After the dark-haired demigoddess had closed her bedroom door, Shirei longed to pursue that topic further with his father. Since he couldn't leave the outpost to go to the Underworld, he had no choice but to postpone the discussion until another day, but he had a second idea. He let the darkness envelop him and headed back to the battlefield.
Cragar's son reappeared among the ruins and corpses of the previous day's battlefield. His black hair, falling like a flowing shadow over his face, swayed slightly in the funereal breeze. The violet eyes shone with an eerie light, reflecting the surrounding desolation. With a slow pace, he reached the body of the enemy demigod, who had fallen in combat.
Shirei knelt next to the corpse and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. The world around him seemed to blur, and with a wave of ghostly energy, the son of Cragar found himself catapulted into the Interworld. The kingdom in between stretched before him like a vast seabed, but without the serenity of the abyss. The sky above him became a whirlwind of green, white and black, colors that danced and mixed chaotically, apparently making no sense. Everything was in perpetual motion and nothing was ever stable. In that dimension, Shirei saw the ghost he was looking for. The ethereal figure floated as if trapped between two worlds. His face, still marked by mortal beauty, was now veiled in sadness and resignation. His eyes were two bottomless wells of melancholy, framed by transparent skin that revealed the ghostly essence of his being. The torn clothes, torn to shreds of pale light, waved around the body like cold flames.
Shirei rose to his feet, feeling the chill of the Interworld creep into the enemy demigod's spirit.
“I need help,” he whispered, his voice an echo across the waves of that ghostly sea, “There is information I need to have.”
The ghost looked up and seemed to recognize him. A hint of life crossed his vacant eyes, bringing him back from that apparent post-mortem stasis of which he was the victim.
“What did you come back to do? I know it's the fate I deserved, even without a sermon from you.”
The ghost bent over and closed his eyes, desperately wanting to move away from his body.
“You know me?”
The demigod nodded, “Only your name, we soldiers do not have the privilege of meeting one of your rank.”
Shirei stepped back to make room for the ghost, “Sorry, I don't know anything you’re talking about.”
“You've lost your memory, right? So lucky.”
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“I... I want to remember,” the boy managed to say before asking the fateful question, “Who am I?”
The ghost opened its mouth, but only a distorted sound came out, “******. I'm Reno, nice to meet you.”
Shirei made a confused face, “Reno… can you repeat that?”
The ghost's voice was covered again and Shirei couldn't understand the name even by lip-reading. Ringing ears forced him to change the subject.
“If we are soldiers, who do we belong to?”
“To the Ancient One's army, it seems obvious to me.”
Shirei was perplexed, “You're talking about Rakion, but he should be in eternal rest.”
“There,” the ghost pointed out, “That's exactly why it will attack you.”
“Would it cause unnecessary bloodshed, just because for some unknown reason he awakened?”
“Do you think that's really why?” Reno laughed, “It doesn't matter, he already has a plan to deal with all of you, starting with you and ending with the flame hero.”
“Can you tell me more?” Cragar's son asked
“He says the nightmare and the remaining generals will take care of your army. He has someone the flame hero can't fight and that idiot king of the gods can't do anything about.”
Shirei remained silent. He linked the nightmare to Salix and the title of hero of the flame to Darryl Fyreborn. The fact that the enemy knew about him meant that his power must represent a source of danger. The demigod overlooked the insult made by the son of Aor, after all he didn't care much about Emion.
“Do not look at me like this. I'm dead now, whether I decide to continue wandering here like a ghost or am summoned before Cragar makes little difference. These are places where the sky god has no jurisdiction.”
Shirei assessed the situation, “The gods cannot stand idly by.”
“They will,” the ghost contradicted him, “And don't hope for the divine army or the heroes of the great war. There's no way Emion would put his hard work at risk so much.”
The purple-eyed demigod took a mental note of the last topic, he didn't even know what the other was talking about. “Is this a diversion too?”
“Obvious! What did you think?” The deceased boy laughed in his face, “The monsters are enclosed in temporal faults that he has scattered throughout Italy and which he is opening only to keep the most powerful demigods away and divided.”
His cloak fluttered in the wind, “It's no use, you'll be stuck here until you've defeated all the enemies, and he'll bring them back to life in the Abyss anyway.”
“This way he won't have any casualties before launching his attack,” Shirei concluded.
“Bingo! You are just wasting precious time. The monsters come out in waves so as to hold you as long as possible, as well as drain you both in body and mind.”
Cragar's son was considering the best choice to make, “If we clear out all the monsters in the faults, how much time do we have before the attack?”
An idea of how the mysterious enemy reasoned was already beginning to form in his head. He had followed the lesson given by Marina and, through the knowledge extracted from Cragar's words, he had managed to understand that Rakion was against the celestials.
All that remained was to understand the motive that pushed the ancient god to attack his own progeny. To tell the truth, the boy wondered about the too many inconsistencies with the knowledge he had obtained and what Reno had just said.
Talking about the unknown god seemed extremely simple to him, as if the thought of him was almost familiar to him.
The son of Aor counted on his fingers before answering, “I can't tell you exactly, certainly no more than a week.”