Edlyn stood in the bare room like a lone pine in winter, silent for a long beat, then drifted toward the desk.

The desktop looked empty, a calm pond hiding its fish.

She raised her arm, breath tight like a bowstring, then let it ease.

Pure demonic aura seeped from her like ink in water, coiling to shroud the desk.

A blue barrier sprang up with a glassy shimmer, rippling like frozen lake-ice to block the dark mist.

Edlyn let out a rueful chuckle, a wisp of warmth in frost. “Didn’t expect this. How strong were you when you laid this array?”

“Back then you could even ward off demonic erosion. Honestly… I don’t even know what to say.” She smiled as if soothing herself, a leaf turning in wind.

She knew Eli had woven it to stop necromancy and other Demon Race energies from eating the ward.

So he left a double layer that barred the dark, a night gate within a night gate.

Edlyn sighed, a tide going out, and said no more.

She fed more aura in, steady as rain. The mist gnawed the brittle shield like moths taking silk, and ate it clean.

Only then did the desk’s true shape emerge, dusk lifting from a hill.

It was a crimson wooden desk, red as embered coals. On it lay a single book with a black cover, nothing else.

Edlyn took the book in silence, as if weighing a bird in her hand.

She opened the first page with a breath light as dust.

Continental Calendar 2175, May 13.

Uh, anyway, I basically got kicked out of the orphanage, so from now on I’m facing this messy world on my own~

Thinking about it now, I’m a little excited, like standing at a cliff with the wind in my face.

At least get my Archmage certification in three years, then I should be able to scrape by.

Being a “Hero” and all that—yeah, that was just my edgy teenage delusion.

Face reality, kid—You’re ordinary. No talent. No halo. Just shoes and road.

Days loop back to the starting line in the end.

Er… okay… feels like I wrote a bunch of nonsense. Whatever, whatever.

Edlyn rolled her eyes and shrugged, a cat flicking its tail. So he was an idiot even as a kid.

She pinched the page corner to turn, then paused, a prickle like cold on the neck.

She turned the book sideways. Many corners were dog-eared like little mountains.

Cradling the diary, she sat on Eli’s bed, the sheets cool as moonlight, and spread it across her lap.

She flipped through the dog-eared pages, one folded wave after another.

Continental Calendar 2181, July 20.

His consciousness seems to be affecting me. I don’t know what comes next.

I only hope he spares me.

…………………………

Continental Calendar 2682, July 23.

No… I can’t do it. I really can’t.

I put everything down, and this is how I get treated?

No. I refuse. I won’t accept it.

…………………………

Continental Calendar 2685, July 25.

I thought it was gone.

But… turns out I am him… or…

I don’t know what to do. Maybe the director can help me.

What matters most in life?

That was the last counsel the director gave me when I left the orphanage.

What is it?

In my eyes, wealth for a lifetime, a beauty at my side, free and easy days, sly friends and a pack of drinking buddies. That’s the bare minimum and the must-have.

The director said not to seek him until I found the answer.

But I never felt my answer was wrong.

I’m just an orphan. Even my feelings were thinner than a commoner’s.

Even if I got my Archmage certification—so what? What good is “Archmage”? I don’t have those messy sentiments.

Deep down I mostly think about money and comforts, not chasing higher magic or serving the nation.

I figured that would suppress that guy’s thoughts.

Let me be myself.

Isn’t that fine?

My name, they say an Archmage chose it. It means the one who forgets and loses everything.

If I’m the one who forgets and loses all, why do those memories still haunt me like rain on a leaking roof?

Am I Eli or Birand?

Dreams copying his thoughts every day are driving me mad, a drum beating in my skull.

…………………………

Edlyn frowned, a knot tightening. This was the last page; Eli seemed to have hit something hard.

But… it was fog and fragments. What did he mean?

Continental Calendar 2688, August 7.

Packed everything. Time to go.

I probably won’t come back here.

I hope so. And still… I’m reluctant, like dust clinging to a sleeve.

The director says there’s a Bloodkin ripple near a small village to the west.

Maybe I should take a look.

…………………………………………

Edlyn stared at the final period as if it were a black well, and fell into silence.

Confusion rose like mist; the more she read, the denser it wrapped her.

She tried the pages without marks. Mostly, they were Eli’s small daily trifles, sun and bread.

They didn’t taste like these few entries.

A rough count said just over a hundred pages.

So he didn’t write every day; he wrote when the wind changed.

And yet…

That last page.

Did it mean he went there with another purpose?

Edlyn bit her lip, a white petal caught by teeth.

That vampire…

“You lowborn things—what do you dare reach for?” Edlyn’s pupils darkened like stormwater as she stared at the kneeling Kondley. He felt the pressure ease like a lifted boulder, and glanced up at her, puzzled.

“You?” His voice wavered, a twig in wind.

The flash of power was gone. Edlyn’s anger burned low, ember not blaze, and the hauteur slipped from her shoulders.

“Nothing. Just answer this king—what are you seeking?” She straightened, trying to hold a crown made of air.

Eli saw her state and smiled, half amused, half grave, like dawn behind cloud.

He’d felt that aura before. The demonic soul bound to her was high-tier Demon Race. He needed to fix what nested in her body.

“Seeking… seeking a chance to advance.” Kondley hesitated, then let the words drop like pebbles.

Edlyn closed her eyes, cool as a shutter falling.

He was just a Bloodkin without even the Sacred Rank.

His title wasn’t high, a dim star in a late sky.

Clearly born after Annihilation Dawn, a weak-blooded strain.

So she had overlooked something, a thorn under moss.

Since he was born after the cataclysm…

It meant at least one Bloodkin of powerful lineage clawed through that disaster alive.

Did Eli go to find him?

But in the end, didn’t he leave with me?

Was it because he didn’t find them, or—

“He didn’t fail to find them. That one is slumbering, useless for now.” A familiar voice rolled in front of her like a bell in fog.

Edlyn froze, then looked at the sound as it gathered into a phantom, light as incense smoke.

Her voice trembled, a string plucked. “Eli. Is that you?”

“This is the last message I left, borrowed through Yiyi’s body. Ai-chan, I know you’ve got questions, and you don’t want to let go. But if you’re seeing this, it means my soul’s been squeezed out by that guy and annihilated.”

Eli’s projection smiled with quiet ease, looking off as if watching a distant shore.

Edlyn kept silent, breath held like a candle. She needed answers more than comfort.

Even if he said that, it didn’t mean hope was gone.

All she could do now was gather threads of truth.

“I’ll show you something.” Eli reached out and tapped her brow, a touch like dew.

A frail soul drifted out, pale as a moth.

Edlyn darted forward to catch it, hands cupped like a spring.

Li Gongxuan cupped his hands to Eli in a martial salute. “Friend, we should leave.”

“Leaving? Back to the Far East?” Eli sighed, wind on reeds.

Li Gongxuan smiled. “Yeah. Time to go.”

Liqianyu stood behind him, her mood heavy as rain.

Li Gongxuan glanced at his sister, then drew Eli aside with a laugh. “Brother Eli, thanks for looking after my little sister.”

“…No need to be formal.”

“If you’ve got time, come visit the Far East.” Li Gongxuan’s smile was a lantern in dusk.

“Sure.” Eli shrugged, loose as a drifting cloud.

“But if you really plan to come, hurry,” Li Gongxuan said, voice turning secret-soft.

“What’s up?” Eli’s brows knit like crossed twigs.

“Our Far East is a hidden realm. Do you know why the Demon King never attacked us?”

“Why?” Eli asked, confusion a ripple.

“Because… back then, that place didn’t yet have the concept of the Far East.” Li Gongxuan spoke like a whisper through bamboo.

“What!” Eli was stunned, thunder without rain.

“No more words. If you want to know, or you want to seek certain things, come to the Far East. Some of us will tell you properly.” Li Gongxuan smiled again, a sealed letter passed hand to hand.

“…Fine. It’s a deal.”

“A deal.”

Eli noticed Liqianyu’s gaze had never left him, and he chuckled. “Hm? Old rogue, can’t bear to part with me?”

Liqianyu blinked, then shook her head. “Like hell. Get lost. You annoy me just by standing there.”

“Hahaha.”

When Edlyn came back to herself, Eli’s voice was a cool stream. “Trust them. They’ll be your greatest aid. If you and I are ever to find redemption… it’ll be through them.”

Edlyn stared at the smiling phantom, fingers knotting her skirt like vines. “How much did you hide from me?”

The phantom didn’t answer. He only watched her with love, a breeze on a summer noon.

Edlyn wiped her eyes, a swift wingbeat, and managed a small nod.