The Promised Day — July 7th
At the same time, above ground, in the royal capital of Crocus…
It was noon on July 7th.
The scorching sun that had been blazing overhead was gradually being swallowed by darkness.
Almost everyone in the royal capital had poured into the streets.
A solar eclipse was a rare phenomenon that most people might never witness in their lifetime.
As a result, street vendors had worked through the night to produce batches of black crystal viewing pieces.
They sold for twenty jewels each and had been completely sold out before dawn.
The Central Square was packed with people craning their necks toward the sky as the daylight gradually dimmed, turning into an eerie, cyan-tinted twilight.
“It’s already halfway gone! Look! It’s already halfway gone!”
“Shh—quiet! Listen! What was that sound?”
Suddenly, the stone pavement beneath their feet began to tremble.
A violent current of air instantly surged from the cracks.
It wasn’t just one place.
It wasn’t just the street.
It wasn’t even just the square.
The entire city of Crocus was shaking!
Deep beneath the ground, the dormant magical power hidden within the earth suddenly transformed into a tangible gale.
Like a gigantic golden net covering the entire city, it was completely ignited from the very bottom at that moment, roaring and surging outward!
Birds throughout the city were startled into the air simultaneously.
Pigeons, sparrows, crows, and even swallows hiding beneath the eaves transformed into a black storm that blotted out the sky as they rushed upward.
They circled frantically above the royal palace, crying out in panic as though some terrifying monster were lurking underground and causing their very souls to tremble.
Not a single bird dared to land for a long time.
“An earthquake?!”
“It’s not an earthquake! Look at the ground! Look!”
“It’s the Eclipse! The heavens are punishing us!”
Panic spread through the crowd like a plague.
The people above ground had no idea what was happening, but they could still feel a faint sense of pressure and unease emanating from that enormous magical power.
A young bakery apprentice rushed out of the shop carrying a freshly baked tray.
He froze in the middle of the chaotic street.
The tray tilted in his hands, and the golden-brown bread rolled onto the ground.
He didn’t even notice.
He simply stared blankly at the sky.
“Master… Wh-What is this?”
“The royal palace.”
The old baker’s throat trembled as he stared fixedly at the towering structure in the distance.
“That power… It came from beneath the royal palace!”
On the third-floor balcony of an old apartment in the western part of the city, a retired mage in his sixties gripped the railing and slowly straightened his body.
When he was young, he had spent eight years working in the Council’s observation department, where his livelihood had depended on sensing magical power.
Although his abilities had deteriorated significantly over the years, they weren’t so poor that he couldn’t recognize the terrifying level of power before him.
“Could the Wizard Saints be fighting underground?”
The words had barely left his mouth when he shook his head.
He had seen the Ten Wizard Saints before.
Yet even their power had never given him a feeling like this.
Could it be the Four Heavenly Kings?
The old man’s hand trembled so violently that he could no longer hold onto the railing.
His body slid down the wall until he was sitting on the balcony floor.
“…This isn’t magic power that a human should possess.”
The entire city of Crocus descended into unprecedented chaos and speculation.
Some people attributed the phenomenon to the eclipse.
Others believed a terrible catastrophe was about to occur.
No one knew that beneath their feet, deep underground, a ritual spanning time and space was taking place.
The strange phenomenon shaking the royal capital was simply the result of one mage unleashing his power.
Deep underground, within the ruined hall.
Zudil was still kneeling where he had fallen, his knees partially buried beneath the rubble.
He stared fixedly at the white torrent of magical power before him—a sight that was almost miraculous.
Yet there was no relief in his eyes.
Instead, they were filled with twisted jealousy and gloom.
He was unhappy.
He wasn’t happy at all!
The glory of saving Lady Layla and becoming the savior of the Heartfilia family should have belonged to him!
Why should it belong to some lowly rat who didn’t even dare to reveal his true face?!
Zudil clenched his fists tightly.
His fingernails dug deep into his palms, and fresh blood dripped between his fingers.
Boom!
At that very moment, the twelfth groove on the Eclipse Gate suddenly lit up!
It wasn’t the golden radiance of celestial magic power.
Instead, it was a pure-white, blazing light formed from Byakuran’s overwhelming magical power.
It carried no constellation contract.
It had none of the elegance associated with celestial magic.
Eleven strands of golden starlight.
One strand of pure-white magic power.
The twelve rays of light finally connected end to end, barely forming a complete ring.
An unstable, slightly distorted form of “completeness.”
The twelfth white light violently shook within the groove, constantly pushing back against the surrounding power.
Unlike the other eleven strands, which remained stable and obedient, this one pulsed violently.
It was like an oversized, non-standard heart that had been forcibly shoved into someone else’s chest by a giant hand!
At the same time, the entire Eclipse Gate began to tremble violently.
“Forcing the gate open while one key is missing will make the Eclipse Gate unstable!”
Layla’s voice rang out through the storm.
There was unprecedented urgency in her tone.
“The ring of celestial power is unstable! We cannot interrupt the magical output, or the passage will be torn apart by the turbulence of space-time!”
Byakuran raised his other hand as well.
The already terrifying white torrent instantly doubled in thickness, transforming into a massive pillar of light so enormous that several people would have needed to join hands to encircle it.
“The magical output won’t stop!”
Byakuran’s voice thundered through the magical storm, carrying absolute arrogance and unquestionable confidence.
“Just push the door open!”
“…Good!”
Layla tightly clasped her slender hands together.
There was no longer even the slightest hesitation in her eyes.
There was no reason to hold anything back anymore.
The resonance of the eleven Celestial Spirits spread wildly through their soul contracts.
The celestial magic power transformed into an invisible giant hand that firmly seized the seal of the enormous gate and began prying it open inch by inch.
Whenever the gate attempted to slam shut under the correction of the laws of space-time, the materialized white torrent would rise from beneath it like the crudest and most arrogant support pillar imaginable, forcing it back open.
Swaying.
Staggering.
The forbidden gate that had remained tightly sealed for four centuries repeatedly tried to close, only to be violently forced open again and again by the white torrent.
Finally—
It burst wide open!
The massive black doors swung outward.
What appeared behind them wasn’t soil.
It wasn’t stone.
And it wasn’t the foundation of the royal palace.
Instead, there was a space-time passage radiating a deep, faint light.
It spun violently, covered in countless cracks.
Then—
A wind from four hundred years ago blew out from within.
That wind carried the scent of sand.
The scent of grass.
And an ancient stench that no one present had ever smelled before, one that made their hair stand on end.
It was as though some enormous creature had just passed through the path.
Layla’s tears fell.
“The door… is open…”
Her voice was hoarse and trembling.
Inside the passage, clusters of light began rushing out one after another before suddenly disappearing.
People from four hundred years ago were finally arriving in July of the year X777.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six?
Byakuran’s breathing stopped for a moment.
Weren’t there supposed to be five children?
And as for them disappearing…
It should be like the original story.
After passing through the Eclipse Gate, the five Dragon Slayers were scattered across different locations.
With one key missing, it was impossible to transport them here completely and stably.
But the appearance of the sixth light cluster was somewhat concerning.
According to the plot Byakuran knew, there should only have been five.
So where had this extra one come from?
Could it be the butterfly effect?
Or is there some part of the original plot that I don’t know about?
He felt a slight sense of doubt.
But Byakuran quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind.
There was no point worrying about something he couldn’t explain yet.
Behind them, the Eclipse Gate slowly and heavily began to close.
It was as though it had exhausted the final breath of the past four hundred years.
One after another, the eleven golden keys fell from their grooves and returned to Layla’s hands.
Byakuran lowered his hand.
Blood dripped from the web between his thumb and index finger onto the cracked stone floor.
The entire underground hall fell completely silent.
The only sounds were occasional coughs and the faint clatter of falling pieces of stone.
Byakuran looked at his bleeding palm.
Looks like this is the first time I’ve actually been injured.
His current body was still too young and physically weak, and the enormous magical output had caused his body to overload.
Fortunately, it was only a minor injury.
The magical power of Nature Magic surged into his hand.
Vitality flowed through his body, rapidly repairing the damage caused by the magical overload.
In just a few moments, the wound healed completely.
The people around him stared at Byakuran one after another.
Their eyes contained shock.
Respect.
Joy.
And fear.
Yet no one spoke.
Arcadios was the first to stand.
He didn’t approach Byakuran.
Instead, he slowly released his hand from the hilt of his sword.
It was the first time he had let go of it in four days.
At that moment, his heart contained not even the slightest relief at having escaped death.
Instead, he had reached an extremely cold and practical conclusion.
This power…
It isn’t something that any ordinary royal authority could possibly control.
Minister Dutton leaned against the cracked wall and slowly stood up.
His face was pale, and his chest rose and fell violently.
He didn’t approach Byakuran to offer his thanks.
Nor did he mention his earlier accusations.
This veteran official, who had weathered countless political storms, glanced around the ruined hall.
Then, in a deep, suppressed, and hoarse voice, he issued an order.
“Everyone present today…”
“Not a single word about what happened here is to leave this place.”
“Lord Dutton!”
King Tomā immediately protested in his loud, dissatisfied voice.
“Such an extraordinary event—”
“Precisely because it is so extraordinary, Your Majesty!”
The veteran official rarely interrupted the king, but this time he did so without hesitation.
His voice dropped even lower.
“Your Majesty, if an existence this far beyond common sense becomes known to be within the territory of Fiore, tomorrow it won’t just be the Council knocking on our door.”
King Tomā opened his mouth.
He looked at the stern expression on the veteran official’s face and ultimately swallowed his words.
His originally straight back gradually slumped.
After several seconds, his drooping mustache suddenly twitched upward.
“…Then surely We can at least hold a small banquet later.”
Jude paid no attention to their conversation.
He half-ran through the rubble, grabbed Layla’s hand, and repeatedly examined her complexion.
For an instant, the businessman’s instincts surfaced.
If this person could be recruited by the Heartfilia family…
But he immediately extinguished the thought himself.
He understood clearly that someone like this wasn’t something that could be treated as a business asset.
Zudil stood in the darkest corner of the hall, silently wiping the blood from his hands.
His cold eyes remained fixed on Byakuran’s back.
He didn’t say a word.
Byakuran remained where he was, enduring the countless gazes directed toward him.
Instinctively, he wanted to raise a hand and scratch the back of his head.
But in order to maintain the demeanor of an unfathomable expert, he forcefully restrained himself.
Afterward, he composed his emotions and looked toward the center of the hall.
Layla Heartfilia stood there.
Her face was covered in tear stains.
Perhaps they were tears of worry for the children who had been scattered across different places by the turbulence of space-time.
Or perhaps they were tears of relief.
After all, the heavy destiny that the Heartfilia family had carried for four hundred years had finally come to an end today.
Although the situation had been somewhat chaotic…
Everyone had survived safely.
Byakuran quietly let out a long breath.
Done.
I successfully avoided having any regrets.