Are You Ready to Die Standing?

In a wild, desolate land jagged with strange stones, one great misshapen boulder after another rose toward the sky like sharp claws and blades.

Star had fled and marched the whole way here, and in the end only a few hundred people were still with her.

At the edge of this jungle-like wasteland of strange stones, King Eli led several thousand soldiers who had thrown in with him, ringing the place about and searching in every direction for her trail.

The old king was true to his word. He would give Star no chance at all.

Star had nowhere left to run.

She had left the coastal cities behind, left the fishing grounds behind, left the water and the sea behind.

This world held no other place where trilobite men could live.

This world had never truly belonged to the trilobite men to begin with. It was the home God had guided them to, and the food God had granted them, that let them live in so wild a place at all.

"What a desolate world this is!"

"It is splendid only because of Yinsai's great power. It holds life only because of God's gift."

"A pity."

"Yet we never learned to cherish God's grace."

Star stood atop the strange stones, looking out over the land, and spoke these words with a sigh.

No expression showed on her face, but her words and her sighs betrayed her despair.

Behind her, one person after another kept arriving with news.

"The Sky Temple has shut its doors to us."

"The Samo family killed the envoy we sent, and then came hunting for our position. By good fortune we were not found."

"A Ruhe Beast has been sighted to the south, and King Eli along with it."

Unfortunately, only bad news arrived.

Star had even offered concessions to the three Royal Bloodline families, ready to give up her throne and hand over the scepter, ready to take her followers and found a new city elsewhere. Still, no one would take her in.

One grim report after another left everyone anxious and afraid, and morale collapsed.

But Star, as queen, grew only more resolute once she understood there was no retreat left, and no help coming.

She began to laugh, and the sound drew every eye to her.

"Do you all know?"

"I know this place. I have been here before."

"That was when my father had just been killed by King Eli, and I fled here with the people of the Xilong family. God's messenger Polo had not yet returned to the kingdom of God."

Star's voice paused for a moment, as though some memory had risen up in her.

Now she had lost everything once again, except that this time, that one person was not standing behind her.

Hearing the queen begin to tell her story, no few of those present rose to their feet, listening to her with rapt attention.

Everyone was drawn in completely, and the fear and panic that had gripped them began, little by little, to fade.

"I was lost then. I did not know what choice to make. It was the Divine Messenger Polo who told me I should overthrow the cruel King Eli."

"I know that all of you are still lost now, and that you are afraid."

"No one is coming to help us. Then we will rely on ourselves."

"If we lose, I will die together with all of you."

A gentle smile crossed Star's face. "I am sorry."

"It was my own immaturity that brought about this defeat."

"And thank you, all of you, for staying at my side even now."

One after another, people rose to their feet, closing in, crowding around Star.

They knelt on the ground, crying out for Queen Star.

"Queen Star, this is not your fault!"

"It was the tyrant who betrayed King Yesael, who betrayed God!"

"He set loose the monsters of the demon abyss. Divine punishment will surely fall on him for it!"

Someone hesitated a moment, then dared to ask.

"My queen, do you regret it? For the sake of us lowborn wretches."

"You who were born to such nobility, heir to the Xilong family of the Royal Bloodline, a priest in service to the divine being."

"Was it worth it, for our sake?"

Star lifted the crown from her head and held it close to her chest.

"I have never been good at weighing gain against loss, and I do not understand what is worth it and what is not."

"But at the very least, I do not regret it."

"Because a king's dignity never came from this crown, and the people of Yinsai never followed me for the sake of this scepter."

"It is because we are holding fast to what is right. Even if we fail, we will have failed on the right road, and someday, someone will walk that same road after us."

"And it is only because I am right that you honor me as your king, and are willing to follow me."

The crowd's spirits lifted, and they set out once more alongside Star, resuming their retreat.

If the Sky Temple was no longer a refuge, they would retreat somewhere farther, and begin anew there.

The wind whipped up a sky full of dust and sand, and the massive Ruhe Beast carried Star's followers onward through it.

In the distant wind and sand, shadow after shadow began to appear, breaking through the veil of dust and entering Star's sight.

Wooo!

Another Ruhe Beast let out a bleak, harrowing cry.

It was King Eli, and his great army with him.

In that desolate world, Star and her followers found themselves surrounded by King Eli's army.

For all their hiding, in the end King Eli had found them.

One could rise from defeat, but breaking free of failure a second time was far harder, because an enemy who came back for a second try came back stronger and better prepared.

King Eli's voice rang out, loud and clear. "Star, of the Xilong family. I have found you at last."

Proudly the old king lifted his skull, his sharp gaze cutting through the wind and sand to settle on Star.

"I will not accept your surrender."

"Because I cannot accept weakness in the royal line, and still less do I wish to see cowardice in a king."

"Even if that king is nothing but a false one."

"Queen Star, are you ready to die standing?"

Star had long expected this.

She watched King Eli close the distance steadily, and only once she could see him fully and clearly did she speak.

"Nor will I beg mercy of a tyrant, still less plead for pity from the enemy who killed my father."

"I hope only that once I am dead, you can show the bearing of a king."

"Spare my followers."

King Eli was clearly not a man who compromised.

He was a king, lofty and unreachable.

He refused without hesitation. "Those who will not obey me have only one road left, and it ends in death."

Star replied, "King Eli, you are as cruel as ever."

King Eli paid no mind at all to being called cruel. In truth, he believed a king ought to be exactly that.

"If they would all obey their king in loyalty, I too would gladly bestow mercy upon them."

"A pity."

"This world holds so many rebels, and so many ambitious men who will not bow to royal authority."

This was a war with no retreat, a war fated to leave only one side standing.

Queen Star's followers leapt down from the beast's back and spread out, raising their bone shields into ranks on the other side, as though standing shoulder to shoulder in battle with their queen and her Ruhe Beast.

"Kill!" Both sides roared the word aloud, screwing up their own courage.

"Kill the false king!" The soldiers charging forward raised their bone spears high.

"Fight for Queen Star!" The soldiers in formation locked their bone shields together.

But it was plain to see that King Eli's side held the greater strength in numbers.

King Eli and Star each commanded the beast beneath them to clash with the other, while the two of them wielded the power of divine technique without pause, striking at one another with sword and spear.

Dozens of meters away, ranks of organized spear throwers hurled volley after volley of bone spears toward Queen Star.

The moment one rank finished throwing it fell back, and the next stepped forward to take its place.

The spears fell like rain, sticking fast in the beast's hide and setting it into a restless frenzy, all while threatening Queen Star herself.

The queen was forced to split her attention, using divine technique to block them or twisting aside to dodge.

Distracted and harried, Star found herself falling little by little into difficulty under King Eli's attacks.