Fine and steady fingers brushed past the translucent lake. Great and heavy animal coats fluttered as cold streams of wind blew past the basin. Ulrika walked atop of the ninth mountain and looked at the huge door. Recalling the words her teacher had told her about the elves’ fate, the door seemed even more magnificent in this soberness. She was silent for a long time.

She entered and step foot upon the beams that spanned so long that their ends could not be seen. She opened her mouth and said to Margrethe, “The elven kings would all bring many servants with them to their afterlife. Saint Gael is the only one who didn’t. After the destruction of his kingdom and the other states, he brought the survivors deeper into the forest, and disappeared from the annals of history.”

Margrethe looked at the place with bright eyes. She looked at the platform suspended mid-air. She had just scanned it with her preception and failed to find anything. She asked curiously, “Did he leave behind any manuals?”

Margrethe laughed. She thought for a moment before answering, “No, he was just practising the fist. Since it’s so simple, there was no reason to leave it behind.”

Margrethe frowned and asked, “Then what about burial treasures?”

Ulrika felt the mana fluctuations of the tomb and found it rather abnormal. She replied, “Gale had left behind all his belongings to the elves. If there was any, their properties would have long faded, the mana returning to the heavens.”

Margrethe heard this, and her mood worsens. Much of the human way of life had come from the elves, so she was naturally very excited about receiving the inheritance of a great elven figure. Who knew that the last elven king would be so benevolent, and give away all his possessions, inhabiting only an empty tomb?

The two sisters walked deeper into Gael’s tomb. Ulrika’s slender brows rose slowly. She was born after Alexander’s times and was uncertain about many things that had happened. Yet she was certain that the tomb is completely uninhabited say for a single corpse, but why was she feeling so uneasy?

---

Many years ago, Gael had spent the last of his life force, along with the area surrounding his tomb, to separate this room from the rest of this world. As long as you did not enter it, you would not realise its’ existence. If you did, however, you would never leave this world for it is a prison he had gifted to Glafx.

“Cough… cough… you’re actually not of this world.”

Sage Glafx looked at Ovid from his position between the tree trunk. His mouth was split wide open with an aged laugh. His lips twisted downwards and he began to cry like a child. The sound of laughing and crying came together and sounded incredibly ugly.

Ovid took out the porcelain bottle containing phoenix blood and drank it like how one would drink good wine. He said, “That is the case.”

The old mans’ gaze was as cold as the lowest level of hell. He glared at Ovid and said, “That’s impossible!”

Ovid replied, “I am here.”

The sage’s next statement came rapidly. He roared like thunder, “Then that means your soul will never reincarnate, after death, it will vanish into the void.”

Ovid was somewhat surprised, but he still answered blankly, “Is that so.”

The sage asked solemnly, “Are you not afraid?”

Ovid replied, “Then I won’t die.”

The young man said sarcastically, “But you nearly died just then.”

Ovid frowned, “So?”

The young man answered sharply, “That means you do not value your life. How could you become an immortal with such mindset?”

Ovid answered, “I heard Alexander was also fearless.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The sage shook his head slowly. He said with slight ridicule, “I cannot believe I had failed to eat you. You haven’t even trodden on the path of magic, yet you managed to bring me to such a state.”

Ovid descended into silence. And then, he replied, “I’m not afraid of death, so when push comes to shove, I can go one step further than you.”

The old sage was stunned, and then, he began to laugh manically. Cloudly steams of tear flowed down his withered face slowly. He pointed at Ovid’s haggard face with a skinny finger and barely repressed his desire to laugh. He said viciously, “You and Alexander are two different entities. Although he was perversely talented and strong, he still functioned within the laws of this world. In contrast, you abide by a completely different set of rules. The gods will not permit your existence.”

The young man panted and said, “This is your fate. The faster you grow stronger, the closer you approach death. You are cursed, and there is no way to resolve this.”

Ovid was silent, he tilted his head toward the sky and looked incredibly pleased as his answer rang in the deathly silent room.

“God does not play dice.”

This quote was said by Einstein in reference to the possibility of quantum mechanics. To Einstein, the randomness of quantum is something impossible to imagine in a universe that is deterministic and measurable.

Today, quantum mechanics is an accepted field in science.

---

This statement was both confusing and proud. Sage Glafx’s face twitched. He looked at Ovid and said, “Every person is a world, every world is a universe.”

Ovid heard of this saying in his old world, but could not recall where it came from.

The sage looked to his side and saw the wooden bird had disappeared. He said slowly, “You have summoned energy from outside this space. Then, the ritual that has hidden the chamber must naturally cease the exist.”

Ovid looked at him and said, “I know, I can feel mana leaving this room. The garden outside will probably return to the same as the rest of the forest.”

The sage lamented, “It seems that we are wasting time at this point.”

Ovid said calmly, “Time is relative.”

The sage smiled lightly and added, “My time is up.”

Ovid replied, “Indeed.”

The last sacred grove, decayed at a speed visible to the human eyes, it’s vibrant green leaves falling off and turning to dust. The broad branches lost all contents of water and began to weaken and fall off, creating a loud sound as it made contact with the stone floor.

Ovid’s feet landed on the ground and there was a snapping sound as an imprint was made on the trunk that held Glafx.

The second time he landed, his feet had stood on a pile of sawdust that had been the eagle.

Ovid appeared before the young man before long.

He held onto his sword with both hands and plunged it into the sage’s chest.

Black blood flowed along the blade, but it was blocked by a hilt so it did not reach Ovid’s head. However, for some reason, Ovid felt the instinctive urge to wash his hands, as it felt very sticky, and very uncomfortably. This was the first time that he had taken a life, and it was really unpleasant.

Still, the force behind his sword did not cease, with terrifying strength, the sharp edge of the blade had already wedged into the chest of the sage before he had any time to respond.

After the mana stored by the sacred grove had been released, Sage Glafx’s cheeks had filled out and his outstretched arms had become incredibly smooth. The vitality of his body was like a recently sprouted sapling or a newborn bird. However, he did not anticipate that Ovid’s strike would be vicious and difficult to avoid.

He had regained a quarter of his power before the fight with Gael. He was Sage Glafx who had travelled through the known world and became a saint without canonization. Even if he had gained a percentage of his strength, he would not have died with this strike.

His organs that flowed freely retracted back into his body, his restored abdomen showing no sign of damage. His skin was tender and smooth, like a newborn’.

Steel like feathers appeared, stopping the blade from going any further.

The countless years of imprisonment had finally ended, mana was surging into Glafx’s body. He was still growing stronger.

The young man looked at Ovid’s coldly.

Ovid’s blood shook, and blood flowed from his mouth.

Fresh blood tinted with silver landed on his stola.

The stola suddenly shifted.

Ovid bore through the immense pain numbly, almost like a machine, and drove the blade further into the man’s chest.

The sage let out a piercing shill scream that could be likened to that of a bird.

A wave of energy flowed down the blade and met the light mana that was infused into the blade by Ovid.

A cloud of dust and pieces of wood flew up in the empty burial chamber. The remainder of the sacred grove began to collapse, flying like rubbish as they turned in the sudden gust of wind, hitting and slamming against the stone walls.

Ovid’s hand that was grabbing the sword, began to tremble weakly. Although his body was recovering under the mana released into the cold room, it seemed as if he would not be able to hold the hilt any longer, as the external power had begun to overtake his own light mana.

Yet Sage Glafx is mere hairs away from his death bed, although the sudden influx of mana began to repair his weak and fragile body at a freakish rate, it was too late for his fate to change.

Ovid lifted his head and met eyes with the sage.

Their exchange of stares was no longer the same as when they were completing on the blade with their aura. No slaughter in his eyes could be seen, instead, it was as gentle and quiet as ripples created by a small child throwing a pebble into a lake.

The broad blade break through the feathers, stabbing deeper into the sage’s chest and penetrated through his heart.

---

No matter how strong is, once their heart was gone, they would die.

Ovid did not subscribe to that belief, as he was well aware that it was possible to continue living without a heart. Furthermore, the man before him was far stronger than him, so Ovid remained cautious.

Removing the blade immediately, he prepared to chop off the sage’s head.

Yet before he could do so, the young man stared at Ovid’s oval face and suddenly, began to laugh crazily. His laughter was mad but weak, and in the end, he began to sob as he said breathlessly, perhaps enlightened in the last moments of life, “I was born with good fate, but through life, my fate had been terrible. I thought that I had escaped such fate by teaching Alexander and Gael. Yet it was only now that I realise that my whole life...”

“...was nothing more than a stepping stone.”