PART III: AFTER THE UNSEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 15: Cygnus Awakens

• While en-route to an off-site Alliance meeting, Cygnus and her court were warned that Ereve was under attack by the demon army. They quickly rushed back to Ereve, where they found Damien standing over the mortally wounded body of Shinsoo. As Damien escaped with Alicia, who had been extracted from within Shinsoo’s gemstone, a horrified Cygnus mistakenly believed that Shinsoo had been killed.

• The shock of seeing her friend killed caused a magical transformation within Cygnus, who awakened with mysterious powers. With her new abilities, Cygnus was able to restore Shinsoo back to full health. However, Shinsoo soon left Ereve for unknown reasons, leaving Cygnus wondering whether she was the reason why Shinsoo had gone away.

• Over the next several months, the Knights began rebuilding Ereve and learned that with Cygnus having grown stronger, her connection to the Knights meant that they had grown much stronger as well.

• Shinsoo soon called the Cygnus Knight to her refuge in Leafre, where she revealed that long ago, the Overseers had ordained that Cygnus’ bloodline would one day bring forth a new Transcendent in the event that the balance of the Transcendents should disappear. Though there was no need for a replacement Transcendent in the present day, the shock of seeing Shinsoo mortally wounded had caused Cygnus to prematurely awaken as a Transcendent-in-reserve, awaiting the day when she would be needed to awaken fully.

• Due to her sudden and incomplete awakening, Cygnus could now use a portion of the Transcendent’s powers, though she remained in a strange state of not actually being one.

• Shinsoo explained that she had been tasked with watching over the birth of the new Transcendent at the end of the Ancient War, for which she had created Ereve and the Piyos to serve the Empress’ bloodline. She told the Knight that she had left Ereve in order to find a way to help Cygnus, whether that meant separating Cygnus from her Transcendent powers or teaching her how to use them.

• Though she could not be at Cygnus’ side, she asked the Knight to watch over Cygnus in her stead. After the Knight agreed, Shinsoo noted that the Knight was a descendant of the Noblesse. She explained that the Noblesse were those whom she had protected during the Ancient War, with the Noblesse carrying on her ideals to protect humanity after she had been weakened in the aftermath of the war.

• Shinsoo revealed that most of the Noblesse had been killed when Orchid and Lotus had sieged Ereve and killed Empress Aria, while the remainder had gone extinct during the war from 300 years ago. However, she told the Knight that the ideals of the Noblesse were reborn within them.