by Sakon Kaidou
Prologue One: A Glimpse Into Days Long Gone
—————
Those who know true hope are the ones who stand on the brink of the abyss of despair.
Those who have already fallen into it can never hope again, and those on the precipice are more hopeful than anyone else.
◇◆
An amber dragon was speeding through the heavens.
It was a majestic entity, clad in armor that shone like precious gems.
Its eyes, however, had no trace of life in them. They were window-like, and you could see the silhouettes of men inside.
The dragon’s head was a cockpit, and those within it were managing various control columns and gauges.
This was the Zweier Imperium’s First Special Machine Force.
Its name was Amber Abyss, and it shared the name with the dragon-like weapon they were operating.
There were four people inside, each with their own role in managing the artificial skydragon.
“Captain. With our current speed, we will arrive at the battle area in 20 minutes,” said the one in charge of the radar to his commanding officer. He was a man in his thirties.
“I see,” said the captain, nodding. His voice was heavy. “So it’s about to begin.”
“Dr. Flagman finished this Prism Dragon just recently. This is its first battle, isn’t it?!” asked the youth holding the control column. In contrast to the captain’s voice, his voice was cheerful.
“Indeed,” the captain replied. “This Amber Abyss isn’t the only one of its kind, though. We’ve shared Mr. Flagman’s technology with other countries, and they’re making their Prism Dragons, as well. I also hear that Mr. Flagman’s very own Prism Steeds and Prism Persons shall soon be used in battle, too.”
“That’s great!”
The youth’s glee made the captain crack a wry grin and think, It means that the situation is so bad that the countries have to ignore all their differences and cooperate in order to win.
Exactly. Everything on the continent — be it the Zweier Imperium or any other nation — was on the verge of collapse.
And it was all because of a certain enemy.
“That aside, what of our advance unit? Have the Skydragon Knights responded yet?” asked the captain.
“No.” The subordinate shook his head. “Apparently, there’s a powerful magical force obstructing all communication magic.”
“...I see,” the captain muttered. “Keep trying to contact them.”
The lack of response made a cold sweat run down his back.
Overcome with worry, he looked over his subordinates.
That was how he noticed that the one on the control column was smiling while looking at a photo.
The captain looked and saw that it displayed a young woman with a baby in her arms. She looked about as young as the youth holding the photo.
“Sublieutenant, what’s that?” the man asked.
“Ah, Captain!” The youth jumped a bit, then spoke with joy in his tone. “Heh heh heh. Well, this is a photo they sent me from the evacuation center! I’m a father now! It’s a boy!”
“What...? Then why didn’t you refuse this mission?! Right now, we’re heading fo—!”
“I know!” The sublieutenant cut the captain’s words short. “I know what all of this is! I know this weapon was sent out without any trials, and that we’re facing those abominations!”
“Sublieutenant...”
There was none of the man’s cheer from before. The happiness he’d expressed talking about his child hadn’t been fully genuine — he’d forced it to try and dispel the fear.
Right now, his expression was one of absolute desperation, but at the same time, it was also the face of a man who had looked ahead and knew what he needed to do.
“But I can’t just escape,” the man said. “If we don’t defeat them, the Imperium... Amelia and the son we haven’t even named yet... will die...!”
“Sublieutenant...”
“That’s why I... we have to defeat them! With this Amber Abyss! We have to show everyone that there’s hope!”
“...You’re right.”
The youth’s words made the captain subdue his fears and face ahead.
“My friends,” he muttered. “Let us win, and attain this hope.”
“Yes, Captain!” they shouted in unison.
Their wills were now united. They were determined to head into the battlefield and become a beacon of hope for all humankind.
They prepared to face the enemy approaching the man-made dragon as they confirmed what information they had.
“Prism Dragon Unit 1, Amber Abyss, has arrived at the airspace of the battlefield!”
“There’s still no response from the Skydragon Knights!”
“We’re picking up an immense energy signal! It’s a servant of the Extra-Continental Vessel... the Incarnation of Armaments!”
It was far beyond the distant horizon, but their radars were already capturing absolutely obscene amounts of energy.
“The Incarnation of Armaments will be visible on the horizon after 25 seconds!”
“Get its attention!” shouted the captain. “We’ll take care of it with the first attack!”
“Understood! Abyss Cannon... prepare to fire!”
As ordered, everyone readied the man-made dragon for its greatest attack.
The Amber Abyss opened its maw and started charging the weapon inside — the compressed magical baryon acceleration cannon. The artificial dragon’s power reactor created energy greatly exceeding 1,000,000 MP, then began gathering and compressing it all.
The magic became an ultra-hot ball of fire. If its mouth hadn’t been protected by a special barrier, the dragon would most likely have evaporated on the spot. In spite of that, the energy only continued to increase.
“The energy is at 80... 90... 100%!”
“Blow it away!” roared the captain. “Wipe it out with the horizon itself!”
The moment it reached the limit, the sublieutenant pulled the trigger on the column.
“Abyss Cannon... FIRE!”
And so, the artificial dragon released the fireball from its jaws.
Distorting the very space around it, it flew towards the ground and shattered the earth, directly hitting the enemy in the distant horizon.
The ground around it instantly evaporated, and the enemy’s approach was halted.
Then, with a searing blast, all the magic compressed within the core was released. Half of the unleashed power was used for a long-distance gravity spell, while the rest became an even greater heat.
This was the true nature of the Abyss Cannon — it was a fatal weapon that sank and settled the target with an immense gravitational field, then burned it until not even ash remained.
A few seconds later, the distant abyss it created spat out an enormous pillar of fire. And, as one would expect, nothing inside it was moving.
“The Incarnation of Armaments has fallen silent!”
“Yes!” shouted the captain, completely overwhelmed. “We did it! The Prism Dragon’s Abyss Cannon worked!”
“We finally defeated one of them...”
“Indeed,” nodded the captain. “And this won’t be the final victory we claim. If we can beat one, we can beat the rest of them.”
“Though I imagine that the Incarnation of Beasts will be quite troublesome.”
“But I’m sure it’s possible. There’s still hope.”
They all cheered. They had every reason to. After all, the man-made dragon they operated had become a sign of hope in this desperate war. It would still be an uphill battle, but just having a means of fighting back was more than enough for them to fe
el hopeful.
However... needless to say, that only applied if this means was actually successful.
“...Eh?” the one in charge of the radar exclaimed.
“What is it?” asked the captain.
With a face warped in shock, he replied, “The Incarnation of Armaments is active again!”
You didn’t even need a radar for this — you could see it clearly through the optical sensors in the dragon’s eyes.
Something was rising from the abyss they’d created.
It was a humanoid figure surrounded by thousands of Legendary-tier shields, which it had just used to protect itself from the greatest attack mankind had at their disposal.
It was the inimical entity that freely commanded a seemingly inexhaustible arsenal — the Incarnation of Armaments.
“Charge it again!” the captain howled.
Alas, they hadn’t the time to prepare another Abyss Cannon.
The Incarnation of Armaments instantly unequipped the thousands of shields and instead took out a single blade.
Like All the Stars in the Sky — Kaleidoscope.
In a blink of an eye, the single blade became several thousand, and the incarnation launched them all, creating a barrage of Legendary-tier blades that easily exceeded the speed of sound.
They all went towards the Amber Abyss, piercing its heavy armor with next to no effort.
The outer shell, designed to shield it against its own devastating Abyss Cannon, was no match for the bladestorm.
The captain wailed and instantly died as one of the blades pierced into the cockpit and fatally wounded him.
“AMELIAAAAAAAA...!”
The sublieutenant and the other members faced a similar end.
They and their hope, the Amber Abyss, became atomic dust in but a blink of an eye.
◇◆
The battle between the Amber Abyss and the Incarnation of Armaments was just one of the many encounters between this continent’s humanity and the Extra-Continental Vessel.
The war certainly wasn’t limited to just the sky.
“Th-This is the Seventh Magical Infantry Division! We need reinforcemen— No! Tell the rear area to evacuate! We can’t hold much longer!”
“We’re fighting the Incarnation of Beasts! We don’t know their total number, but there are so many, we can’t see a single patch of ground!”
Infantries were being annihilated by a force of beasts so great that they drowned out the land.
“This is the Zweier Imperial Fleet! The final line of defense was consumed!”
“It... The Incarnation of Maelstroms is about to reach land!” A fleet all but vanished, consumed by a black, vortex-like space in the sea.
None of what they had seemed to stand a chance.
Faced with an overwhelming power they couldn’t hope to match, mankind — the prosperous society that would eventually be known as the “pre-ancient civilization” — was facing its demise.
All-dominating weapons blotting out the sky.
Countless beasts covering the ground.
A bottomless maelstrom consuming even the ocean itself.
With forces so staggering all united to annihilate them, humanity had no choice but to despair.
◇◆
Having heard the news that all the front lines were lost and that the three incarnations were closing in, the capital was in a state of absolute panic.
The people of the Zweier Imperium were desperately trying to escape to either the edge of the world or the underground.
There was a man observing them.
He was the Imperator of the Zweier Imperium, which was once the most advanced nation on the continent... now on the verge of collapse.
“God does not exist,” he muttered as he watched his proud country wither.
He couldn’t believe that there was any meaning in praying to God in a world so cruel that it would allow everything that men had created to collapse so easily, especially when the incarnations responsible were so God-like themselves.
“I am certain that, after this, no one will pray to gods ever again,” he continued. “That is, assuming humanity somehow survives...”
As the Imperator looked upon his dying Imperium, a youth called out to him, saying, “Your Majesty, we have finished evacuating the people to the underground and sealed the various underground factories.”
“I see...”
“Four of the five Prism Dragons have been confirmed to be thoroughly destroyed. The last one sank into the ocean and isn’t coming back up. Three Prism People have been thoroughly destroyed. Two are missing. All of the Prism Steeds are lost, as well.”
“I see...”
“As confirmed before, the throne isn’t working. The natural magic channels leading to the construction zone have been cut, so activating it will take 100 times longer than originally planned... which will probably be over a 1,000 years. However, we have successfully constructed an automatic mass-production system for the Prism Person and Prism Rider series. We have set it to sleep mode underneath the Eldim Mountain Range. Acra-Vesta — our ultimate weapon no. 3 — is also being constructed there.”
“I see...”
“Acra-Vesta will be automatically designed and constructed based on the data gathered from the incarnations. The operation will be executed in a way they won’t discover. Considering the overwhelming power of what they’re based on and how difficult it will be to counter them, I believe that constructing it will take between 3,000-4,000 years.”
“Heh heh,” the Imperator chuckled. “That will certainly require some patience.”
“Indeed,” the youth replied. “However, I will eventually get back at the Extra-Continental Vessel. I shall not die until I witness that happening.”
“I see... Then, please, do it for the both of us. My friend... Flagman.”
“As you will. Then I will go make preparations in countries that still exist.”
“Very well. Do your best.”
“I will... Thank you, Your Majesty... for everything,” said the youth, Flagman, as he left the Imperator’s presence. He was fully aware that the man would want to accept his demise like any ruler should.
“Now... which one of them shall give me my end...?” the old man murmured.
Too many of his people had lost their lives against the Extra-Continental Vessel’s incarnations, and thus, he thought he would go out the same way they did.
This would be his end.
However, their will wouldn’t die with them.
Though faced with complete and utter annihilation, they still had a desire within their hearts.
“I will be waiting for you to join me on the other side, Flagman,” the Imperator said as he saw a score of beasts break through the walls. “The Incarnation of Beasts, eh? Perhaps I should be glad that it’s a foe I’m not helpless against — I can die fighting.”
He then stood up and covered his body in a set of mechanical armor.
“I am Imperator Machina, Wolfgang Magna Zweier. Face me in my final battle as the ruler of this land... Incarnation of Beasts!”
“■■■■■■——!”
◇◆
This was a slice of history etched onto the stage of Infinite Dendrogram.
Going by the world’s time, it had happened 2,000 years before the first players arrived. That was the end of the period now known as the “pre-ancient civilization.”
The ruler of one of the countries from that era faced his demise at his very own throne.
His was not the only country, and he was not the only ruler to die in such a way.
However, they did not vanish without leaving anything behind.
The seas and the underground were comparably safe from the onslaught, so many facilities were left there. The later generations eventually started calling those places simply “ruins.”
Within them were powers left over from the people of that era, which could become a source of hope for what remained of mankind — artifacts and
technologies carrying the will to revive the dying civilization.
Even after two millennia passed, they were still waiting for the arrival of the later generations.
However, those who left the hope behind had made two major mistakes.
One was not of their own fault. It was the complete and sudden disappearance of their enemies, the incarnations, and their mothership — the Extra-Continental Vessel.
And the other was the fact that they failed to consider how the hope they left behind would actually manifest. Many of the technologies they entrusted to the later generations started acting completely unlike how they intended.
One underground facility held environment-fixing bacteria, which went out of control and started consuming other living creatures.
An underground town had a defensive golem weapon, Magnum Colossus, which went haywire and began annihilating all who came close.
Some were due to glitches in the technology, others due to the effects of time, but the things the pre-ancient civilization left behind began acting in ways their creators hadn’t intended.
The hope they’d entrusted to the future was warping into despair for those living in the current era.
It was a nightmare scenario for both the ones who’d left it behind and the ones who were given it, making it very clear that something had gone very wrong in the process.
Thus, certain people started calling these occurrences “errors.”
One such error could be found in the ruin in the Eldim Mountains — though the place now had a different name.
Millennia after the era of the Zweier Imperium, the land now belonged to another country.
It was now the territory of The Kingdom of Altar — specifically, the Quartierlatin County — and it was right next to the border to the Dryfe Imperium.
Prologue Two: The Unearthed Ruins
Her dream
She saw a dream.
“Father! Do you really intend to go to battle?” she cried.
It was a dream showing a past event. Not even a year old, it was still painfully fresh in her mind.
After all, a mere three days before, the first princess of Altar, Altimia A. Altar, had lost much of what she held dear.
“Why are you not doing what the imperium’s doing, offering rewards to the Masters who join the war?!” she desperately asked her father and king, Eldor Zeo Altar.