“H-hey, are you really helping that thing?!”
“What if it wakes up all of a sudden?!”
“Aye, I shall bear the responsibility if it does, but what I can’t bear is to see such poorly applied bandages, even on a creature such as this one…”
As Lamia and Salil hesitantly approached Alviss, the dwarf was sitting down where he had been showered by lightning strikes not too long ago and tending to the Hyking creature’s wounds.
While a part of him was sending warning signs to his brain, Alviss ignored his fears and decided to help anyway. As a talented blacksmith, seeing anything that was poorly made or done would always constantly eat at him until he took action and fixed it.
Even though he was not a fan of anything related to mysticism, especially the kind that could turn invisible and take over minds, it still went against his very being to simply not do anything.
That was why he was carefully applying ointment and bandages on the stuffed toy-looking creature laying in the palm of his left hand.
“Suit yourself, but it better not wake up-”
“Hey! Is that thing opening its eyes?!”
“!?”
Hearing that, everyone panicked and rapidly took a few instinctive steps back away from Alviss. However, the dwarf stayed calm and didn’t react as he lowered his gaze and met the creature’s barely open pink eyes.
“...’
He knew that with the size of it, it wasn’t going to be recovering any time soon from its wounds. It was somehow unfortunate enough to be indirectly slashed by Lawkey’s swing, forcing it to manifest physically and break its control over the tritons, but it was also oddly fortunate enough to not be cut in half and survive with only a slash wound across its small torso.
Dammit… how long has it been since I reverted into a physical form…? The little Hyking creature, a wanted chaotic ghost called Frido, vaguely made out a blurry scene of a dwarf holding him as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Now that it happened, this body will need to catch up on a lot of sleep I missed… It’ll be days at this rate…
For Frido who had long since abandoned the nature of physical existence, he had relied solely on one of his Signs, specifically the Ghost or Spirit Transformation Sign, to survive.
As he assessed, spending years in that state, and suddenly reverting back into his current form, all the fatigue and lack of sleep would catch up with him and force him to enter a deep slumber. Had he been in a somewhat better state, he might have been able to quickly use his Sign to become a ghost again, but alas, the pain in his chest was too great.
For now, all he was hoping for…
It looks like it hasn’t happened yet… Can that guy really do it…? The vision I saw hinted at it… That if he changes into who he used to be in time… then maybe he could…
As he lost consciousness again, the multiple visions which his second Sign, the Mind-Eye Sign that came with many alternative names, had shown him flashed into his mind.
The sight of Riana’s bloodied figure in the lap of her niece.
The sight of a giant tide towering over the entire island.
And the sight of a raging beast shattering the stained glass depicting the primordial goddess of light and sun.
As always, Frido could never accurately interpret what those scenes meant or why he had seen them, but nevertheless, he had taken measures to ensure an outcome he believed was favorable, regardless of how inhumane such measures might have been.
Best he could do is ignore the bad omens and trust a gut instinct he got from those visions, and in that prison on the Galleon Ship Aliarda, he got the gut feeling the dehydrated swordsman in front of him at the time might just be able to do what he himself couldn’t.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Perhaps that encounter, and what needed to happen next, were also part of destiny, or fate.
Or perhaps, it was due to the millennium curse, the Hyking’s Curse.
No one would ever know.
**👑**
“Why do I have to do this?!”
“Just do it! I have my hands full with my brother already!”
Liv and Bakari complained as they treated Cleitus and Baahir’s wounds. They had managed to carry them all the way out to the north where the dock was.
It wasn’t long before they were detected by their allies on the standby ships and received their support.
Currently, they were all preparing to attack the island head on now that the Undine Clan had resisted. It didn’t matter to them if it was one siren or the entire clan who stood up to them, this was the perfect excuse for them to do what they wanted to do all along anyway.
“If only that damned other guy would just show himself and help us instead of hiding in the shadows.” Bakari grumbled as he finished the last bandages on his unconscious brother.
“I’m sure he’ll show himself when he thinks it’s the right time…” Liv stood up and turned around, making sure no one could see her face.
“Why the hell are you defending that bastard? He’s a Hyking too, I don’t understand why the Coin Masters even bothered taking him in…”
Without another word, Liv simply walked away from Cleitus’ wounded body.
“Hey! He still needs bandages-”
“Do it yourself!”
“What’s your problem lady?!”
Amidst the chaos of dozens of Golden Garden Guild members preparing for battle, no one was paying attention to the waves beneath their ships.
If they did, they would have noticed the odd decrease in the sea level that was slowly threatening to enlarge the shore.
**👑**
On the road south of Sweet Scylla, after Lawkey had very quickly wrapped some bandages from his pouch on Frido, he left him in a fruit basket nearby and caught up with Riana.
He didn’t want to keep the little creature in his waist cloth, knowing full well a battle might be awaiting him at the cathedral that was coming into view.
A few minutes later, they had quickly made a lot of progress running through the path. Even though they were completely silent, they both clenched their weapons tightly and thought about Sana, the little girl they would do anything for and the current situation she might be in again.
It made their blood boil simply imagining it.
Just as they were walking up to the front gate, they turned to each other, nodded, and quickly separated.
That was enough for them to understand what the other was thinking. After all, they both had come here for the same reason.
**👑**
Inside the newly built Golden Cathedral that depicted a mural of the primordial goddess of light and sun, a shining orb hovered in the air where an altar would usually stand.
Below it was a man kneeling down on all fours, his head planted to the ground itself.
“Oh, goddess of light! Oh, goddess of the sun! I am close to achieving our goal here! I will spread your light across this continent, starting with these poor sun-abandoning folk! On top of that, I have managed to find a rare gem amongst these merfolk, a diamond in the rough who can overturn the fate of this world!”
Zoran kept on praying and worshiping his deity for a while before he got up and looked to his left side. There was just one more person visible within the cathedral beside himself.
A little girl with light blue hair had both her neck and hands shackled with a chain that connected to a metal nail in the ground. Her turquoise eyes had lost all their luster once more, an apparent outcome after whatever had caused the swelling in her right cheek.
Zoran bent down, grabbed Sana’s chin and forcibly turned it to face him. Her eyes were utterly vacant as they met his ember irises, “Don’t look at me like that, you have a unique power. You have a responsibility to use it for the good of all people.”
“...”
“It’s not even a Sign, yours probably hasn’t properly manifested at your age yet, right? Seeing as you don’t even have your mother’s, or the Undine Clan’s Fish Transformation Sign. A shame to see how far such a Sign that was once part of the Royal Werebeast Clan has fallen, but I’m sure you’ll manifest one to rival it.”
He suddenly let go of Sana’s face with a slight shove to the side, then sat on a big well-decorated golden chair that is meant for priests called Cathedra.
“You should be glad you’re not a Hyking, you’d be hunted down and killed. That is true even outside of this continent. After you convert and pray to the goddess, she will surely bless you so that you can use your power and do her will. This way, at the very least, unlike the Hykings, you will be kept alive-”
BAMMMM!
“What?!”
Zoran’s pupils immediately contracted as he witnessed the entrance to the cathedral shatter and fall upon itself. A moment later, a lone figure began to appear from behind the rising cloud of dust.
The figure swung his blade to the side, cutting the dust cloud in front of him to reveal his features. His brows were narrow, giving him a stern expression that complimented his glowing emerald eyes.
“Who the hell are you?!” Zoran asked with puzzlement. He had expected sirens or tritons, but a single human stepping in for a clan? On Tartarus of all places? That was simply absurd.
“Uncle…?” Even with her eyes on the verge of losing all color, the little girl still managed to let out without a change of expression.
Seeing her in her current situation, shackled and chained again, the swollen eyes and cheek, the lightless eyes…
Reflexively, he clenched his weapon tightly and bit his bottom lip for a second. Holding back his raging flames boiling within him, he forced a wide smile on his lips.
A ridiculous smile.
“I told you to stop calling me that, didn’t I?”
“...”
“Answer me, stranger! How dare you damage the cathedral of the primordial goddess of light and sun-”
“I’ll only say this once.”
Lawkey cut Zoran off and pointed his sword at him after slowly closing the distance to a dozen meters. His expression quickly changed back to show off his stern eyes.
“Let her go. Now.”
“Hah!” Zoran simply scoffed back at him.
“...”
Lawkey committed himself to what comes next.
The smile shackling the beast within had already begun to fade.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/F6h7vmX.png]