Salinger

Salinger holds the astral spirit called “Water Mirror,” which allows him to divide another person’s astral spirit into two and steal up to half of it.

Through this power he has stolen over a hundred powerful spirits, especially from pureblood royal lines, and is widely regarded as one of the worst and strongest criminals in the history of the Nebulis Sovereignty.

He once attempted to seize the astral spirit of the previous queen, Nebulis VII, but was defeated by the then-princess Millavair Lou Nebulis VIII.

After this he was imprisoned for thirty years in the Orelgan Prison Tower, part of the infamous prison city Alcatruz in the Thirteen Provinces under the Royal Household.

Despite being close to fifty years old, he still maintains the appearance and vitality of a vigorous young man.

Even during imprisonment, he was held in a luxurious chamber rather than a normal cell, hinting at both his danger and his political weight.

He later escapes from prison with assistance from Risya In Empire.

After his escape, he clashes with key figures such as Iska, Rin Vispose, and the Hydra family, and becomes deeply involved again with Millavair and the hidden truths of the world.

Salinger is extremely arrogant and imperious, with absolute confidence in his own strength.

He repeatedly declares that “nobility does not reside in blood, but in ideals,” and despises those who rely on the prestige of their lineage.

He reinterprets his own atrocities as a form of “taxation,” claiming that a “king of astral mages is entitled to collect power from his people.”

For him, stealing astral spirits is not simple theft but a self-justified act of rule and ideology.

He is obsessed with mastering astral spirits and proclaims that he will “surpass the king by wielding the power of all astral spirits.”

His ambition does not stop at conventional magic; he aims for a higher evolutionary stage: the “third integration,” the complete fusion of human and astral spirit.

Salinger is harshly critical of pureblood royal families and other elites who are born with powerful spirits but, in his view, grow complacent and do nothing to improve themselves.

He believes that true worth is earned through struggle and growth, not inherited.

Despite his arrogance, he is not reckless.

He shows no trace of careless overconfidence, and habitually prepares layered, cautious strategies before acting.

He often claims that he has never taken Millavair seriously either in the past or the present, dismissing her publicly.

In reality, however, he has a deep and complicated attachment to her, one that borders on romantic affection and possessiveness.

Salinger is a beautiful, white-haired young man who typically wears a thick coat over his bare upper body.

The contrast between his elegant features and his brutal powers reinforces his image as a glamorous but terrifying villain.

Although he has spent thirty years imprisoned and is nearly fifty, his body remains youthful, strong, and unaged.

This unnatural preservation contributes to his almost inhuman charisma and presence.

His prison chamber in the Orelgan Tower is lavishly furnished, more like a noble’s suite than a cell.

This luxury, despite his status as a criminal, indicates both the fear and the grudging respect the authorities have for him.

Salinger possesses the astral spirit “Water Mirror,” manifested as star crests on both of his palms that together form a single complete crest.

By overlapping his right-hand star crest with another person’s crest, he can split their astral spirit into two portions.

The longer his palm remains in contact, the greater the share he can steal, up to a maximum of roughly fifty percent of the target’s astral power.

This stolen portion becomes his to wield as if it were his own.

Using this method, Salinger has taken more than a hundred powerful astral spirits, particularly from purebloods and other high-grade mages.

As a result, his combat capabilities are extremely versatile, allowing him to handle a wide range of elements and abilities.

Even when he has only half of a given spirit, his control and mastery allow him to overwhelm its original owner.

For example, with only half of a powerful earth spirit, he completely dominates Rin Vispose, who holds the original earth spirit of the same type.

His greatest astral technique is “Astral Tier Hymn,” a supreme art that fuses two different astral spirits, even when he only holds half of each.

By merging “incomplete pieces,” he creates integrated powers that overwhelmingly surpass ordinary astral magic.

He can, for instance, combine stolen light and darkness spirits to form twin blades of light and shadow.

Even so, he treats Astral Tier Hymn as a mere byproduct, insisting that his true goal lies beyond simple fusion magic.

Salinger’s ultimate objective is “third integration,” the complete fusion of human and astral spirit into a single existence.

This aspiration drives him to seek knowledge such as the original “Gregorio Cipher,” which records research into artificial human–spirit integration.

Despite his overwhelming magical versatility, his physical prowess is relatively modest compared with top-class warriors.

In the past, he was overpowered in raw strength by Millavair, and later even with Astral Tier Hymn’s twin blades he was defeated in close combat by Iska.

Millavair Lou Nebulis VIII

Millavair is the current queen of Nebulis and Salinger’s most important personal connection.

Publicly he derides her and claims he has never taken her seriously, but this is largely a bluff to conceal his true feelings.

In the past, Salinger repeatedly challenged Millavair in an attempt to steal her astral spirit, only to be defeated each time.

Her habit of coldly pointing out his flaws and sending him away made these defeats personally humiliating for him.

However, circumstances led them to meet outside the battlefield, where Salinger saw Millavair’s unguarded, everyday side and her genuine smile.

Without realizing it, he began to be attracted to her as a woman and came to cherish their repeated duels as a special, almost eternal routine.

He later looks at the confrontation between Iska and Aliceliese Lou Nebulis IX and is reminded strongly of his own dynamic with Millavair.

He describes those days as the time when he was her “one and only challenger,” a unique position he treasures.

During a conspiracy orchestrated by the Hydra family, Salinger learned that Millavair was being targeted.

Bursting with an unacknowledged possessiveness, he raged, essentially declaring that no one was allowed to lay a hand on “his woman” without his permission.

He headed to the royal palace to protect her and encountered a Hydra assassin known as “Subject F,” a prototype from astral-body experiments.

He fought Subject F, stole half of its astral spirit, and drove it off; that stolen earth spirit would later become the power with which he overwhelms Rin Vispose.

Unfortunately, Millavair arrived at the scene right after the assassin’s retreat and saw Salinger standing amidst the aftermath.

Misreading the situation, she concluded that Salinger was the one who had attacked the queen.

Because of his pride, Salinger refused to explain or defend himself.

His silence allowed himself to be cast as the main culprit in the queen-assault incident, turning him into the infamous “Transcendent Fiend” in the public eye.

For him, the wrongful accusation itself was nothing compared to the loss of Millavair’s trust.

He was prepared to accept execution, believing he deserved no less after being rejected by the person he cared about most.

Millavair, however, rejected the calls for his death.

Instead, she ensured he was confined in the most luxurious room within Orelgan Prison, saying that this was the best she could do for him before walking away from his life.

Even after decades, Salinger still holds deep feelings and regrets regarding Millavair.

He insists that only he has the right to call the current queen by her first name, and that anyone else doing so is committing disrespect not against her, but against him.

He has sworn not to obstruct her as queen.

Yet his resolve shatters when the Hydra family, in collusion with the Empire, invades the royal capital and leaves Millavair physically and emotionally wounded.

Enraged that someone dared to harm Millavair, Salinger declares that Hydra has committed intolerable disrespect toward him by targeting her.

This violation of his “reverse scale” pushes him into direct action.

Hydra Family and Vichyssoise Alek Hydra

The Hydra family is responsible for the conspiracy that framed Salinger and for the later assault on the Nebulis royal court.

They are deeply involved in forbidden astral research, including human–spirit fusion and the creation of experimental subjects such as Subject F.

After Millavair is injured during Hydra’s collusion with the Empire, Salinger storms Hydra’s research base, “Snow and Sun.”

He unleashes his overwhelming power there, treating the supposedly formidable Vichyssoise Alek Hydra as almost beneath notice and driving her back.

Within “Snow and Sun,” he also battles the Hydra princess Mizelhibiy and demonstrates just how terrifying his merged astral powers can be.

He uses this assault both as personal revenge and as a chance to seize research data he desires.

During the raid, he demands the original “Gregorio Cipher,” the foundational record of Hydra’s long-running attempts to artificially achieve human–astral spirit integration.

Obtaining the original document is one of Salinger’s key goals, as it directly relates to his aspiration for “third integration.”

After reading the Gregorio Cipher, he learns in detail about Hydra’s experiments and the catastrophic threats hidden in the core of the star itself.

The text describes that any elite Nebulis unit sent to eliminate this central calamity would be annihilated.

For a moment, he imagines Millavair being among such a sacrificial force and feels a powerful hesitation.

In the end, he crushes the original cipher in his hand, dismissing it as “worthless,” as if trying to sever his lingering attachments.

As a spiteful extra, he also frees Shuvalts, a captive held by Hydra, simply because it annoys them and aligns with his own mood.

This impulsive act further destabilizes the already fragile balance around Hydra’s schemes.

Iska and Other Figures

During his escape from Orelgan, Salinger easily overwhelms Rin Vispose in combat, showing the gulf between half-stolen power under his control and its original user.

This demonstration reinforces his belief that mastery and will matter more than bloodline or original ownership.

Iska intervenes mid-battle, and initially Salinger dismisses him as insignificant.

However, Iska proceeds to cut down Salinger’s astral techniques one after another with his sword, forcing Salinger to reassess him.

Salinger escalates by using Astral Tier Hymn, unleashing high-level fusion magic against Iska.

Iska not only withstands these attacks but even exploits their power to close in, his relentless advance unsettling Salinger for the first time in a long while.

Ultimately, Salinger loses that fight.

Nonetheless, he avoids capture by leaving behind a double and escaping, and he keeps three of his Astral Tier Hymns in reserve, having never revealed them.

Salinger also has a history with Emperor Yunmelngen of the Empire.

After breaking out of prison, he meets with the Emperor, who provides him with a secret imperial document.

The document details an infiltrator in Nebulis: a pureblood known as “Subject E.”

Salinger realizes he knows at least two people who fit the description, but decides he does not care and casually burns the document.

This reaction shows that he is not easily manipulated by either side’s political games.

He acts according to his own vision and attachments, not the plans of empires or royal houses.

Following the incident where he was mistakenly believed to have attacked Nebulis VII, Salinger was sentenced not to death but to long-term imprisonment.

Millavair’s intervention spared his life, but he was confined in the Orelgan Prison Tower for thirty years.

Orelgan is part of Alcatruz, the most famous prison city in the Thirteen Provinces under the Nebulis Royal Household.

It specifically houses astral mages who are criminals, making it one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the realm.

Despite being officially a prisoner, Salinger’s chamber is luxurious, more befitting a noble than a felon.

This unusual treatment indicates the authorities’ fear of his power and the political complications around executing him.

Over the decades, Salinger maintained his youthful body and razor-sharp mind.

He continued to contemplate astral spirits, integration, and the path to transcendence, never once resigning himself to a quiet end.

With the help and proposal of Risya In Empire, he eventually breaks out of Orelgan.

His escape reignites old grudges and entangles him with Millavair, Hydra, the Empire, and rising figures like Iska and Aliceliese Lou Nebulis IX.

At the core of Salinger’s worldview is the belief that true nobility lies in ideals instead of blood.

He despises hereditary privilege that does not strive to improve itself, especially when it relies on strong astral spirits handed down through royal bloodlines.

His theft of astral spirits is not framed, in his own mind, as simple criminal greed.

He sees himself as collecting the latent power of astral mages as a ruler would levy taxes, to elevate astral magic to a higher plane.

He wants to gather and master every kind of astral spirit so that he can transcend the very concept of a “king of astral mages.”

In his words, he will surpass the king by wielding the combined power of all astral spirits.

Astral Tier Hymn is one step on this path: a technique that fuses different spirits into a more advanced whole.

But even this awe-inspiring technique is, to him, merely a stepping stone.

His final goal is “third integration,” the complete fusion of human and astral spirit, creating a new being beyond current limits.

The Gregorio Cipher and Hydra’s research are valuable to him only insofar as they point toward this ultimate integration.

Yet his feelings for Millavair occasionally clash with his cold ideological pursuit.

Moments like crushing the Gregorio Cipher after imagining her death reveal that under his arrogance and ambition, there remains a deeply human attachment he cannot fully sever.

“Applaud and cheer. That is how you will welcome me.”

“Kneel. Only those who bow their heads here will be allowed to live.”

“To be noble is not a matter of blood. It resides in one’s ideals.”

“With the power of all astral spirits, I will surpass the king.”

“To injure the queen was excessive disrespect, Hydra.

Not toward her. Know that it is an insult to me.”