The shadow in the water cell watched the attacks swirl like storm fish, sighed like mist over a pond, pressed his palms together, and sat cross‑legged.

Edlyn hopped like a sparrow startled from a branch, cheering, “Oh yeah! Payback’s here!”

Wei Mi steadied his breath like a drawn bow and told his two partners, “When it’s time, ease off. Don’t actually kill him.”

The two teen boys nodded hard, like mallets thudding a drum.

Calm drifting over him like a tide at dusk, Eli looked at his hands and closed his eyes.

“Surrender!” Wei Mi’s shout cracked like thunder on a ridge.

The boys were already pulling back when Eli’s eyes snapped open, a storm of mana surging from within and lifting his black hair like night reeds in wind.

“Myriad Spirit Lock.”

His low murmur rang like metal on water, and silver chains burst from him like shooting stars, each line snaring one of the three in a heartbeat.

Three voices snapped, “What?!”, shattering like brittle ice.

Their mana went dead, like a cord cut from a kite, leaving them as helpless as ordinary folk.

Sande’s nine clones unraveled like smoke at dawn.

The ice‑rain overhead lost its handler and plunged like a broken dam. Edlyn flinched, reaching for a seventh‑tier blink, only to find her mana a drained well. Her legs softened, and she dropped to her knees.

She struggled like a moth in sap, then felt her strength vanish like a snuffed candle, so she closed her eyes and surrendered to it.

Eli smiled, tugged the three bound by chains close like trussed fowl, then snapped a fading chain toward the sky, sweeping the crashing ice‑rain above their patch clean like a broom through glass.

He pulled out hemp rope, bound the trio like a bundle of reeds, tore small squares from their shirts, and gagged them. He smirked. “Brats, edgy’s fine. Crazy’s bad. Uncle’ll cure that.”

The three glared, embers under ash, protesting in silence.

An ice shard slammed beside Edlyn like a falling star. “Ah!” Her cry rang, a reminder he’d clean forgotten her.

Dread hit Eli like cold surf. “Damn.”

A forming spell trembled in his palm like sand in an hourglass. “Too late.”

He flashed to Edlyn’s side and folded her into his arms like wings of a cloak.

Several ice spears stabbed through him like winter blades. Eli grunted, blood threading his lips like thin crimson silk. His array just clicked shut. “Earth… Holdfast.”

A dark, heavy stone wall rose like a mountain back, sheltering the two within its shadow.

Eli yanked out the ice arrows like thorns from bark and gave a wry smile. “Show off, get smote. Should’ve finished this early.”

The pain Edlyn braced for never came. Warmth wrapped her like a wool mantle, and she blinked up at him. “You.”

“Little miss, don’t go falling for me—ow.” Eli pulled a face, pain stinging like an icy needle.

“...” Edlyn blanked for a beat, then realized she was nestled against him like a kitten in straw.

She frowned, stayed still, tamped down a flutter that felt halfway between shyness and ache, and studied the Hero’s wounds with a lantern‑steady gaze.

It wasn’t romantic, she told herself like a mantra. The Hero got hurt saving her, and letting a wounded man lean on her meant nothing. Yet blush bloomed on her cheeks like peach petals.

She carefully tore his shirt open at the chest like peeling silk, and her brows knit at the twin blood holes in chest and belly, two crimson wells. Her mood twisted, glad and strange.

Glad her nemesis from a past life lay gravely hurt, strange that the hurt was earned for her sake, fate knots tangling like vine.

Eli watched the little miss tug his shirt, her eyes fixed on his muscles like stars on a lake; her face flushed cherry‑pink, unbearably cute.

He coughed, snapping the mood like a twig. He eased her out of his arms, pulled healing salves from his pack, and was about to apply them when Edlyn snatched the vial with a smile. “Sir Hero, let me do it.”

Inside, Edlyn’s thoughts gleamed like a fox’s eyes. Time to map the Hero’s body for later—defeat made easier.

Eli coughed and nodded, a small wind through reeds.

Her hands moved over him, heat rising to her cheeks like steam from rice, and that rosy look tugged at him like a sweet trap.

Outside, the three still wore the seal of Eli’s chains. They writhed like crabs in netting and couldn’t slip the hemp rope.

They glowered toward the nearby dark earthen mound, heavy as a tomb.

That unshakable mound told them plain as mountains and sparrows—they weren’t Eli’s match.

Eli quickly caught Edlyn’s restless hand, heartbeat uneven like a drum. “Ahem, miss, I’ll handle it myself. Also, after all this, I still don’t know your name.”

He slapped himself in his mind like a splash of cold water. He’d seen every kind of beauty; why did a barely budding girl tug him so? Was he turning into a shameless sucker for cute?

Edlyn, denied her “measurements,” pouted like a cherry lip. “I’m Edlyn Brullar. May I ask your name, sir?”

Eli finished the salve, pulled his shirt back on, and smiled. “Eli Aestor.”

Edlyn brushed her white hair behind her ear like a swan feather. “Ah… then, Eli, why are you here?”

He kept a faint smile, like dawn over slate. “To seek my past.”

Edlyn nodded, thoughts spinning like a windmill. No wonder he chose that name. Seeking his past meant seeking Birand. Did he already know he was the Hero? She couldn’t let him turn back into Birand so easily.

Her eyes flicked like a fox tail. She tapped her chin and asked, “Then… take me with you, won’t you?”

Eli looked at her, surprised like a ripple on still water. “You?” He shook his head. “No. This road’s dangerous, and it’s all hardship. Can you handle it?”

“I can. I want to travel a bit, see the world,” Edlyn said quickly, like sparrows pecking rice.

Eli still shook his head, firm as a stone gate.

“Please, please, take me,” Edlyn bit her lip, big eyes shimmering like stars, locked on Eli.