~ Epilogue : FINAL ~ Goodbye ~
The sun rose earlier that morning, as my dreams was shattered.
And right now as the sun sets an admonishing red, I slowly finished the final touches on the stone I carved, placing it on the ground, amidst the high plains of a small hill that overlooks the final battlefield of that war.
I held some dirt of the ground as I let it scatter a little atop the clean tablet, as the dirt slowly muddled out and made clear the words I carved on it.
~ In this place lie the memories, the sadness, the anguish, the fetters, the souls, the blood and everything that existed and lived for that foolish civil war.
Knights of Belka, rest upon your embodiment, for your faith is proven. And those who have lived shall live on, for we shall never forget the tragedy that befell the Belka.
This will be my final memory to all of you. I shall entrust your history to the future, so that the generations ahead of us, will look upon us, and forge a future of their own.
Those who see this, all I ask is that you remember the scene you witness before you, and never forget, the last night sky of this world before you.
Never forget.~
As I looked on…
“Tiara, Isdera, Wira, Astra, Shamal, Zafira Knight Signum, Count Vita, the other lightning knight of the sky, everyone… rest upon these lands you were born in, and also the land you gave your lives for. I’ll never forget any of you…”
The memories of those who died will always live within me…but that is all. Right now, I no longer feel anything for the ground of which I was born…I no longer hold any sentiments or attachment to my lineage, to my land…
“I will live on for as long as I can. Until then…goodbye.”
As I bid my final farewell to my fallen friends and to this land, I turned around as I slowly walked away… when I mildly coughed out some blood….
“Looks like it won’t be long anyway…”
~3 years later~
“Meister! Meister!”
I hear the cries of my young disciple, as I lied on the bed, weak, fragile, barely able to move…a mere shadow of my former self, as I coughed out more blood.
3 years had passed since then… I left my homeland, and went to the world my teacher originated from…the land across the sea, a peaceful Belkan nation. As fate determined it, that magical explosion when Tiara died may not had killed me, but its after-effects were enough to contaminate my body… and these 3 years were my final hours.
After the war…I retired as a knight, as I went on to pursue my childhood dream, as a scholar of magic. I came to these lands to see the world with my own eyes… learning the complexities, formulas and appliances of magical theories, along with the evolving craft of magic in terms of science…. I took upon myself a young, bright child, merely 10 of age to be my disciple, as we traveled the lands, in pursuit of knowledge, never staying in a same place for more than a week…We were nomads.
Along with the Tome, the remnants of my former comrades, my student, I became a traveler, as I scoured the world I was once told of with my own eyes and arms.
I saw a world beyond what I thought existed… and throughout the days, the months…these 3 years; I learned what the Tome of the Night Sky was truly capable of…
It was not something that was made to be used by a human... In fact, it was something that shouldn’t exist at all…but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it...
Because…it was what I have left of her…
That is why…the only thing I can do now…is to protect what’s left of her, and to entrust that to the future.
Because I promised her.
“My student…looks like my time is coming to its end… Fate has struck its mortal blow.”
“Don’t speak that way! You will survive.”
“No…it is my time to become one with the Holy Belka…that is why, listen to me…Listen to this fool’s last will.”
“…Please.”
“Once, there was…”
And thus…I told him, my story…something I never once told him…of my past, of my birth, of my knighthood, of my ascension, of my comrades, of my love, and the finality of the tragedy…
“That is…”
“unbelievable. I know…but that is the truth of my history.”
But that is only the beginning…a past is just a story. What matters…
“What is the limits of a Storage Device…do you know that?”
“Yes…you taught me that without an appliance of actual simulated intelligence, it can only capture essence of things in a two-dimensional plane.”
Yes…that is the general limit of Storage Devices…
“But the Tome I carry, the Tome of the Night Sky is the sole living exception….
No…in a way, its’s not even just a Storage Device… It is more of Intelligent Storage Device of Unison and Armed properties… Not only is it able to capture the elements of magic in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional plane…it can capture…everything….Even what makes up the existence of a human…memories…the body, the strength, everything except a soul.
Even though physically…only 666 pages exist for it can be filled by channeling it with magical powers of extreme proportions…those 666 pages are not even its storage, but the access protocol to what it can store… Within this tome, although its heavily fragmented after the death of its original Mistress, it has stored the memories, the concept of existence, and the histories that accumulate before the eyes of its user. Its limits…are immeasurable. Technically…it is even possible to simulate an entire world with enough concepts stored in it.... Like an eternal dream.”
Yes…like that dream…a dream created from my inner wishes, and desires…
“However, a power like this is also extremely dangerous…as it taps into the human mind, and emotions freely, and humans...are just inadequate. They’re weak to temptation, and are prone to the darkness of human emotions…I know I once did. That is why…the Mother Program was installed in it. A unique defense program that prevents complete override of the user’s emotions and impulses by creating a physical low-intelligence sub-existence within the Tome... however, that itself is not foolproof as it too, can be easily subjected to the user’s complete emotional rejection, as in the end…it is part of the administrated system.”
Like the darkness that surrounded Tiara…a darkness that responded to her inner sadness…
“Within this Tome… I’ve restored a huge number of its pages over these 3 years, and had reconstructed its fragmented existence… right now; it holds everything I and the one I loved had seen before my eyes, the history, the tragedy, the happiness…everything, and I will pass it on to you.”
“…Why?”
“We cannot cling to the past…We can only learn from it, and pass the torch on to the future… and let them see our dark and painful history…so that it is never repeated….
You will be the new Meister of the Tome of the Night Sky.”
“But…if even Meister cannot control its power, how can I?”
“So long…as you do not abuse what it is capable of, and merely uses it for what I had taught you for all these years, for the sake of learning, teaching…for the sake of a better future, there will no problems. Besides…I intend to…”
I took out Isdera’s sword, the ruby of Wira, and the remains of Astra’s ring…Vorhang… Even in the end, I still had to rely on all of you…I’m sorry. Then, I channeled all our powers, as my body slowly dissipated…
“Meister!”
“I would channel everything of myself…to this Tome, as my existence attaches itself to this Tome as its pages…So long as those pages are there, the Mother System cannot be activated, and its functions will be limited… the Tome will only respond to the ones I chose, and the ones you will chose in the future, and further on… This is the last thing…I can do for you.”
“Meister!!!!”
“Goodbye.”
~~~
In the end… my life was used to become 335 external pages to the Tome of the Night Sky, as an external security program…
1001 Pages… The Tome of 1001 Night Skies, otherwise simply known as the Tome of the Night Sky was born.
And 24 years of my life…came to its end…
But…that was just the beginning…
~~~
Timeline:
UBC : Unknown Belkan Calendar- UBC XX35:~ Saga had passed away. The First Meister of the Night Sky was elected.
- UBC XX43:~ The earliest records of the Tome being used for purpose of furthering magical understandings was recorded and noted in a small village. The Meister never extended his studies beyond rural areas, thus his fame little and unknown.
- UBC XX75:~ The Lost Belka Empire, losing its 2 rightful blood successors 57 years ago to the Belkan Civil War…is destroyed by their own weapons of mass destruction.
- UBC XX97:~ The First Meister had passed on its Tome to the Second Meister. The First Meister passed away.
- UBC X145:~ The Second Meister passed on the Tome to the Third Meister. The Second was killed the instant the Tome was passed on to the Third.
- UBC X147:~ Discovering the secrets to the Tome’s protection, the Third tore away the 335 pages, and the pages were scattered across the lands and dimensions.
- UBC X149: ~ The very first sighting of Wolkenritter in history, murdering a group of mages, stealing their Linker Core energies.
- UBC X158: ~ Eleven years after the pages was torn, and the limits removed, the Third completed the Tome of the Night Sky, and was consumed by the Defense Program. The Book of Darkness was born.