“…What is that? Isn’t that the Aegis fleet?”
One, two… probably hundreds. Or perhaps even thousands. A fleet too vast to count was swallowing even the daylight whole. Like a passage from a theology text saying God had grown wrathful and sealed the sky shut — a sudden, total darkness had descended upon the land from out of nowhere.
“Wait — why is the Imperial coalition force here…?”
Someone passing the end of the corridor muttered the same question as Luka, eyes fixed on the sky. That question never even got the chance to become a scream.
A high-frequency sound split through the air and drove itself into their eardrums. In a fraction of a second, the sky flashed a searingly clear violet.
He’d spent the entire morning performing a sword dance under the pretense of beseeching God’s mercy. God had finally answered. With high-output charged particle cannons tearing through the atmosphere in a torrent.
BOOM!
Violet lightning struck through the surface of the planet. At the same moment, the earth twisted and screamed like a wounded beast. The voices of people who, barely thirty minutes ago, had been laughing and chatting as they savored the lingering warmth of the banquet — those voices transformed into horrific screams.
“AHHH—!”
“AAAAH—!”
Even those desperate cries were swallowed up by the ear-splitting explosions and the massive shockwave sweeping through the atmosphere. The countless crowd that had watched Luka’s sword dance vanished pitifully into a storm of dust caked with blood and ash.
The enormous stone buildings that had stood in all their grandeur crumbled in an instant, like sandcastles swept away by a violent gust. The peaceful planet that had lived under the grace of God transformed into a burning hell in the blink of an eye.
“Hah… hah…”
In the ruins thick with dust and flame, Luka lay collapsed beneath a fallen stone pillar. There was no time to feel grateful for the miracle of surviving the shockwave that had swept across the land in an instant. The horrific pain, arriving belatedly from the parts of his body that had been torn away, turned his mind white.
“Aah… nngh…”
A moan laced with the metallic taste of blood seeped from between his lips. On instinct, Luka tried to feel his own body. But his right arm, from the shoulder down, was crushed and charred black — completely without feeling.
His barely-focused gaze drifted a little lower. The ceremonial robes that had been flowing so elegantly just moments before had been cut in half. Both legs below his thighs were gone without a trace. Only the blood gushing and spilling from the severed edges was soaking the ash-covered ground beneath him.
“Nngh… hh…”
Luka had no strength left to scream. His vision swayed and lurched. His body, bleeding so severely that a large pool of blood had formed around him, was rapidly growing cold. Even the feeling in his remaining left arm had dulled at some point.
Everything faded, growing vague and distant. The meaning of life. His father’s face, which he so longed to see.
Am I dying… just like this…?
A cold swept over his entire body in an instant. And with that chill came — astonishingly — a sense of calm. He was not afraid of death. No — if anything, death felt like a relief more necessary than trying to live on in this wretched state.
Yeah… it’d be better to just end it quietly like this…
Luka slowly closed his eyes. The acrid smell of flames grew distant, and his consciousness began to fade into the dark — and then.
Crunch. Crunch.
Steady footsteps approached. There was a faint urgency buried beneath the sound of boots treading on burning timber.
“Captain, I found him.”
A woman’s voice. But Luka had no strength to force open his heavy eyelids and check who she was. Death had crept right up to his throat and was squeezing it shut.
“We put up the shield just in time to minimize the damage… Oh no—! Captain, no — the situation is critical! Please, come quickly, hurry!”
Overlapping the woman’s frantic cry came another set of footsteps. They were lower and heavier in vibration than the woman’s — but composed. As though the sight of a body with severed limbs and a crushed arm, slowly dying, was something they had grown weary of seeing long ago.
Softly, that enormous presence settled down at Luka’s side. The sound of a glove being removed — and then the gentle tips of bare fingers pressed steadily against the blood-soaked nape of Luka’s neck, reading the faint pulse of life that remained.
“He’s still breathing.”
“But at this rate — his pulse is too slow!”
“We can save him. It’s alright — calm down.”
The voice that resonated through his eardrums was difficult to place an age to. It carried the shrewd wisdom of someone who had transcended years, yet at moments gave off the sharp, unbroken energy of a young man.
Who is that…? Who are they, making such bold claims about being able to save me?
Luka forced his eyelids open as though burning the last flickering ember of life.
The silhouette of a man looking down at him burned itself into his vision. Even amid the ruins where a scene of hell had unfolded, he was impeccably dressed in a clean uniform without so much as a speck of dust on him. He knelt on one knee before Luka with the air of someone taking a leisurely stroll through a quiet park.
“You’re Luka, right?”
The man removed his remaining glove. His bare hand gently cupped Luka’s cheek. Against skin caked with blood and dust, a foreign warmth clung and settled.
Luka moved his lips. Where a desperate cry of please save me should have poured out from between his teeth, he begged for something else entirely.
“Kill… me…”
His cracked voice twisted in pain. The man had said he could save Luka — but Luka himself knew he could not survive this. So he wanted to cut off this agony as quickly as possible.
“Let me die… peacefully…”
Even as he looked at Luka, who seemed on the verge of dying from shock at any moment, the man laughed softly. It was not mockery. It was a smile that said he understood — more deeply than anyone — the heart of someone trying to choose death as the easiest escape.
“I’m sorry, but I have no room on my ship for a corpse.”
“Please…”
“I’ll save you. So don’t give up.”
“Plea… se…”
Why do you want to save me — how could anyone live in a state like this.
Luka wanted to scream — take your pointless pity and compassion and throw them away — that was how he felt. But even breathing through his gasping throat was no easy thing.
Kill me, please, please, please…
The desperate plea that could not become sound erupted instead as tears mixed with blood. But the man was kind to the point of cruelty. He did not grant Luka the death he so desperately craved.
Instead, he carefully lifted Luka’s mangled, severed, crushed body into his arms. His manner was as though he were handling a fragile, ancient glass sculpture.
From the severed edges where his two legs had disappeared and his right arm had been crushed, blood gushed and surged. The dark blood soaked the man’s immaculate navy uniform in an instant. But he paid it no mind. If anything, he gathered Luka deeper into his arms, as though what worried him more was that his body temperature was lower than expected.
“Luka — I’m Luka too. Same name as you. You at least have to hear the story of how someone with the same name as you came looking for you. So survive. Don’t give up. Not ever.”
Luka stared blankly up at the man’s face as his consciousness drifted away.
An unfamiliar face. A man he had never once seen in all his life. They shared a name — or so he said — but he felt like a being whose lived history and the weight of his destined path would never overlap with Luka’s own.
Luka felt the steady heartbeat coming from the man’s chest, and let go of his consciousness. The thunderous roar of the planet’s collapse filled his ears until they went numb. But even amid that tragedy, the man’s golden eyes shone as brightly as the sun.
It almost seemed as though the God everyone had so desperately hoped to encounter while watching Luka’s sword dance had manifested — in the form of this gentle man.
1. Young Luka
Through the window of the ship, the planet could be seen crumbling apart.
The continent could not withstand the pressure bursting outward from within the planet’s core. The land was torn into thousands of fragments, and through the gaps between them, crimson magma surged up and was expelled into space. The planet crumbled from its center outward in an instant.
The man — the Captain who shared a name with Luka — crossed the bridge with the small, blood-soaked body cradled in his arms, and called out.
“All hands, brace for impact! Maximize the output of the magnetic field barrier!”
Sharp commands filled the chaotic bridge.
“Engine room, respond to the overload! Navigator, calculate the debris inflow trajectory immediately. We initiate evasive maneuvers before the shockwave hits!”
He readjusted his hold on the boy in his arms while his gaze swept sharply across the communications control panel.
“Cut the comm relay. Concentrate all remaining energy into propulsion and the defensive barrier! We are escaping this planet right now!”
Responses erupted in unison from every direction.
“Magnetic field barrier deployed! Maintaining maximum output!”
“Engine at critical threshold, output locked at 120%!”
“Communications fully cut. All energy transferred to propulsion systems, complete!”
“Debris inflow trajectory calculation finished — initiating evasive maneuvers!”
RUMBLE!
The massive hull shuddered violently under a powerful impact. Outside the windows, fragments of the planet streaked past, throwing off sharp sparks.
The intense gravity pouring out from within the collapsing planet grabbed hold of the ship trying to flee. As the output of the propulsion system — already in an overloaded state — dropped sharply, the ship lurched as though it might be sucked right back in.
Whirr, whirr.
Red warning lights flooded every part of the ship. In an instant, the faces of the crew drained of all color.
“Captain—!”
Someone’s cry was begging for desperate salvation.
