmata and that imperial command—it’s beyond repair.

The mark in my eye burned faintly.
The star held my soul hostage, demanding the throne.
And I had seen the world burning beneath that twisted army.

There was no going back.

Don’t cling to what’s lost. Do your best with what remains.

I’m a realist. So what’s the best move now?

Survive this first.

For my soul—for myself.

Then walk the Hero’s Journey. It won’t be the peaceful life I wanted. It’ll be turbulent, perilous—but I won’t let my soul burn away. If that’s the life I must live, so be it.

I made my decision.

“I didn’t want this either,” I said.

Heads turned.

“Then why?” Elder Rakul demanded.

“Because this was the only way to surpass my blood. What else could I do?”

I met his gaze head-on.

Even kneeling, my legs trembled—but I did not look away.

“To surpass your blood?”

“Not long ago,” I said quietly, “a noble being offered me a proposal that could change my life.”

Chapter 3

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