"But... I don't even know how to craft higher minds... and I've never studied their bodies." Yulia rolled her eyes like a pale moon, helplessness pooling like rainwater.

Eli rubbed his aching head, a drum still humming after thunder.

How do I even teach this? Panic first, answers nowhere. "Just... just wing it. Do whatever... yeah, that."

"Oh-ho."

"Ahem... figure it out yourself. That's all I've got. What it becomes is on you." Eli patted her shoulder like brushing fresh snow. "Go get it. Believe in yourself."

"Oh-ho."

Black lines of exasperation seemed to streak Yulia’s face. Eli waved, plucked a fruit from the tree she’d planted, and drifted off like a breeze with no address.

Yulia sighed, a wind through bamboo. She stared at the energy in her palm, a small sun dimming and brightening. "Man... this is rough."

She chose a quiet nook, sat before her stone dais, and tinkered with oddities like fireflies caught in clay.

Eli perched on a vast bough, a fruit apple-like in his hand, his gaze cast far, mind drifting like a lone cloud.

After a long beat, he lowered his head, glanced at the little beasts nearby, and smiled, a ripple across still water.

"Wanna eat?" He waved the apple toward a cluster of white rabbits.

They didn’t get him. Ears like leaves, they glanced up at the treetop where Eli sat, then hopped away like scattered petals.

Eli shook his head. He took a bite. His face went strange, like tasting rain from a rusted gutter. He said nothing, just swallowed it down, seed and all, then mused, "Looks fine. The taste and texture need work. You’re a beginner; I won’t nitpick."

"You’re in a good mood." A boy appeared under the tree, armored in dusk-dark plate, his whole form a body of mist, yet his face strangely young. He smiled up. "So, Mr. Yi, mind if I talk with you here?"

He sat at the trunk’s base, hands pillowing his head, as lazy as shade in summer.

"What good’s a refusal? I’m not the landlord here. Do what you want." Eli dusted his palms, dropped from the branch, and turned to leave without a glance.

The boy faded under the tree like fog, then reformed on the path ahead. He reached out a hand. "Mind if we become friends?"

Eli ghosted past him. The offered hand hung there like a stray branch in winter. When five steps split their shadows, Eli finally spoke, voice cool as night water. "Sorry. I mind."

The boy’s face dimmed, gloom thickening like ink in a bowl.

Only a breath later, he capped it. He turned, a long staff resting across his shoulders like a bridge. He smiled. "At least I’m showing sincerity. Right?"

Eli still ignored him. He flicked a hand behind him, shooing a gnat from the air.

The boy’s face stiffened. Cold crept into his tone, with a thin edge of mockery. "Mr. Yi, I want to see how much power Zero sent to guard Yulia. Enough for her to think she can protect her low-tier species while fending off Edward and me?"

"You want to fight me?" Eli stopped and turned. Indifferent eyes, veiled by a butterfly mask, pinned the boy like frost pins a leaf.

The boy’s pupils tightened. Fear first, body second. He felt like timid prey, and Eli like a prime predator weighing every tendon and flaw. One look, and he felt flayed to the bone.

He stepped back. He noticed his own falter, gritted his teeth, and forced a step forward, like a reed trying to stand against wind.

In that blink, fear took root in his chest. This man wasn’t someone he could defeat now. The thought dropped like a seed into dark soil.

"That’s all it is." Eli shook his head. His tone never rose. No mockery, no malice, just plain winter-cold indifference.

That, more than scorn, soured the boy. He was one of the three heirs of the cosmos.

Why did this man get to be so rude?

Just because, for now, he’s stronger? He chewed on that, jaw tight.

It really seemed that simple.

He shot a venomous look at Eli’s receding back, a thorn thrown after a boulder.

A pale-blue energy wisp appeared at his side, drifting like a will-o’-the-wisp. It bowed. "Lord, he won’t heed you. Should we—"

"Should we what? He could crush you with a finger." The boy bit the words, then sighed like a shuttered lamp. "Send my order. During raids in Yulia’s territory, keep it to a minimum... no. Don’t provoke Yulia at all for a while."

"We’ll watch this man’s attitude for a time," he added, helpless as a tide turned back.

"Yes, Master."

"At least he’s not after slaughter. He feels like someone Zero sent to help. A keeper of balance... Damn it. I can’t let that scale stay level. I have to be ahead, grind them underfoot. Only then will I draw more of Zero’s power." His teeth clicked like stones.

Elsewhere, Eli wandered the cosmos within Yulia’s dominion, one hand holding his head, drifting like a boat across starlight.

He pictured the boy’s fear. His fingers went to his own face, as if to check the mask beneath the skin.

Old expressions flashed across his mind like lanterns in rain.

He looked at the long sword on his back and tilted his head. "Qianyu, have I changed that much?"

The blade trembled, a cicada’s whisper, then fell silent.

Eli shrugged, a leaf on still water. "Alright, alright. Sleep."

He stayed calm, a hearth with banked coals.

The next instant, his instincts screamed like a hawk. He snapped his head aside.

A thumb-thick violet beam bored through where his skull had been. That patch of space shattered like thin ice. The fabric twisted and skirled.

Eli flickered away, a shadow skipping stones.

Moments later, violet energy flooded that spot, dense enough to choke. Then it ebbed, leaving space broken, twisting, and keening like a wounded flute.

Eli’s face hardened. He looked toward the source, eyes like knife-edges.

A figure in purple bowed to him, robe the color of bruised sky.

"You must be this world’s guardian, yes?" The voice scraped the ear, like someone shouting I love you while constipated on a toilet. Don’t say my metaphor’s weird. It fits.

"Guardian?" Eli frowned. He couldn’t read a ripple in the man’s energy.

Even the Heart of the Cosmos shows seams to me after I merged with the Star Realm. This one stood plain as a stone, yet flawless all over.

"Who are you? Someone of your level shouldn’t exist here."

"Heh."

..............................................................

With a sigh touched by defeat, Yulia slapped a giant mantis-like thing flat, the crack like a snapped reed. "So hard... to make life that won’t bite me back."

Her heart drummed, a hollow thud. A strange premonition rose like cold mist. Trouble in her territory. "Damn!"

She swept the wreckage from her stone dais with quick strokes and rushed toward Eli’s last position, feet light as startled deer.

Back with Eli, the purple-clad stranger jerked as if struck by lightning. His whole body shook, a struck bell that wouldn’t stop.

Not far off, Eli stood with his right hand shaped into a sword-finger, left hand behind his back. Eyes closed. His aura tucked in like a blade sheathed. Calm returned like a tide.

The purple figure trembled past some limit, then broke into smoke and vanished, a candle snuffed.

Eli kept his eyes shut. "Glamours don’t work on me."

"As expected of a guardian. I knew an avatar could never beat you." A breath later, the man reappeared where the shade had died.

At the same time, a line of purple blood beaded on Eli’s sword fingers and fell, a plum blossom on stone.

"How did you find me?" the purple figure asked with a smile, snake-smooth.

"Why would I tell you?" Eli’s tone stayed cool. "Besides, I may already know who you are."

"What?!" Disbelief widened the man’s eyes, a crack in night glass.

Far off, Yulia flew in, voice ringing like a bell. "Mr. Yi! Are you alright?"

"Bad." Eli’s face changed, clouds rolling. He lunged toward the purple figure.

The purple man’s smile twisted. "Yi, is it? Wait there. I’ll be back for your head."

He rode a gale straight toward Yulia, a dart of storm.

Eli sprinted after, a streak across the sky.

"Leaving? Not that easy!" As the strike neared Yulia, Eli carved sigils in the air with his blood, strokes like red comets.

At the same time, Yulia sensed the attack. She hurled a vast force forward, a mountain dropping.

"Ugh!" The man grunted and vanished again, a stain wiped from glass.