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When Icarus was young, he hated the ground.

He hated gravity that kept him bound to the earth. He hated even more the adults who raised their voices to claim even an inch more of this cramped piece of land.

A city filled with discarded garbage.

A city clogged with trash. A city where you couldn’t have a broad view because everywhere you looked was just garbage. A city where simply standing in place made it hard to breathe. This was where Icarus was born. This was where the boy grew up.

And around the age of ten.

Icarus climbed a cliff. Despite getting scratched by branches and falling multiple times, becoming covered in dirt, Icarus stubbornly climbed the cliff. And upon reaching the top, he faced an open view for the first time.

“Ah.”

The garbage piled up by humans hadn’t invaded the fields atop the cliff. From the vast open field, he could see the sky. The blue sky wasn’t covered by anything, wasn’t blocked by anything.

The sky was free.

It was a natural progression for a boy who craved freedom to crave the sky. Facing the sky, the boy dreamed one dream. The dream of soaring freely through that sky.

Sparkle.

Icarus recalled the dream he had as a child. His body slowly began to move. With dreamy eyes, he wandered through his dream.

‘I wanted to fly in the sky.’

He wanted to fly freely through that sky and reach the stars.

‘So.’

He set off on an adventure. He traveled across the continent with his friend. Icarus recalled memories he had forgotten, one by one. It felt like feeling his way along the walls of a vast labyrinth.

Where should I go?

What did I do next?

Whenever he had such thoughts, a thread sparkled before his eyes. Led by the sparkling thread, Icarus moved forward. Following the thread, Icarus could avoid getting lost even in the complex labyrinth.

He dreamed.

In his dream, Icarus adventured freely.

He traveled to all kinds of cities. He visited the floating city, the port city, and the free city he had wanted to see since childhood, experiencing many things.

“Adventurer!”

“What’s that, Icarus?”

“Listen, Daedalus. Doesn’t the sound of ‘adventurer’ feel good? Adventure! It means exploring unknown places while risking danger. Aren’t adventurers the freest people in the world?”

The Star of Adventure sparkled.

It was the first star Icarus obtained.

“My name is Icarus. The man who will someday reach the highest point in that sky. Remember my name, foreign princess!”

“You’re an interesting person. Is that why you broke into my room?”

“No? The reason is this. There’s a rumor in the kingdom. That a princess dying from illness wishes to fly in the sky.”

“……”

“Do you want to fly?”

“Can you grant my wish?”

“I asked if you want to fly.”

Taking the nodding princess’s hand, he flew through the sky. On a night when the moon sparkled, the princess fulfilled her long-awaited wish. The princess’s laughter echoed as the kingdom’s knights looked up at the sky in bewilderment.

Although the princess died from her illness not long after.

Until the day she died, the princess could smile while talking about her flight with Icarus.

The man who was the princess’s father and the king of a country swore to consider Icarus his eternal friend and benefactor. A statue of Icarus was erected in that country.

“Now, it’s time for the Great Exodus.”

A dream.

“Run! Don’t look back and just run!”

“Shit, what’s behind us?!”

“What else! A monster the great magician prepared for us. And it looks terribly ugly!”

“This is insane.”

He dreamed a dream.

In his dream, he was free.

“It’s time to set off on a journey.”

He could leave anytime, go anywhere, and soar as high as he wanted.

The stars of adventure, freedom, travel, and flight shone.

A boy grows into a young man. A young man grows into an adult. The boy who had become an adult looked at himself. He had become stronger. He could fly higher and had become strong enough to remove whatever blocked his path.

“……”

The boy who had become an adult looked up at the sky.

If he wanted to fly, he could.

It seemed like he could fly far away.

‘Higher than ever before……’

Icarus took a step to fulfill his childhood dream. He tried to flap his wings toward the sky. But with a clank, something grabbed Icarus’s ankle.

Looking back, there were chains.

Numerous people, numerous lives, the children he had taken in and their descendants, those who shared his will, were all looking at him.

Dream and responsibility.

Weighing between the two, Icarus eventually chose to take responsibility. The boy who had become an adult gave up his dream.

“Ah.”

Icarus smiled bitterly.

He knew what would happen next.

He walks.

He walks toward the end that awaits a bird that has given up its life as an adventurer, abandoned its dream, and lost its wings.

Thud.

Those he tried to protect, those he loved, pointed spears at each other. Icarus couldn’t take sides. Weren’t they all like family to him? He couldn’t cut off either side.

Death. Death and more death. What he had protected crumbled one by one, due to external enemies and internal strife.

And in the end.

Crack.

Everything he had built up collapsed by his own hand.

“I see.”

At the place where he stopped with a thud.

“……”

There was a young man silently looking at him. A young man who shone brighter than anyone and seemed freer than anyone. Looking at him, Icarus couldn’t help but laugh.

Because the young man resembled himself.

More precisely, his younger self.

At the end of the path, Icarus turned his gaze forward. There was a shining star. It seemed like he could touch it if he reached out.

Swish.

But Icarus lowered his outstretched hand. That star wasn’t his, and it wasn’t the star he had wanted to reach.

“It’s a splendid star.”

“Is it?”

“Indeed. It’s a star so splendid that even I, who had forgotten my dream for nearly 1000 years, recalled it again.”

Icarus smiled bitterly.

“May I ask your name?”

“The name of that star?”

“I’d like to hear that too, but I also want to hear your name.”

“I’m Najin. And the star’s name is Mourning.”

After savoring the name Najin, Icarus looked down at his body. From the moment he regained his memories, Icarus’s body had been crumbling.

Crumble.

His fingertips turned to dust and scattered. Perhaps it was inevitable. It was a body that had become a corpse hundreds of years ago. The moment memories and starlight were contained in a shattered vessel, Icarus’s body couldn’t withstand the power.

Facing his impending annihilation, Icarus remained silent.

Having recalled all his memories, he looked at the chain piercing his heart. The chain was connected to Helios’s ancient castle far away. It was a chain he couldn’t release until the end.

Grip.

Icarus grasped the chain.

2.

“What’s your dream?”

At Icarus’s question, Najin blinked for a moment. It was an unexpected question. After a brief silence, Najin answered Icarus’s question.

“To engrave a star in the highest place.”

“The highest place? Higher than King Arthur’s star?”

Najin nodded.

“Hahahahaha!”

Icarus burst into laughter. He brushed back his hair with his laughter and nodded greatly.

“Dreams should be big. I had such a dream too. Although I couldn’t reach it.”

The Heavenly Wandering Star, Icarus.

He was the first transcendent to appear after King Arthur disappeared into Camlann, the hero who first led the era after Arthur’s disappearance, and simultaneously the person who came closest to Arthur in the past 1000 years.

The transcendent who flew to the highest place.

But a human who eventually fell.

He looked at his junior. What should he say to his junior as a senior who had walked the same path one step ahead? Icarus, who was about to open his mouth, closed it. The young man before him was already shining brighter than himself.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

He simply asked.

“With such a sword, it would have been much easier and simpler to kill me.”

“That would have been easier.”

“Then why?”

“Where’s the romance in that?”

Najin smiled and snapped his fingers.

The Star of Laughing sparkled.

“Besides, it wouldn’t be something to talk about with a smile.”

It’s a trivial reason. But everything starts from something trivial. Icarus burst into laughter at the sight of Najin speaking like his past self.

“Indeed, a convincing reason.”

“So.”

Najin pointed at Icarus.

“What do you plan to do now?”

Instead of answering that question, Icarus looked back.

A ruined nation, the tragedy of destroying what he had protected with his own hands, and the past where he wandered for hundreds of years after losing his memories……

Icarus didn’t turn away from all that past. He faced squarely what he had done. Thus, Icarus gave one answer. A smile spread across Icarus’s lips.

With a grip, he grasped the chain more firmly.

Instead of breaking the chain, he pulled it.

“I thought I couldn’t fly because it was too heavy.”

That’s what he had thought.

“But now, this weight feels just right.”

The chain binding him now has no meaning. Everything he tried to protect has crumbled. Helios has fallen, and all his citizens are dead. Icarus no longer has any responsibility left.

Nevertheless, Icarus didn’t let go of the chain.

Letting go of the chain would be denying half of his life. He didn’t deny himself.

“The name of that star, did you say it was Mourning?”

“Yes, Mourning.”

Pointing to the star that was maintaining his sanity and slowing his erosion, Icarus said.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t held a funeral for my country yet. I haven’t properly concluded things. This can’t be called a good story.”

Icarus curled up the corners of his mouth.

“Will you help me?”

“Of course.”

Najin snapped his fingers. As the Star of Mourning shone more intensely, Icarus exhaled deeply.

He decided his end.

Grateful to the young man before him, and to the friend who left a gift for him until the end, Icarus looked up at the sky.

A star that was crumbling and eroding but still shining.

‘Just one more time, for the last time.’

Icarus illuminated his star.

【The Sea of All Things】

The Heavenly Wandering Star shone.

3.

In his final moment, the Heavenly Wandering Star regained himself.

He recalled all the memories he had forgotten.

Though his body was crumbling, he could wield power like in his prime one last time.

Icarus decided how to wield that power.

All ten stars began to crumble. Squeezing all the starlight remaining in his stars, Icarus unfolded his stage. Icarus considered himself an adventurer and navigator, believing he could navigate freely anywhere.

Therefore, to him, the world was a sea.

The Sea of All Things.

In the middle of a world that had turned into a sea, Icarus spread his five fingers wide.

A constellation of 10 stars.

A man who was once closer to Arthur than anyone.

A torrent of power, dimensions apart from the Icarus that Najin had been facing until just now, surged. The entire world heaved violently. Not only the largest whale but also the whales spread throughout the battlefield far away swayed greatly.

“Come to think of it, I couldn’t keep my promise to you either.”

Icarus looked at the largest whale and smiled bitterly.

“Will you let me keep it now?”

The whale, frozen by Merlin’s magic, began to rise, shaking off the thin ice. The whale’s heartbeat echoed. Icarus smiled.

“Yes, let’s do that, friend.”

Icarus swung his spread five fingers toward the sky. As if pulling up a net.

And, everything rose.

The elements that made up Helios, the nation of Helios, the largest whale, the large and small whales that migrated to the sky following that whale, tens of thousands of whales spread throughout the battlefield all rose.

Nothing could hold the whales back.

Icarus, standing on the head of the largest whale, pointed to the sky.

“It’s time to set off on a journey, friends.”

Icarus shouted.

“Let’s fly as high as that sky, anywhere.”

Icarus’s outstretched fingertip was pointing at a star.

“Until we reach the stars!”

It was Arthur’s star. Pointing to the place he had aimed for since childhood, Icarus unfolded his first magic.

Icarus’s Wings.

The magic that became the origin of all flight magic for future generations, humanity’s first leap toward the sky. As if substituting for the already broken bird’s wings, huge wings sprouted on the whale’s spine. Of course, it was just a form made of mana, an illusion, but that didn’t matter.

“Icarus, isn’t the core of that wing magic you developed telekinesis and force field? Why do wings need to take shape? That reduces the cost-effectiveness.”

“Ha, the reason is very simple.”

“What’s the reason?”

“Because it looks cooler!”

Icarus curled up the corners of his mouth.

And, the whale flapped its wings.

Despite its massive body, the sky whale ascended at a rapid speed. The whale’s fins pushed away the world that had become a sea, the air rippled, and the wind split like water currents. Icarus soared toward the sky.

The altitude increased. Everything on the ground began to turn into tiny dots. But Icarus didn’t stop.

He didn’t fly alone.

He soared with his country, his friends, his one and only friend, and the things that bound him.

“Why is flying in the sky a great feat, a wonderful thing?”

“It’s because of gravity.”

“Flight is beautiful because it resists the great force that binds us, keeps us on the ground.”

How could he be called the Heavenly Wandering Star if he couldn’t even bear this much weight? Icarus looked at his country that was soaring with him.

Helios, the nation closest to the sky.

Icarus thought that if there was a funeral fitting for the nation of Helios, it would be this. Not a water burial, not a cremation. Certainly not a burial in the ground, and a sky burial wasn’t to Icarus’s taste either.

Icarus soared.

He flew upward, embracing everything.

A nation that had a king who was the freest adventurer but ultimately wasn’t free. Icarus wished for Helios to be free, at least in its final moments.

Unable to withstand the heat of the stars and the star pressure created by the stars, the city crumbled. Helios scattered as starlight. The scattered starlight became a cluster of stars and attached to the fins of Icarus and the sky whales.

As if wanting to stay with their king until the end.

The star clusters connected to the fins of tens of thousands of whales drew sparkling trajectories.

The Heavenly Flowing Star.

Icarus didn’t stop increasing altitude. The higher the altitude, the more Icarus’s body crumbled. The things that adorned his body peeled off one by one.

His crown, the king’s robe, the scepter, the banner, all sorts of jewels and ornaments crumbled.

What remained after all the crumbling was.

The shabby coat Icarus had worn since his days as an adventurer. Fluttering his tattered coat, Icarus smiled. By now, Icarus had taken on the appearance of a young man. He pointed to the sky and shouted.

“Higher!”

As if they had been waiting for this day, the sky whales howled.

Buooooooooo———.

The heartbeat echoed.

Despite their wings melting in the starlight, despite their bodies crumbling under the pressure of the stars, they flew toward an even higher place.

Tens of thousands of whales became starlight.

Tens of thousands of trajectories were embroidered in the sky. Leading tens of thousands of meteors, Icarus headed for the sky. It was his last flight, and his last challenge.

He knows.

That he won’t reach the stars in the end.

He knew he would crumble under the pressure and heat of the stars. Because he was already broken and had become a being that couldn’t be called a hero to reach Arthur’s star.

But, that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that he is challenging the sky. That he is soaring toward the sky.

It has been 1000 years since Arthur ended the age of chaos, and in the past 1000 years, no one has reached Arthur.

And, the one who flew closest to Arthur was Icarus. He knew it was time to pass that title to someone else.

The young man who would be watching him from below.

With the help of the starlight created by Najin, Icarus flew to the highest place he could reach. Until all his stars crumbled, Icarus could smile.

“Ah.”

Until the end, Icarus reached out toward the star.

Though he didn’t reach the star in the end.

He was satisfied with his last journey toward the star.

With tens of thousands of trajectories, the Heavenly Wandering Star became a meteor shower.

Under the sky where stars poured like rain.

Najin reached out toward the sky.

With a grip, something was caught in Najin’s hand. It was the sacred relic left by the Heavenly Wandering Star to Najin, and Najin’s eighth star.