“Aoo!” The beast’s bellow rolled like thunder across stone and smoke.

The colossal rhino’s iron-hard skull took the torrent head-on. Flesh sloughed like melting wax, and even its proud horn webbed with cracks.

The hooded man arrived like a shadow cut from dusk. He spun his wrists, two daggers flashing like twin crescent moons, and sprinted for Eli.

“Damn mage!” His curse snapped like a whip. He drove a backstab at Eli’s exposed flank.

“Hey, you lousy Hero, watch it!” Edlyn cried, her voice sharp as a sparrow’s alarm.

Eli’s mood stayed cool as lake ice. He tilted aside in a clean slip, snapped his fingers, and jade-green light blossomed from his boots.

Vines as thick as a man’s arm drilled through the stone like burrowing serpents, then spiraled for the hooded man’s limbs like tightening coils.

“Wood magic’s new to me. You’ll do for a test,” he said, smiling like a cat in sun.

“What… what is this!” The hooded man’s eyes blew wide. He wrestled the creeping vines like a fly in web.

“You made a racket with that no-flight orb. You think I wouldn’t notice?” Eli’s voice cut like frost. “Assassin without speed rushing a mage—idiot.”

“You’re worse than that split-body guy,” he sighed, watching the vines cinch like a green cage.

“Are New Era Sect people all brain-dead?” His stare was a cold blade.

The hooded man’s limbs locked like nailed boards. He frowned at Eli—then blinked out like a snuffed candle.

He popped beside Edlyn and Angela in a flash of cold wind. He grabbed them left and right, daggers kissing their necks like winter steel. “Behave,” he hissed. “Watch the rhino level this place.”

“Or they die. Pick.” His grin was a hook in night.

Annoyance pricked Eli like nettles. His brows tightened as if against grit in the wind.

New Era Sect—slow heads, messy tricks. Teleport without casting? A pebble in the shoe.

He hadn’t ported in to strike Eli—so it had a cooldown like a tide that must recede. The vines kept him at bay, so he hunted softer prey.

“Bullying little girls. You’re trash,” Eli said, hands on hips, voice dry as sand.

“Heh. So what? Big mage, choose.” He pressed the blade closer, a silver crescent at Edlyn’s throat.

Edlyn’s pride flared hot as coals. Little girl? Her? If not for Hero nonsense, who would dare look down?

Knife at her neck? She clicked her tongue, cool as rain on slate. Still, Angela trembled like a leaf, and worry tugged at her chest.

She glanced at Eli. His calm was river-deep, moon-smooth. Her panic unraveled like thread. She folded her arms and watched, fox-cool.

“You know you can’t get close,” Eli said, voice patient as a teacher. “Why think I wouldn’t ward them too? Use your head.”

He snapped his fingers. Vines shot like green arrows, slipped past grasping hands, and lashed him to a tree like a bound stag.

The hooded man sighed, head tilted like a tired crow. “That’s why I hate mages. Why don’t I get gifts like this?”

“Be content. Gifts are gifts,” Eli said, smile warm as tea. “Ever heard of patience and training?”

His mind dipped into memory like a hand into a pool. The Hero had arrived weak as a sapling, then received… from the Celestial God… Wait.

Blank. That page in his past lay white as winter fields. After meeting the Celestial God—what did the Hero do?

A frown shadowed Eli’s face like passing cloud. That key piece was empty, hollow as a bell without a tongue.

He let it go, like dust off a sleeve. Probably missing a Memory Crystal.

Awkward as two geese on a narrow path, he and the hooded man stared. Eli had prepped a speech; the words felt like sand.

“Uh… anyway… diligence patches lack,” he said, scratching like a confused rooster. “Huaxia saying. You get me?”

“Huaxia? Not Chi—oh. Not the same world,” the hooded man muttered, a smirk thin as paper.

Their chatter droned like flies. Edlyn grew bored as a cat in heatless noon and crouched to tickle Angela, easing her fear like a lullaby.

“Enough rambling. What’s your goal—slaughter?” Eli asked, hands on hips, gaze steady as a plumb line.

“You’re off by a mile,” the hooded man said, voice sharp as flint. “You’ve met my sect, sure. I’m no transmigrant. I’m native.”

“Your grand truths bore me. Diligence beats lack? Joke. In this land, mortals rarely shed skins and become heroes.”

“Humans write epics,” Eli shot back, words quick as arrows. “You look like the kid who slept through class.”

“Books lie. Could be rulers’ tricks,” he sneered, smile oily as smoke.

Eli’s palms itched like hornets. He wanted to swat this fool flat, like a mosquito at dusk.

Damn idiot—learned nothing, gulped down historical nihilism like bad wine.

“No more words? Heh.” His laugh was a rusted hinge. “Mage, you won’t finish clean. Tir Town—let’s see you guard it forever.”

He faded out like dusk swallowing a road.

“Who was that? So cocky,” Edlyn grumbled, temper sparking like flint.

“Remember the New Era Sect?” Eli asked, voice casual as a breeze.

“Ah, those idiots who kidnapped me?” Edlyn tilted her head like a curious sparrow.

Eli glanced down at her bright little face and snorted a laugh, soft as rain on bamboo.

She glared, hands on hips like a tiny general. “What’s with that look.”

“Nothing,” Eli said, choking back a grin, eyeing the dazed beast swaying like a felled tree trying to stand.

Border guards finally arrived, boots drumming like rain. With the rhino stunned and the New Era Sect down like toppled reeds, the elite tidied the field fast.

Eli, recognized by half the square, stayed put. He sat cross-legged on the plaza stones, waiting for the army like a monk under a bell.

They came and found a strange tableau: a man in the square getting bonked by a little girl with a teddy bear, fur flying like dandelion.

“Who said I like this! Are you insulting me?” Edlyn rained plush blows like soft hail.

“I was wrong, Ed-chan. I was really wrong,” Eli said, shielding his head, grin crooked as a hook.

Father and daughter? That thought fluttered like a moth, then fell.

The female officer shook her head, stepped forward like a blade out of a sheath, and matched his face with witness words.

She braced and saluted, crisp as a snapping banner. “I’m Rogier Lin, Northern Border Guard of the Draco Empire. Thank you for your aid, Mage.”

“Hey, it’s fine. Don’t make a fuss,” Eli said, smile easy as dawn.

Edlyn noticed a newcomer—a woman—and a brief frown rippled like wind in wheat. She shook it off, hugged her teddy, and stood prim behind Eli like a loyal shadow.

The officer’s lips curved, amused as a summer crescent. Shy little miss. A cough—maybe not.

“For your immense help, on behalf of the border army, our highest respect. And this is the reward from Tir Town’s lord. Please accept it.” She drew a small pouch like a magician’s seed bag.

Eli took it steady as a stone, opened it, and found rare array materials shining like frost, coins chiming like rain, and jewelry bright as dew.

He smiled and pocketed it, gesture light as a swallow’s wing. Tasteful—someone thought ahead.

“Then… the beast?” she asked, eyes glancing like sunlight on steel.

Border mages existed like old pines, but they were stubborn as rocks. They refused to harvest another mage’s kill, and the officer’s patience frayed like rope.

Eli was young—like fresh bamboo—and that surprised her.

“What do you think? Kill it, or send it back to the forest?” Eli weighed the pouch, his tone calm as still water.

She hesitated, silence hanging like mist. A hearty laugh rolled from the rear like a drum.

The portly Town Lord waddled up with a cane like an old branch, bodyguards pacing like hawks.

“This must be the great mage who saved our town. A pleasure,” he said, smile wide as harvest moon.

“This is the Town Lord,” the officer murmured, voice neat as stacked files.

“Hello,” Eli answered, simple as a nod.

Edlyn found the scene syrup-thick. She yawned like a sleepy cat, wandered off, dropped the teddy like a plop of moss, and sat on it with Angela, hand-in-hand like twin sprouts.

After minutes of polite waves and soft words, the Town Lord spoke clean as a slice. “If we can kill it, best.”

Eli nodded, understanding settling like dust. He settled Edlyn like a blanket, then walked to the beast held fast by soldiers like stakes in earth.

He sighed, grief low as a drum. “You killed too many. No wonder they want you gone. It can’t be helped.”

“Next life, if you meet humans, keep away,” he said, voice gentle as a winter sun.

He sighed again and set his palm on the rhino’s head like a blessing. Holy light rose around him like dawn and streamed into the beast like a river of milk.

The officer stared, surprise bright as lightning. Sacred light—spells taught to bishops like crowns. Where did he learn that?

“Listen to the Requiem, then go to the heavens,” Eli said, a small smile like candle flame, and turned away.

“Mage, that’s enough?” she asked, hope fluttering like a sparrow.

“Yeah. Now it wants to die,” Eli said, shrugging like a loosening cloak. “Otherwise the Requiem wouldn’t sink in.”

He walked off, his back calm as a steady tide.