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It all lined up! Everything made sense now! Of course, there was no way a mere child could possess such overwhelming, heaven-defying power!
"What do we do? We came here to rob a tomb, and we actually dragged the tomb's owner along for the ride?!" The legendary King of Wizards was panicking, his composure cracking as realization dawned on him. He wasn't even sure if he had enough time left to think his way out of this mess.
Everyone always said Medivh was sly, but who could have imagined this level of cunning?! He'd even gone so far as to draw up a solemn contract about splitting the spoils and promising no harm to one another. But wasn't that just a meticulously crafted farce, a complete and utter humiliation?
No…
This entire tomb might be nothing but a deception! A trap deliberately set to ensnare greedy wizards daring enough to trespass! The longer one lived, the darker their sense of humor became, after all.
And someone who'd lived for tens of thousands of years? Playing games with the living wasn't just possible, it was practically guaranteed.
Sure, there was a binding contract promising mutual safety… but nowhere in the fine print did it say the tomb's guardian couldn't tear intruders apart.
"This has to be intentional!"
Countless frantic thoughts flashed through Merlin's mind in an instant.
And no one could blame him for panicking.
He, after all, had pulled this very trick countless times himself, assuming the form of a child to swindle unsuspecting fools. It was only natural that he'd suspect someone else of using the same ploy. Was this whole ordeal an elaborate sting operation designed to bait him?
After all, raiding someone's tomb was a vile act. If the owner caught you in the act, could you really complain if they killed you on the spot? How could Merlin not feel his blood run cold?
Ian, of course, had no idea what was running through the legendary wizard's mind. He hadn't meant to deceive him, not really. It was only after signing the contract that Ian learned the destination of their little venture.
And what was he supposed to say?
"By the way, Merlin, Medivh is just my alias. I'm actually… well… me from the future"? Whether Merlin believed it or not, there was no way he'd have brought Ian anywhere near this cursed tomb if he knew the truth.
So, yes, Ian felt justified in keeping a few things to himself. But right now… things were undeniably awkward.
"Would you believe me if I said this War God is… confused? I mean, he's been dead a long time. His mind's probably… rotted a bit." Ian chuckled nervously, trying to ease the suffocating tension.
"I'd believe you. I really would." Merlin's reply was firm, his voice steady, though his eyes brimmed with wariness and unease. There was sincerity there… if you ignored the way he looked ready to bolt at any second.
'But honestly, what else could he say?' They were standing in another man's domain, saying otherwise would only hand the host a reason to attack! Merlin couldn't help recalling the times he himself had slaughtered Dark Wizards over the flimsiest excuses, like claiming a man's left foot stepped into a tavern the "wrong way."
The more he thought about it…
The more sweat gathered on Merlin's brow.
He wasn't worried about Ian attacking him directly. The contract kept them safe from each other.
But if Ian ordered the War God's corpse to attack? Alone, Merlin doubted he'd live long enough to see breakfast tomorrow.
"You don't seriously think I brought you here to kill you, do you?" Ian finally asked, his tone sharp with irritation. After spending over ten hours together, was this truly what Merlin thought of him?
"Uh…"
Merlin froze, caught off guard by the question.
Merlin shook his head so quickly it looked like a rattling drum.
"Of course not! You're a senior from millennia past, the trailblazer of wizardry, an unscalable mountain to countless wizards across history. Someone like you would never stoop to hold a grudge against a child like me who hasn't even lived a full century yet… I swear, I didn't come here intending to take even a single grain of sand from this place."
"I only wished to follow the path you once walked…"
Desperation strips away dignity, and even the so-called King of Wizards could abandon his pride when pressed.
'Not even a hundred years old, and calling himself a child?' Ian felt utterly exasperated.
What a surreal scene this was.
The figure he had only read about in textbooks, the legendary Merlin himself, was now bowing and scraping before him, spouting flattery while trembling with fear. The image was so jarringly out of character it was as if a national hero were suddenly cowering before a child.
Who would have imagined this?
Certainly not Ian.
To think that in Merlin's eyes, he was the insurmountable mountain. Just days ago, Merlin had been the mountain in his mind!
"I'm not lying. I really am only twelve years old," Ian said, rolling his eyes, his tone sharp as he corrected Merlin's outrageous assumption. He was the real child here.
Hmm.
Then again, when you're a soul from another world, does age from a past life even count? Perhaps this was just a contest in shamelessness.
"Yes, yes, of course. You're twelve. If you say you're twelve, then you're twelve," Merlin said with a forced smile, though he didn't believe a word. He had spent painstaking years studying Medivh, after all.
Medivh was a figure who appeared repeatedly at various points throughout history.
Twelve? Who would believe that?
Merlin would sooner believe that the Shadow Crow, the one legendary creature even more infamous and active than Medivh, had suddenly repented and turned over a new leaf. (Shadow here being a descriptive title, not a name.)
The memory of a childhood encounter with that very creature flickered through Merlin's mind; he had studied it nearly as much as Medivh himself.
"Medivh is my future self," Ian explained with a sigh. "I thought you'd understand something like that. To me, this tomb hasn't even been built yet, but that doesn't stop me from being here at the same time it exists."
"One of my mentors once experimented with this exact thing, existing in multiple versions at a single point in time. That's why I wanted to confirm if my future self truly rests inside that coffin."
He spoke with calm deliberation before exhaling softly.
"Relax, Merlin. You are far too important to history. Even if I wanted to set a trap for you, there's no way I could kill you."
That was Ian's interpretation of fate speaking.
Merlin said nothing.
He merely tilted his head back, gaze fixed on the shadowy figure seated upon the floating throne above.
"I don't even know why He's here," Ian admitted at last, eyes lifting to the towering god seated motionless on his throne. Ares the War God, he looked anything but dead, save for the absence of life's pulse.
Perhaps a god's understanding of death was nothing like humanity's.
"Don't tell me this is one of those cases where a corpse gains sentience," Ian muttered under his breath, his face twisting with unease as he recalled Arraes's earlier words upon awakening. The parallel was unnerving.
Both ideas, that of corpses gaining consciousness and the cryptic statement Arraes had made, originated from the same ancient text.
"You said something earlier, didn't you? What was it we agreed upon?" Ian called out loudly, voice echoing through the tomb as he tried to pry answers from the silent war god.
Yet…
The silent War God Ares glared at Ian with clear irritation.
"Of course I'm talking about what you promised me! We agreed that you sold me the exclusive rights to say, 'Before gods I kneel not, destiny is lost, and upon the Stele of Reincarnation your name is carved.' Only I am allowed to speak those words! And yet you just violated my intellectual property!"
"You said intellectual property was sacred! Inviolable!"
Ares' outrage was so genuine and over-the-top that it was hard not to crack a smile.
(To Be Continued…)