They heard Nikephoros shout.
“What do you dare to do!”
As his cry rang out, soldiers poured through the door opposite and ran toward the altar. But the men beside the officiant rushed to meet them. There were only about ten soldiers, but they drew their swords and attacked first. The officiant’s followers drew weapons too. As hand-to-hand fighting broke out, Nikephoros screamed. The four looked at each other. Gene spoke.
“They really are treating us as spectators. Should we go and save the general?”
“Well…”
For once, Luke did not seem to have a clear opinion. He tilted his head.
“One side or the other will remain. It would be foolish to wait until then.”
Rosa answered. Even as they spoke, Nikephoros’s cries rang out intermittently.
“Do you think you will… escape revenge by doing this?”
“We’ve heard that threat from sacrifices many times. But His Majesty Vitalis would never act so. Soon His Majesty will gladly praise us.”
The officiant’s voice was so composed it sounded sinister. The battle continued in the hall. At first, the soldiers of the Fifteenth Regiment, the general’s subordinates, had the advantage. But the officiant’s men kept pouring in, and finally overcame them. They drove the remaining soldiers into one passage and crowded after them. Screams rose on every side, then gradually dwindled and fell silent.
A little later, the officiant’s followers returned to the center of the hall, somewhat fewer in number. Even so, there were still more than a hundred. Looking toward the wall, they cried out in ecstasy.
“We reclaim our kingdom!”
Then the surroundings suddenly brightened. Now everyone, not only Tahyang, could plainly see what was happening.
As Tahyang had said, the design was an enormous vine, or rather a leafless tree. It had looked like a fossil in the shape of a tree. Now all its branches were swelling and trembling. On the altar below, Nikephoros was bound. The branches extending from the tree held him fast. Wrapped around his body, they drank his blood and turned red. At the same time, countless slender, glowing branches stretched out from the tree.
“U-uaaagh!”
Gene rose, intending to jump down. But he could not. What had seemed open before them was sealed as though by an invisible membrane or net. Tahyang ran to the rear, but it was the same there. Something unseen and resilient blocked them.
“I thought they were leaving us alone rather too freely.”
Luke muttered, looking around. No other passage was visible. Then, perhaps sensing their concern, the officiant approached. Baring his teeth in a smile, he addressed Rosa.
“Your little sister really has power beyond our imagining. A single bowlful of her blood, taken merely as a test, has restored the tree completely. It makes me curious what beast is howling inside her.”
That was why they had kidnapped Nana. But how did they know? Rosa asked,
“Why did you target my sister? What connection do you have to us?”
“Dear me, you still don’t know? What an unfortunate connection binds us to Daeior? Thirty-seven years ago, if Randri Daeior had not insolently ruined our work, claiming he meant to save his teacher, Delphinad would already be buried underground, rotting away. Wasn’t he your grandfather?”
Thirty-seven years earlier, the people of Sing had kidnapped Alph Sidin and tried to perform the same ritual on him as they were now performing on Nikephoros. But Randri, who had spent five years tracing his teacher, had interrupted at the ritual’s crucial moment. The tree had drunk some of Randri’s blood instead of Sidin’s. Immediately afterward, Randri escaped with Sidin, but Sidin died and Randri’s whereabouts became unknown. Because of that, the tree could not revive completely until it drank Randri’s blood again.
The people of Sing had continued searching for Randri. Only recently had they discovered he had returned home and was already dead. After testing whether the tree would accept the blood of one of his granddaughters in his place, they had intended to conduct the ritual. Unexpectedly, even a little of that blood had completely revived the tree, leaving everything ready for the true ritual: awakening Vitalis of Sing.
“Soon His Majesty Vitalis will awaken and personally make you his new subjects. He plunders people’s hearts. He is a king and, at the same time, the god of plunder.”
“A god?”
“Yes. The god of plunder lives forever by taking the bodies of countless sacrifices. The first to awaken that god was His Majesty Vitalis himself. Thus His Majesty Vitalis and the god of plunder are one and the same.
“Each time the god died, he plundered a new body and rose again. Occasionally, there was the unfortunate side effect of forgetting he was a god.”
Confusion spread over Gene’s face. He asked,
“You mean… Nikephoros is a god?”
“Not quite. The general is only the sacrifice taken by the god, the vessel containing him. Sidin too was once such a vessel, but because of Randri’s interference that day, the god moved into the general’s body. Sidin and the general are unimportant. Mere sacrifices who do not even know what they harbor. The god is immortal, and is called only by the name of the first to awaken him: His Majesty Vitalis.”
Rosa asked,
“What do you mean, awaken a god?”
“To wake a sleeping god and clothe oneself in him. That great tree once gave birth to all the gods. And last, it gave birth to the god of plunder.
“Three thousand years ago, that tree let qualified humans be reborn as gods. What a splendid age it was. But once His Majesty Vitalis was reborn as the god of plunder, he cut it down so that no more gods could be born. Thus he is the last king and the last god! Hahaha!”
A tree that gave birth to gods? Gene had never heard such a strange story in his life. Could that be the tree which once stood in the heart of Delphinad? Then cutting it down had…
Rosa nodded and spoke.
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