Jinhyung bridged the distance between us in a matter of moments.

No matter how he was, I managed to see trough all of his movements.

My body felt extraordinarily light.

—Cover your fist with the fog and punch him.

I deflected his blade with my bare hands imbued with the mist.

Lillian then moved on her own and shot some small spears at him.

Being consumed by our battle, he overlooked her and the projectiles tore trough his thigh.

"Not bad, haha." He grinned as a powerful burning presence emanated from his body.

At the edge of his blade white flames burned.

—Dawnbringer's stance!

"You can now use it all alone? Impressive!"

Powerful flames battled against my mist. I couldn't parry his blade anymore. My magic fizzled out at the contact of his flames, each time I parried his slashes, white blaze cleaved into my flesh.

I jumped away gathering some fog into my wounds, healing them. Strangely, he didn't follow.

I sensed an enormous amount of magic flowing into his sword as magic arcs sparked around him.

—I can't block that.

—Go up!

I gathered the fog around me and flew into the sky. Jinhyung smiled and aimed slightly higher, exactly where I was.

––What do I do now?

—Become one with the mist.

—What?

—No time to explain, let me the commands for a moment. I will show you.

At first I didn't want to let her use my body, but then I saw Jinhyung's sword moving, with an enormous amount of magic inside. It felt as if the world was about to fall against me.

—Alright.

The moment I agreed, the energy flowing through my body felt alien.

It wasn't painful, but it was quite uncomfortable, as if you became a spectator to yourself.

—Look and learn.

My entire body exploded into billions of particles. I felt everywhere and nowhere at the same time, it highly reminded me of the feeling of when I was brought to the train for the first time.

Suddenly everything before me shifted, I appeared somewhere behind Jinhyung.

—We are almost out of energy, I am losing control, the 'thing' might come. Break the link.

—Understood.

With my last strength, I expelled Lillian's energy outside of my body; the tendrils linking us disappeared. She fell straight to the ground.

A weird silence filled the world before the next words were uttered. I couldn't hear them at first, but the surrounding magic echoed them relentlessly.

[First Sun Defying Technique, Dawn Breaking Slash.]

[The Sword to Cleave through the Day]

Jinhyung's enormous presence moved forward all at once, it felt as if the world itself moved forward.

His sword slashed before him. A sound putting thunder to shame resonated throughout the first car, white flames that eclipsed even the sunlight scattered forward. Everything before crumbled. Water boiled out, sand turned to glass, the rare bushes turned to ashes. Everything in his reach was now a dead zone of nothingness.

After the blinding light faded away, I could see his charred, smoking body falling to the ground.

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The aftermath of a technique was proportional to its strength. Even Jinhyung couldn't wield such a monstrous power without suffering brutal drawbacks.

I chugged the last magic restoring potion and quickly ran toward the bag with the elixirs. One large elixir of recovery was remaining.

I took it and dashed as fast as I could toward Jinhyung's body. I dumped the whole flask of red liquid into his mouth. His skin slowly started recovering and his breathing stabilized.

I picked up Lillian and gave her some of my energy.

"Well done, we won."

[Not really.]

"What do you mean? He is unconscious while we are almost completely intact."

[Before using this monstrous attack, I felt his gaze upon me, I ignore how. He wanted simply to show his power, he knew we would evade. If he wanted, he could've easily won. Even if you have access to my spells, you lack experience fighting with them, and also he truly is... strong.]

Jinhyung was always a step ahead of me. But joy filled me, I was happy that I could put such a fight against him, nothing could resist our strength now.

"Good fight, you adapt quickly, haha."

Jinhyung already woke up, he was now slowly walking toward me using his sword as a crutch. He didn't completely recover just yet.

"How did you use such a horrifying technique? Even with all of the energy of the Chimera King's heart you wouldn't be able to do that."

Once he joined my side, he let go of his sword and laid on his back. His body was still slightly steaming.

"When I was gone I did some training, I found a new way to use my strength. Rather than channeling an enormous amount of Qi through myself, I made the energy of the world follow my will. I used every bit of my power to create a chain reaction. Although this is only possible in places with rather high ambient energy levels."

[Hey, what's up with the names? Isn't it when you have flames around yourself called the 'Dawbringer's stance'? Then why is that called the 'Dawn Breaking Slash'? Makes no sense.]

"I simply say cool-sounding words, I don't put in a lot of thoughts."

[Tsk.]

"That's Jinhyung to you, Korea's first wannabe cultivator."

"Not bad, Germany's strongest trickster."

I jokingly punched him in the shoulder.

"What, all you do is borrow power, I trained my own." He jokingly replied.

"Oh really?" I exclaimed before clenching my fist until my nails dug slightly into my skin making me slightly bleed.

I recalled the feelings when I used the carmine mist, I concentrated every bit of my mind on reproducing it. My blood quickly flew off and formed red spikes on my hand akin to claws.

Jinhyung flawlessly blocked it, sparks flew from the contact as if two swords collided.

"Bravo, you learn at a monstrous rate," complimented Jinhyung.

"Says you."

"Well, I trained decades before entering the train, it's not fair to compare you to myself."

[You already started inheriting the mist?]

Although it felt nice being complimented, these small blood spikes were the limit of my mastery just yet.

_____________________________________________

After resting we decided to meditate in order to strengthen our spirits and for me to stabilize my link with Lillian. Of course, Jinhyung made me stay on the beach as he didn't want to let me go out of his line of sight.

He quickly leaped toward its center, bouncing weightlessly on top of the glassy water surface. He had a certain grace in his movements, he looked like a summer bird flying effortlessly under the vast azure sky.

I stayed on the ground, I sat down and called for Lillian.

"We need to make our link more efficient and train in order to use it for longer."

[Understood.]

I felt her spirit's tendrils wrapping around me and finally digging inside my soul.

—By the way, your world is very interesting, the self-moving carriages, the magical mirrors and the endless castles.

—Haha, my world had no magic at all, I was bored all my life, I had nothing that I could live for, back then. I prefer this one, at least there is Jinhyung and you.

—I know you seemed very sad, although you lived a successful life you were very sad. You didn't any friends or family.

I was getting quite embarrassed of being called out so much by her so I changed topics.

—I couldn't see your memories past the monster.

—I cannot access them either, they were sealed by Vingram.

—Is there a way to unseal them without breaking your soul?

—Move the seal or kill Vingram.

—I see you really despise him now?

—Yes, I could collect enough fragments of memories to form a continuous story, although it is quite brief it was more than enough to convince me to kill him. Do you want to see?

Since we were training our link, I had nothing else to do anyway.

—Alright.

—If the monster finds you, break immediately the link, understood?

—Yes, yes.

Endless darkness embraced me anew, as I expected it started boiling away, letting into a large room, it was somewhat reminiscent of a hospital as there was something resembling an operation table, a bowl with water, some flasks with medicines and some open boxes with tools.

A tall man dressed in a purple felt suit dropped a pregnant woman onto the table. The scene was blurry and I couldn't see everything. Some far away voices could be heard.

"If it's a girl, we'll name her Lillian." Said the woman between heavy breaths.

"Right, I will do so." Answered the man.

"What?"

The woman's eyes widened as fear started filling her heart.

"I am sorry ----", the man said with voice full of sorrow.

—The memories aren't full, some bits are missing.

—Is that your mother?

—I believe so.

—How do you have memories of that then? You weren't even born then.

—My mother somehow gave them to me.

The man lifted his hand and jet-black darkness started gathering within his palm.

"I accept your invitation , oh Great Train."

White light embraced everything for a moment and then it disappeared.

"Now that I am free from --- ----- ----."

"Please Vingram don't", the woman cried.

His dark presence filled the room and the woman stopped breathing, under his boundless, choking, logic-defying presence.

"Oh, Lilian ------- death. This is my gift to you, my child."

He withered his magic and we could see him holding a small, stiff newborn. Sparks filled the air around the baby. They fought off —- and the newborn started screaming. It was alive.

"I ------, how tragic. In the honour of your mother's sacrifice, I will --- --- ----, miracle child."