Chapter 5: Mitt Buried in Dust (Part Two)

“So many humans—what is this place? The heat rolls like steam from a bathhouse.” The Giant Squid swept the strange chamber with lantern-wide eyes.

Eli glanced around like a hawk testing the wind, then turned to the cluster of high-ranking leaders from every race behind him. “Wait here. I’ll go buy you an orange—oh, no. I’m going to negotiate something.”

“…Yes.” They traded looks, their faces like masks under torchlight, and answered with stiff respect.

“In case you wander off, I set a little barrier here,” Eli said with a sunlit smile. “Don’t step outside it. If you do, I can’t promise what storms roll in.” He flashed teeth, then drifted away like a bird slipping from a branch.

They stared at one another, stone-still, too wary to twitch, like reeds holding their breath before a flood.

Eli rose near the cave’s ceiling, grinning like a crescent moon.

There was no barrier—why waste nets where fish won’t swim? It was a bluff, a paper talisman to keep veterans from poking the tiger.

None of them were fools, and none were small fry; to stay at the Transcender realm after Birand severed the world’s laws, they had to be old foxes or knives honed to a hair. Even with his power, he couldn’t lay a veil none of them could see—so he wove fear like smoke and left insight to do the rest.

He chuckled and flew deeper, like a darting swallow vanishing into a gorge.

“King Mitt is old. The elements I can draw from him are almost ash,” he mused, stroking his chin like a scholar over ink. “I’ll have to find the princes… Speaking of which, that third prince who crossed Edlyn—Kait Osborne—carries the fattest thread of Birand’s blood.”

“This one had claws,” Eli smiled, weighing the cold mask in his palm like a moonlit stone. “He even stoked hate between the Elf Race and the Beastfolk. If I hadn’t caught his trail later, who knows where he’d have run.”

He set the mask to his face. As Zero, he slipped toward the human empire flash-frozen here like an ambered wasp.

“He’s gone. Do we really just stand here like statues?” The Giant Squid sighed, the sound like surf slapping rock.

“What else? If he catches you straying, the bite won’t be light. Or do you want another beating, Giant Squid?” A purple-haired girl, small as a blade and old as a mountain, stared coldly, her gaze a winter creek.

“I didn’t mean that,” the Giant Squid shrugged, tentacles drooping like wilted kelp. “Beast Ancestor, our Seafolk progenitor fought beside you and the Hero against the Demon King. No need to needle me like a thorn.”

She snorted, a frost-laden puff, and slowly withdrew her crushing aura like a tide pulling back.

“That’s better. Age and temper don’t mix—watch the sudden drop like a cracked bell.” The Giant Squid smiled faintly, shadows like ink under his eyes.

“You—”

“Calm down,” said Waynes, first of the Elf Race, with a dry cough like a brittle leaf. “We wait in quiet, like hunters under snow. That’s the wise play.”

“I agree.” Pope Manstein nodded, his voice steady as a chapel bell. “Every race’s leader stands here. If we brawl, this whole space shakes like a drum. With that man’s power, the next heartbeat could be our net and we the fish.”

Waynes glanced at Manstein, eyes clear as dew. “Pope, you’ve been at the Hero’s side the longest. Do you know his aim now?”

“I don’t.” Manstein’s bitter smile was a scar across calm water. “At his side, I offered my treasured Godslayer Weapon, and our Human and Demon Race people. The rest? He wouldn’t let me near. As for the Abyss, I never read his tides. He’s an ancestor who can go mad like summer thunder.”

Silence fell, heavy as dust in a mausoleum, and all recalled how, centuries ago, Birand butchered the Holy Court Church’s upper ranks like a scythe through grain.

“Then we wait for the wind to shift,” Waynes said with a soft laugh, shaking his head like a willow.

Strange, but he felt the coming storm would break in the Elf Race’s favor, like sunrise over old trees.

Manstein turned, his gaze lingering on Waynes like a moth near a lamp. He hesitated, swallowed his questions, and let them sink like stones.

The Giant Squid watched, then chipped a slab from the wall and sat, one leg crossed, like a gull on a rock.

“Heh. No need to play coy. You two are kin to the Hero. Of course your backs are iron.” His tone had barbs, like a hooked line in murky water.

“Will you ever shut up?!” A dwarf roared with his thunder-barrel voice at the Giant Squid. “You drone like flies over carrion.”

The Giant Squid’s face stiffened, clouding over like a sky before rain.

The dwarf ignored him. He gathered earth element, shaped a stool like a fresh-hewn stump, and sat with a thud. “I can’t stand morons like you. Fog for brains. We’re at the edge of a cliff and you’re still sniping?”

“Gorgan, mind your tongue—or your Dwarf Race goes extinct next year,” the Giant Squid snapped, anger like boiling brine.

“Quiet!” Waynes and Manstein shouted together, voices like twin gongs.

The Giant Squid’s face twisted. Seeing the tide against him, he clamped his beak shut, the silence thick as pitch.

He’d suffered the worst beating at the Hero’s hands, and his hate still smoked like banked coals. The others knew and snickered in the dark.

………………………………………

“Using Icarina’s blood as a template, dragging her back from within the laws themselves? Can that really be done?” Birand, now a spirit, drifted near Eli like a pale flame.

“…” Eli didn’t answer. He flew on alone, a black gull in a headwind.

“Hey, future-me, I’m talking to you. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear,” Birand said, his rage gone like a storm spent, his voice closer to the Hero he’d once been.

“Can you not mess with my head like this? Liqianyu was one thing—where the hell did you pop out from?” Eli’s temper spiked like a struck match.

“Huh?” Birand scratched his head, puzzled, eyes like a wolf’s in moonlight.

“What are you, genies from an Aladdin lamp? Zip in, zip out. I’m seriously losing it.” Eli palmed his face, rolled his eyes, and kept moving like a river ignoring stones.

“Of course. My obsession with revenge burned out and flowed back as soul to you. With your terrifying power, your soul got patched like a torn sail. And me? I’m reborn for real—but I’ve got no body, and I’m not stealing yours.” Birand shrugged, a leaf caught in a lazy eddy.

“So I’m stuck like this, a ghost lantern.”

“When I pull Icarina out, you two can go wherever the wind takes you. I’ll weave you a body from the laws,” Eli said, eyes half-lidded, rolling again like tides.

“Oh! Thanks, future-me! Didn’t think you were this badass—snap your fingers, bodies appear? Damn, what are you, a creator goddess? How’s my talent? Gonna teach me the trick?” Birand grinned, floating upside down like a playful carp.

“You’re blocking my view,” Eli said, mouth twitching like a hooked fish.

“Please. Even if I gouged your eyes out, I couldn’t block your sight,” Birand snorted, all mockery and teeth. “Quit pretending. Answer me.”

“Get out of my face. Don’t sour my mood. If I get annoyed, your Icarina stays part of the laws forever—believe it?” Eli’s voice turned ice, a blade under velvet.

“Tsk. Can’t even take a joke. You carry my blood and still act like a stone. I’m telling you, this isn’t good. Treat every matter with a fussy mom’s heart,” Birand lectured, wagging a spectral finger like a twig.

“Ah!!!” The sound tore from Eli like cloth ripping.

“What ‘ah’? I’m teaching you, and you won’t listen. Kids these days, no respect for elders,” Birand sighed, shoulders drooping like tired wings.

“Right. You still didn’t answer me. How do you do it? When my body’s done, will you share some power? Don’t leave me a plain mortal—that’s embarrassing, yeah?”

“Tch. Was I always this chatty?” Eli stopped dead, staring at the phantom like it was a talking mirror.

“Yeah. I didn’t think I was either. See? We’re one heart in two chests. Hey, which world will you stay in by then—there or here? Did you visit our parents? Your power’s huge now. Can you save them?” Birand’s words poured like beads from a broken string.

“…” Eli’s face twitched. Doubt pooled in him like cold water. Was burning away Birand’s wrath a mistake? Was completing his soul a mistake?

What if he ended up this noisy forever? What if Edlyn grew to hate him?

These thoughts crept into him like ants into sugar.

“I’m telling you—we should go back to our old world for a look. Time’s no chain on you anymore. What do you think?” Birand finished his ramble, head tilted like a curious crow.

“Mm. Whatever you say,” Eli murmured, lost for a beat, then eyed him with a weary glance and dropped from the air like a falling leaf.

“Oh? This is where old King Mitt rests? Or that prince—Kait Osborne? Come to think of it, I did see him once.”

“Master Mo Nian! Spare your disciple!”

“Huh? What’s this now?” A girl’s voice slid into Eli’s ear like a silver needle.

………………………………………

The Celestial God coughed blood, red as crushed pomegranate, her body a map of wounds. She stared, stunned, at the sword tip blooming from her chest, then turned with the stiffness of frostbitten wood.

A black-haired girl stood behind her. A broken longsword ran through the god’s back like a dark icicle.

“Whew. Celestial God, my mission ends here. Thanks for the blood,” the girl smiled sweetly, sunlight on winter snow, and vanished like mist.

Edlyn watched, brows folding like wings.

Why was Yiyi still here? She should’ve gone to the Draco Empire’s orphanage to guard the children. And what did she mean—Celestial God’s blood?

Edlyn let the questions drift away like dandelion fluff.

Eli will explain when the time comes, she thought blankly, her mind a still lake under gray sky.