I shall not see a world which will be dear to me:

Summer without blossoms,

Cattle will be without milk,

…

…

…

-The cloth washer by the ford

Over the land, below the clouds, following the winds with wings of dusk and carrying whisks of salt, an old crow with a plumage of petals pressed onward in the unknown sky. The King of Black, who had survived the surging waves by clinging on to broken petals...

As blood spilled for parcels of land or jewels of beauty, the crow cried the bad humor of the world as thousands of petals—all like warriors—wailed beyond the tombs for being frail before evil. Death over the land, which ought to sprout coils of hay while meads aplenty should flow between cups. The bird lamented the loaves that would never be broken open, the fireplace filled with dust and not soot, and the empty chairs at dinner time.

It flew in the sky, so distant from all that it liked, to reach a place where fate had directed it. A ball of wool or strings of fate—they were the same in the dark eyes of this crow. Two fates, one in a forest of blue lunar light and another in a forest drowned in tain (a silvering reagent containing mercury), became one. Two beasts whose lives became one. Two bears of different origins.

The bird landed on a branch to catch its breath while rain poured down. This was a cold time—not for the temperature but for the requirement of suffering for a better future. As if a better future even existed. Too tired and exhausted, the bird’s plumage melted into crumbling petals, but it stood firm to keep the two fates tied to one another.

❀

A small bird of fire flew above the many carriages, such that it created many shadows of whatever it passed by. It went by extremely fast as the rain pouring down seemed to mute its flames. Vergeltung was running behind this bird while keeping it aflame.

"There it is!!" screamed the cat after spotting a shadow without an owner.

Following his finding, the trees surrounding the location all caught fire as a man with long ears came out with a flushed expression on his face. "Hmmmm! They’re thanking meeeee~~~!! Yes, let me impregnate this land anew~~~"

What the elven man said was the reason elves weren’t that liked. His end goal was only to stop the strange, dream-like essence covering the forest and the trees… but the way he did so was questionable at the very least.

"Brother!" responded Rouhong, who came running up to one of the many sides their prey could escape to. "Focus! Let’s deal with our friend first. I’ll help you reach whatever quota you have after this."

In turn, Sher-Dor looked at the muscular man as hearts appeared in his eyes. "Ho, darling! Yes! Let us birth new life from the sweat of our browns entwined. We’ll go all night long with our passion burning bright!" He was often misunderstood…

Tsuki came at this point, proclaiming, "I’ll help," which the cat instantly turned down.

Instead of explaining the reason, the cat simply shouted to the few people entrapped in this circle of flame to run through the fire as he would make a path for them. None of them understood what was going on. It was all too sudden, after all. But they had no choice but to listen to the cat when one of them had his back opened up by something unknown. The bear was truly in their midst. It was enraged as its food dared to fight back and simply tried to create as much carnage as possible.

"RUN!!!" shouted Rouhong to the frozen mass. His voice had this commanding quality of a general, which helped pull the crowd back into order. Some did run into the flame, which the cat promptly opened up by waving his new staff. Still, a fire was a fire, and three people either didn’t have the courage or the strength to escape.

A shadow crept onto them: a paw as large as a cow’s rump. The poor innocents couldn’t do anything but watch their lives flash before their eyes.

"No, you don’t," said Rouhong. He stepped between them and the bear’s shadow to block the strike with his own body. The beast’s claws dug deep inside his flesh, but instead of screaming in pain, he smiled and grabbed onto the furry paw. Just touching the beast made him dizzy, with his senses getting scrambled. Like how seeing the beast made it less visible, the other senses were also muted by the infectious emptiness.

His hands were numb; his eyes were veiled in darkness; his ears trembled from his heartbeat; his nose drowned in something thick but undetectable; and his tongue turned aimless. But with all of this, he closed his eyes and erased every other sensation. He was fire; he was heat. The salamander of Tiantang-Huoshan exploded into flames.

The man, now protected by molten armor, punched at his opponent. The strength of such a strike was impressive, as both parties were pushed away from one another.

Rouhong opened his eyes for a moment to see whether his attack had any effect. It was just for a fraction of a second, but he managed to see the beast, which wasn’t even wounded. He closed his eyes again and got into a stance, ready for the now-charging bear…

Δ

North of there was Shamala still fighting the giant Yassil. Her claws and teeth could barely leave a mark on the bones and wood. She jumped to the side to avoid a pillar of thorns and dashed forward to rip something, anything, from her opponent. She dug into the wood and ripped a few vines before having to escape. The little she did grew back in an instant.

This giant wolf simply circled the bear to try and find any weaknesses. There weren’t any. She was about to give up and escape, but suddenly, the bear got engulfed in flames. She had no clue what could have made this happen, but she followed her instinct and jumped at the creature’s neck. She pulled at it before getting thrown by the bear; blood was made to flow far away by a curse of Linnaea.

In the wolf’s eyes, this attack had done nothing. Maybe it was just Yassil’s magic going out of control... It was best to give up and let him be consumed by his own power.

"Fight……" whispered a voice with no origin. As if coming from the past, a ghostly figure appeared atop the wolf. Twinkling crystal leaves cascaded down with an ethereal feeling, drowning everything in nostalgia. "Fight," said the apparition once again.

So did Shamala. She jumped again at the burning bear and caught one of its arms.

[NIGREDO] commended the apparition. Every atom keeping the bear’s arm together with his body was undone.

Shamala felt as if her life force was being pulled from her body and backed up. She suddenly saw the bear, who used to be burning, change into her dead son while patches of flesh were being pulled from him like simple dry clay.

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[ANNULMENT] said the apparition, and Shamala’s vision returned to normal. It then got closer and closer and closer… to then whisper a simple word that changed Shamala’s world: [Nous].

The beast then saw it, just for a moment, but saw it: the truth of the world and the role she had to play in it. So, she fought just as the apparition ordered her.

[PRISCA THEOLOGIA: ALTUM RUBRUM]

And so, a law was called onto the giant wolf, transcending her into a demi-god, to confront the bear, who was also in this realm.

❀

Rouhong tried to stop the beast’s advance and was thrown to the ground for it. No matter what he did, it seemed to resist his attack.

On the ground, he looked up. The sky was distorted as if something translucent was covering it; the bear was upon him, but the man could only smile at this. That was his answer. It wasn’t by cutting his senses but by observing something other than the bear. Still, the beast was about to do whatever it wanted.

*splurt*

Rouhong was expecting his insides to be turned inside out. It never came. Not even a crushing blow or any pain came to him. What came to him was a burning liquid, which he was all too familiar with. Blood. The beast’s blood. It sprayed on him with such strength.

"GRRRRAOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"

The bear screamed as one of its arms was ripped apart, with dark lines spreading throughout its body. It only lasted a moment and didn’t seem to have a cause of some sort, but once it was done, the beast was left panting for breath with its eyes, bloodshot and mad, now visible.

"SIR ROUHONG! DODGE!"

So did Rouhong, without knowing who screamed this. He rolled to the side moments before the bear started trashing the ground.

"STRIKE!!!"

The same voice that Rouhong listened to. He kicked with both legs while pushing the ground with his arms, and he managed to push the giant beast while breaking some of its ribs. He then got up by using the resulting impact, only to see Sher-Dor latch onto the bear to try and immolate it. There was even one of the people who couldn’t leave the circle of flames due to their old age attacking the bear. They had madness in their eyes.

"KILLLL!!!"

That voice again. Rouhong fell to his knees while clutching his head. His body wanted to listen to the voice, but his mind told him otherwise. He looked back to see Vergeltung in a similar situation.

The poor cat was trying to keep the flames under his control, but something was trying to make him use them all to attack the beast. There were still a few people stuck inside the circle. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Then there were soft sobs coming from what he was embracing. Mafdet was crying as the sounds she was hearing were scary and loud. He laughed and got back up. "How could I let this happen? My little princess is asking me to end it quickly."

The cat turned to Tsuki and ordered her to save the weak and cowards who couldn’t save their own skin before striking his staff to the ground. An aura of light spread out from him at the center and covered everyone in sight. He closed his eyes to sense the light, but where it didn’t reach was an obstacle, such as an almost invisible bear.

Tsuki was headstrong on fighting, but the light was similar to a warm sun, which caused rashes to slowly appear over her skin. She had to escape, but before doing so, she summoned Sinorous and Alambusha. The hound instinctively snarled at the bear, while the tiger took this time to snatch away the people needing help.

All that remained in the ring of fire was a magical bear, a pyromaniac elf, a fighter in magma-like armor, an almost deified cat, and finally a young wolf made from irregular forms. And in the trees, perched at a safe distance, a crow made of black cracking petals screamed, "AIM FOR HIS HEART!!" And so did the group attacking the bear. Each of the warriors had a way to detect the beast.

Δ

The fire burning Yassil had become more powerful, and the large core in his chest that powered his body was starting to show cracks. Shamala used all that she had to avoid the incessant attack of this burning demi-god. Trees by the hundreds were being razed in this clash of giants. Whenever she received a wound of some kind, the apparition riding her would instantly close it while working on a complex spell.

What worried her the most were the constantly opening rifts, which didn’t even last a millisecond. She knew that if any of them could stabilize, something would come out to instantly defeat her. The apparition was the one closing them all, and Shamala simply had to believe in this strange ally.

She dashed forward with bottomless energy to push the standing bear onto his back. This succeeding, she bit down on his neck, not trying to clasp onto it, in the hope of digging deep enough to sever the head from the body.

[ARGYROPOEIA]

A rain of silver dust suddenly appeared around the two demi-gods, which only latched on to the bear. Shamala ignored such phenomena and kept working to sever the head until a cloud of locusts forced her to escape. And this escape came just in time as lightning came crashing down on the bear and what looked like an antenna made of silver connecting him with the sky.

[THEURGY: VAE]

Then, a dark mist was expelled from the bear's body as it screamed in pain like a mad beast, only for its scream to change to that of a man. The rifts that appeared became wilder and more numerous, with some almost able to completely manifest.

Shamala had no clue as to what was going on and started shaking out of fear. A hand with almost perceptive tattoos of weaving patterns caressed her head. It calmed her greatly for some reason. "Separation," whispered the apparition. Shamala guessed what she had to do and jumped back into the fray. The ghost was trying to save her old master, and she understood this. To do so, something had to be separated.

❀

Rouhong punched the bear when it became paralyzed by something unknown that caused bones to crack. The beast tried to retaliate by striking the man down, but a strange wolf bit down at its only remaining arm and immobilized it. It was like its arm was frozen in time, as it wasn’t even able to run from where it was. Sher-Dor got back on the bear’s back by feeling the difference in heat and plunged a dagger at the back of its neck.

Now, it was only a question of time. The beast wasn’t all that strong once its ability was nullified. It was resistant to most elements, such as fire, but blood loss was what ended up killing it. The crow of petals completely disappeared after screaming something about endless wars.

"Roasted bear! Bear roasting! Roaster bear!" – "Stop it, brother! You’re embarrassing me!" Everyone was exhausted after the fight, and the two small rakshasas managed to put a wry smile on most people’s faces.

The family of the deceased will be served first," said Vergeltung, who tried to give a helping hand to Krimira.

"WHooooaaaaaa!!! She’s so cute! I could eat her whole." – "Hey, old man. Just who did you knock up that would be so desperate as to have a kid with a cat?"

Vergeltung regretted going up to the two kids but nonetheless tried to explain how he got Mafdet. They didn’t believe him…

There were very few wounded that Tsuki needed to heal. Most were terrified by her two summons. While Alambusha acted aloof, Sinorous was his complete opposite, acting sporadically and randomly.

"Ho my, if it isn’t Miss Tsuki," said someone who was basically a stranger to the girl. It was Belmond, Alphonse’s brother. "I had yet to give you my jovial thanks for helping us b---Bhua!"

The man was suddenly pushed by someone Tsuki knew a little bit better but didn’t have a good opinion of. "Don’t you remember me?" asked Yuzuha while looking somewhere she thought the girl was.

Seeing her like this, Tsuki felt bad for how she treated her. Yuzuha was blind, and Tsuki couldn’t even come to understand the pain of living like this. She had no clue how Yuzuha was meant to survive in such a world, but seeing her put on a smile and be warm to others... "Want me to help with something?" Tsuki asked, knowing full well that Yuzuha only wanted to use her to get closer to Rouhong.

"Ufufufu. We’ll need to talk sometime soon. But tell me, what are those pets that I keep hearing about? Where are they? Can I feed them? Can I touch them? Can I pet them?"

Halambusha had a bad feeling about this and escaped somewhere, leaving Sinorous alone. Strangely enough, this blind girl was a good match for the strange wolf. Maybe it was related to not being able to see him.

All in all, the carriages started moving once again while people walked along the way in a sort of hopeful ambiance.

Δ

Shamala was left alone in the forest after defeating the giant bear. All she had to do was pull the cracked core inside the giant, and then poof, everything was gone. The apparition, the rifts, the bear’s body, and the damage… there was nothing of the sort remaining. Before everything returned to normal, she was able to see what was inside the core: an elven man she knew too well and a sprite of wind cradled in his arms…

She chose to ignore it. The strange apparition had partaken her with precious information about how the world worked during the fight. She understood that there had to be a reason for this and thus left for someplace that needed her… She couldn’t let herself rot away, as she now understood that the true hero was still fighting even in death. An alchemist of old who was the key to stopping reality’s impending destruction.

*

Gupta’s report of the week.

Substance A: Ineffective

Substance B: Ineffective

Substance C: Ineffective

…

Substance A35: Effective

Gupta managed to create a powerful neurotoxin that can be applied to arrows or darts. Using the debris, Gupta started making traps and weapons. He will bring down any intruder inside the temple, this he promised to his Lord...

Mission: reach the medical wing and make it usable. Make venom.

Resources needed: 50 units of wood. Lockpicking tools.

Research: (70 ->90)% sludge. 5% walls (paused).

Map explored: 10%

Mine discovered. Substance A35.