Chapter 58

The gates of Mizuyari Manor opened quietly under the pale morning glow. Dew shimmered on the edges of the ancient stone pathway, leading to where Alto Mizuyari stood, shoulders squared, hair tied tightly into his iconic stellar ponytail.

Shizuku stood at the doorway, a fresh mug of spirit-tea in hand, gazing at Alto with a soft, unreadable look.

Shizuku
You sure you want to do this alone?

Alto
(slinging his coat over his shoulder)
It's my final test. If I can’t walk into the domain of the Primordial of Light without fear, I don’t deserve to stand beside you.

Shizuku
(chuckles softly)
You already do. But I know this isn’t about worth.

Alto turned back and smiled—not soft, but radiant.

Alto
It’s about closure.

The golden transport glyph beneath his boots flared to life, encoded with arcana only the Celestial Guard could wield. With one final look to the manor—his home, his family—he vanished into a flash of starlight.

Location: Starsea Sanctum, Western Outskirts of Meeresboden

The wind shifted. The skies darkened—not from storm, but from brilliance. The Starsea Sanctum stretched before him: a prismatic field of crystalline water suspended midair, where stars pulsed gently beneath the surface like sleeping whales.

High above, seated atop a drifting platform of spiraling stellar runes, waited Hoshi the Lightbringer, one of the Higher Primordials. Their form shimmered with shifting silhouettes: sometimes feminine, sometimes masculine, sometimes neither. Their eyes were suns.

Hoshi
(voice echoing across dimensions)
Alto Mezzanine. You arrive not as a pupil, nor as a prince… but as one seeking truth.

Alto
(hovering upward)
I’ve accepted what I am. But I need to understand what I can be.

Hoshi
(smiling, voice like constellations breathing)
Then step forward. Let the final veil lift. You will not face power, Alto. You will face yourself.

A star pulsed—and then shattered.

The trial had begun.