In the end, their departure was delayed by Count Daybreak, who was now fervently writing a letter of apology and explanation to Dia’s employer. While there was nothing in the way of a monetary apology or anything, the honesty in which Count Daybreak had written that letter was quite refreshing.
It started off with a seasonal greeting, and then moved onto an explanation of Daybreak County’s current circumstances, and then a full-out admission of Count Daybreak’s own doings and why he resorted to them in the first place.
“Still, I didn’t know you got a few wandering bards to sing about home and Daybreak County in Licencia, though.” Risti eyed the letter. “And I don’t think that’s really something I would consider a wrongdoing.”
“Sincerity is for the best here, I think.” Count Daybreak sighed. “Still, if I hadn’t pissed off Aran, he wouldn’t have sent you guys here. And my people would have been dead. Funny how fate works.”
“Fate, huh.” Dia pondered on that word. “It’s really funny, I guess. We ended up encountering the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny at the end of all that. Still, is that Bearer of Destiny not the Holy Son of the Red God or a Blessed?”
Nero, who was eyeing a bottle of wine in the count’s wine cabinet, looked up. “The Holy Son is the true Blessed of the gods, but the Bearer need not be. I’m told that the Bearer of Destiny comes from all walks of life, so I am fairly certain that none of the Coloured Gods’ Bearers of Destiny were raised in the Coloured Churches from young. Rather, it’s a contract of equals and everything.”
He paused. “I wish I can tell you more, but the role of the Coloured Gods’ Bearer of Destiny and their influence on the Trial of Aeons is very impossible to explain to anyone without getting them killed.”
“Would it work if we got you drunk?” Risti wondered. “You’ll end up slurring all the information.”
“Information has two types of loads,” Nero replied. “Entry loads and density loads. The former is like taxes to enter a city, while the latter are taxes based on how expensive one’s property is in a city…the heavier the information, the more it drains from you.”
“Thanks for that analogy, I guess. Still, even if you’re drunk…”
“You’ll need to be dead drunk, not me. If you can recall a fraction of the truths I speak while you were out of it, I suppose your head would blow up.” He paused. “I can’t even tell this to a tetra-folder...it’s a perk of being a Holy Son.”
“…Alright, keep acting mysterious.” Risti scoffed once, and then started fiddling with an odd artefact that looked like a metal board or something. Nero, in return, turned back to look at the nice collection of booze the poor Count Daybreak had, and Dia felt a bit out of place.
She didn’t want to disturb Count Daybreak, who was reading through the letter over and over again, so she instead moved towards the window and peeked out at the county she and the others had saved.
Thunder roared in the distance as tri-coloured lightning bolts streaked towards the distant horizon, and Dia took in the novel sight. As a rule of thumb, lightning bolts were white in colour, so to see lightning bolts that were red, blue and yellow was quite a novel sight...
She didn’t know that meteorological events also adapted to the Moons. In her opinion, however, black lightning looked far cooler than any other form of lightning, which meant that the Voidum Sovereignty had the coolest lightning storms in existence.
For some reason, she could swear that someone was deriding her as edgy, but that was probably a corner of her own mind, who preferred the repressed, good little girl whose only identifying trait was utter perfection promoted by zealous fans and journalists.
“Still, tri-coloured lightning?” Dia tilted her head. It was seriously a first to see something like this though.
Another bolt of lightning felt, striking at the horizon, and the ground shook as a monstrous roar swept the world. That sound stirred up Dia’s heart, and for a moment, the urge to punch something assaulted her mind.
The others shook at the same time, and a burst of mana surged outwards from Count Daybreak as a skill seemed to activate.
“Count Daybreak?”
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“The Moons! They’re acting!” the count shouted. “This is them administering divine retribution upon the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny!”
On cue, ten strikes of lightning smashed down, their combined appearance creating a deafening crack that sliced through the silence of the peaceful morning.
It didn’t end there, though. Tri-coloured lightning bolts began to fall in earnest, and Dia’s heart grew cold. The Moons were lashing out at their target — and there could only be one so close to Daybreak County — with a steady, unruffled cadence, like a chef chopping carrots and potatoes.
“Divine punishment…” Nero’s voice was hushed. “No, not punishment. It’s just the Moons taking advantage of their supremacy in this domain to hunt down the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny. Today, it seems, a Bearer of Destiny might just die here.”
As those words left his mouth, a red light burst out from the horizon, surging into the skies. An incredible presence swept outwards as a faint silhouette appeared, its giant stature holding onto a staff that drew Dia’s eyes.
“Impossible!” Nero smashed the wall, and the window’s size tripled instantly. “Impossible! That’s…”
“What’s that?” Dia asked, ignoring the fact that a wall of Count Daybreak’s study had been destroyed.
“Spirit Clone Descent…but you need to have compatibility on par with a Holy Child to even acquire the skill,” Nero whispered. “Does this mean that the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny is actually His Holy Son too?”
His fist clenched up. “Is there no justice in this world?”
The red figure smashed aside another volley of thunderbolts effortlessly, before forming a fist with his right hand. Punching out once, the Red God’s spirit clone punched towards the tri-coloured clouds gathered in the sky, sending out a sky-shaking burst of might that aimed to scatter them.
With a ripple, a tri-coloured screen took on the burst of power, and the resulting clash tore down forests and directly reduced the nearby mountains into drifting ash.
Time seemed to freeze as both the Red God’s spirit clone and the clouds above reeled from the impact, and in that very a moment, a pillar of red light fell. A person, gleaming with the Red God’s light and sporting a pair of wings, took this chance to flee. Turning into a flash of red light, the Bearer of Destiny took off towards the west.
“Familiar Spirit Descent, Spirit Clone Descent…Red God’s Squad and an Absolute Skill.” Nero toyed with a brick. “That just leaves one more skill left, and—”
A tri-coloured wall of light appeared out of nowhere, and with a jolt, Dia realised that it was precisely the same wall of light that had isolated the Istrel Sovereignty from the other sovereignties. Her heart relaxed as she took in that sight; the Bearer of Destiny was definitely dead—
A majestic cry that sounded vaguely avian sliced into the surroundings, and another set of wings, one far larger and grander than the human-sized wings on the Bearer of Destiny’s back, appeared. It didn’t just stop there, though; within the span of a single second, a resplendent bird had materialised, its red-gold feathers glittering with the promise of annihilation.
The wall held as the red-gold giant bird clashed with it, and the Red God’s spirit clone began to shine. The ground abruptly shook, and huge fountains of lava burst out of the soil, solid pillars of crimson death that stabbed into the clouds itself.
Dia shivered as a chilling gust of air blew past everyone, and the pillars of lava turned solid on the spot, before exploding with a vengeance. Grey fragments burst out with enough force, poking thousands of holes into the tri-coloured colours and preventing them from sending out more lightning bolts for a whole three seconds.
That three seconds was, unfortunately, more than enough. A silvery dome — the Bearer of Destiny’s Absolute Entrapment, had appeared in the first second, shrinking down to cover the crimson and golden bird in the next second.
At the last second, as the clouds above hurled lightning bolts that tore the Red God’s spirit clone asunder, the Bearer of Destiny shattered the screen that had held him back and turned into a solid lance of silver, red and gold that charged westwards.
The surroundings shuddered as the resulting wave of air smashed into Count Daybreak’s castle and tore half of it down.
“My castle!”
“I don’t think that’s the main concern now…”
Dia looked towards the Schwa Dukedom, where the Bearer of Destiny had fled to. “Do you think he can make it out of the sovereignty? Or would he hide in Schwa and plot a comeback?”
“We’ll soon find out, I think. The Moons will definitely send down a decree,” Nero replied. “Anyway, that giant phoenix materialisation should have come from a skillstick. A trump card of the Red God’s Bearer of Destiny. Other than that, though, we’ve discovered most of his skills. Two descent skills, Red God’s Squad, Absolute Entrapment…we’re left with only one now. If we need to hunt him down…”
“It’ll be easier, right?” Risti replied.
“Considering that he has Spirit Clone Descent and Familiar Spirit Descent, I don’t think so. Still, the nature of these two skills is similar to that of his Absolute Entrapment,” Nero replied, shaking his head. “The Moons will notice immediately. If he uses them here, he’s dead meat.”
“The Moons didn’t kill him, though.”
“Almost. And to them, it was probably a fairly easy feat.” Nero had a sad look on his face. “They won’t let him run a second time.”
The three of them, plus Count Daybreak, looked at the west one last time, and then turned to regard the ruined castle.
“…You definitely won’t be causing trouble for Nightfall, at least.” Nero rubbed his nose. “Silver lining?”
“I’ll burn that lining if you continue on,” Count Daybreak muttered darkly. “At least I’m still a single dog, and my servants are largely staying outside of this cold and lonely place. I don’t think anyone died from this collapse…and that’s the true silver lining.”
“You do have a heart, huh,” Risti muttered.
“And pray tell, what’s that supposed to mean?”