Just as Birand was about to deal with the merfolk, the world froze like a held breath.

The scene spiderwebbed with cracks, then shattered like porcelain in slow motion.

Eli drifted above a sea of darkness; his eyelids, clenched shut, flared open like blades catching light.

“Where… is this?” He shook his head, and pain needled through his skull like ice splinters.

He frowned, holding the ache like a hot coal, and scanned the void like a hunter in fog.

Ahead, three versions of him argued, voices clashing like crossed steel.

Thud.

An invisible wall caught him like glass snaring a bird, and he went sprawling like a knocked-over puppet.

He got up and ran a palm along the unseen barrier like a blind man feeling a door. “What now?”

“Looks like you still haven’t broken into a Sacred Rank of your own.”

The familiar voice rang like a bell in mist, and Eli turned.

A man with a face nine-tenths his own smiled with crescent eyes, like a mirror with a grin.

Eli blinked. “You are…?”

“You’re in my world, and you’re asking who I am? Hahaha, still a kid.”

His laugh moved like a blade sure of its edge.

Eli crouched in the void, hands to his temples like a man in a storm. “Then… who am I? Why am I here?”

“Well. I didn’t think this would happen.” The man sighed with a smile, like wind through reeds. “Up you get, Eli Aestor.”

The scene flipped like a page catching fire.

A sea of flowers rolled to the horizon; a breeze brushed Eli’s cheek like a soft hand.

“How is it? Pretty, right?” The familiar voice rustled like silk, and Eli turned on instinct.

They held each other’s eyes for a long beat, then both smiled like old rivals at a tea table.

“An honor, Birand Aste,” Eli said, voice steady as a drawn bow.

“Heh. That old man Yuris really gave you a baffling name.” Birand chuckled like a fox in sunlight.

“…”

“Looks like you’ve got a lot to ask.” Birand sat beside him, the flowers bending like waves.

“Yeah.”

“That place before? That was my breakthrough to Sacred Rank, a memory I left behind.

It was deep inside the Memory Crystal you found, so it cut in, and you saw that High Council meeting.”

Birand lay back in the flowers, inhaling an unknown scent like rain on loam.

“You want Sacred Rank badly, don’t you?”

Eli nodded. “Yeah.”

“Too bad. Sacred Rank is a gate only you can push open.”

Birand’s eyes stayed shut; the wind stopped dead, and the world felt like a clock with its spring removed.

Eli was quiet a moment, breath steady as frost. “Birand… am I you, or are you me?

When I find all the memories… what will we—what will I—become?”

“I’m just a memory,” Birand said, his voice like ash over embers. “A memory far from the day I died.

I can’t read the future’s mind. I don’t know what he—what I—seeks.”

Then he went hard as carved stone. “But this I can say. We either merge, or you—completely—disperse.

And no matter what, there’s no backlash on me. Even in merging, I lead.”

“…I see.” Eli’s silence fell like snow.

“Still planning to hunt my memories?” Birand’s smile tilted like a knife.

Eli looked at the face so close to his own and smiled back like a river reflecting the same moon.

“Honestly? After that speech, I’m scared.”

“Mm. I’d be too.” Birand tugged at his slightly long hair like a cat amused with string.

“But I’m still going.”

“Oh?”

“You cobbled together a damned organization of transmigrators. I have to get strong.

I have to find your damned memories first, learn their sealing arts, and lock your damned memories in a box forever. That’s my plan.”

Eli’s tone was cool as a night lake.

“Hahahahahahaha—you’re—hahaha—ridiculous.” Birand turned, slapping the ground, laughing like thunder under a roof.

“A perfect copy of me—hahaha—absolutely.”

“What’s funny?”

“I’m laughing at how naive you are. Nothing’s that easy.”

Birand conjured a giant tree with a flick; he leaned on its bough like a lazy leopard and kept laughing.

Too naive. Who knew what height he’d reached in the end? Would that man leave a hole you could drive a carriage through?

“I’ve still got to try. Otherwise, when those guys gather every Memory Crystal and jack them straight into my skull, my brain’s going to fry like oil.”

Eli shrugged, helpless as a kite in crosswind.

“And with those freaks’ intel, once they collect it all, hiding’ll be like trying to bury smoke.”

“Hah, true. You’re already out of options.” Birand shrugged too, a mirror gesture in mirrors.

He glanced at a watch that wasn’t there, a smile tugging like a secret.

“Time’s about up. Better to chat than feed you that pointless lantern show. Besides, this version of me doesn’t have your precious truth.”

Eli looked up into the sky like a man reading an empty scroll and said nothing.

“Haha, you don’t seem to mind. Fine. This memory doesn’t hold your truth. So—”

“Got it. Stop looping like a parrot, will you?” Eli shrugged, a leaf in wind.

Birand chuckled softly. “Alright then, one parting line.

If you want Sacred Rank, you first have to know where you stand.”

“…Mm.”

“Are you the reincarnation of the great Hero Birand?

Or the orphanage’s brawling brat Eli?

Or the archmage Aestor whose name rings across Draco? Or, maybe—”

“Mm. I’m simply Eli Aestor.”

“…So you’ve got your footing, you little bastard, and you still came to stir the pot.” Birand clapped his shoulder, smiling like dawn.

“Mm…”

“Oh, right. A gift.”

“Huh?”

Eli looked up. Yiyi fell from the sky, eyes closed, like a plum blossom drifting out of season.

Eli hissed between his teeth. “...Tsk…”

“Ahem. Who’d have thought our face cleans up this cute, huh?” Birand’s grin went wicked as a cat.

“What is this?”

“Remember the clone art?” Birand asked.

“You’re saying—?”

“Yep. I’ve trained the body. You just run the spell and pour in a soul.”

Birand’s eyes narrowed to crescents.

Eli didn’t react, and Birand jabbed, all teeth. “Oh-ho, give you a clone to run errands and you’re not happy?

Oh!!! Or do you actually like wearing dresses?”

“Screw you!” Eli punched Birand like a hammer hitting a drum. “I’m asking why you didn’t use this back then.”

“I did. Otherwise how do you think I reversed the war the moment I joined the Alliance?” Birand said.

“So where’d they all go?” Eli frowned, a fold in stormcloud.

“No idea. Keep hunting the memories. Maybe you’ll find out.” Birand shrugged like a bridge letting water pass.

As memory fused, Eli ran the incantation; a strand of his soul peeled from his body like a ribbon of light and sank into Yiyi’s body.

“Mm. Looks like this piece of me’s about done merging. That’s it for now.” Birand’s figure faded like ink in rain.

Eli closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he’d snapped back to where he started.

Right now, he was standing stark naked in the snow, a scarecrow in frost.

Then—

“Achoo! …Ah, hell—” He yanked a cloak from his personal storage space like a magician pulling dusk from a hat.

He eyed the crater gouged by fusion’s spent power like a wound in earth, glanced at Yiyi sprawled on the ground, and smiled.

He drew out another garment, wrapped her tight like a dumpling, and lifted off, leaving the scene like a bird from a branch.

About five minutes later, Albert blinked into the spot like a knife out of nowhere.

Cold-eyed, he swept the area like a winter wind.

He stepped forward, crouched, and picked up a tiny shoe—Yiyi’s—edges slightly charred like toasted paper.

His face went thunder-black. “Good. You’d hit a little girl that hard. Pray I never catch you.”

Not far away, Eli sniffled. “Achoo. Hmm… looks like I caught a cold.”

…

“Sis, how long have we been hanging up here?” Angela tilted her head, yawning like a sleepy cat.

“Shut it. I’m the protagonist and I’ve been off-screen a whole chapter. You wanna whine about time?” Edlyn rapped her on the head like knocking a gourd.

“Mmph. How’s that my fault…” Angela cupped her skull like a hen guarding an egg.

Not far off, the group finally got tired, hugged the sisters’ stand-ins, and swaggered into an apartment like wolves into a pen.

“Sis, look. They’re awful. Broad daylight, and the passersby just stare.” Angela fumed, cheeks puffed like steamed buns.

Edlyn didn’t blink. “That’s this city. The underworld and the government run neck and neck.

If they don’t catch it red-handed, they’ll turn one eye blind and the other cloudy.”

“Mm, won’t Brother Xili and the other princes send people? This city’s huge.” Angela frowned, a crease like a bent reed.

“Heh. Wouldn’t surprise me if the old emperor himself set this one up. They’re just princes. They don’t get to call that tune.”

“So what do we do?”

“Heh.” Edlyn smiled, and her gaze sharpened like a blade catching moonlight.

Somewhere in that apartment, demonic qi pooled like black mist behind a door.

“As expected.” She smiled again, sly as a fox.

“Sis?”

“Angela, here’s what I need you to do.” She leaned to her sister’s ear, whispering like wind in bamboo.

“Oh… but sis, you still haven’t told me why we came here.”

“Brat, stop asking so much.” Edlyn glared; Angela turtled her neck like a spooked quail and kept quiet.

“I thought Eli was just shooting his mouth. Turns out even a place like this oozes demonic qi. Heh.”

Edlyn’s grin went wicked, a crescent over dark water.

“Now then, time to grow my grand enterprise! Ha↑ ha→ ha↓ ha↓ ha→.”

“…Uncle Eli, sis is sick. Please come save me.” Angela shook her head like a leaf in helpless wind.