"I am only human, after all. I can't possibly understand every single field."
Shade admitted his shortcomings inwardly as he reached out to touch the final two stone slabs before him.
But then he suddenly heard her laughter by his ear:
You are very good at telling stories.
The Outlander was indeed very good at telling stories.
And I like the operas of this era very much. At the Opera House, both you and I learned a great deal.
Shade raised an eyebrow, only to see the Silver Moon stone slab, Yellow Moon stone slab, and Red Moon stone slab rotating around him overlap. Their radiance enveloped the final two giant slabs that had been joined together.
Within the simple engraved patterns in the slabs' depressions, Shade walked alone through the snow, as though telling something to someone unseen beside him:
"Stories preserve civilization."
He hesitated, then said softly.
From the enormous fused slab emerged the figure of a silver girl. Her image grew larger and larger until it nearly covered more than half the starry sky. Her massive upper body floated above Shade's head, her right hand extended with three round moons hovering in her palm. The three moons differed in size, yet formed a strange triangular pattern in her hand.
No matter how Shade looked at it, that figure resembled Iluna.
At the same time, "Legenes Presia," who had emerged from the clay tablets, had also reached the air between them. The illusory figure raised his gun and fired at the towering half-body girl before Shade. From the palm seemingly made of a river of stars, the triangular pattern formed by the three round moons shone brilliantly. From the center of that triangle shot a dark gold beam of light, connecting with the light erupting from the gun's