Waking up was unpleasant, almost painful. Dallion felt as if he had been partying all night. His head was thumping, and his eyelids refused to move for long periods of time. When Atol had shaken him, he felt as if he was being woken up for school.

“Dal,” the woman said, using her music skills to up his mood. “We’re almost there.”

Good thing for the benefits of music. Suppressing a yawn, Dallion straightened up. So far, he had managed to restore one skill and two abilities—not bad, considering. Even so, he would have preferred to have acquired attack as well.

“Are you up, kid?” the marshal asked.

The question was an obvious excuse to leave him in the car.

“I’m fine,” Dallion responded. “Is that the place?” he asked, looking at a dot of a house in the distance.

“Remember, this is our business now. You’re just observers.”

“And witnesses,” the deputy added.

“That’s not what we agreed, Matt,” Atol made a point of sounding disappointed. “This is still my business.”

“Sorry, Miss Waters, but it stopped being your business when they tried to kill you. Now it’s… my business.”

“Can’t it be our business? I’m interested in the boy. Your focus is the woman.”

“The boy is an accessory.” The marshal rubbed his eyes. “Once I get to the bottom…” he leaned back in his seat. His mouth semi- opened to continue, yet no intelligible sounds came out. A moment later, he had completely dozed off, as had his deputy.

Car, brakes, Dallion ordered.

Almost unprovoked, the car came to a sudden halt. The seatbelts were the only thing that kept the two men from slamming into the windscreen. Both Atol and Dallion barely budged.

“That was extreme,” Dallion said with a yawn.

“I knew you’d handle it.” The woman replied unapologetically. Waiting for a few seconds, she opened the car door and went outside.

Dallion waited for a few seconds more, then joined her.

“How long will that hold?”

“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Skills don’t have the same effect as they do back there.”

That was an understatement. Dallion’s current splitting ability was one percent of what it had been before. Still, there was no denying that he was adapting rather fast. Once the initial barrier had been broken and he had regained the ability, he was using it as efficiently as before, including force splitting.

Whoever had described the building as a ranch probably had a vast imagination. The house looked as if it was about to collapse at any moment. At some point in the past, there might have been horses or other animals, but now only a partial wooden fence remained.

“Stop,” Dallion said. “Might be an illusion.”

“You think she has magic?”

Dallion kept on looking, trying to peer through the top level of illusion. If there was one, he had no way of seeing what was beneath it. The chances of his target having magic were negligible, but not zero. Atol had specifically said that only mages and domain rulers could remember their experiences from the awakened world.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “She didn’t use it when we met. Still, it doesn’t take much to create an illusion. As long as you can control magic, you can draw symbols on anything.

The two went towards the building. Twenty feet off, Dallion used his combat splitting. There was no way that an awakened wouldn’t have noticed them until now.

“You better do the talking,” he whispered to Atol.

The woman nodded.

“We know you’re there,” she said in a loud voice. The number of music strands were impressive. Sadly, they were general, not targeting anything specific. “We can fight if you want to, but we’re not here for that. We know that one of you has been there.” She paused.

There didn’t seem to be any response.

“We just want to talk about it. There aren’t many who remember the time back there, so—”

In one reality, a crossbow bolt struck Atol in the chest. It was a clean shot, coming from one of the open windows, one might assume. Of course, Dallion had no intention of letting that be. Without hesitation, he switched to his other instance, in which he was the target.

Unlike Atol, however, his reaction speed was a lot faster, causing the bolt to miss by a hair.

“Down!” he shoved her to the side, then darted forward.

As expected, the second shot that followed targeted him specifically. That, too, missed.

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Multi-attack, Dallion thought. It had to be. There was no other way for someone to reload as fast. That made things trickier, but it also gave Dallion an advantage… provided he completed a guard sequence.

Bolt after bolt split the air, less than a second apart. Each time Dallion avoided an attack, he was one step closer to getting the benefits of the guard skills. The question was whether they would actually materialize. Four attacks later, he found out.

Time slowing down on Earth wasn’t like what it was in the awakened world. Rather, Dallion felt like a sudden boost of adrenaline that made everything a lot slower and clearer. It also made him a lot more reckless. Right now, he felt as if he could jump through the second-floor window and face his attacker directly. The centuries of experience acquired in the awakened world kept him from doing so. In the back of his mind, he could almost hear Adzorg, Harp, and even Vihrogon criticizing him for merely having the thought.

Reaching the base of the wall, Dallion looked back. Atol was sprinting towards the marshal’s car in zig-zag fashion. Chances were that the awakened in the building were more concerned with Dallion than anyone else, but still, it was better not to take the risk.

At least two, Dallion told himself. What complicated things was that he wanted both of them alive. By the looks of it, the awakened within the building didn’t share his concerns.

The safe way would be to run round and kick in the door to get inside. That was the reason that Dallion split into three instances and leapt through the nearest first-floor window with two of them. After everything he had been through, it was surprisingly easy. Hands in front of his face, he rolled over on his elbows, then jumped back up again.

Initially, the room was empty, but that didn’t last for long. The woman quickly emerged at the doorway, throwing a dagger right into one of Dallion’s instances.

“Stop!” Dallion made another attempt to use his music skills.

The effect was questionable, but it did manage to distract her for a fraction of a second—just long enough for him to leap forward with a kick.

In his mind, the attack missed, causing Dallion to start thinking about follow-ups and close quarter strategies. In the real world, it made contact shoving the woman back. Not only that, but the attack must have been stronger than Dallion expected, for it slammed her into the corridor wall.

“Mom!” someone yelled.

Dallion didn’t think about it. Refusing to lose the initiative, he pressed on, landing a series of punches in the woman’s abdomen.

Each hit, making her no different than a punching bag. If she hadn’t attacked with the intention to kill, Dallion would have almost felt sorry for her. As a matter of fact, he did so now, yet he was smart enough to know not to stop. Once he incapacitated her, things could be different, but until then—

A gunshot sounded.

Dallion immediately split, looking in both directions of the corridor. He expected for the teen to be armed. While the boy was there, standing at the base of a wooden staircase, he wasn’t the actual culprit. The person holding the weapon was standing on the other side of the corridor and was none other than the deputy marshal.

“That’s enough,” the man said, pointing the gun at Dallion. “Kul, get some drinks and go to the living room. We’ll be with you in a bit.”

Dallion could sense the anger and fear emanating from the boy. Even so, he quietly stepped into the corridor, disappearing into another section of the house.

“Don’t try anything, dear,” the deputy said. “You won’t win against him.”

Raising his hands, Dallion took a step back.

“You were the one leaking information,” Dallion said. “That’s why Atol could never find him.”

“Have you ever had kids?” Jimmy asked. “There, I mean.”

Dallion shook his head.

“They’re the most magnificent thing in the world, even when they’re a pain in the ass.”

“How come I didn’t sense you?” None of the guardians Dallion had spoken to had identified the deputy as an awakened. Was that by design, though? Back at the marshal’s office, the incident with the teen had prevented Dallion from making further inquiries. Come to think of it, it was rather convenient that the marshal had insisted on using their car.

“You’re not the only one who can talk to guardians,” the man said.

Focusing to the extreme, Dallion split into four instances. Three of them charged at the deputy marshal in different fashion, while one remained in place. Before either of them could make their second step, reality was forced onto Dallion, causing all three of the attacking instances to fade away.

“I know everything you’ll do,” the other said. “You have a lot of potential. It’ll be a waste if you lose it all now. In the end, it won’t get you closer to your goal.”

“What do you know about my goal?” Dallion paused. “Is Atol alright?”

“Asleep in the car with Matt. Like all newbies, she didn’t expect that anyone could have music skills and not use them.”

With a few groans, the woman on the ground slowly stood up. Anyone could see the glaring anger in her eyes, yet instead of attacking, she gave the deputy a brief look, then walked past Dallion as if he didn’t exist.

“I’ll get some cookies,” she said, still holding her stomach.

Jimmy didn’t blink, calmly keeping his weapon on Dallion. As things stood, there was a realistic chance for Dallion to escape, if he wanted to. Was there a point, though? He was the one who had come for answers. Giving up would mean he had gone through all this for nothing. Then again, that was preferable to getting killed.

“I won’t kill you,” the deputy said, as if sensing Dallion’s thoughts. “I just don’t want you to harm me, either.”

“You think I can?” Dallion smirked.

“You’re like a kitten. You still need time to learn how to retract your claws. Oh, you never killed anyone, but you were close. You put my wife in the hospital over a dozen times and even broke my arm a few.”

“You have clairvoyance,” Dallion concluded. “Is this what you look like, Simon?”

“No, I’m not Simon,” the other replied, as if he was expecting the question. “But I’m able to see a few days into the future. As an architect, I thought you’d be able to do the same.”

“You’re the architect?” Dallion felt a chill pass through him.

He had speculated that there was a chance he might stumble upon Simon, even if it was low. However, he had never imagined he’d come face to face with the previous architect—the creator of the eternal city, Aether, and the greatest age of the awakened world. The man definitely wasn’t anything like what Dallion expected. At the same time, he had made his way to the final awakening gate without additional help, or so the Moons implied.

“And so are you. Either that or the Moons really liked you to grant you a boon.”

“Felygn did. I was his follower.”

“Felygn.” Jimmy nodded. “He’s always been too emotional for his own good. How’s Galatea? Hopefully mellowed out a bit?”

“I…” Dallion thought about it. “I’ve no idea. He didn’t seem like it.”

In response, the deputy only sighed.

“So, what do we do now?” Dallion asked, his eyes still on the gun.

“Now—” the man holstered his weapon “—we wait for your friend to come to and have the talk you so desperately wanted.”