Eris, born as a kin of the Star Crystal Beast Orleon, the very source of Mana that governs the world, carries an innate destiny. To stop the world's destruction brought about by human greed, she unleashes the forbidden magic 'Apocalyptic Seven Swords.'
Her sole purpose is to eradicate the exploitation of Mana by humans and to protect the life of the star. This is her answer to the countless cries of life she has witnessed over centuries. But humans call her 'the Last Boss who will destroy the w
Last Peril of the Supreme Star - Memory of the Stars, the Last Storyteller
The light continued downward, ever downward.
Kaito Veldorunt stood at the edge of the massive fissure torn open by the collapse of White Fang Castle, gazing down into the darkness spreading beneath his feet. The mana crystal of Eris, clutched against his chest, pulsed with a pale blue-white light—thump, thump—like a heartbeat. That light alone traced his silhouette against the darkness.
Wind was blowing. Not wind from the surface, but something that crawled up from the depths of the chasm—lukewarm, damp, like air circulating through the body of a star. Kaito's black hair, streaked with deep crimson at the tips, swayed as if lifted from below.
"...Time to go."
His voice was swallowed immediately.
He took a step forward. His foot settled onto a crumbling ledge of rock. The footing was damp, and with every shift of weight, pebbles scattered loose and tumbled into the bottomless dark. The sound of falling stones never returned.
The walls of the fissure were not mere rock.
Soon after beginning his descent, Kaito realized he was climbing down not through "strata" but through "scars." The countless cracks running across the walls were too regular to be natural. Straight, right-angled, sharply bored. Here and there, iron support beams embedded by human hands had rusted and snapped, and spaces that had once been mine entrances gaped open like black holes.
Crystal-mining tunnels.
Wounds carved into the very veins of the star, dug by humans to siphon mana from the earth's arteries. Since childhood, Kaito had been taught at White Fang Castle—that this was the proof of civilization, a noble enterprise that turned the star's blessings to human benefit. But now, seeing the traces with his own eyes, he felt something cold settling deep in his chest.
Mining rails cut off midway up the wall, bent toward the void. A single mine cart lay on its side, wedged between rocks. Its wheels still trembled—katakata—stirred by faint currents of mana.
(She watched these wounds in silence for three hundred years.)
Kaito bit his lip.
The deeper he descended, the denser the mana became. The air grew heavy, with a cloying sweetness. Light-emitting moss clung to the walls, tracing pale blue web-like patterns. Occasionally, the entire web flickered in unison. The star's pulse ran through the very walls of this hollow.
The star-mark carved into Kaito's left shoulder throbbed—zukin.
The mark that should have been burned away in the battle at White Fang Castle now responded to the deep mana, growing hot and prickling. The pain was piercing. He exhaled sharply and pressed a hand against the wall. His fingertips touched a crack in the rock. In that instant, pale light traveled up his hand, up his arm, and seared an image behind his eyes.
—Bones.
Embedded in the wall were countless white bones.
Small ones. Thin ones. Not human, but with silhouettes very much like humans—delicate skeletons. Around the skulls, mana moss clustered like flowers. The entire wall was a stratum of bone.
Kaito steadied his breathing and pulled his hand away from the wall. His fingertips were trembling.
"The kin..."
He couldn't finish the words.
The remains of the kin buried in the earth. This was clearly not the posture of natural death. Many of the bones were frozen in positions of reaching toward one another. Arms bent at angles suggesting they had been bound behind their backs. Cracked skulls. Human crystal-mining had carved through the earth's veins and dragged them in. Or—something more direct.
Kaito, who had once believed in this country's justice as a "hero," now felt from the pit of his stomach just how deeply he had stood on the side of this exploitation.
Still, he did not stop walking.
The mana crystal at his chest still pointed ahead. Lower. Deeper. Toward the center of the star.
Kaito turned his back to the wall of bones and descended further.
******
How far he had descended, he no longer knew—his sense of time had long since dissolved. The surface sky was no longer visible. All he could see was the layer of pale light spreading beneath his feet and the torrent of mana surging upward from it.
Eventually, the tunnel walls opened to the left and right, and a vast hollow appeared ahead.
The Heart of Orleon.
The deepest part of the star, where all the earth's veins converged. The entire space pulsed—slowly, but unmistakably. Every wall contracted and relaxed like cardiac muscle, and with each beat, pale light rippled from ceiling to floor. Across the floor, rivers of light flowed in a web-like network. Each was a main artery of the earth's veins, leading to the surface.
And at the center of the hollow, she stood.
"You came."
Eris's voice trembled through the air of the hollow.
She was translucent. Her body had almost entirely lost its substance. Her long silver-white hair melted into the light, blurring her outline, and only her deep azure eyes held Kaito as points of intense light. Her left half had completely transformed into pale blue-white light, and countless cracks ran through what remained of her right half. From beneath the cracks, the mana within her overflowed, making her skin flicker like a field of stars.
"You're the first human to come this far."
She smiled. It was a quiet smile, one that looked on the verge of tears.
"Why did you come?"
Kaito stopped at the entrance of the hollow and gazed at her. His breathing was shallow. Every bone in his body felt as though it would be crushed by the pressure of mana. The star-mark flickered erratically, and golden light scattered at the edges of his vision.
"To make sure you don't die alone."
His voice was quieter than even he expected.
Eris's azure eyes wavered slightly.
"I am the final boss. A being who lived to be killed by humans. I have no right to receive words like 'so you don't die alone' from you."
Her voice was weak, trembling at the end. She slowly raised her right hand and pointed her light-dissolving fingertips toward Kaito's chest.
"My core is there. If you pierce it, the star's pain will end. And a path for you to live will open."
At the center of her chest, a mass of light pulsed with particular intensity. Her own core. The essence that had bound her to this world for three hundred years as the star's sacrifice.
"Draw your sword."
Kaito reached for his hip.
There was no sword there. The sword he had lost in the battle at White Fang Castle. But his hand cracked the bones in his neck—once, koki—the way he always did before drawing a blade.
And then he walked forward.
Across the floor of the hollow, one step, then another. Rivers of light washed over his feet, and mana seeped through the gaps in his boots. His entire body felt like it was burning. Still, Kaito walked until he stood before Eris—
And dropped to his knees.
Both knees on the ground, back bowed, both hands extended.
"I threw away my sword."
And then, with both hands, he wrapped them around her right hand, half-dissolved into light.
Eris's fingers were cold. Cold, yet the moment he touched them, they flared hot. Mana light crawled up from Kaito's palms, up his arms, and pierced the star-mark on his left shoulder. Pain raced through his entire body. He clenched his teeth. He could hear screaming from the marrow of his bones.
"...Let go."
Eris's voice wavered.
"I won't."
"You'll burn too."
"Let me burn."
At Kaito's words, Eris's body tilted, strengthless. Her outline dissolved a little further into the light. Her silver-white hair began to scatter into the air like stardust, fluttering, fluttering.
"There was something I wanted to ask you."
Within Kaito's hands, she pressed her other hand against the core in her chest.
"Should humanity perish, or should everything perish along with this world? I always meant to ask you that. For two months, all along."
Her azure eyes looked straight at Kaito.
"Answer me, Kaito. As someone who has lived, I want you to tell me."
Kaito raised his head.
His reddish-brown eyes had turned gold in the light of the star-mark. Blood from his nose ran down to his lips. And yet, he smiled. With a face on the verge of tears, but he definitely smiled.
"Neither is right."
His voice echoed through the hollow. Drops of light fell from the ceiling. Mana crystals drifted down like quiet rain.
"Eris. If that's what you wish for—I have never, not even once, believed you were evil."
With those words, something stubborn inside Eris collapsed with an audible sound.
The cracks running through her right half opened all at once. Light burst forth. But it was not the light of destruction. What overflowed from within was the emotion she had suppressed for three hundred years—the soul of a young, love-starved girl, the last of the kin.
From Eris's azure eyes, instead of tears, mana light spilled down. The light tracing her cheeks fell onto the back of Kaito's hand like fragments of a pale star, and vanished with a soft hiss.
"I... I never wanted revenge. I never hated humans. I just... wanted someone to acknowledge me. I wanted to tell someone—just one person—that I lived, that I wanted to be loved."
Her voice had become a sob.
"Three hundred years, all alone. My kin were killed, and there was no one to hear my voice. But the star's pain kept calling to me. Because I was the last one. So I became the final boss. Because then, humans would see me. Even if they hated me, even if they despised me, they would see me."
A voice broken by sobs. Her body of light flickered violently.
Kaito gripped her hand tighter, as if touching something fragile.
"I see you now."
His voice, too, trembled with tears.
"I see you. I'll be your one and only storyteller."
Eris slowly parted her light-dissolving lips.
"Kaito... thank you."
And then, with her own hand, she shattered her own core.
A clear sound—pakin—pierced through the entirety of the Heart of Orleon.
******
Light exploded.
Pale blue light, golden light, silver light. Memories of every color erupted from the depths of Eris's chest, filling the entire hollow like a tidal wave. Kaito's vision burst white, and a sensation of weightlessness enveloped his body.
"Eris!"
He screamed. He could no longer hear his own voice.
The tidal wave of light pierced mercilessly through his mouth, his eyes, his ears, every inch of his skin.
—It flowed in.
Three hundred years of memories.
The prayers of the kin. Hymns to the star. Songs of the earth's veins. The names of trees. The scent of wind. The cold of rain.
A human girl's lullaby, sung to her little brother.
The howling of wolves. The sound of branches snapping under the weight of snow.
The laughter of kin children. The deep, deep melody of Mother Orleon.
And then—the burning forest. The kin being hunted. Kin crying and screaming. The sound of human swords tearing through songs of prayer.
The night in the great forest of Noa, when he first met Eris.
As enemies, and yet—what they had seen in each other's eyes.
—The memories seared his brain like fire.
"AAAAAAAHHH!"
Kaito screamed. He writhed in agony. Stars exploded behind his eyeballs, his organs turned inside out, mana raced through every blood vessel in his body. A moment of oblivion. The outline of his self vanished, for an instant.
Still, he continued to accept it.
He did not resist. He did not flee. He did not refuse.
This was the world she had lived in. All the memories of the star she had wanted to protect.
"Eris...!"
At the end of the torrent of memories, he heard the crying voice of that young girl.
"Someone... someone, please... see me..."
A voice that had echoed alone, for three hundred years, in the deepest depths of the star.
Within the torrent of light, Kaito reached out toward the void.
Before his eyes, Eris's body was dissolving into particles of light.
Silver-white hair. Azure eyes. The shattered light of her moonlight-colored hair ornament. All of it, gently, gently, being drawn into the heart of the star.
"Wait! Don't go!"
Kaito tried to grasp
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