The air at the estate gates was thick with unspoken farewells. Saturu stood between his mother and Kayon, the weight of his journey already settling on his shoulders. The elven sorcerer broke the silence, his voice as calm as ever, yet carrying an edge of grim certainty.
"If you want a great sword," Kayon said, his eyes knowing, "you'll have to head to the Skull Mountain. Also known as the Mountain of Fallen Swordmasters. That's where you'll find what you're looking for."
Saturu nodded, his hand instinctively checking the travel pack at his side. He needed a blade that could withstand the Divine Authority raging within him - something beyond the fragile clan swords that shattered like glass under his power.
His mother stepped forward, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Take care," she whispered, her voice breaking, "and come back safely." She pulled him into a crushing embrace, her arms trembling with the force of her worry. In her touch, Saturu could feel five centuries of maternal love - both his long-dead sister's memory and this new mother's desperate fear for her child.
Over her shoulder, Kayon watched them, his expression unreadable. When she finally released Saturu, the sorcerer cleared his throat awkwardly. "Can I also get a hug?"
Saturu fixed him with a deadpan stare, then made a subtle hand gesture - the universal sign for "stop" or "talk to the hand." "I hope this suffices for the journey," he said flatly, gripping the hilt of his current sword.
Before Kayon could respond, Saturu focused his energy and teleported in a flash of light, leaving nothing but empty air where he'd stood.
Kayon sighed, staring at the vacant space. "I really hope he comes back early," he murmured to himself. "There is a calm before the storm."
A soft sob broke his reverie. Rael's mother had begun crying in earnest, her shoulders shaking with silent tears. Kayon moved to her side, his usual composure softening. He pulled her into a gentle, comforting hug. As they embraced, a faint blush colored the sorcerer's cheeks - the first crack in his eternal calm.
Meanwhile, in a Celestial Realm
The air shimmered with divine energy as Kayon stood before a radiant, furious Goddess. This was no mere projection - it was the sorcerer's true self, facing judgment in the higher planes.
"Great Sorcerer of Elves!" the Goddess's voice boomed, each word striking like thunder. "You have broken the taboo by saving that child! What do you hope to accomplish? Hmph."
Kayon met her gaze steadily, a mocking smile playing on his lips. "A goddess that fears a child?" he retorted, his voice dripping with contempt. "He even poses a threat to a so-called goddess. How far have you fallen for your pride?"
The Goddess's form blazed with incandescent fury. "Repent of your arrogance!" she commanded, and a spear of pure divine energy materialized in her hand, its point aimed directly at Kayon's heart.
But the sorcerer didn't flinch. His eyes glowed with ancient power as he began weaving a counter-spell, the air around him crackling with barely-contained energy. The confrontation had begun, and the consequences would ripple through every realms.
Saturu's teleportation deposited him not at the foot of Skull Mountain, but in a mist-shrouded valley that seemed to swallow sound and light. The air hung heavy and cold, and an unnatural silence pressed in on all sides. Before him, the mountain proper rose—a jagged fang of black stone against a starless sky, its peak wreathed in a perpetual, lightning-laced storm. This was the outer boundary.
The path to the base was a gauntlet. The valley floor was a graveyard of ambition, littered with the bones of failed aspirants and the shattered remnants of their weapons. Echos of their final moments whispered on the edge of his hearing—desperate screams, the clash of steel, and the sickening crunch of breaking bone. Phantasmal warriors, the lingering spirits of the fallen, would occasionally coalesce from the mist to test his resolve with silent, deadly attacks. He dispatched them not with the overwhelming force of his Divine Authority, but with the precise, economical movements Kayon had beaten into him, conserving his strength for the true trial ahead.
After a day and night of this grim procession, he stood before the entrance to the mountain itself: a vast, dark opening in the cliff face that resembled a gaping maw. The air that poured from it was ancient and dry, carrying the scent of stone dust and ozone. Taking a final, steadying breath, Saturu stepped across the threshold into the darkness.
Inside, the darkness gave way to an impossible, cavernous space that defied the mountain's external dimensions. He stood in a vast hall, its architecture a blend of natural cavern and polished obsidian. The ceiling was lost in shadow, but the walls... the walls were lined with countless mirrors, each one framed in tarnished silver and bone.
He approached Instead of his own reflection, he saw a younger version of himself, barely a teenager, weeping over the body of his sister on a rain-swept battlefield five hundred years past. The image was a physical blow, the guilt and grief as fresh as the day it happened. He tore his eyes away, his jaw tight.