🌐 Language / 言語
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🇯🇵 [日本語版]
The blade shaved marble like soft butter.
Two Blitz units—razor-sharp and gleaming—moved with a fluid, haunting autonomy, as if possessed by a will of their own.
In an atelier overlooking the sea, nestled within the maidens’ barracks, the air was thick with stone dust and divinity. At the center stood a block of marble over two meters tall. Opposite it sat a wooden chair.
Amnez reclined, her cheek resting on her hand, white legs crossed in a posture of casual lethargy.
Behind her Vision-Seal, she tracked the dancing blades. To the Holy Maiden, sculpting was more than self-expression; it was a ritual to hone her Divine Pulse during the brief interludes of peace.
Suddenly, the steel shivered to a halt.
“Am I interrupting?”
A man’s voice, composed and resonant, broke the silence.
He leaned against the doorframe—a tall figure with silver hair slicked back. His vestments were a monochrome of high-quality silk, catching the light with a muted, expensive luster.
“No. It matters not. Enter,” Amnez replied without turning.
The blades resumed their work. Across the room, a chair drifted into the air as if exhaled by the shadows, settling silently beside the sculpture.
“Apologies for disturbing your rest. I felt we should speak.”
The man sat, a thin, practiced smile gracing his lips. This was High Arbiter Dimeus, the sovereign head of the Ioksian Faith, the state religion of the Republic of Varney.
He was the visionary who had defined the Three Nations’ defense perimeters and spearheaded the construction of the Great Sea Fortresses.
“The Saint Empress appears to be… restless of late,” Dimeus murmured, narrowing his eyes.
His gaze fell upon the emerging work—a figure taking shape beneath the relentless bite of the blades. Amnez’s control was exquisite, carving the delicate folds of fabric from cold stone as if breathing life into it.
“Her record in purging the Beast-Devils is beyond reproach. None can deny her glory,” Dimeus continued, crossing his arms. His gaze sharpened, a predatory edge surfacing. “But I find myself questioning the Empress’s ultimate design. And if my intuition serves me…”
His voice dropped an octave, heavy with unspoken weight.
“You harbor the same doubts, do you not?”
Silence filled the atelier, punctuated only by the rhythmic chink-chink of stone meeting steel. After a long moment, Amnez let out a faint, dry sigh.
“The Empress’s heart is a closed cathedral. Even to me. Whatever ‘movements’ you perceive likely hold a significance beyond our reach.”
Amnez had been forged as a noble’s daughter in Ucto, the capital. Her father had been a man of iron, drilling martial arts into her without mercy, regardless of her gender. By the age of five, she was already dancing with live steel. Even after receiving her Revelation, her essence remained unchanged: the pursuit of absolute mastery.
“If—hypothetically—the Saint Empress were to lose her way,” Dimeus said, his stare piercing through his dark-lensed spectacles as if he could see right through her Vision-Seal. “I believe you are the only one capable of staying her hand.”
“You overestimate me,” she replied flatly. “I lack such power.”
Amnez had once served under Gilzenth during the Great Purge, where a massive Beast-Devil had pushed the Republic to the brink. While the masses fled in terror, she had stood her ground. Her victory had turned her into a populist icon, second only to the hero Gilzenth himself. Yet, she had never tasted the nectar of fame; to her, it was ash.
“I will not force the issue. Indeed, I doubt I could,” Dimeus rose, looking up at the now-recognizable mass of stone. “Consider it a personal plea from a concerned observer.”
“I will keep it in mind,” Amnez replied curtly.
The sculpture was finished.
From the heart of the marble, a Celestial Emissary had emerged—the legendary kin of the Great God Ioks, the one said to have sealed the most balance-breaking Beast-Devils.
“A masterpiece. Solemn, yet supple. Beautiful.” Dimeus looked from the statue to the woman. “In this light, the Emissary and you are indistinguishable.”
The melancholy rays of the setting sun bled through the window. Bathed in the dying light, the statue turned a bruised, visceral crimson.
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