A long trail of blood lay splattered across the ground.
I laid Nahida down in her stroller and gently covered her eyes with my hand. She rubbed her cheek slightly against my palm before quietly closing her eyes.
Shielding her from the metallic scent of blood in the air, I quietly surveyed my surroundings.
Sunlight poured down from a piercingly blue sky. Beneath the cool breeze, I could hear the cawing of crows that had gathered, drawn by the scent of death. My senses, sharpened to an eerie degree, flooded my mind like a deluge.
Fresh blood seeped slowly from a long, jagged laceration across a chest.
‘Three men.’
‘A sharp object. Likely a knife.’
‘They weren’t strong enough to cut through bone.’
Since I couldn't get too close, this was the limit of what I could discern from a distance.
With a light wave of my hand, the corpses leaning against the trees were pulled down and slowly swallowed into the earth. As for the crows making such a racket, I embedded a small stone into one of their heads to quiet them down.
I wondered for a moment if I should identify them and report it, but none of the dozen or so bodies I’d seen so far carried anything that could provide information.
Besides, there was no reason for me to go looking for trouble, so I simply let it be.
Was it because I found it bothersome? I asked myself.
That was also true.
“Dad?”
“It’s okay.”
‘Was I lost in thought for too long?’
I let out a soft chuckle as I answered Nahida’s cautious call. I wondered what exactly I meant by saying it was "okay."
Since I had finished hiding everything, I removed my hand from Nahida’s eyes. Opening her sparkling eyes, she wiggled her tiny hands while watching a crow in the distance.
—Grrrr...
“Sigh...”
Hearing that sound again—like metal boiling in a throat—I sighed and pushed the stroller forward.
Too many things had been happening around us over the last three days.
#
Hiding my presence, I walked quietly and reached out my hand.
Equip Weapon – Staff of Homa
Sshhhhk!
The sound of a curtain being lightly torn brushed past my ears. The body of a purple wolf, which had been attacking a helpless civilian, was split in half and collapsed.
Worrying that the person beneath it would be crushed, I used my power to lift the wolf into the air.
The body I had just saved slumped to the side. I started to lean over to reach out, but feeling a faint warmth against the back of my neck, I simply extended my foot to support her back instead.
‘Good thing I lifted the wolf.’
I had killed it cleanly enough, but if she saw the remains, it might leave a traumatic memory. It was the right choice.
I unsummoned the spear and looked down at the person collapsed at my feet.
“Hey.”
Her closed eyes snapped open, and she hurriedly scrambled to sit up. Beneath the dim eyes of this ordinary-looking woman, I could see the traces of a hard, weary life.
“Hmm. Can you not speak?”
“No, no. I can.”
So she could.
Just as I was about to ask her something, her eyes suddenly widened as she stared at me.
I turned around to see if something was there, but there was nothing. I looked up, but there was only the wolf I had just caught.
In that moment, something dripped down. It was fluid leaking from the wolf. It wasn't falling on me, so I just left it alone.
It was only after seeing it pour over the woman’s head that I realized there was a person directly beneath me.
Sure enough, just like what I had seen when I first left Nahida behind, the body of the person touched by the wolf’s fluids began to slowly dissolve.
“Dammit, how many times is this now?”
“Dad?”
At the sight of Nahida popping her head over my shoulder, I gently stroked her hair.
“It’s nothing. I was just talking to myself, sweetie.”
I placed my hand on my collarbone, and Nahida carefully stepped down from my shoulder. I gently moved her back into her stroller.
‘Has she grown a bit?’
At first, she was only the size of a palm, maybe smaller. Now, she had grown to about the size of two palms.
I reached out and placed my hand beside her. Seeing my hand near her, Nahida rubbed her cheek against it.
‘Growing is a good thing.’
I loved how she would cling to me whenever I brought my hand close, but I pulled myself together and gave her head one last pat.
Swoosh—!
A sudden sound echoed in my ears.
The sound of something cutting through the air.
I had heard this sound before.
Specifically, when I used a bow.
I turned my head to look back. Something blue was flying through the sky. No, it was an arrow of a more transparent hue, causing the sunlight to diffuse wildly around it.
The trajectory suggested it would pass over my head, but I had a bad feeling about it.
Cognition beyond normal limits reached a conclusion without the need for conscious thought. My body reacted before my mind, and I raised my hand toward the sky.
Equip Weapon – Skyward Harp
The moment the bow materialized in my hand, I gripped the string and fired.
A pale green arrow soared toward the frost-colored meteor. However, the two did not collide.
The arrow that had been glittering like frost in the sunlight shattered as if exploding, raining down like frost-blooms.
I stood still, looking up at the sky amidst the falling rain. As my pale green arrow made contact with one of the frost shards, a gale of teal wind erupted, swallowing the frost-bloom whole.
At that same moment, as if they had been waiting, flashes of light flickered in the sky.
Red, green, purple, blue, yellow.
The multi-colored lights descended to the earth like falling stars.
Zzzzzzt—!
Wavy red hair, a long yellow robe covering the entire body, blue horns and sharp hands, four arms tinged with purple, and even Xiao—the only one I recognized.
Though they looked like a group that would never normally gather, they all had their faces hidden behind masks.
‘The Yakshas. One for every element is still alive.’
‘Was that arrow from Ganyu earlier?’
The bow vanished, melting into the air.
Equip Weapon – Aquila Favonia
‘Judging by their expressions and the atmosphere, they didn’t come here to chat.’
I wasn't entirely confident in my combat prowess with the power I held.
Normally, the basic strategy would be to strike first before they could gauge my strength.
I hesitated as I looked at Nahida, who was gripping the stroller's rail and looking back and forth between me and the newcomers. I reached out, scooped her up, and held her close to my chest.
Fortunately, they didn't seem intent on fighting immediately. The four-armed Yaksha stepped forward slowly. His footsteps were heavy with tension.
“May we ask for your honorable name?”
“Logos.”
“The Great Demon God of Dreams...”
One of the Yakshas let out a low groan. The multi-armed Yaksha who had stepped forward glanced at the woman collapsed at my feet.
With the lightest movement possible, I took a step back.
“She’s not dead yet.”
“No, we have no interest in that.”
“Hmm.”
I was slightly taken aback by the unexpected answer, but I quickly regained my composure.
“And you? What are your names?”
“I am called Mino. Though I am of little consequence, I hold a position among the Guardian Yakshas.”
Slide—
The four Yakshas behind Mino slowly spread out to the sides. My mind told me to move immediately, but I couldn't bring myself to do it with the sensation of Nahida wiggling against my chest.
‘Stay calm.’
‘This is a dream.’
‘And I am the protagonist of this dream.’
“So.”
I put strength into my toes and pressed my foot into the ground.
Thump—
The ground around me sank slightly, causing the Yakshas to flinch.
“What business brings you here?”
Thump—!
Crack!
A tree at the edge of my vision snapped, and something leaped from it. The rising figure flew through the air and landed softly beside the Yakshas.
It was a familiar sight, with dark red qilin horns rising from her head.
“Did you know I was there?”
“Perhaps.”
Did I mean I noticed her hiding, or did I mean I knew who she was?
‘Don’t overthink it.’
Taking a breath in and out, I steadied my slightly trembling legs and scanned the Yakshas who had surrounded me in a semi-circle. A stinging bloodlust pricked at my skin.
“I’ll ask once more. What business brings you here?”
The distance between the Yakshas widened slowly, then even more slowly.
Ganyu pushed something she was holding forward. A figure, frozen like a fossil from the head to the waist, fell forward.
‘Fatui?’
Just as I was wondering what this was supposed to mean, a flash of thought crossed my mind.
‘The Fatui... shouldn't be appearing at this point in time, should they?’
Thud. Crackle—
The thing that looked like a Fatui fell forward, and as the frozen parts hit the ground, they shattered like ice.
And in the broken sections, there was no blood or bone—things a living creature should have. What was inside was something black, like the stuffing of a doll.
If everything I had encountered so far were dolls like that, it would explain why I couldn't identify any of them. There was no way something that just popped out of nowhere would have an identity.
“Cough!”
I looked down. A mouthful of blood erupted from the mouth of the woman lying at my feet.
The faint, fishy scent of blood reached my nose and pricked my nerves.
‘This one is real.’
At that same moment, I swung Aquila Favonia through the air. Only after swinging did I realize that something had been flying toward me as I looked down.
Sparks flew in the air along with the sound of metal clashing against metal.
In an instant, a purple flash streaked past my face.
Clang! Clang! Zap!
The metallic ring of a spear and a beast-like blue hand clashing with my sword followed, along with lightning and fire streaking past my sides.
It was chaotic. The difference of a second, half a second, or even a quarter of a second was being etched into my body. Flashes of light bloomed and vanished from my torn clothes.
I stayed rooted to the spot because I was holding Nahida. But the moment a bolt of lightning grazed the back of my hand—the hand protecting Nahida—something inside my head snapped.
“Ha...”
I gritted my teeth and swung the sword with all the strength I could muster. The spear that collided with Aquila Favonia shattered, its fragments flying toward Xiao, while the sword, losing none of its momentum, sliced through the blue hand.
With the sound of glass shattering, two bodies were blown backward.
“Urgh!”
“Agh!”
Without looking back, I threw the sword straight at Ganyu. At the same time, I summoned another weapon.
Equip Weapon – Mistsplitter Reforged
Ganyu’s eyes widened as she was drawing her bowstring.
“Watch out!”
The moment the sword sliced through the bow and Ganyu let go, a golden radiance flew in and knocked the sword away. The shockwave caused the bow Ganyu was holding to shatter into pieces.
Mino, who had used the elemental power intended for Logos to save Ganyu instead, was forced to face the reality before his eyes.
The Earth Yaksha’s eyes widened as he saw the purple blade, embedded with a violet magatama, descending toward his shoulder.
He resolved that even if he were to die now, he would at least disable one of the enemy's limbs.
But the sword did not cut through the Yaksha’s body.
Crunch!
A massive pillar had risen in front of him at some point, and the sword that had been rushing toward him was buried halfway into that pillar, stopping just above his shoulder.
Simultaneously, the sky turned dark. Forgetting the sword stopped right before his eyes, Mino looked up at the sky. A massive meteor was plummeting toward the earth.
With a deafening roar that threatened to tear eardrums, everything on the ground was erased. On the land where grass, trees, and rocks had all vanished, only those surrounded by a transparent but vivid shield remained standing.
And that included the hateful Demon God. Though no one knew how he had done it, the God’s shield was protecting even the Demon God.
“It has been a long time, Logos. Do you have a moment to spare?”
The Lord, whom they respected above all others, stood blocking the way of the Yakshas.
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