Translating the system's explicit notification into the formal Decanis tongue, Morca's cheeks flushed, a wild, deafening pulse pounding loudly inside his ears. This time, the rush of adrenaline wasn't fueled by existential terror. It was fueled by pure, unadulterated hope. The long-lost, buried desire to actually live ignited like a spark in a dead forest.
"Calm down, Morca," he whispered to himself, clamping a hand over his chest to steady his breathing. "Even if the system explicitly says so, survival completely depends on whether I possess the capability to decipher and complete these conditions."
He knew the stakes all too well. Even with a direct clue provided, if he couldn't crack the system's prerequisites, he might as well lie back down on the grass and wait for the grave to swallow him.
Forcing his racing heart to stabilize, he meticulously translated the silver glyphs of the clue back into the precise vocabulary of Decanis, analyzing every syllable:"Bound by fate. Bound with fate. To scatter fate..."
Morca muttered the riddle into the wind, his crimson eye narrowing. "What the hell does that mean? How can I a failed mortal be bound by fate, bond with fate... Then to scatter it when I barely understand the concept?"
*****
Unknown to Morca, far above the jagged cliff, the fabric of space silently tore open. Two figures stepped calmly out from the depths of a closed spatial rift: a massive, masked cloaked warrior, and a half-translucent, black-veiled young girl with a dark brimmed hat pinned to her head.
"We have finally shaken those annoying moths off our trail," the young lady murmured, letting out a soft, weary breath. "So incredibly troublesome. Sigh."
"My Lady, why subject yourself to such stress?" the massive figure behind her replied, his deep voice vibrating through the air. "You still have exactly one day remaining before your baseline strength regresses. Why not simply return? If we go back, you won't be forced to hide or flee from these pathetic human lifeforms. You know exactly what kind of political unrest your absence will stir across the upper spheres. Is it truly worth coming to a barren, backwater world like—?"
"Enough, Ghostly," she cut him off smoothly, her voice dropping into a chilling, absolute command. "You know exactly what I am sorting after. I have been anchored in this lower sphere for a year now, and everything is proceeding precisely as I planned. Furthermore, I do not permit your opinion on whether my path is worth it or not. As for whatever petty unrest my absence causes back home, that is for those withered bone-faces to worry about... so why are you losing sleep over it?"
"But my Lady, the spiral gateway tied to our coordinate matrix will disappear sooner than anticipated, and your physical strength—"
"You seem to be talking a lot these days, Ghostly," she interrupted again, her head tilting slightly over her slender shoulder.
A dangerous, suffocating pressure suddenly erupted from her small frame, rippling through the void like a wave. The sheer weight of her aura made it crystal clear that she was not joking. "After this concluded, you can regroup with the Blood Ravens. I have absolutely no need for a chattering box at my side, constantly beetling my ears. Besides, I don't mind feasting on a bird... And yes, consider this your very last warning."
"I dare not leave your side, my Lady," the giant quickly bowed his head, his voice dropping into immediate submission.
This freaky monster... Ghostly thought, a cold sweat breaking out beneath his heavy armor. I just hope risking your life, your status, and your time is truly worth a damn ritual. Worse, her core strength is about to regress... but if she actually succeeds in this mad gamble, who in the entirety of Trinoval could ever match a freaky monster like her? Still, if something goes wrong during the process... I might as well forget about surviving. I highly doubt my corpse will be left intact.
The masked figure stood at an impressive, towering height of seven feet, one inch. Beneath his heavy hooded cloak lay a highly advanced, black-purple exotic combat suit.
On his right shoulder rested a heavily armored pauldrons shaped like a giant crow's head, its long, polished black beak pointing aggressively to the east, coupled with two crimson gem eyes that perfectly matched the cold glare of his own. Inscribed across the left side of his chest was the majestic, sweeping image of an adult crow. In every conceivable metric, his entire hardware module was engineered to resemble an apex avian predator—all the way down to the terrifying beak-mask concealing his face.
Without a doubt, this man commanded immense, world-bending strength and military authority across the stars. He was a sovereign of slaughter: Blackghost Crow.
Yet, the young lady's true identity was clearly lightyears more impressive than his own, capable of reprimanding an entity of his stature into instant, terrified silence. She had casually dismissed his title, reducing him to a mere nickname: Ghostly.
"I can still hear you mumbling inside that dumb head of yours," she whispered, tearing her veiled eyes away from him.
On the outside, she looked nothing like the giant behind her. Her slender body frame and delicate height suggested her physical age to be somewhere between fifteen and seventeen years old—though that was likely completely false, considering the scale extraordinariness of her origin. Something about her presence felt completely out of reach, a divine anomaly that defied human categorization.
She was draped in a sweeping black-and-crimson royal robe, meticulously tailored to contour her elegant frame. Over the fine fabric rested a heavy black cloak, upon whose right shoulder a terrifying ancient dragon's head had been embroidered.
The creature's pale golden eyes gleamed with a faint, sentient luminescence, making it appear as though the dragon were actively breathing. The beast's coil was woven from delicate silver silk threads, while the edge of every single layer of fabric was traced with intricate, shimmering golden patterns.
Beneath the wide brim of her black hat, cascading curls of stark white hair spilled down her back, glowing with a faint, ethereal sheen against the midnight sky. The stark contrast only heightened her absolute gravity, making her appear both hauntingly elegant and mysteriously enchanting.
"Where is our current arrival location?" she asked calmly.
Behind the translucent black veil, her indescribable gaze narrowed. Her pupils subtly shifted, warping into sharp, vertical reptilian slits as she looked downward, surveying the vast forest and the towering mountain ranges stretching across the dark horizon.
"We are currently inside the Salvic Union, one of the three primary sovereign regions of the Mystrasia Continent on Evoslon," Blackghost Crow replied instantly. He executed a brief, effortless mental scan of the continent's grid. "Our exact coordinate places us directly within the Mount Sham province—a territory strictly governed and policed by the Sherman lineage, one of the major ruling families of the Salvic Union."
The casual display of power was deeply unsettling. He had scanned an entire province, extracting geographical data and regional memories from the atmosphere as if it were nothing.
During his brief scan, his perception had easily brushed past the anomaly that was Morca standing on the cliff below. However, treating the boy like an insignificant mortal insect, the giant had paid him absolutely no attention.
"Great. A nice place to halt our retreat," the young lady murmured. "In the absolute midst of chaos, the finest treasures and talents are birthed. I can already feel the rigid order of fate weaving around me... Let's go—"
Suddenly, she cut herself off mid-sentence, her entire body locking up.
This suffocating smell... it's dangerously familiar, her inner thoughts hissed, a surge of adrenaline spiking her pulse. How could an entity of that absolute caliber be hiding down here? Don't tell me one of the old masters is in deep seclusion in a barren realm dominated by humans?
The sudden discovery stirred a powerful wave of caution and curiosity within her core."We are heading in this direction," the young lady commanded, her sharp gaze locking onto a peculiar, isolated area of the distant mountain peaks.
What the hell is she up to now? Ghostly thought, his brow furrowing beneath his mask as his own senses suddenly registered the environmental data. Wait... this terrifying smell...
The giant felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to run into an entity possessing that specific conceptual scent down here, in a territory he had written off as a barren wasteland.
There was a widespread continental rumor a year ago... Ghostly's mind raced, desperately connecting the political puzzle pieces he had gotten. A rumor concerning one of the Sherman lineage's three heirs failing to awaken his bloodline flaw due to the sudden disruption of his own father. The intelligence reports stated the boy was left as a crippled mortal, yet somehow, he is still miraculously breathing despite suffering from a terminal genetic decay. Furthermore, right after that sabotage, the previous lineage head went completely insane—wrecking absolute havoc during last year's Continental Congress Conference before going missing thereafter. Could the person guarding this mountain be... let's just watch how this unfolds.
Unbeknownst to either of them, a faint, rhythmic glow and a gathering grey mist began to emit from three heavy bracelets twisted tightly around the young lady's right wrist. They coiled beneath the rim of her black cloak like inseparable, parasitic lifeforms. Each bracelet possessed its own distinct, metallic hue: one of pristine platinum, one of deep, dark-purple, and one of absolute, obsidian black.
With entirely different thoughts running through their minds, the two figures blurred into the night sky, transforming into twin streaks of darkness as they headed straight toward the source of the scent.