Miss Hebe Is Fighting Her Way Out of the Lostbelt!

That was the greatest reward she had obtained in The Rose War, an achievement that could only be unleashed by becoming Day once more.

"Since the Fourth History, all achievements have been suppressed and erased by the present world. But there are still exceptions, and not just one. Before you reached Day, this achievement remained sealed."

"Current identity Imhotep has reached Day. Achievement unlocked."

Hebe stretched out her hand. At some point, the azure flames had already vanished.

The flesh and blood on her arm fell away like sand, leaving only gleaming white bones.

"No, no, no... How can you have two achievements—who exactly are you?" Ozymandias cried hoarsely. "I would rather die! I would rather die than become a stepping stone for a dead person... Never!"

Ozymandias could feel his spirit body, which had nearly dispersed, miraculously gathering together once more. Even his damaged body was gradually repairing itself.

Yet the more this happened, the more terrified Ozymandias became.

This king, who had proclaimed himself worthy of contending with the gods, no longer possessed even a trace of dignity. All that remained was endless despair at a fate worse than death.

Hebe staggered forward several steps, then weakly leaned against the gates of the Great Temple of Radiant Composite God. Resting against its outer wall, her body slowly slid down.

"I am Ozymandias. My peerless achievements dare make Heaven bow." Hebe's voice was soft, but she knew Ozymandias could hear it.

As she spoke, she began to laugh. Yellow sand streamed from the girl's skeletal chest cavity and scattered without a trace into the sea of clouds.

The sun rose beyond the horizon. Dawn broke, and radiant light spread across the sky.

How beautiful.

"The time is right," Hebe said. "Please, Your Majesty, 'ascend.'"

Only the Same Blood and Tears Flowed

The path of ascension, apotheosis, and the wasteland had opened.

That complete skeletal hand gently tore open the outer wall of the Great Temple of Radiant Composite God from within. It seemed no harder than tearing a sheet of paper.

The entire world gradually became silent and bleak white. Countless frost-white skeletons rose from the ruins of cities and looked up at the fine snow falling from the sky.

That enormous skeleton Hebe had seen countless times descended from the clouds once again. White-cloud-like ribbons wound around Him as He surveyed all of Upper and Lower Egypt with calm, hollow eyes.

The entire world turned bleak white. Both insect swarms and beast herds shrank and collapsed upon the ground, drawing in their limbs as they died soundlessly. Silent and Solemn snowflakes drifted down from the clouds, dyeing the desert a pure white.

All disasters died soundlessly.

All things faded in silence.

All memories grew ever deeper amid silence.

A sigh sounded.

With that sigh, the Nine Calamities ravaging all of Egypt ended without warning. Only the devastated land proved they had ever existed.

This was the achievement the Red King had longed for—the Tenth Calamity that would end the Nine Calamities.

This irreversible, unchangeable moment had finally arrived.

Even though Hebe had nearly become a complete skeleton, that chill still penetrated her soul.

She heard cold echoes coming from every direction.

My great achievements shine throughout the four quarters. My path is the memory that mourns the dead, remembering all things the world has lost.

All that exists shall eventually become nothing. Such is truly the nature of all things in this world.

Forgetting is murder; casting aside is betrayal. Prosperity and Succession is the great wish of the one who remembers the world.

Nefertiti is My distant past. Nefertari is My fleeting present. Nephthys is My eternal future.

I am the Duke of Sighs, the ruler who remembers all things, inscribes memories, and understands promises.

—December: Silent and Solemn, the World of Eternal Winter.

This was the Golden Truth, the Golden Truth proclaimed to the world, and the world responded in turn.

A new ruler had been born.

His name was the Duke of Sighs. His honored titles were God Who Remembers All Things, God Who Inscribes Memories, God Who Understands Promises. He governed december, the final month of every year, Silent and Solemn, frostbound and intoxicating.

The Duke of Sighs ascended into the clouds. His pupils were hollow and compassionate as He gazed at that small skeleton, now devoid of warmth.

This would be the first name remembered by the Duke of Sighs: Imhotep.

Beneath the Duke of Sighs's gaze, the skeleton sank into the great pyramid.

Thus, this magnificent wonder began fulfilling its original duty.

Current Lostbelt progress: 100%.

Golden Truth Dream: Lost Sand Sea Kingdom concluded. The Knower has logged out.

Nitocris raised her head and watched the skeleton ascend into the clouds until it vanished from sight.

The female pharaoh stood in the freezing desert as white snow blanketed the yellow sands.

What made her feel distant was not distance, but irreversibility.

Nitocris suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Though breathing had long ceased to be a necessary condition for survival for one of Dusk, she still felt dizzy, as though she might faint.

A layer of gray mist clouded her eyes, blurring even the distant sun. Everything before her seemed to have lost its history and name. Death was like snow vanishing into snow.

Nitocris finally began to miss the nights of the past. Those nights had been lonely and pitch-black, pools in which she could hide.

She was clear-headed, and thus she now hated that clarity somewhat.

Nitocris had long known that sacrifice was unavoidable. She knew this day would eventually come.

Dusk was not purely divine, after all. Their bodies still bled and shed tears. That was the frail nature of mortals.

Nitocris forced herself to hate Hebe. She racked her brains, trying to find evidence in her memories that Hebe had betrayed her.

If she could, then she would have a reason to hate her, to remember her with bone-deep hatred.

Because hatred was the other side of love, and long years would dull hatred until, in the end, it became closer to love instead.

But there was nothing. She could find no trace of it.

Nitocris let out a howl. She ran through the wilderness, screaming like a wild beast. She lied to herself: Hebe was a demon skilled at manipulating hearts and weaving schemes. She had feigned weakness, tricked her into forming an alliance, and then, then...

Then what?

She died.

Nitocris felt sad, but she could not clearly say what she was sad about. It was not because Hebe had deceived her. It was because she would never again be able to respond to Hebe's deception.

For Nitocris, it was as though she had swallowed a bitterness worse than exile or death. How she wished she too were a rebel, a selfish and despicable person. Then she could have told herself with a clear conscience, Oh, at least I survived, didn't I?

But so what? You know that's a lie, Nito, she told herself.

She tried to reminisce, but searched through all her memories without finding a single recollection profound enough to be called a memorial. There were only trivial little things, only night after night spent in anxiety.

Nitocris remembered those nights when the girl bent over her desk beneath lamplight, exhausting herself in thought. Her silhouette had seemed long within the inner chamber of the temple.

Amid the cold wind where there was nothing and no hope, she heard rustling sounds approaching from afar. They were scarabs, their backs patterned with suns and flames.

A huge vortex appeared in the desert. Nitocris watched silently as the scarabs fearlessly threw themselves into it.

After every scarab had entered, a huge metallic crocodile head emerged from the sand. Scarlet spines rose from atop his head, jagged and imposing like a crown.

Nitocris suddenly recalled Hebe once mentioning that the King of Sheep had personally extracted a colleague's spirit, using his flesh as a war machine and sealing his soul within scarabs.

But no one had expected that the person the King of Sheep had gone to such lengths over would be Sobek, the King of Crocodiles and one of the Three Kings.

Sobek looked around. He stared at the King of Sheep's remnants, then glanced at the sky, laughing three times before crying three times.

"Khnum! Your son truly was a hero through and through!"

The King of Crocodiles Sobek turned to Nitocris. "Pharaoh, you must have many doubts. So do I. Come with me. Let us go to Heliopolis, where every question will be answered."

Nitocris silently stepped onto the King of Crocodiles's broad back. His scarlet dorsal spines spread toward the heavens like a sail crossing the sea of sand.

She suddenly remembered Hebe's solemn declaration in the dead of night. The girl with beautiful green eyes had said that she would one day raise her sails and cross that iron-like sea of sand.

Now, Nitocris truly saw every sight Hebe had described.

They arrived at Heliopolis. Here, the shadows of date palms were lush, and Tutankhamun stood waiting at the city gates.

"Allow me to ask the first question," the King of Crocodiles said. "How long had Hesharif been playing the King of Sheep? And who helped him?"

Tutankhamun answered, "The King of Sheep realized the Red King's plan. Like Anubis, he loved every person in Egypt. After that, he went to the Temple of Geb and prayed to Celestial Flint."

"Just as Ozymandias allied himself with the Remnant Wolf, Celestial Flint used the King of Sheep as a piece to oppose him. When he realized he could not endure much longer, he asked Celestial Flint to recast him."

—Celestial Flint agreed.

"After that, the King of Sheep sought an audience with the Red King, but he did not last long. After his death, Celestial Flint acted, tempering him into a vessel meant to contain Hesharif. That was why Hesharif could endure for several hundred years."

The King of Crocodiles picked up where Tutankhamun left off. "—After that, Hesharif came to find me. He said that rather than become the Red King's sacrifice and bring disaster upon Egypt's people...

"It would be better to feign rebellion. He would extract my spirit body and seal it in scarabs, so that my body and soul could be preserved separately. I agreed with him, so I did not resist."

Tutankhamun continued, "—After that, someone capable of inheriting the King of Ibis appeared. Hesharif believed she was the one who could truly turn the tide."

"The reason he brought you here was because... if he failed to withstand Ozymandias's final counterattack, then King of Crocodiles, it would be your turn to fulfill the promise of protection." Tutankhamun sighed.

"The new... King of Ibis, Thoth?" Sobek looked confused. "Did she also have an agreement with Hesharif?"

"No. This alone was not agreed upon." Tutankhamun smiled sadly. "Perhaps this was the unspoken understanding between 'heroes.' The halo of a savior is made from countless grains of sorrow, while only heroes' blood and tears flow alike."

I Want to Live Until the End

Tutankhamun's gaze turned toward Nitocris, becoming even more sorrowful.

"Let us talk about Imhotep. I also have much to say." The young pharaoh sighed deeply. "What she fought against was not merely the Red King. The enemy she had to face was history itself."

"From this perspective, Imhotep actually saved history, and saved the future of Egyptian civilization as well."

"I don't understand..." Nitocris said.

"I will give you an example, and you will understand," Tutankhamun replied. "Do you remember the name of Ozymandias's queen?"

What difficulty could that possibly pose for Nitocris? She immediately spoke the name. "Nefertiti."

"Wrong." A faint look of shame appeared on Tutankhamun's face. "Nefertiti was my mother."

It was like a grand lie being exposed, like buried memories finally coming to light.

Nefertiti was Tutankhamun's mother, the queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The queen of Ramesses II, pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, was named Nefertari. As for the Duke of Sighs, her name was Nephthys.

For ease of distinction, Tutankhamun collectively referred to them as Neph, distinguishing them as the First, Second, and Third.

Nitocris suddenly understood. She had never realized she had forgotten so much.

The look of shame swiftly faded, and Tutankhamun continued revealing the truth.

"You and Anubis, as well as Pepe and Bestet, are two sides of the same whole. My mother was the same. When Neph the First's body died, she would 'wake up' within her blood relatives in the form of memories. That is the truth behind so-called 'resurrection.'"

"By body, they are two people. By memory, they are one person."

"My mother used this method to obscure her own death, and likewise deceive history... Of course, I do not know precisely how Mother altered history, nor do I know who told her this method."

As Tutankhamun spoke, that look of shame appeared once more.

"My mother used this method to become the 'Dusk' of the priestly path in her Second life. Ozymandias knew this, but he was happy to see it happen." Tutankhamun spoke softly. "Because to him, no matter how hard Neph the Second struggled, she would only be the foundation supporting his ascension."

"Later, Neph the Second threw herself into the Nile River."

"I do not believe Mother died like that, but I found only one section of her hand bone. There was nothing else... No one knows where Mother went. In other words, she is both dead and alive."

Like Schrödinger's cat, before the box was opened and checked, no one knew whether the cat inside was dead or alive.

That hand bone was the "anchor point" left behind by Neph the Second, waiting for someone from later generations to open it.

This was how secret history could be clarified and the truth determined.

In other words, it was the process of conquering a Lostbelt and merging it into history.

Neph the Second had held hope and waited here. In the end, she had waited for the one who could open the box.

—Imhotep, or rather, Hebe Stanton.

Hebe was unwilling to accept a future in which Ozymandias became a ruler, so she began seeking another possibility—having someone replace the Red King as ruler during the ascension ritual.

To do that, she needed to learn in detail about Neph's first two lives, and finally imagine her third life.