HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
The world feels increasingly unsteady, with the shadow of war lingering on the horizon and uncertainty pressing in from every direction. Still, even in times like these, I believe we deserve to grasp at small moments of warmth—a brief, fragile distractions that remind us why we endure at all.
Happiness may be fleeting, but that is precisely what makes it worth celebrating.
So, for this New Year, I'm bringing you bonus updates!
May this new year grant us at least a few moments that feel gentle.
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final."
- Go to the Limits of Your Longing, by Rainer Maria Rilke
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"Commander, if we go any farther, we'll be crossing the national border…"
"Are we… leaving?"
"Commander… have we been abandoned?"
"Commander…"
One exhausted voice after another rose behind André Gide, each one steeped in despair.
The heart of the white-haired young man—only twenty-two years old—was flooded with bitterness, a bitter draught that spread relentlessly, corroding his faith in the nation he served. Just one year ago, André Gide had been a celebrated young officer, the focus of admiration and expectation. He had gone to war for his country, leading his soldiers as they clawed their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, only to be cast aside because of illicit dealings among senior officers.
André Gide clenched the rifle at his side, turned back, and issued a command meant to ring out with authority and resolve. Yet the words, for reasons even he could not fully grasp, emerged weakened, hoarse, stripped of their former strength.
"We are not traitors."
Because of that sentence, a faint spark of light flickered back into the eyes of the French soldiers—only to die out again almost immediately.
Their parents, their families, their children were all in France.
Who could possibly return?
They were utterly spent. After the war ended, they were hunted again and again, their minds and bodies crushed under relentless strain. Had it not been for their commander's formidable strength, leading them out of encirclement after encirclement, they would never have survived to this day.
André Gide made his decision.
"We will hide within France's borders and gather evidence. Do not harm any of our compatriots, and do not approach others. Someone will understand us—someone will."
As he spoke, he bit down so hard that his gums nearly bled.
He understood why France had been slow to dispatch elites to eliminate them. First, the country had too much to deal with on its own; second, the postwar struggle between factions had plunged the upper echelons into internal conflict. Most importantly of all, his friends and family in France were surely running themselves ragged on his behalf, working tirelessly to ease the pressure on him.
He could not flee.
He could not escape France as though he were truly defecting.
He refused to accept such an ending!
To die for our motherland—that alone is something to be proud of!!!
André Gide's words were deeply stirring, because among the soldiers his prestige was no less than that of a general. It was he who had led them through countless battles, winning again and again, never once tasting defeat—and their commander was an Ability user!
"Tch."
Out of nowhere, a male voice—one that sounded unmistakably like a sneer—cut in.
"Who's there?"
"Who is that?!"
"Enemy—!"
The fleeing French soldiers lived up to their reputation as elite troops. They reacted instantly, the murderous intent forged on the battlefield erupting all at once. Muscles tensed, they formed defensive stances, fingers poised, bullets ready to tear through the air at any moment.
André Gide felt as though his soul had been cast into hell. An icy chill swept through his entire body as his Ability—[Strait is the Gate], which allowed him to foresee five or six seconds into a dangerous future—activated beyond his control. In the span of mere seconds, he experienced dozens of deaths.
If he dared to resist—
Every single outcome ended with him being mercilessly shredded.
On the slope directly ahead of them stood a young man with long, supple limbs, his figure graceful, almost boneless, like a god descended from the Nordic myths. He held a volume of poetry in his hands and softly recited lines from Ophelia:
"O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow! Yes child, you died, carried off by a river…"
He smiled at commander André Gide, his eyes a deep ocean blue, silver hair swaying gently in the wind.
The contrast with their own wretched state was painfully stark.
Behind the young man rose the Pyrenees, the largest mountain range in southwestern Europe, the international boundary between France and Spain—and the very escape route the soldiers had been aiming for.
"How beautiful," the stranger murmured.
The visitor's eerie presence alone was enough to halt them in their tracks, leaving them afraid to advance.
A trusted aide beside André Gide shouted sharply, "Who are you?! Are you an enemy?!"
The unfamiliar visitor did not care in the slightest. He looked as relaxed as if he had come out for a countryside stroll, his gaze settling casually on the commander who was breathing hard.
"Hello there, traitors."
That single sentence was like a spark dropped into a pile of dry hay.
The French soldiers, burdened by slander and disgrace, erupted in fury—only to be stopped by André Gide, who raised a trembling hand to restrain them.
"Sir… are you Mr. Verlaine?"
"Oh? You know me?"
Paul Verlaine had taken part in the Great Ability War and had also carried out intelligence missions, then spent a long period recuperating after the war.
"Let me guess," the young man said, closing the poetry collection he had recently taken a liking to and stretching his body languidly. "Who was it that passed the information to you? Paul Valéry, who happens to share my name? Or that junior, Régnier? Ah—right, I almost forgot—Mallarmé seemed to admire you quite a bit. I once heard him praise your Ability at a salon gathering."
The youth did not look very old, yet he spoke with the amused tone of an elder. "A precognition-type Ability?"
He was praising him.
He was also scorning him.
Without releasing the slightest hint of overt malice, he still made the chill seep straight into the bones.
André Gide's back was soaked through with sweat. A vast sorrow welled up within him, his mind cooling to the point of numbness. "To have a Transcendent sent to silence us is an honor, but we will not lay down our weapons. This is the last shred of our pride. I wish to ask Mr. Verlaine one final question—does the French government truly have no place left for us?"
The man before him was Paul Verlaine, a French Transcendent—someone utterly beyond the reach of ordinary Ability users.
André Gide knew of this man because his connections within both the military and political spheres were extensive; he was acquainted with many Ability users, and the "Mallarmé" mentioned by the silver-haired youth was also a Transcendent.
Compared to Paul Verlaine, whose power was devastatingly lethal, Stéphane Mallarmé was far more restrained and low-key.
But Mallarmé could not save them.
Ability elites from seven different countries had formed the group known as [The Seven Traitors], committing grave war crimes—abducting heads of state and supreme commanders, forcing nations to bow before anti-war demands. After the war, all French Transcendents were subjected to psychological evaluations. The logic was simple: among [The Seven Traitors], there had to be a French Transcendent.
People from a so-called romantic nation were, in both thought and idealism, exceedingly "romantic and unrestrained."
Transcendents were few in number, and compatriots generally knew one another. To prevent them from being tempted into treason, their actions were placed under strict supervision. Without explicit assignments, they were forbidden from participating in any postwar affairs.
Officially, this was framed as preventing postwar psychological trauma; in practice, the government paid to send them off to recuperate.
Paul Verlaine did not answer the question.
Seeing the commander's bleak resolve, the soldiers—confused yet anxious—called out urgently, "Commander, we stand behind you! We do not fear death—please give the order!"
André Gide shook his head and gave a signal behind his back: in an emergency, scatter and flee freely.
He would use his life to hold the enemy back. Even if it exceeded his limits, he would not hesitate. This battle was destined to end in death; the only question was how many could escape. Those survivors would be the hope of overturning the verdict.
Paul Verlaine watched them indifferently, as if he had not noticed the small gestures at all.
"You government lapdogs can't tell right from wrong! We have done nothing to betray our country!" When the first soldier, driven by rage, raised his gun at him, his finger never even had the chance to pull the trigger. Bones snapped one by one throughout his body; he did not even feel the pain, walking toward death in shock and confusion.
An elite combat unit of over a hundred men was, in the eyes of a Transcendent, no different from a flock of chickens and dogs—no, even among chickens and dogs, the one at the head might at least stir a trace of interest, if only because he, too, was an Ability user.
Paul Verlaine said with bored indifference, "Don't send those ordinary soldiers up here anymore. They might as well kill themselves—it would spare me from staining my hands with the blood of my compatriots." He turned his gaze toward André Gide, the smile on his lips deepening.
"And you—do you have the courage to fire at me?"
What answered him was a headlong plunge into carnage, accompanied by the deafening crack of gunfire.
Half an hour later.
Severed limbs and mangled flesh littered the scene like a small slaughterhouse. Fewer than a hundred soldiers managed to escape; the remaining few dozen fled in frantic disorder alongside their commander, André Gide.
Paul Verlaine brushed back the silver strands by his ear and cast a cold glance ahead.
Another Transcendent's Ability had blocked him.
—[Afternoon of a Faun]
Stéphane Mallarmé lowered his head and sighed softly. "Let them go, my friend."
Paul Verlaine replied, "This is my mission. I don't get many chances to come out like this."
With a bitter expression, Stéphane Mallarmé tried to persuade him. "We both know they're innocent. These are the finest soldiers—heroes who shed blood and gave their lives for their country on the battlefield. They were set up by corrupt figures in the upper ranks of the military. To appease the anger of the anti-war public, the military pushed the combat units that had merely obeyed orders onto the chopping block as sacrifices. They never betrayed their country at all…"
Paul Verlaine was left speechless by the utter lack of hauteur in his fellow Transcendent.
"You owe me a favor," he said at last.
"Fine," Stéphane Mallarmé answered.
Stéphane Mallarmé, who counted Rimbaud, Verlaine, and many other Transcendents among his friends, agreed without hesitation.
Since he had no intention of continuing the pursuit, an appropriate pretext was required. Paul Verlaine therefore had no choice but to return together with Stéphane Mallarmé, coordinating their accounts along the way—while enduring the other man's relentless chatter.
"Verlaine, you like this poetry collection too? If you ask me, it's truly beautiful—breaking free from the rigid metrical constraints of traditional verse…" Stéphane Mallarmé rambled on enthusiastically. He knew Verlaine disliked being called "Paul," a name too easily confused with another Ability user; those familiar with him generally addressed him by his surname alone.
Paul Verlaine remained unmoved as a mountain, his movements as he turned the pages exceedingly gentle.
He himself did not know why he was drawn to this poetry collection. It felt like love at first sight, as though a sweet, icy spring from heaven had poured into his heart, extinguishing the scorching flames within and granting his soul a rare tranquility.
"This poetry collection is as beautiful as Arthur Rimbaud himself."
That careless remark from Stéphane Mallarmé caused the previously indifferent Paul Verlaine to freeze.
Verlaine snapped sharply, "What nonsense are you talking about!"
With a loud bang, he snapped the book shut again, irritation and wounded pride flashing across his face as he rejected Mallarmé's words outright. "How could it possibly be mentioned in the same breath as Rimbaud? It's nothing more than a niche, non-mainstream poetry collection!" How could it ever compare to Arthur Rimbaud—melancholic, mercurial, overwhelming, with a gaze so sharp that no one could escape it?
"And just look at that pen name—Jean-Nicolas? A clear sign of insufficient cultural refinement!"
The verdict came dripping with disdain and mockery.
"It's not that niche, is it?" Stéphane Mallarmé said, a dark line practically appearing on his forehead. "Verlaine, didn't you see the publisher's promotional copy? This French poet is paying homage to the nineteenth century."
"Don't you dare compare him to Rimbaud," Paul Verlaine said, a smile of impeccable courtesy hanging on his face. His tone was soft and refined, perfectly embodying the elegance and musicality of the French language—yet the killing intent it carried was unmistakably real, sharp enough to set one's nerves on edge. "Even in death, Rimbaud deserves to be revered as a Transcendent."
Stéphane Mallarmé looked at him with a gaze laden with unspoken meaning. Of all those sent on intelligence missions, only this man had returned whole and intact.
Arthur Rimbaud had left not even bones behind.
When it came to defense and self-preservation, in theory, a spatial Ability like [Illuminations] held a clear advantage.
Unwilling to fall out with him, Stéphane Mallarmé withdrew his gaze. In recent days, France's foreign war had ended, yet the head of state had suffered a humiliating disgrace, the supreme commander had resigned to take responsibility, and the resulting upheaval triggered a massive reshuffle. Internal strife followed one after another, and the streets were filled with strikes and protest marches.
"Well then, poor Arthur," Mallarmé sighed. "I didn't even get the chance to properly drink with him."
"..."
"Verlaine, don't release that killing intent. I'll just gossip about one last thing. I swear it's not some tactless question like André Gide's. Oh ho ho—what I want to ask is, did you and Arthur ever sleep together?"
"..."
"So who was on top?"
"..."
That very day, two French Transcendents drew attention after getting into a physical altercation near the national border.
The two who had skipped their mission were sent back to write self-reflection reports.
As a result, the fleeing French officer and his soldiers narrowly escaped disaster. After months of desperate maneuvering and negotiation among certain parties within their homeland, they were ultimately forced into exile abroad, never again able to return to the country they loved so deeply.
War destroys morality. Perhaps the soldiers who clung to ideals and justice had already died long ago.
What survived was nothing more than a wisp of a ghost.
...
"Strait Is the Gate": Our devotion overcame illness and death; the shadows retreated before us. Every morning at dawn, I rose with a heart full of joy and ran out to greet the coming day… And every time I wake from dreams at midnight, that time soaked in morning dew always rises vividly before my eyes.
—André Gide.
{Note: I have no idea from which chapter/page this quote is from, and tbh, I'm not keen on spending too much time looking for specific lines in a 148 page book at 3 am. I'm tired and sleepy. So yeah, for those who have read the book and know what the original line was, please do tell me, so I can fix it. Thanks, that's all.}