The Second Ruler
Roko held his sword from its sheath, his body trembling with fear, and with his left hand he held the burn marks on his right eye. He said loudly, his body sweating as he looked down in front of the window:
"Don't look at the sky, Seiji. Just run. Run as fast as you can, no matter how strange it seems."
Then Roko ran toward the window, enveloped in a light blue aura, with Seiji beside him. In a swift moment, Roko jumped from the window, holding onto Seiji with his right hand.
Beneath them, ice formed to surround them, and during their fall from the clock tower, the smell of decomposing corpses wafted into their noses. It was a heavy, foul, terrifying odor.
During the fall, they looked only downward. Seiji didn't know why—only Roko understood.
Looking at the ground, Roko froze the grass with his power, allowing them to land without injuring their feet. However, Roko's right hand was cut by shards of the window they had broken.
Roko began running, with Seiji following him. Roko still looked downward, fear evident on his face.
Seiji thought to himself, imitating Roko's movements:
"He knows the effect of this sky… it's terrifying. I don't know what to do. I must run and follow Roko now."
Roko said in a loud, commanding voice:
"Keep looking downward! This sky represents a disaster we cannot face!"
Seiji's facial expression changed within seconds of Roko's words; things became even stranger.
Roko continued:
"Cover your face with the Ronin hat now!"
Seiji and Roko placed their pointed Ronin hats, hiding their faces. Afterwards, they could see nothing above them, only the ground.
While running, Seiji asked in a worried, confused voice:
"What do you know about this… sky, Roko?"
Roko said in a low, lifeless voice, with no excitement or enthusiasm:
"A city abandoned by any humans for ten days becomes home to monsters and rebellious spirits. If they look at what's above us, they will sense our presence."
As Roko spoke, Seiji tried to resist the urge to look upward. It was difficult. Roko moved quickly to leave Valimer city and head to the next city.
But whispers calling them to stay grew louder. As they ran, Seiji again struggled to restrain himself. Roko shouted at him:
"What's wrong with you, Seiji? Now is not the time for curiosity. Don't listen to their voices! If you look, you'll become the next victim."
Seiji grabbed the edges of his Ronin hat, pulled it down, and ran as fast as he could. At that moment, strange voices rose:
"Why don't you want to stay here?"
"Hehe. Why are you running, young man? Didn't you like our city?"
"I invited you to stay in my home. No one has visited me for ten days, and I began to feel lonely."
Roko shouted with all his strength, trying to prevent his friend from heading toward death:
"Seiji, don't believe what you hear! Just keep running fast."
Seiji thought to himself, unsure of what was happening and what their fate would be:
"I don't know what to do. Everything happening now feels like a living nightmare. I must run. Escape—escape is the only option."
The closer Roko and Seiji got to leaving, the more Valimer city resisted. The reflection of the green sky grew stronger. Red hands began to grab Seiji's feet, but flames burst from him, and their blaze spread across the city.
They tried to accelerate, but the sights grew even more terrifying, and they looked only at the ground. Hands appeared, and scattered corpse remnants reformed—the city was no longer dead but alive.
Swords began to float, and shields formed. Valimer, having been destroyed, and its residents whose blood had been shed, refused this humiliating death and decided to destroy everything they saw.
Roko, fear etched on his face, heard sounds of stabbing and fighting between beings who were once alive and had become dead. They fought among themselves.
"Hahaha, why don't you die?"
"Hehe, become like us, young man."
Then the screams grew louder, the laughter stronger. Terror never left their faces.
The two of them jumped quickly to leave the city. Before leaving Valimer, Seiji heard a voice that made his body shiver:
"Samurai Seiji—that is your name. Why don't you join us now instead of dying by his hand? He waits for you in the capital. We have seen only a few samurai and heard of them. We wanted you to stay so we could learn about you, but you refuse. We wish you utmost misery. Welcome to the Old Kingdom."
As Seiji jumped to leave, he decided to see the forms of those speaking. What he saw made him remember something. The voice belonged to a woman with long black hair, pale white skin, ghostlike in the midst of the chaos. Her mouth was open, scarred, and her eyes completely black. Her fingers were cut off, and she had a wide laugh. Behind her, the residents too were twisted: one held his head and placed it back, another moved without arms, carrying his head which laughed, and his body was covered in black blood. The residents laughed louder, and with each laugh, strange things appeared, making them less human. Their bodies cracked, screams pierced the air.
Roko recalled the tower guard's words:
"We united a message that was written: the more they laugh, the more they lose parts of their feelings. And as they lose parts of their feelings, they lose their humanity."
Roko and Seiji exited the city. When Roko saw the scene, he could not speak. The living corpses looked at them and said a word with inhuman laughter:
"Goodbye, and welcome to the Old Kingdom."
Then the gate of Valimer city closed, accompanied by terrifying laughter.
Roko grabbed Seiji's left shoulder; Seiji had fallen to the ground in fear and did not stand. Roko said sadly:
"Let's go, Seiji. Let's continue our path."
Shock and disbelief were etched on Seiji's face. He said in a broken voice:
"I've fought many yokai, and their forms weren't human either, but what I saw is not yokai. I can't believe it—how burned corpses return so rapidly. It seems we are heading for death."
Roko was shocked that his strong, intelligent friend had broken down from the horror. Roko looked at the sky and said:
"That's why I told you not to look at them. But your desire has fed on your body. Now let's continue our path."
Roko recalled a conversation with a samurai three years ago.
Roko was a beginner, facing a samurai with a pale face whose features were hidden beneath a large Ronin hat. The samurai wore a black combat kimono. Roko's memories of him were hazy, but he remembered a word the samurai said.
Roko sat on the ground, tired, leaning against a wall, asking himself:
"What is the source of these powers, and were they created by the rulers?"
The samurai sat beside him and said in a calm, composed voice:
"These powers never came from the rulers."
Roko said loudly:
"Then how did these powers come, and how did we realize them?"
The pale-faced samurai replied:
"We never realized them. These powers are still mysterious, and we only understood a part of them. I understand the importance of your question, young man, and the curiosity within you. But there are things you should not know. Anyone who searched for their source out of curiosity perished. Don't ask about things that led to disasters. The powers were among the causes of deadly wars, and many people perished by them."
Roko was shocked by the depth of the samurai's knowledge. The man looked at Roko and smiled:
"Sometimes the world hides things not for us to discover, but for us to leave alone."
After this, thirteen-year-old Roko said:
"Thank you, sir. May I know your name?"
The samurai laughed and said:
"My name is Akayama."
Returning to the present, Roko clenched his fist and said:
"Let's head to the next city."
In the Rulers' World
Amidst a sky with strong, powerful winds and a loud whistling sound, everything floated and was swallowed by the wind. A shadow of a person appeared in the midst of the powerful winds. He had white hair and bright crimson eyes, wore a black conical Ronin hat with wide braided edges. Under his left eye was a long scar. He wore a brown chestnut-colored robe, and beneath it a dark cotton gi kimono and black pants. His sword sheath was made of thick, strong leather. He spoke in a deep voice to someone appearing before him:
"What do you want, Ryougen?"
The person before him, the ruler of lightning, Ryougen, smiled widely and said in a laughing voice:
"I'm not here to fight you, but do you know what happened?"
The mysterious samurai replied:
"Yes, I know. That scoundrel Renzo destroyed one of the kingdoms."
The samurai looked at Ryougen and said:
"Renzo is still obsessed with revenge, and day by day, he will go mad, killing everyone around him without reason or justification."
Ryougen's expression changed, and he said to the mysterious samurai:
"You are now wiser. Have you begun preparing to ascend to the second level?"
The mysterious samurai replied, a small smile appearing:
"Yes, I am close to ascending."
His appearance revealed him as Fusion, the ruler of wind, one of the four rulers.
Among all the rulers, there was a group known as the Four Rulers. This group was the elite of the rulers.
Fusion asked Ryougen:
"What did you find, Ryougen, that makes you smile like this?"
Ryougen replied with a small smile:
"I fought the person Renzo is searching for."
In the Old Kingdom – One of the Destroyed Cities
Amid the ruins, a wizard walked, wearing a pointed brown hat and a robe covering his body. His long black hair and eyes were surrounded by black auras. He hadn't slept for twenty days. This person was the wizard Darn, the last of the wizard empire, now walking through the Old Kingdom in a place filled with silence.
After walking through a dark alley, Darn looked back and said:
"There are others in this kingdom."
End of Chapter