Book Rabbit
The Third Pillar of the Empire
Akut, the Praising Horn (稱頌角), donned a mask. To wear a ludicrous clown mask was both proof of his submission to the Festival of Pleasure and a declaration of his own clownish nature.
The pillar of the empire had betrayed.
Having proclaimed his treachery, Akut immediately cast his gaze downward. Where his eyes fell, an old man stood. A being who embodied the paradox of an ageless transcendent growing old, he was the one Akut had to be most wary of in this place.
The first pillar of the empire, the Empire's First Horn.
Gerd regarded Akut in silence.
Even in the face of a pillar of the empire turning traitor, his expression remained unchanged. That was Gerd from the start—a man like steel, cooled and unyielding to further change. Gerd spoke briefly to Akut.
“Have you sided with the Festival of Pleasure?”
“It has come to that, Gerd.”
“I see.”
The exchange ended there. No clichéd questions followed—why the betrayal, why that choice, or accusations of disloyalty to the empire.
What came next was a sword strike.
Eyes wide, Akut swung his spear. Kaaaaang! A deafening clash rang out as sword energy smashed against Akut’s spear. Shoved back by the repulsive force, Akut let out a hollow laugh. That sword energy remained chilling. How could energy, loosed from a blade, possess such density?
Truly, a monstrous old man.
The sword strikes didn’t cease with one. As Akut was flung backward, three more bursts of sword energy were already hurtling toward him. A gale roared, and the sound of tearing air drilled into his eardrums.
Gazing at the oncoming sword energy, Akut clicked his tongue.
That old man, already monstrous, had grown even stronger after claiming his eighth star. An opponent he’d never want to face head-on. Worse still, Gerd wasn’t alone.
Guung.
The air trembled. Akut knew the source of that tremor—the sword cry wrought by the Sword Master’s blade. Facing two swordsmen, among the trickiest to contend with, charging at him together—this situation was far from pleasing to Akut.
Yet, there was one silver lining.
This place was a stage favorable to him, not them. And it would only grow more advantageous with time.
Clap!
Somewhere, the sound of applause echoed forth.
“If the past is regret, and the future only pain—”
The ground heaved. Surging like waves, it swallowed Gerd’s sword energy whole. It wasn’t just the ground—everything in sight quaked.
“What reason is there not to laugh now?”
The Sword Master clicked his tongue. Gerd’s brow furrowed. They had realized it. This place had been a trap from the start. And they had been searching for the Demon King of Lamentation in all the wrong places.
“Enjoy today! For only today holds value.”
Carpe Diem.
The laughter of the Demon King of Lamentation flooded the stage.
In that instant, the stage flipped.
The imagery of the Demon King of Lamentation enveloped her domain. This was her territory. In the sanctuary she claimed, her dominion was undeniably amplified.
From the roiling earth, crosses erupted. One, two, ten, dozens, hundreds, thousands of crosses shot upward. Humans were nailed to these inverted crosses, their screams reverberating across the stage.
The Demon King of Lamentation, Carpe Diem.
She was a demon king who fed on religion.
From devotees who fervently prayed that their present suffering might one day be rewarded, that God would watch over them, that happiness would eventually come—she harvested faith. And as payment for that harvest, she gifted them pain.
A false god, a false prophet, the chief deity of heretics.
A deceiving false god.
Mimicking divinity to lure humans, this demon cast tens of thousands of her followers into hell. Nourished by their screams, she ascended to transcendence.
Lamentation (悲嘆).
A hell of rending cries—that was her imagery. At the stage’s center, its master revealed herself. The demon wore the guise of an innocent girl or a mature woman.
For to deceive humans, a demon could become anything. The demon who had played the part of a false god smiled.
Hee hee hee, hee hee, hee hee hee!
The laughter of the Festival of Pleasure.
Clap, clap clap, clap!
The Demon King of Lamentation’s applause resounded through her domain.
“Welcome to my stage!”
Carpe Diem spread her arms wide to greet her guests. The screams of the humans dangling from the inverted crosses swelled even louder.
2.
Demons are shackled by their concepts.
They possess no ego, living only as dictated by the concepts bestowed upon them. For them, the purpose of life is starkly simple.
Fear, deception, enchantment—anything will do.
To wield their concepts to torment humans, harvest their souls, and sate their hunger—that is the sole reason every demon exists.
Yet, on rare occasions.
Some, through that process, touch transcendence. Just as humans step into transcendence through relentless training, beings emerge who surpass their limits and transcend their kind.
Demons who gain an ego.
The world names them Demon Kings.
“The situation seems tangled…”
The Sword Master, Karon, sighed. He gazed at the Demon King of Lamentation, clapping in the distance. Naturally, a Demon King was a formidable foe. Their difficulty was why a subjugation team of four transcendents had been assembled.
With four, they were certain of victory.
But that certainty hinged on conditions: a successful ambush, at least seizing the first strike, and shattering the Demon King of Lamentation’s stage.
The plan, however, unraveled.
The ambush failed, the initiative was lost, and the Annihilation Horn—tasked with demolishing the demon’s stage—fell, heart pierced. To Karon, it was instant death. Even a transcendent couldn’t survive a heart skewered in a defenseless state.
The situation had grown vexing.
The Annihilation Horn, a grand mage and a constellation adept at shattering an opponent’s imagery, should have stepped forward now as Carpe Diem’s stage unfurled.
So they targeted the Annihilation Horn first? Revealed themselves the moment he fell?
With a sigh, Karon eyed Akut. Of their four allies, one was dead, another turned enemy. A lone Demon King was trouble enough—now a second transcendent joined the fray.
Not easy.
Truly, not easy at all.
As Karon glared at Akut, a small light sparkled from his hand. Karon kicked off the ground.
The abilities of Akut, the Praising Horn, were well-known.
A warrior wielding a single spear, his pride lay in his thrust. Simple yet perfectly suited to the spear’s strengths. A Sword Master might ignore distances of dozens of meters with a swing, but Akut’s reach boasted far more.
A range effortlessly spanning hundreds of meters.
Better to call it a longbow than a spear. The instant Akut’s spear blade flashed, Karon twisted his head. A beam grazed his cheek, streaking past. Moments later, a boom sounded as the ground behind him caved in.
Flash.
Of course, the beams didn’t stop at one. Flash after flash followed in succession. Amid the white streaks firing forth, Karon tightened his grip on his sword.
Gerd charged toward Carpe Diem.
Then the Demon King’s attacks could be ignored—that was Gerd’s burden. Karon’s eyes locked solely on what he must cut.
Whoosh!
With minimal motion, Karon parried Akut’s assaults. At times he split them, at times he cleaved them. The concise, efficient movements Najin wielded were learned from Karon himself. Restraint and simplicity were Karon’s pursuit.
Maximum effect with minimal effort.
That was the sword Karon sought. His restrained swings might seem lackluster for a Sword Master—almost like a Sword Seeker’s. Yet the results they bore were unmistakably those of a transcendent.
Boom, Kwaaang, Boom!
Beams that punched meter-wide craters on impact met Karon’s sword and split silently, scattering.
Flash.
Akut’s spear blade flared, dozens of beams surging at once, yet Karon’s movements stayed understated. Step by step, he advanced, slicing through the beams.
Amid the dispersing streaks, both Akut and Karon reached the same conclusion.
This wouldn’t settle it.
Akut’s spear flared again. Aura erupted, staining the air around him. Arm drawn back wide, he swung. As a transcendent unleashed maximum force, space briefly warped around Akut’s arm.
Flash.
Light blazed, and Karon saw it—a spear ripping through the air, outpacing sound itself. Not mere condensed aura, but the spear blade itself launched.
A thrown spear.
Karon was already moving before it flew. His restrained sword energy erupted upward. He swung at the white streak.
Clang.
Spear met sword. The clash’s recoil shoved air and sound aside. The stage’s laughter and applause fell silent.
[Encoded text]
In less than a second.
The outcome was clear.
Karon’s sword knocked Akut’s spear aside. Its path veered, scraping the ground and rebounding. Where it struck, a massive pit formed, the earth shuddering. The tremor briefly unsettled Karon, but he soon surged toward Akut.
The flaw of a thrown spear—its risk when missing—was basic knowledge.
Yet transcendents defied such norms.
The spear, thought errant, swerved across the ground. Redirected, it shot toward Karon’s back. He noticed but didn’t halt. Instead, he accelerated toward Akut.
In a duel, he’d respond calmly, but now there was no time. Delay in felling Akut would tip the battle’s tide.
Karon judged.
And his judgment was sound. Closing the gap favored him. At close range, within a blade’s reach, he knew countless ways to subdue a foe.
The Order of the Sword delved into blade mastery.
Its leader, the Sword Master, stood at the pinnacle of technique.
Sword energy output, star counts—what did they matter? Close the distance, and victory was his. That was Karon’s confidence, proven not as arrogance but fact.
Twirl.
As Karon closed in, Akut drew a short spear to counter. In mere exchanges, he lost an eye. Sword clashed with spear, bending it in an unfathomable arc. Aiming for the arm, Karon’s blade surged upward, claiming the eye.
With half his sight gone, Karon’s sword grew fiercer. One clash, two, three—Akut’s arm vanished.
Whoosh!
As the delayed spear aimed to pierce Karon’s back, he tilted his head. Twisting, he slammed his sword into the flying spear’s shaft.
Clang, it crashed into the ground.
As if sentient, the spear quivered, poised to rise. Karon stomped it down with a raised foot, swinging his blade. Stomping, dodging Akut’s spear, striking—all flowed as one.
Splatter.
Akut’s remaining eye was gone. Blind, his transcendent senses still gauged distance. He leapt back. Karon pressed forward, unwilling to let his foe escape.
Akut bore six stars.
So did the Sword Master.
Overwhelmed by an equal in stars, Akut’s expression hid behind his mask.
But only briefly.
Karon’s sword carved out the mask’s eyes, and with a crumble, the cracked mask fell. Revealed beneath, Akut’s face… sent a chill down Karon’s spine.
Akut was smiling.
As if joy overwhelmed him.
3.
Not the grin of a madman, but of one assured of triumph, finding this plight laughable. Karon’s instincts screamed. Something was amiss, a shiver racing up his spine.
Karon was a peerless genius.
Close the distance, and he wouldn’t lose.
But that held only in a duel, uninterrupted, free of the stage’s powers.
Thud.
Hands burst from the earth, seizing Karon’s ankles and calves. He swung, sweeping them away, and stepped forward.
Whoosh.
Akut reached out, as if to place a mask on Karon’s face. A petty trick. Karon slashed, shredding Akut’s last arm.
Instead of blood, paint splattered onto Karon’s face.
Then—
Hee hee hee hee, hee hee, hee hee hee hee!
Laughter stole Karon’s senses. His hearing vanished, and paint bursting from Akut’s arm like fireworks blinded him.
A transcendent’s near-prophetic foresight relied on senses—eyes, ears, calculations.
Deprive them of sight and sound, and it faltered.
In that fleeting moment of paralysis—
The Festival of Pleasure’s hidden forces emerged from the ground. Clowns, concealed until the decisive instant, stabbed at Karon’s legs, body, shoulders, arms.
“Ha.”
Karon laughed.
“What a pathetic ploy.”
No need to wait for senses to return. The moment he was touched, he acted. His sword swept, bursting the clowns apart.
Standing on paint-smeared ground, Karon blinked. Vision restored, he glared at Akut.
Akut gathered the clowns’ paint, regrowing his lost arm and eyes. Karon’s wounds, pierced by the clowns, didn’t heal.
Hee hee, hee hee hee.
Laughter still rang in his ears. Around him, clowns kept rising from the earth. Beyond, Gerd struggled alone against the Demon King of Lamentation.
The situation worsened.
Victory slipped further away. As the laughter grew, Karon scowled. Sword firm, he charged the clowns, aiming to cleave Akut beyond them.
“Now.”
“Aurora (極光).”
Slash, slash, slash again.
He cut down the endless clowns.
Hee hee, hee hee hee hee hee!
Paint-soaked, the swelling laughter drowned Karon’s hearing. He couldn’t hear—
Someone breaching Carpe Diem’s stage.
Someone smashing clowns, approaching from the side.
Karon noticed only when a gust swept from his flank, hurling clowns aside.
The Charging Horn (衝角).
Bursts of wind followed, scattering the clowns. A spear stabbed into the ground before Karon with a thud. Not Akut’s.
“Huh.”
Someone slid to a stop before the spear. Recognizing them, Karon let out a dry laugh. An unexpected ally.
Above, the Dawn Star gleamed.
Words weren’t needed.
After a brief glance, Najin took Karon’s right. Karon took the left. As if rehearsed, they kicked off together, charging the clowns.
The Dawn Star (黎明星) and Thousand Sword Star (千劍星) shone.
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