[748] Age of Upheaval (4)
* * *
Gustav Empire.
Along with Kashan and the Jincheon Empire, the Gustav Empire—one of the three powers that divided the world—fell into mourning at the emperor's death.
Black banners fluttered on every street and no one dared bare their teeth.
If a smile crossed someone's face, their throat—and their family's—might be cut that very day.
Squeezing out tears had become a civic virtue; the keening from every household left many sleepless and haunted by nightmares.
Thus Havitz XVI quietly passed away on a cold, starry night at the age of 122.
Officially.
Amid a nation boiling with grief, there was one place where laughter and cries of pleasure never stopped.
Arkaba, the empire's farthest east, ruled by Havitz XVII, the late emperor's youngest son.
The envoy from the capital tightened his expression as he passed Arkaba Castle's grand hall toward Havitz XVII's private quarters.
'A fact that must never be known. The emperor—'
Had died consumed by pleasure.
Havitz XVI's corpse lay with its eyes wide open, filth pouring from every orifice.
The seventeen women found in the bed with him, and the head maid who first reported it, had their throats cut on the spot.
'The only remaining bloodline in Gustav: Havitz XVII.'
Over 122 years Havitz XVI had fathered 782 children, but now none of them remained alive.
This was because of a peculiar imperial succession custom: any royal over the age of twenty is granted a license to kill kin.
Any royal over twenty may kill a relative; if unavoidable, a special trial will determine the heir.
Havitz XVII became the final successor four years ago by brutally executing seventeen royals.
'In other words…'
He had killed 781 siblings.
Although the capital should have rushed to hold the succession ceremony the moment the emperor died, Havitz XVII still lingered here because of one thing.
'An utterly baseless, yet absolute confidence.'
Anyone who knew his patterns said so in unison.
An unknowable, inscrutable presence.
That was why even the empire's most eminent nobles dared not attempt a coup.
At the golden gates, the envoy from the capital swallowed, took a breath, and listened.
"...."
Moans of pleasure and ecstasy seeped through the doors.
"Your Highness, Darmof, Minister of Internal Affairs of the capital, requests an audience."
Instead of an answer came a man's and a woman's cry; as if on cue, the guards opened the gate.
'This surpasses imagination.'
The stench of corruption hit first, and in the vast hall two hundred men and women indulged like beasts.
Beautiful youths and maidens—young and flawless—yet when seen in a mass they were grotesque, like monsters with wrong appendages.
"What are you?"
A middle-aged man, naked, sat on a golden throne smoking a long pipe.
'He is—'
Gustav Havitz XVII, the King of Desire.
His face was oddly long and his nose hooked, but his eyes were as beautiful as a woman's—forming a perfect discord.
'Just as the rumors said.'
In an air saturated with lust, he alone did nothing but watch others.
Rumor had it he smoked Asker.
A powerful narcotic banned across the empire because one forced day of withdrawal drove people to suicide.
'But Havitz XVII enjoys Asker.'
He smoked exactly three grams every twenty-four hours.
'The greatest restraint begets the greatest desire.'
A famous saying that reflected Havitz's temperament and explained how he had survived among more than seven hundred siblings.
"The empire is drowning in sorrow over the late emperor's death. You must hold the succession ceremony as soon as possible."
"Tiresome. There's no woman or man I want stripped, no object I desire, no ambition over there. When I want to be emperor, I'll go get it—give it to anyone for now."
Havitz snorted and pointed at Darmof.
"Why don't you do it instead? Before you die, why not fondle the beauty that is the empire? Could be entertaining."
'What kind of confidence is that?'
A chill ran through Darmof as he hurriedly replied.
"I am unworthy, Your Highness. I do not know how to take Your Highness's jest."
"Puhahahaha!"
As Havitz turned his head and laughed, Asker smoke billowed from his throat.
The laughter cut off.
"The more you fear pain, the more you fear pleasure."
He put the pipe to his lips again.
"Does your heart pound just imagining an immense pleasure? Are you afraid you'll lose yourself for lack of restraint?"
It felt as if his breath had been choked off.
'Please, please let this end quickly.'
For the first time since becoming Minister of Internal Affairs, Darmof regretted the post.
"Your father was like that."
Havitz XVI had tasted every sweetness the world could offer—except one thing he could never possess.
"Adrias Miro, wasn't it?"
Heir of Geffin and humanity's greatest defender, who held back the armies of heaven behind the dimensional barrier.
From the moment he lost her in front of his eyes, Havitz XVI clung to pleasure as if no thirst could be slaked.
"He lost his restraint. He didn't care about being emperor, but in that sense… he was pathetic."
Darmof, who had served the emperor all his life, could not stay silent this time.
"Your Highness, it is unbecoming for the future bearer of the imperial title to speak ill of the late emperor—"
"It's no problem at all."
Havitz XVII rose from his throne.
"If this world were such that a god set problems and we solved them for rewards…"
The short blade at his side rasped free.
"All would be simple. No one would be aggrieved, and nobody would fret over how to live. But you see—"
Descending the steps, Havitz shoved two people writhing on the floor with his foot.
"The problem is there was never any problem to begin with. This world is like… a square. We just gather here and do whatever."
If there are no problems, there's no right answer.
"Do whatever you like inside it…"
When the blade pierced the torsos of the two rolling bodies and slammed into the floor with a thud, Darmof's shoulders twitched.
One of the impaled moaned, but the Asker-addled ignored it.
Havitz drew the blade out in one motion, watched the blood on its edge for a moment, then shrugged.
"See? I killed people. What do you think? Do you think I did wrong?"
The sword tip pressed against Darmof's nape.
"All the empire's subjects are your property, Your Highness—"
"No, no! That's not it! What I mean is, there's nothing in the world you're forbidden to do! That doesn't mean there are things you must do either. It's just—!"
Flailing for words, Havitz turned to Darmof and shouted.
"It's nothing!"
The bloody blade pointed at the corpses.
"They're dead! Painful, maybe. So what? What happens to me? They're just dead! I killed them—so what!"
"Uhh… uhh…"
A stream of urine wet Darmof's trousers.
"That's why this world is fun."
If human emotion congealed into reality and fell upon us, what shape would Havitz's emotion take?
"I don't care about emperors. If you came to tell a boring story, I'll make it interesting."
"Th—the convocation is opening."
Darmof forced the words out.
"The 420th convocation. Since the empire has no lord… Your Highness must enter the convocation—uhhk!"
Suddenly the sword was sheathed.
"Hmm, convocation, is it."
Havitz's eyelids trembled; his eyes showed only the whites as he closed them in thought.
"Yes. Much more entertaining than the empire."
Uoorin.
"Ah, I could go mad. This is truly hard to bear…"
Seeing blood rush to Havitz's center, Darmof slowly backed away.
"Yes, that's it. One finger at a time, snap… snap…"
No one wanted to imagine what perversions danced in his mind.
"But that's just a passing diversion. True desire is not that. Do you know what I really want to violate, Minister of Internal Affairs?"
"I—I, for my part—"
"The world. All that exists."
Havitz gripped the blade and spread both arms; his center aligned perfectly vertical and rose above his navel.
'Not human. Even if he is human, we must not include him in the category of human.'
The new emperor, Gustav Havitz XVII.
"I will defile the whole world."
A fly that had come from nowhere buzzed across the ceiling.
* * *
Southern desert of Akad.
Three thousand ma who had escaped the Spirit Zone had gathered at the source of the equatorial wind Noscarta—the place called the god of the desert.
"Division commander, there is nowhere left to occupy."
The grim voice addressed a ma warrior clad in over a ton of armor.
Second Division Commander of the 4th Legion, Surga Gashias.
"...."
Ma.
A term humans used pejoratively, but originally a general designation for phenomena that manifest when a strong group consciousness projects itself.
Where human power is split among many nations, the ma fight under one banner—Satan's.
Directly under Satan: the Seventy-Two Legions.
The extreme terror that erupts when a human dies flows into the other world as ma.
The frequency of ma occurrences almost matches the number of deaths in human history—a raw measure of how most humans lived.
The commanders of the Seventy-Two Legions feed on that terror and raise hell's armies numbering over two billion.
"What is occupation? It is looking down from on high at a state of perfect submission."
In that sense, the 4th Legion's Second Division could not claim to have occupied the southern desert.
"We'll strike the last one."
After all, the ma were a species formed from the scraps of information humans left behind after death—their souls forged into bodies.
The furnace that melts ma is called the 'grill,' and here the hellfire that fuses human souls always burns.
When those souls are purified in the hellfire, they merge into a ma; the nature of that fusion determines its power.
"Come, my faithful subordinates."
In Satan's army, a division commander's rank corresponds to a national field marshal in human terms.
Though the Sion Project had shrunk the Spirit Zone, for humanity it meant the worst ma had been left in the desert.
"Slay humans! Every scream makes us stronger. Give them the most horrific deaths!"
Thus humans came to call the ma devils—demons.
"The world is ours!"
Three thousand warriors crossed the desert.
They headed for the pyramid dungeon in the Kingdom of Paras—Archmage Zulu's dungeon—where Gaold and Gangnan were hiding.