IBHJ 1398

“I’m guessing Hinako’s grumbling behind my back again,” the First Emperor said as he climbed the Fusang Tree, looking far too pleased with himself. “Probably still mad about the ‘Trojan Horse’ incident. Really, who doesn’t love a classic?”

The climb wasn’t difficult for someone who’d once turned his entire continent into a self-sustaining empire through sheer audacity. The real challenge was reaching the crown—where the last Sun waited.

Nine Black Suns, nine distractions. Gilgamesh and the others were dealing with that chaos below. He’d handed off six Grand Class Graphs to them.

All just to clear a path.

Of course, clearing a path also meant he got to come up here and poke his nose into forbidden cosmic business. Which, frankly, was half the fun.

As he reached the summit, the Tenth Sun loomed in front of him. Massive. Silent. Breathing heat that wasn’t heat, but pressure.

He stared into its pulsing core.

No beast inside. No claws or wings or divine plumage.

Just a vessel. Being built.

“…So that’s the plan,” he murmured. “Feeding off the Inner Sea through the Fusang Tree. It looked like a cheap trick to burn out the UOs. But no. This is reincarnation prep. A new vessel for something old and wrong.”

He stepped closer, studying the figure suspended within the sun.

“You’re not a crow. You’re worse. You’re the one Taiyi warned me about—the stain on the first morning of creation.”

The figure didn’t move.

“You call yourself the Lord of Salvation,” the Emperor said, voice soft now. “But you’re not saving anything. You slipped into the Root, didn’t you? Multitasking across timelines—so you ignored this place. Or maybe… you believed your proxy could finish the job?”

A pause. The sun shimmered.

“…Fascinating,” the figure finally replied, its will manifesting through the vessel.

Then it chuckled.

“Oh, Emperor of Human History… do you even know your sin?”

“What, just one?” The Emperor raised a brow. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“He who receives Heaven’s Mandate lives long and prospers." it said. "But you, sovereign of an empire, instead of invading Proper Human History to secure the future of your people—you burned your entire nation and worldline as fuel to manifest yourself here. Is that not betrayal?”

The Emperor laughed. “Truly, you who poisoned the first spark of time—there is little that escapes you. I won’t lie. The dual-layer summoning I slipped into Koyanskaya’s systems was my fallback. My way in. One day, I would’ve used it to crown myself over Proper Human History.”

“I unified the Eight Directions, mapped the Six Realms. I carved order from the chaos of countless lives. I extended our reach to the farthest edge of the stars—and when I arrived, all I saw was silence.” He smiled, “A world where the strong carry everything… eventually shatters beneath the weight. That’s when I knew. What I built had no tomorrow.”

“So I chose to vanish with it. To bury myself alongside the ruin. And instead of clinging to a throne made of ash, I offered everything—so that those still fighting for a future could escape the chains of the past.”

The figure stirred and said, "They thought they’d broken fate. But none of them ever saw the whole pattern—that their triumphs were all accounted for. The sacrificial body is already prepared. The Grand Summoning Circle is active. All that remains is the purge: perfecting the conditions for the Gate to open."

“Is that so?” the Emperor said, smiling faintly. “Then you never truly needed the Fusang Tree.”

His tone sharpened.

“If your blueprint was perfect, you wouldn’t be relying on something with such an obvious flaw—its Ten Suns. If all had gone according to plan, you'd have found a better anchor. Something crafted at the moment the universe first remembered itself. Something born of the First Cause.”

He narrowed his eyes at the figure inside the sun. “So tell me—how did that relic slip through your fingers? If not for that… I wouldn’t be here. After all, the Fusang Tree was supposed to be my trump card. My tether for the invasion. My connection to Proper Human History.”

In that moment, the Lord of Salvation understood the danger.

The First Emperor didn’t know what had occurred in Proper Human History. But from a few stray threads—he’d almost touched the truth.

Until now, the Lord of Salvation had suffered only one real failure.

The birth of the Ideal King.

The Fusang Tree had never been critical to the plan. It was a spare part. A ceremonial key offered to a beast who couldn’t read the instructions. The true prize—the irreplaceable cornerstone—had always been the Arrow of Akasha.

The same arrow that once sealed him inside the Root.

His goal was simple in theory: absorb the Inner Sea, incarnate as the planetary will, and use the Arrow to annihilate Gaia and Alaya throughout the cosmos. Root Kill.

Since the Age of Origins, he’d been nailed to the Root like a pinned insect, immortal and irrelevant. He wasn’t a conceptual ghost, nor a divine intelligence. He was a mistake with a name.

And to escape, he would need to kill the Root itself.

Every step had unfolded perfectly.

Until she arrived.

—The Ideal King.

Born from Artoria’s body, given form by Fujimaru Shirou’s defiance—she was never meant to exist. The scenario didn’t allow for her. But somehow, she did more than survive.

She saw him.

She recognized what he was.

And instead of destroying him, she locked him away.

Then, with deliberate cruelty, she gave the Arrow of Akasha to the one person who could truly wield it: Fujimaru Shirou.

The script unraveled.

He could no longer rely on the Root. He couldn’t touch the Arrow. He couldn’t even move the board.

From that moment on, every step had to be taken with caution. With patience. With the exhausting humility of a god forced to pretend to be human again.

The Fusang Tree—previously discarded—became his only remaining option. He hadn’t planned to use it. Without activation, it was little more than a cosmic bonsai.

But he needed a vessel. A gate. Something to house his presence while the new future took shape.

And now—even that plan was starting to rot.

Because this man—this self-made god had sniffed out the entire lie from a single scent.

The First Emperor wasn’t supposed to know.

And yet… he did.

“You truly are a special man,” the Lord of Salvation muttered.

It wasn’t praise.

“Regrettably, my attention is spread thin… but even so, I know what you intended.”

The voice grew colder, heavier.

“You believed belief alone could carry you. So you waited. You prepared. Two thousand years spent carving yourself into legend, turning your nation into ash, bending your people’s faith into fuel… all to bypass the First Cause and claw your way into Proper Human History.”

A pause. Then a whisper of satisfaction.

“But in the end, you failed.”

The words rang like a sentence being passed.

“Only Fujimaru Shirou succeeded. He did what you couldn’t. And now you stand here—dangerous, yes—but no longer useful. I won’t permit your existence to jeopardize what remains.”

The sun pulsed.

“Rest. Stay here, forever—entombed in the world you gave everything to protect.”

The black sun flared, and from its molten heart, the flames came—coiling and writhing as they fused into wings and talons. A phoenix, monstrous and eternal, peeled itself from the fire. Its form swallowed the sky. Its eyes were as hollow as extinction.

But the First Emperor didn’t flinch.

Of course it had come to this. Of course he’d been exposed. That was always part of the gamble. If he was going to stake everything—his plan, his life, his legacy—he had to assume he’d be seen through from the start.

He let out a long breath, then squared his stance beneath the wingspan of the living apocalypse above him.

His eyes burned with something too old for fear.

So now—

To those voyagers walking the road to the future…

Let me see it.

Let me see if your resolve was worth the price I paid to stand behind you.