A mere kid. The voice that derailed the wisps in their search for reascention belonged to a wimpy, skinny-to-the-bone, human kid.
This voice, however, despite a fragile body as its vessel, reverberated like a melody from a glass harmonica. Blown by ocean winds, its cadence evoked an uncanny authority that compels one to listen. Too compeling it accomplished a feat not possible for many—conjuring the attention of Heaven Realm's unruliest.
But even more uncanny was the predicament this kid was in. He spoke the language of gods with such fluidity—too fluent, yet in appearance, he opposed godliness.
In the middle of a great lawn that stretched wide from a luxurious chateau, the kid braced the harsh summer sun. He was on his knees, bruises already peppering its caps from long hours of prostration. His skinny arms balanced several books more than their weight. A pitiable sight for those who knew pity; he was obviously being punished.
Whatacoincidence. Riven thought.
So were they.
After a momentary pause, the wisps reached a silent consensus. There were no signs of Flaura, nor any signs from above. They might as well examine this mortal closely, and satiate their need to scratch the itch of curiosity.
Caelum, the wisp better equipped to holding human conversations, flew in a beeline movement. He spun around the young boy, checking, scrutinizing, putting his centuries of mortal studies into good use. "You can see us?"
With dead eyes, the boy traced Caelum's path. Curiosity lingered in its depths along with signs of exhaustion.
"Of all the young maidens... the prettiest of flowers, the handsomest of men... only a scrawny child can see us?" Caelum showed no attempt to conceal his displeasure. He was genuinely upset. Having roamed the land of mortals for centuries, he lucked out being noticed by a scrawny kid? These truly were strange times.
The boy closed his eyes, regretting the words he had spoken. Carrying books while kneeling was enough punishment to exhaust him physically. Yet, with a slip of tongue, he brought to himself a trio of punishment that would tax him mentally. An exasperated sigh escaped his parched mouth. His breathing had long gone heavy, his limbs stiff, his tongue numb. He was already knee-deep in trouble, he needed not to add more. So, he averted his gaze, hammering it into the cobblestone ground. As if—as if the bright balls of light hovering above him no longer existed.
"It's too late to pretend you can't see us now, kid." A colder, heavier voice rang in his ears.
Unlike Caelum who flew around the kid as soft as a spring breeze, barely letting his presence known, Lucius was a knife to his neck—a cold spike of icy gust. He brushed past the kid's hair, the inky locks that curtained the boy's sunburnt face shoved to the side, revealing early signs of dehydration from his sunken cheeks and flaky skin.
Of course, the heavenly doctor took notice of this.
"Another hour and you're a goner." Riven marveled at the boy's poor state. "You need water, kid."
The kid remained silent. Hesitant to speak. After deliberating, he spoke. "I only get water when I finish these."
"The hell are those?" Lucius said icily, hovering at the stack of books on the kid's arms.
"Aya, you illiterate snake." Caelum buzzed. "They're called books. We, normal folks, read them."
Three leatherbound, several hundred-paged books bore its weight on the kid's bony arms. Faintly, the wisps noticed an iota of spiritual essence beneath its pages. These books were ancient—not the type to serve its purpose as weights for punishments.
With grit, Lucius blazed a fiery red. "Obviously, I know that, imbecile."
With no intention to help the kid out of his predicament, Caelum leered at the topmost book out of plain curiosity. Hoping it would be another gem, he scrutinized the characters written in human script. "Dual Cultivation for Infants? Interesting!"
His remark besought the other wisps' attention. Both appalled by what they heard, Riven and Lucius rushed to surmise the books themselves.
Lucius displayed irritation upon perusing the words embedded on the aged leather. If he had hands, they'd be rubbing his temples. Not only was Caelum wrong, he was downright demented.
"You idiot!" He hissed. "It's Cultivation for Infants. What Dual Cultivation? How your filthy mind would even register that—
"Shameless!"
"Whoops, my bad. Could've sworn I saw those extra characters earlier."
Ignoring the two cunts and their argument, Riven observed the boy's pallor. If this kid were to die in an hour, they needed their curiosity satiated immediately. He needed answers, who cares if this boy succumbs to dehydration? As a doctor, he had a flawless run, but this was out of his hands—he no longer have hands.
"Cultivation for infants," Riven repeated the words to himself. Howdumbmustthiskidbetofailabookfor infants? He snorted. "You're real dumb, aren't you? I see why you're being punished."
The boy let out another sigh. This time, not from physical exhaustion but out of utter exasperation. As if he had exhausted not just the people around him but also himself for being stupid. "Cultivation for infants? Is that what it says?"
"Hah! And you can't even read?" Riven was stunned, incredulous.
"Worse," the boy replied almost instantly. "I can't understand a single word they all say."
Then came a stretch of deathly silence, the surrounding trees became deathly still.
His words were laughable but not one of the wisps laughed. Not when a cold shudder enveloped them like a bad premonition, shattering like glass in the silence.
Immortals; gods, demons or ghosts, easily grasp the human language like the back of their minds. It is a second language imprinted to their cores. Only one in several hundred thousands of immortals fail to grasp the human language. The three wisps themselves, have only ever met one with such condition.
To make things more complicatedly thought-provoking, this condition was already uncommon among immortals. For it to manifest on a mortal was even more uncanny. Imagine a dog that can't bark but meows. It should not be possible at all!
Unless…
Lucius buzzed, shaking the goosebumps off. He hovered face-to-face with the boy, asking. "What the hell are you?"
The boy shook his head lighty, careful not to tilt the books in his arms. "I don't know how to answer that question."
"Urgh." Caelum's imaginary eyes rolled back to his imaginary head. "Right you're stupid. I'll make it simpler for you." He pinned the kid down with a heavy blaze, inching himself to its face. "What's your name, kid? If you can't even answer tha—huh?!"
The three wisps were appalled when the boy shook his head again.
"…I don't have an answer for that either."