“Good evening!” Cory shouted as she ascended from the hole at the base of the dirt mountain. She was carrying Pyre by one of his legs, his arms and hair dangling limp in the air. “I brought…. Am I interrupting something? Uh, I’ll just leave this here then.” She dropped the angel next to Palan and Raea before retreating back down the hole.

Pyre sat up and cracked his neck while grumbling. “Couldn’t carry me like a normal person!?” he shouted down the hole.

“I normally carry dead people!” Cory’s voice shouted back.

Pyre frowned as he dusted himself off. “I guess that’s fair,” he muttered and turned to face Raea and Palan who were still glued to each other. He cleared his throat and rummaged through his bag. “I brought you the new and improved slave collar that works on angels.” He took out a metal collar with red runes inscribed on the side and held it out towards Palan.

“It’s not going to explode, right?” Palan asked as he accepted it.

Pyre coughed and avoided Palan’s gaze. “You heard about that?” he asked. “Who was it? It was Mathias, wasn’t it? You haven’t been around the lizardmen’s territory.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Raea said and leaned away from the collar.

“I can’t guarantee it won’t explode,” Pyre said and rubbed his chin. “But really, anything has a minor chance of exploding. Even I have a minor chance of exploding. However, I did manage to minimize the blast radius—at worst, the angel will just be badly scarred and unable to speak.” His brow furrowed. “And maybe die if left untreated. But he won’t die instantly like Solra did.”

“This’ll work on any angel?” Palan asked and raised an eyebrow. “Say, if I put this on the angel who summoned that lightning avatar….”

“It’ll probably explode,” Pyre said. “There’s something odd interfering with the powers inside the collar. The runes on the side of the collar basically act as a contract and clasping it around someone’s neck initiates the contract. But, until more research is done, the acceptable reason for why contracts work is because of the Creator’s will. The explosion occurs when a conflict occurs between the contract and something else.” The angel shrugged and retrieved his pipe. “It should work on Akurel as long as you keep him in a weakened state. Stab him a few times or remove his limbs.”

“Is Akurel stronger than the centaurs’ archbishop?” Palan asked. “I could only use three attacks under his altruism before he ran out of mana.”

“Well,” Pyre said and scratched his head with his pipe. “Akurel’s been an archangel longer, so he should be, but I don’t think you’ll be as strong as you expect. The amount of mana you have greatly exceeds his. He won’t be able to keep up with your output. At most, altruism will let you see what you can do in the future with your powers.”

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“So in the end he’s useless,” Palan said with a frown. After witnessing the lightning avatar, he wanted something that’d improve his strength right away. He didn’t think he’d lose, but he wanted it to be easy and not strenuous. “Do you have any means to handle the lightning avatar?”

Pyre inhaled on his pipe and leaned back, staring up at the stars. Purple smoke escaped from his nostrils, clouding his view. “Possibly,” he said. “And it’d fit very well for my goals, but I don’t think you’d approve.”

“Palan has like zero morals,” Raea said and furrowed her brow. “Why wouldn’t he approve?”

“Because he wants to go back to Eljiam,” Pyre said and tapped the ashes out of his pipe. “I’m confident in my ability to create explosives. If we pack the capital full of them and set them off, what do you think will happen? Everyone dies, but the portal leading to Eljiam is destroyed as well. I was thinking of using giant cannons as well, but once again, the portal problem reappears.”

Raea tilted her head. “There’s others way back to Eljiam, right?” she asked. “It’s just that the one in the capital specifically targets a location?”

“Correct,” Pyre said. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard about it. I’ve never been to the capital myself. They’d never let me in, you know, being a half-demon and all.”

“Don’t forget there’s other reasons why we need to go to the capital,” Palan said. “The Creator’s blessing or judgment or some other nonsense like that.”

“Right,” Raea said and bit her lower lip. “To end our contract.” A wrinkle appeared on her forehead as she pinched Palan’s side, causing him to flinch away. She murmured and looked down, “You really do want to end it, huh?”

“Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to have your life tied to someone else’s?” Palan asked.

Pyre cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I should be here to listen to this,” he said. He reached inside his bag and pulled out two earplugs, jamming them into his ears. He always made sure he had means to protect his ears. Explosions were loud, and things tended to explode around him pretty often. Pyre’s eyes closed as he lay on the ground, sucking on his pipe.

“If I leave your side, then I have to worry about something happening to you,” Palan said.

“So if we didn’t have the contract, you wouldn’t worry about leaving me?” Raea asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Are you going back to the ‘how would I feel if you died’ question?” Palan asked.

“No,” Raea said and turned her head away. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the fire, her shoulders hunched over.

Palan sighed. “I probably would feel a sense of loss if you died and I lived on,” Palan said. Raea didn’t turn around. “You’re very useful, you know?”

“In the end, that’s all I am to you, aren’t I?” Raea asked, turning her head. Her eyes were purple. “A tool. I don’t understand. What’s the difference between your sister and me? Why do you love her, but not me? I wouldn’t believe you were capable of feelings if it weren’t for your sister. What do you even feel for her?”

Dark green smoke drifted out from underneath Raea’s wings. Pyre turned his head and held his breath. He stood up and scrambled away from the two while storing his pipe inside his bag before taking out his earplugs. “Are they going to fight?” he asked himself as he approached the hole in the ground he came from. If fireballs started flying, he was going to jump back down—better alive with broken legs than dead.

Palan frowned. “My sister is important to me,” he said.

Raea’s eyes flared. “I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question,” she said. “If you don’t answer it properly, then it’ll be very real.” More plumes of green smoke drifted out of her body, causing Palan to stand up and take a few steps back. “If I killed your sister, what would you do?”

“Oh boy,” Pyre said and sighed. “Pent up envy. Lots of pent up envy. Let’s hope this doesn’t hurt too much.” He closed his eyes and jumped down the hole.