[To Miss Lumine, fifteen hundred years from now.]
[Hello.]
[By the time you receive this letter, fifteen hundred years will have passed.]
[This is my first year on Mt. Yougou. It snows all the time here. Everything is gray and white, desolate and rather ugly. There is nothing interesting to see.]
[Perhaps I should plant some sakura—or some other kind of flower. I do not know whether they would survive. But if they do, Mt. Yougou will have flowers from this day forward, and every flower you pick here fifteen hundred years from now will be one I gave you.]
[Everything is well with me. I am only a little bored. How are things with you? When you receive this letter, will you be able to see the sakura I planted for you?]
...
Kiyo had developed the habit of writing letters.
In truth, they were little more than records of his monotonous life, written upon paper and buried inside a box.
He had begun this year.
With a brush and paper he made himself, Kiyo paused after every sentence and thought for a while before putting down the next.
He wrote very slowly.
But time was one thing he possessed in abundance.
Before the snow had melted, the letter was finished.
He folded it and placed it inside the box.
From this year forward, he would write one letter to Lumine every year.
Kiyo put the box away and breathed warmth into his hands. Mist drifted into the chill air and slowly disappeared.
He looked at the thin frost glittering upon the rime-covered pines in the morning light, then withdrew his gaze and returned his full attention to the float upon the frozen lake.
He was fishing.
He had made the fishing rod himself.
Fifteen hundred years ago, the climate upon Mt. Yougou was exceptionally harsh. Corruption also ran rampant, making the mountain forbidden ground for human beings.
Since no one came here to fish, the frozen lake teemed with them.
This was precious leisure for Kiyo.
In a few decades, once the Grand Narukami Shrine had been built and people began frequenting the mountain, he would have to remain inside his cave. He would no longer be able to fish.
The clear ice was reflected in his deep-blue eyes.
The float bobbed once.
Kiyo waited.
It suddenly plunged beneath the water.
A fish had taken the bait.
He pulled the rod back in one practiced motion.
A blue-gray freshwater fish flew from the lake and landed upon the bank with a slap, its fine scales flashing beneath the sun.
"Oh, a mackerel." Kiyo clapped his hands and removed the hook. "Finally. I'm having a feast today."
He deboned the fish and carefully cleaned its scales, then gathered firewood and built a fire.
Rather than placing the fish directly over the flames, he laid a mesh above them and smoked it.
Gray smoke carrying the scent of firewood drifted against the fish. Its beautiful skin gradually turned golden, revealing the white flesh within. Once the meat had taken on the same smoky hue, the dish was ready.
Kiyo took a bite.
It tasted very good.
He sat against a rock, eating smoked mackerel as he watched the boundless snow.
Beyond it, far beyond the mountain, his keen sight made out a dozen or so homes scattered across a plain untouched by the storm.
He could hear firecrackers bursting in the distance. He could see red couplets pasted outside the doors and the great character for "fortune" hung upside down.
Smoke from the fireworks painted the neighborhood faintly red.
So today was New Year's Day.
When the day ended, his second year here would begin.
Kiyo bit into the fish and stared into the distance.
...
[To Miss Lumine, 1,477 years from now. Hello.]
[This is my twenty-third year on Mt. Yougou. The mountain has changed very little. The snowstorms are perhaps milder than before.]
[I planted some flowers: osmanthus, plum blossoms, sakura, and several others. They were beautiful when the soft snow settled upon their petals.]
[Their seeds were carried here upon the wind and took root on Mt. Yougou. They could not have survived this terrible climate, so I helped them.]
[But the Human Principles System told me that I was not allowed. I could not save those flowers. Mt. Yougou was not supposed to have them in this age. I could create no further errors in history, so I destroyed them with my own hands.]
[I am sorry, Lumine. I cannot give you an entire mountain of flowers.]
Kiyo finished his fortieth letter and placed it in the box.
He slowly exhaled. His mind settled, until the world within his empty heart became clean as a painting.
The young man knelt motionless in the snow with Kamigiri resting across his knees.
He did not draw the blade.
Yet every snowflake drifting near him split silently in two.
The snowfall thickened, and the number of severed flakes multiplied with it. Gradually, the entire storm across half the mountain was cut apart without a sound.
This was Kiyo's training.
He had begun trying to cut snow with his mind during his fourth year.
At first, he could sever only one or two flakes at a time. Now, in a single instant, he could cut apart every snowflake falling across half a mountain.
He had spent nineteen years cutting snow.
Kiyo could feel his mind growing ever clearer and more transparent.
Beelzebul had spent centuries swinging her blade within the Plane of Euthymia, washing away every unnecessary sound through eternal solitude. Only then had she created the martial path of Musou.
Kiyo sensed himself approaching that same realm.
[Kiyo Seigan.]
[Third Step upon the Stairway of Divinity.]
After inheriting Kiyono Raimei's heart and Bosacius's swordsmanship, he had taken the second step.
Now, after nineteen years of cutting snow, he had reached the third.
[Lv. 80—Demon God tier.]
His martial skill had reached the level of a demon god.
There was little reason for pride. This was only a measure of technique.
He had not transcended the limits of a mortal body.
He would still age.
He would still die.
Kiyo was now twenty-three.
Kiyono Raimei had reached this same level at thirty-four. Kiyo had surpassed him by only eleven years.
That was nowhere near enough.
If he followed the same path as the Pillar General, he would live for only five hundred years.
Kiyo had to keep moving forward.
Before he grew old.
...
[Miss Lumine, hello.]
[This is my seventy-third year here.]
[A village has appeared near Mt. Yougou, so I can no longer leave the cave. I must not meet anyone. During the first year or two, I still spoke to myself, but now I have gone more than sixty years without saying a single word.]
[I may have forgotten how to speak to another person. I may even have forgotten what one is supposed to say.]
[But I still know how to write. Every year, I write you a letter and place it inside the iron box. There are seventy-three letters now.]
[When I have written one thousand letters—when I have filled the box with my longing for you—I will be able to see you again.]
Today was New Year's Day again.
Kiyo could hear the celebration below the mountain.
Red lanterns filled street after street. Smoke from firecrackers and fireworks rose over the little village.
Its people joyfully celebrated the festival of reunion. Their laughter seemed able to pierce the rosy clouds and reach all the way to Mt. Yougou.
More and more families had settled nearby.
As their numbers grew, Kiyo had to move deeper into the mountain.
Fortunately, he had not yet grown old.
Once he could sever all the snow upon the mountain with a thought, Kiyo temporarily stopped practicing with the sword.
Bosacius had left him more than swordsmanship. Kiyo had also inherited the adeptal cultivation arts of Mt. Aocang in Jueyun Karst, but he had never found time to practice them.
Even Cloud Retainer had praised his talent and invited him to remain upon Mt. Aocang to cultivate.
Kiyo had refused.
He could not sever his worldly attachments.
He could not leave the mortal world behind.
Now he had time.
But as he sat atop Mt. Yougou, breathing in the mist of dawn, he continued to long for the New Year festivities below.
Cultivation brought no peace to his heart.
It only made the loneliness more acute.
...
[To Miss Lumine, twelve hundred years from now. Hello.]
[This is my three-hundredth year here.]
[With the construction of the Grand Narukami Shrine, the snow upon Mt. Yougou has finally melted. Flowers have gradually begun to grow here.]
[Crimson sakura are falling before me now. They are very beautiful. I wish I could see them with you.]
[My body remains in excellent health, and my memory has not deteriorated.]
[I ate smoked mackerel for dinner today. Do you remember what I once told you? "I'll create the finest flavor in the world for you. Whenever I miss you, I'll taste that dish."]
[I am eating mackerel now because I miss you.]
[I will not forget you. I promise.]
Kiyo was three hundred years old.
He had reached the fourth step upon the Stairway of Divinity.
People could be found everywhere on Mt. Yougou now, so Kiyo no longer went outside.
Even when no one was near, he remained within.
For the past century, he had lived inside a mountain cavern concealed by adeptal talismans.
He often sat in a daze.
He was neither meditating nor cultivating.
He simply stared into emptiness, sometimes for days at a time.
Three hundred years was a very long time.
It was long for mortals.
It was long even for gods.
Only now did Kiyo understand that mortality was constrained by more than lifespan.
There was also erosion.
He could cause no ripple in history. To every person in this age, he would forever remain a passing stranger.
For three hundred years, no one had met him.
He woke alone.
He slept alone.
Three full centuries passed with no one beside him, only an eternal and withering silence.
Such erosion was a hundred times more severe than the ordinary kind.
Even gods would struggle to withstand the erosion of absolute solitude.
And his solitude would last a thousand years.
That was why the Human Principles System had said time could not be defeated.
Kiyo liked sardines and mackerel.
There were no sardines on the mountain, so he ate two smoked mackerel every day.
Whenever he chewed the tender white flesh and felt its warmth spread through his body, he remembered a certain girl.
He did not dare forget the flavor.
He did not dare forget her.
He could not forget those days or those years.
As he swallowed the mackerel, his shoulders trembled faintly.
...
[Miss Lumine, hello.]
[This is my four-hundredth year... or perhaps my five-hundredth. I cannot remember. I can count the letters I have written to you. That should tell me.]
[There are four hundred and ninety.]
[Then this must be my four-hundred-and-ninetieth year.]
[To Miss Lumine, 1,110 years from now. Hello.]
[A disaster struck Mt. Yougou. The shrine maidens eventually subdued it, but the mountain's ecology was left corrupted. The mackerel in the lake have gone extinct.]
[It has been one or two centuries since I last ate one. I have almost forgotten how they tasted.]
Four hundred and ninety years.
Add another ten, and he would reach the age at which Kiyono Raimei had died.
Kiyo felt old as well.
His face had not changed, but he knew that he was old.
Old enough to die.
...
[Miss Lumine, hello.]
[This is my seven-hundredth year.]
[My name... How foolish. I have almost forgotten my own name.]
[But I still remember Lumine, because every letter bears your name.]
[I have forgotten many things.]
Kiyo had forgotten a great deal.
He was beginning to forget his purpose as well.
He knew only that he had to remain here.
He knew that he had to endure.
But he no longer knew why.
He was tired.
Today was no different from yesterday.
Tomorrow would be no different from today.
None of his days held meaning.
There was no joy, no happiness, and no pain.
There was only existence: life in an age that did not know him, extended across an eternity of empty years.
He no longer understood why he had to remain alive.
He had forgotten what waited at the end.
Kiyo rarely slept and dreamed even less.
Yet whenever a dream came, he saw a beautiful Sacred Sakura and a gathering beneath it that had been fifteen hundred years in the making.
Many people were waiting there.
He could no longer see their faces.
"...It hurts."
He whispered within the dream.
"It hurts so much."
Was he crying?
He no longer had tears.
"Who are you...?"
"I miss you."
...
[Kiyo Seigan.]
[Fifth Step upon the Stairway of Divinity.]
[Lv. 95.]
[Kiyo Seigan, you forgot to write your letter this year.]
Kiyo opened his eyes.
They had faded until they were as gray-white as snow.
He seemed to have been sitting there for a very long time. A thin layer of frost covered his shoulders.
"A letter...?"
He murmured the word.
A letter.
Why did he need to write a letter?
He was already dying.
His martial skill had reached the level of an Archon.
But eight hundred years of erosion had ruined his consciousness. His body might have endured much longer, yet his soul had decayed like an ancient tree riddled with countless wounds.
There was nothing left within him.
Perhaps today, or perhaps tomorrow, he would die.
Then the prison of these eight hundred years would finally open.
[What of your dreams?]
The Human Principles System spoke.
"Dreams?"
Kiyo repeated the word as though he found it strange.
[Your dreams.]
[You once told me of two. First, you wanted to live happily, without a heart or a care. Second, you wanted to become the strongest beneath heaven.]
[Have you forgotten them?]
[You promised me.]
"...I have forgotten everything." Kiyo shook his head wearily. "It no longer matters."
[You have forgotten everything except your dreams.]
[You wished to live for certain people. You wished to become the strongest so that you could protect those you loved.]
[That dream remains. You merely buried it—within that iron box, within eight hundred letters.]
[Kiyo Seigan, you taught me something.]
[Mortals are weak. The only weapon they possess against the passage of years is the power to dream.]
[Your mind has become a wasteland, consumed entirely by erosion.]
[Rebuild it with your dreams.]
[Kiyo Seigan, climb the final step.]
[Musou Isshin.]
[That is the shape your realm of consciousness must take.]
[Read those letters. Then write the eight-hundred-and-first.]
[Continue your dreams.]
[Continue your longing.]