「The strong do not find solace in the weak.」A puerile voice echoed, laden with confidence as if it had declared an absolute truth of the world.

Cadfael hung the bone sword on his back as the many limbs of his Nascent Totem, the [Frostnight Depthraer], also retracted.

Broken gheist parts and severed fish heads lay floating around the water.

The last seven Sawmouth Snappers, eliminated without delay. But the boy didn’t feel any glory for his feat.

Mere low Earthen animals, a massacre was to be expected. Would a dragon feel proud stomping on insects? Only for the weak was this achievement momentous.

Cadfael rubbed the dark-blue bone ring on his right thumb with his index as he quietly observed Vesiphis and Howell celebrate.

「When the angels appear to rain down death and despair, the weak can only die or hide. Because the weak are not the strong. They will perish without defiance or hide under the banner of those who fight back. Because only in the strong do they, too, find solace. 」

Cadfael turned his complacent gaze towards the fishing boat lazily floating their way.

Randuman had already collected the ‘hunted’ gheists. The carcasses were now piled into a heap to the side.

From the opposite direction of the islet, the eldest Haragol son’s boat approached.

「The strong need not do anything else but be strong. They must cultivate; they must be bold and unyielding. If they are strong, then authority will come, riches will come. Love or lust, too, will come. All desires and ambitions under the light of the many Sohwls will fulfil themselves with no extra thought or effort. All dissidents and naysayers will shut their foolish mouths in the face of undeniable power. 」

It reminded Cadfael of his delicate, beautiful mother.

The exiled Horuxi princess who surrendered to the Yuriels only to be seized like prey. The escaped prisoner who fell in love with an Earthloch discwalker out for mischief. The pale vase flower who could not even embrace her son without judgement from others.

The valorous woman had long left amid one Sunsleep winter night for her decadent homeland, with a bloodstained promise to come back for him after vanquishing all that stood in her way.

The boy’s thoughts then veered to the tiny Earthloch princess. Like the great ascended Beyonders who had pierced through the sky, she alone bore the burden of a hundred thousand spirit’s selfish blessing.

But she did so with a smile, without weakness.

Because she was strong, and because the world belonged to her. And because she knew it.

That night, under the advent of the collapse of manna, Cadfael witnessed the star-kissed, undaunted figure of the little girl on the Scrying Curtain in the sky. In his mind of minds, her tiny figure had overlapped with the feeble Horuxi princess’s.

One who innocently knew that the world revolved around her follies, and one who strived to be strong no matter the will of the gods, no matter good or evil.

「The young and the innocent do not know the distinction between the weak and the strong. But this is Fanas Diosca, where the weak are but food. Do not fret, my friend, for natural selection will cast away the weaklings far back into history to be forgotten. If the prince consort who unnerves you so much remains as he is now, that will be his fate. Likewise, for the princess, if she keeps on indulging in her weakness for the boy you call a parasite.

Though, I doubt that will ever happen. The night of the blessing was undoubtedly a performance worthy of this Sovereign’s favour. Ah, how I wish time would pass faster so I can witness the moment the Earthloch heiress sheds her naivety. When she truly grows up. How I wish to see when she awakes to the truth of this world and usurps the whole Uorys Diosca in her hands! What a fine concubine she will be! 」

Cadfael snorted in equal measures of disdain and pity for the delusional, disembodied voice.

Him? Fretting about Elrhain? As if!

It was okay if this consort, the Siaglas heir valued highly by all the main house’s upper echelons, at least tried to better himself. But in his time observing him, Cadfael had never seen even farmhand children be so voracious and lazy. Like the tales sung by the storytellers of weak servants suddenly discovering great wealth and sinking into self-indulgence.

Cadfael scratched the bone ring on his thumb with irritation. He would rather not be ridiculed like this!

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

「Don’t be like that. After all, it is the truth that the princess dislikes you. Her innocent yet intimate whims with the consort prickle your mind oftener than you would dare admit, heh.」 The voice paused, and the deep blue colour of the bone ring lightened.

That was the limit for today.

「It is also the truth that you will never be as strong as me. So my desires will naturally prevail over yours. Do not think too badly of me, for that is the way of the world. If you do not wish me to take what you deem to be yours, cultivate harder. I will see you soon, my first friend of the tenth epoch. 」

With one last infallible laughter, the voice disappeared.

From this distance, Cadfael could now hear the kids clamouring on the boat. The princess was hanging from the consort’s neck while the latter struggled to escape her silly wrath.

His eyebrows twitched, just slightly.

Cadfael wasn’t really upset by what the voice had declared. Not about its desires, nor about the princess’s actions.

It was right, after all.

If Cadfael did not prove himself worthy, the goddess of fortune would, of course, favour others. Right now, to a young girl of only three, that worth was in fun and laughter, not in the intricacies of the world or the truth of absolute might.

Time, cascading down unending, was the cruel device every dhionne must confront. Time changed everything.

That’s why,

‘Mother, I will not wait.’ The boy made that vow once more, just like he did the day before, and the day before that.

Cadfael’s definition of ‘strong’ was not wholly the same as the voice’s. But then again, he really didn’t understand the voice’s agenda either.

Just that it had a mission. And Cadfael was now part of that mission.

It offered him a path to power far vaster than the techniques taught in Earthloch. But unlike the voice, Cadfael cared less for the mission and more for his own goals. And that goal was not restricted to just cultivation.

Cadfael wanted everything.

And he would not passively wait for them to become true.

He will carve a bloody path if necessary to take what was his. He will end the collapse with his sword and totem and destroy the Yuriels and all who smeared his mother’s honour with his fury. He will cleave apart the void to Horux Diosca and stand before his feeble mother and tell her she need not worry for him anymore. She need not prove anything to anyone. She need not feel repentant for birthing a weak son with one blind eye and a splintered totemic soul.

After all, he would be the strongest.

And the strong do not wait.

***

「I don’t know how I feel about kids fighting.」 Agwyn muttered.

She sat with Elrhain on a seat of leaves on the bank of Sagathan. After the gheist hunt, or ‘fishing session’ as Randuman called it, the meat bun cohort returned to Haragol village with much fanfare.

Bromwyn ran up to the boat, picked her up the moment they came ashore, and then started inquiring about her day with a lisping tone.

Unfortunately for the big guy, Agwyn had somehow already made wonderful friends with Ruba. Something to do with being cuter than Ysbail and whatnot.

So the princess had no time for the barbarian and promptly ran off with the Haragol heiress to court the fish-gremlins. Of course, she dragged Elrhain along.

That was an hour ago. Bromwyn had looked brokenhearted, but the big guy had some grown-up things to talk about with Randuman. So, he and the Onthoakt, along with Romero, entered Randuman’s dwelling and were busy discussing clan matters.

Agwyn had had her fill trying to figure out the inner cuteness of the hideous fish gremlins. She gave up and came back to play with everybody else, much to Ruba’s discontent.

All around, the village machine was in full gear, preparing for the feast. The villagers set up leaf seats and grilling pits to roast all types of seafood imaginable.

They lined more clay pots up; within them were boiling soups and simmering stews.

There were wicker baskets full of fresh and dried fruit and roots, enormous eggs fried on edible gheist fat on sizzling stone slabs, and the turbulent clash of all the whiffs and smells warring it out in the sunny lake air.

The aromas devoid of any spices were just as, if not more, intense.

Elrhain gulped, his eyes darting from one glistening cartoon drumstick to another as he replied. 「We will have to get used to it either way. Though I admit… that slash on Howell’s back looked awful. Sigh. Social services would be helpless in such a primitive place. 」

Agwyn nodded, gripping Elrhain’s hand tight.

「Relax. You know me. I don’t consider fighting monsters as my calling, like, at all.」 Elrhain joked.

「Me neither. But I bet you’re just scared of the attention rather than the monsters. You really need to get over that phobia of social intimacy. 」

「How rude! I crave attention, alright? Moderate attention that is, not the scary kind.」

「Sure you do~」 Agwyn giggled.

She glanced towards Vesiphis and Howell, who were chronicling their epoch-shattering fight to the star-eyed village children. Ysbail stared with committed passion at the pretty shell Howell had gifted her, while Cati tried to attract Cadfael’s attention by whining as aggravatingly as she could without actually stepping within ten feet of the boy.

“…. And then, I’s spear ripped right through their foul flesh! The leader of them nasty gheists roared so loud my ear rang with pain! But I knew that today’s feast depended on me fishing skills! So I advanced, and at last, with Busyfish’s minor help, we’ve caught them wretched Sawmouth Snappers whole!” Howell proudly asserted.

““Wow!””

“If by minor help, you mean heroically thwarting off the ultimate charge of the gheist swarm single-handedly while you hid away underwater like a scared fishling, then yes, I helped.”

「That’s not spearfishing, or fishing at all. They just had close-quarters combat with psychopathic lake dinosaurs! 」, Elrhain grumbled. Something about these dhionne wild folks desecrating the sacred act of fishing really ticked him off. He could not face his fishing buddies back on Earth even in his dreams if he didn’t at least whine about these rude and barbaric conducts.

「…. Do you want to teach them? 」 Agwyn said, beaming straight into his eyes.

「 Wouldn’t that be too risky?」 Elrhain asked, 「You still wanted to… you know… 」

「It’s okay. I’ve thought about it a lot these days. A-And you were right. I was a tad bit paranoid. 」

Elrhain raised an eyebrow.

「Ehehe. So, I want to take this chance to kill two birds with one stone. And besides, 」 Agwyn stood up and dusted the sand off her skirt. She pointed at Ruba, then at all the other children who were immersed in the story.

「Don’t you think they are pitiful? Don’t you want to break their misbelief that one must be a cultivator to enjoy the pleasures of fishing?」

Agwyn grinned, and Elrhain knew she had him.