The First Transgression

Overview

The First Transgression was the failed invasion of the Tower by Victor the Third, king of Lindsey, two years after the Tower's establishment. Victor led an army of thirty thousand into the Eterna Mountains to reclaim territory transferred to demon control by the Peace Treaty of Hope.

The campaign ended with Victor's death, the destruction of his army, and the subsequent dissolution of the Kingdom of Lindsey. It was remembered as a transgression because it tested how far the Lord of the Tower could act under the treaty, but it differed fundamentally from the Second Transgression: the Lord fought an army invading the territory he had been assigned to defend rather than entering a human succession war.

Lindsey's grievance

Before the Demon War, the Eterna range had fallen within Lindsey's borders. The peace settlement converted the mountains into demon territory on the human side of the Gate and placed the crossing under the authority of a neutral guardian. Lindsey therefore lost land, resources, and direct control of the route between realms.

Victor's nobles used that loss to manipulate their king. They treated the treaty as humiliation and encouraged him to restore the kingdom's prestige by force. Victor declared the settlement false and spent several months preparing an army large enough to seize both the mountains and the Tower.

Zero's warning

As the Lindsey force crossed the mountain passes, it encountered a single elderly messenger dressed as a butler. The messenger was Zero, acting for Shun Sato. He warned that any further advance would violate the treaty and that the Lord would use his full strength to defend the Gate.

Victor dismissed the warning as a bluff from a frightened demon and continued the march. The encounter became central to Zero's later reputation. Stories carried through human taverns remembered the immaculate servant who delivered a final warning before an entire kingdom vanished, earning him the title "Harbinger of Ill Omens."

Destruction of the invading army

Shun appeared before the advancing army and fought it at the Tower's approaches. Public history records that the Lord stood alone against thirty thousand soldiers and emerged victorious. Victor died in the battle, leaving Lindsey without both its sovereign and the force intended to restore its power.

The scale of the victory established the Lord of the Tower as a military power beyond the capacity of an ordinary kingdom to challenge. Human governments that had known him principally as the demon hero involved in making peace now understood what the guardian could do when the treaty territory was attacked.

Fall of Lindsey

The battle left Lindsey almost defenseless. The neighboring Kingdom of Agabah and Kingdom of Helio formed a coalition and declared war, presenting their campaign as punishment for Lindsey's violation of the peace.

The weakened kingdom could not withstand attacks from two fronts. Its defenses collapsed, its lands were divided between the victors, and Lindsey ceased to exist as an independent state. The Tower did not annex the surviving human territory; the political map was redrawn by the human kingdoms that exploited Victor's defeat.

Treaty judgment

Shun suffered no punishment for the First Transgression. Responsibility fell on Lindsey because Victor had rejected a warning, crossed into protected territory, and attempted to seize the Gate. The Lord's violence could therefore be interpreted as fulfillment of his duty under the treaty rather than prohibited participation in human politics.

That judgment created the precedent against which the Second Transgression was measured. Defending Eterna from invasion was accepted. Leaving the Tower to determine the outcome of the Hikari Civil War was treated as a direct breach of neutrality and brought Shun before Magnus.

Retrospective significance

Volume II reveals that the apparently empty Tower contains the hidden Household of the Tower, many of whose members can emerge directly from Shun's shadow. After seeing Ryosuke, Roku, and the other concealed servants, Yumi Raijin privately questioned whether Shun had truly defeated Lindsey's army entirely alone.

Her suspicion is not confirmation. The established account therefore remains that Shun stood against the army alone, while Yumi's doubt records how the discovery of the household complicated her trust in public history.

The event also explains why later human emissaries feared Zero before he spoke and why the Tower's warnings carried the weight of national destruction. Its legacy was deterrence: after Lindsey's fall, no ordinary human crown could mistake the guardian's restraint for weakness.