"Father?" The Abyss asked Edlyn, voice warped like wind dragging over a cliff edge. "What's with that title?"

He was plainly unused to it, like rock unaccustomed to rain.

Zero stepped forward, chin tilted, a crescent-blade smile catching phantom light. "Abyss, you bled to create her. In essence, that makes you her father."

The Abyss went still, a lake with no ripples. Then, flat as slate, "Enough nonsense. Human, what do you want?"

Zero smiled, a calm moon behind cloud. "No, no. Not what I want. What do you want, Abyss?"

"What do I want?" The Abyss sounded crooked, like a mirror bent by heat.

"Haven't you noticed? Your true body and power are sealed tight, a mountain under ice. You're speaking with me as a stray consciousness."

"Good. Ant, you've stirred my interest," the Abyss said, a knife glint in fog.

Disappointment sank first, then breath followed. Edlyn leaned on Zero, eyes on the sky’s single eye, and sighed like wind through reeds.

She lowered her proud head like a lotus after rain.

No one within common sight could see it: the Demon King shed a tear, a bead of dew slipping off a blade.

The tear trailed her cheek like a silver snail’s path.

Her chest ached, then unknotted in a sigh. Edlyn didn’t know why tears had come, a spring bubbling in drought.

She had only wanted another look at the Abyss, like a child peeking at a storm.

She knew it well: with her birth and race, “parents” were a mirage shimmering over hot sand.

She’d passed through the Gate Between Worlds with Eli, meeting his true parents in his old world, a hearth warm as amber.

Watching that family’s warm circle, somewhere along the road a seed of envy caught light in her.

Edlyn gave a bitter smile; the tear reached her nose like a raindrop on stone. Her eyes reddened, a dusk over water, and she lost her bearings.

When had she started longing for a home, like a bird aching for a nest?

Warmth touched her like sunlight through cloud. A hand brushed eye and nose dry, cupped her face, and a smile said, "Don't be afraid. You still have me."

She froze, then looked at the man tangled with her fate like vines around a pillar, and warmth lit a small hearth in her chest.

Sense returned like a tide rolling back. She realized her slip, batted away those annoying hands like moths.

She wiped her tears, lips a pouty peach. "Hmph, as if I care."

Zero shook his head, unhooked his mask, and tossed it from the high dais like a falling leaf. He laughed. "Oh? You really despise me?"

"Of course." Edlyn planted her fists on her hips, bristling like a fox with raised fur.

The memory of her lapse flushed her cheeks like dawn. In shy anger she stomped Eli’s foot, shot him a daggered look. "You bastard!"

"Huh? How’s that my fault again?" Eli grimaced, then drew her in like an anchor pulling a boat. "Fine. Who else do you have but me?" He sent a teasing glance skyward at the Eye of the Abyss, a spark flicking at thunderheads.

"Tsk." Edlyn frowned, then buried her face in Eli’s chest like a bird in pine boughs.

"Human, you—" The Abyss hesitated, a cliff swallowed by fog, and left it there.

He couldn’t read the shape of those two, like a blind hand on a sculpture.

His feelings had sloughed off millions of years ago, when he became a shard of the world, a stone set in the mountain.

Now came a craftsman’s chill: a tool he’d forged working perfectly in another’s hands, a grit under the eyelid that made him want to crush this human like an ant.

"If I recall, your name is Pandora, yes?" The Abyss eyed Edlyn in Eli’s arms, frost coiling on iron. "As a special member of my Abyss, how can you be that close to a human?"

Edlyn gave a wry smile, thin as winter sunlight. "Father. This is. My choice. Please respect it."

"Choice?" The Abyss frowned, a wrinkle through stone. "How much happened while I slept?"

Edlyn shook her head, a willow shedding rain. "Not world-shaking things. I just chose myself."

"..." The Abyss fell silent, a mind still half-mist, unable to swallow mountains in one bite.

Edlyn smiled and shook her head. Enough. The rest was dream-smoke. For now, she had only the man beside her, a lantern in night.

A tender look flickered like a firefly, then hid.

Eli’s chuckle was almost soundless, a ripple under moonlight. At his level, he felt that sweet glance and tightened his arms like a belt on armor.

He knew it: in this life, he might never pull his longing free of this girl, like silk caught on thorns.

"Human. I have words for you," the Abyss said, voice rasping like stone on stone.

Annoyance flared, then thought cooled it. Eli frowned. Of course. He wouldn’t dwell on Edlyn; he’d wrench his focus aside like a helm tugged in gale.

Eli sighed, a wind across reeds. He could guess the move. The Eye of the Abyss had awakened—yes, just its consciousness, a spark under ice.

A balance in the world had tilted, then slammed back level under a brute hand.

In these few breaths, that mind drank memories from the sealing to now, a river gulping rain.

Soon, that consciousness wouldn’t be a relic from millions of years ago, no more dust on old bone.

Eli sighed again. The gap was a canyon. The World’s Apex lay beyond reach, a star past the clouds. He was far from beings like this.

A mere Supreme God seat, before the World’s Apex, was an ant under a fingernail—snapped to nothing.

"Back to it, human." The Eye of the Abyss opened like a storm-lid lifting. "What do you want? You revived me. For what?"

Eli smiled, a knife kept sheathed. "Abyss, same answer. It’s not what I want. It’s what you want."

"There is nothing I want," the Abyss said, voice bare as winter branches.

Eli’s smile tilted like a crescent. "Then you don’t want out of that seal?"

At that, the great eye clenched shut, and a hot gale slammed down. "Human. I’m getting more and more tempted to kill you."

"Feeling’s mutual," Eli said, a cold spark in his tone.

"So then."

"Yeah. I’m here to talk cooperation."

"Oh?"

"Against the Celestial God, maybe only you have a shot," Eli said, smile like flint.

"Good. Interesting. Show me why you can say that."

The Abyss kept that low, rasping, emotionless voice, a drum in a cavern.

Eli sighed, a long wind through pines. "It’s all going to start. You can’t run either, Abyss."

"...On what grounds?"

"On the fact you’re still sealed, a dragon under a mountain."

"...Ridiculous."

...

"The Tree of Life’s second tier—getting up is easy," Raphael said, pointing skyward like an archer sighting a star. "Like a bug, just climb from the base. Look."

Black, cylindrical roots speared the roof, leaving thin seams around the wound like cracks in ice.

Raphael sighed, breath like leaves. "That’s the path our elders took when they carried out the royal blood of the Elf Race, pureborn. Follow it up. You might find the Spring of Life."

Eli nodded, a pebble falling. "Alright."

He traded a look with a pensive Edlyn—two sparks struck from flint—and both eyes flashed with excitement.

Who would’ve thought? They’d only come to chase a lead on the World Tree, a thread in the dark.

Now they might snag the Spring of Life, a jewel in deep water. This haul was a windfall.

So the four of them sprawled onto the Tree of Life’s black roots, climbing like lizards on obsidian toward the second tier.

The height wasn’t much; with their strength, it was a hill to long legs.

They reached the second tier, and it was a different world, a door opening into light.

The first tier had only roots, bare bones under earth, no other life.

The second was a garden caught in eternal spring, a quilt of green and color.

Warmth pooled there, soft as sun on moss, and comfort drifted like tea steam.

A hundred blossoms opened, circling the sky-tall giant, bright faces turned toward an ancient elder.

".....Didn’t expect this," Eli breathed, mist leaving his lungs. "That desolate air below hasn’t touched this at all."

Edlyn sighed, a reed bending in wind. "Not quite, Eli. Life here leans on what’s below to grow, like vines on a wall."

"Life here?" Eli frowned, storm lines on his brow. "What do you mean?"

"Too complex. Just remember this: the strong survive," Edlyn said, dropping tangled thoughts like stones, then pointed. "Hey, you lousy Hero, look."

She pointed up. Near the crown, among lush leaves, hung human-shaped white lights every few meters, lanterns in a green sea.

Raphael stepped up with a guide’s smile, voice smooth as a stream. "Friends, those are the most original forms of the Elf Race."

Yiyi stood behind them, shoulders shaking in a quiet laugh, a bell under cloth.

Since when did this guy turn into a tour guide?

But Edlyn and Eli weren’t watching the hanging lights. Their gaze fixed on the highest fork, where a band of gold glowed like dawn caught in wood.

It rested in the trunk’s heart, unlike any seed of this tree, a sun pebble wedged in bark.

Central and high, it sat like a heartbeat in a giant’s chest.

Eli blinked, a star winking. Looked like the Seed of Life.

Excitement pricked him like pins. Maybe here was the moment to shake off fate, a snake slipping old skin.

Edlyn stared at it, drifting like smoke, thought walking far.

So this is how it grows. The one she’d had came from the Dark Elves, scarred and dulled, no different from an ordinary peach.

Raphael closed his eyes, lids like shutters. Here he felt the two souls inside him go quiet together, a lake without wind.

He let out a breath. "Good thing they’re not here to wreck the place," he murmured, relief like cool rain.

He looked around, puzzled, a fox pricking its ears.

Where were those old undyings? Where did they all go???