"Wake up, little Cor, you have to wake up. You can't sleep now," Elyon urged, feeling his own strength waning. The boy in his arms had closed his eyes, his body growing colder by the moment.
"Is there anyone who can help?" Elyon's remaining consciousness was fading fast. The strain of directly facing a divine avatar and the prolonged use of the Eye of Weakness had drained his mental energy. After surviving an explosion, his body was battered and torn.
With a soft thud, Elyon slumped onto the stage. As darkness threatened to engulf his vision, a small hand touched his cheek.
"Uncle Elyon, you really came to save me. But I can't see anything now," came the weak voice of little Cor, still chilling to the touch.
"How do you feel, little Cor? Come on, Uncle's going to take you to see a doctor."
Elyon no longer had the strength to walk; he was ready to crawl if it meant getting Cor to safety.
"Uncle, I'm so cold, I don't think I can make it," Cor's voice was fainter, his hair beginning to turn white.
"I was planning to become a paperboy after finishing tutoring this month. I wouldn't have to trouble you anymore."
"Come on, promise me you won't sleep. When we get back, you can sell papers," Elyon said, shaking Cor gently.
"Uncle Elyon, there's enough food in heaven, right? No one will kick us out at night. I think I see my parents who've passed away. They're together, waving at me," Cor said with a faint smile on his face.
"You're not allowed to go. Tonight, we'll eat whatever you want, and the captain will pick up the tab."
"Oh, Uncle Elyon, the two pounds seven shillings and four pence I've saved are under the floorboard by the window bed. Please take care of Barbara."
Like a storm passing through a wheat field, the flame of Cor's life, snuffed out by the gales of time, gradually faded away. Elyon looked at the boy in his arms, now light as a feather, leaving this world without leaving much of a trace.
Sorrow? Pain? Or rage? Elyon had thought himself merely a passerby in this world, with the detachment of a tourist. But now, all he could think of was tearing apart Monge, the instigator of this tragedy.
"You're still alive? Heh, the brat who disrupted the ritual is here. How should we kill him?" It seemed Monge and his lackey hadn't gotten far. Was this where Elyon would meet his end? He didn't think much of it; he had been on edge to save Cor, and now that drive was gone. As the two approached, Elyon's world went dark, but just before losing consciousness, he heard Monge's trembling voice as if he'd seen some terrifying figure, "Black... Lord Black, why are you here? This was just a minor scuffle, they instigated it, you can't do this to me, ahhh!"
A group of police officers in black uniforms and soldiers in green fatigues, armed with various weapons, stormed the estate. Behind them, even a 17-pound cannon was being pulled by two horses. A man in a general's uniform, adorned with three medals, stepped down from a carriage, surveying the carnage and the two craters created by the blood spears.
"Emma, where are you? My God, this looks like the aftermath of a battle."
Somewhere far away, a red-haired man in an opulent robe sipped his tea, the epitome of elegance, as if he truly were a noble of high birth. The servants in the room, however, were a bit out of the ordinary, with three heads or four arms. Despite their monstrous appearances, they were as tame as loyal dogs in front of the man.
A beam of red light descended from the sky, merging into the man's body. "Hmm, it's normal for the first descent to be disrupted by that old ice geezer, but why did it fail even when I sent an avatar this time?"
The man set down his cup, flipping through memories as if reading a disk.
"A child, albeit fragile. How did a novice interfere? Lucky to gaze upon my avatar without crumbling, interesting. How was it shattered? Could he have been in contact with the Origin, or even born from it? It's been years since such a person existed. Could this be my only hope for liberation? Hahaha, contact those fools immediately, the target is Aegisburg."
The man, as excited as a castaway sighting new land, lay back to enter his dreams. In the dark sky, a blue moon hung in the distance, and closer was a planet primarily blue, with patches of green and yellow.
When Elyon opened his eyes again, he wasn't sure how much time had passed. He was back in the familiar surroundings of a hospital, the smell of disinfectants and medicines in the air. He must be in that same hospital near the Gonia district government, recognizable from the room's layout. Unlike the last time he was attacked by a werewolf, the bed to his left was empty; Garrick wasn't there peeling an apple. He must have been discharged. Elyon sighed, unsure how to face Barbara. He tried to muster the strength to get up but found it difficult to breathe. His arms and legs were intact, but he decided it was better to lie down for a while, perhaps dizzy from lying down too long. He didn't know the time, but it certainly wasn't the tenth yet; as long as he wasn't dead, even if his consciousness fell into a coma, that orb should pull him into that palace.
"You're awake. Next time, take me with you for such thrilling events," a female voice came from the right. Only then did Elyon notice the bed partitioned by a curtain.
"Emma?" Elyon ventured a guess.
"Who else did you think it was?" Emma pulled back the curtain, and Elyon couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of her wrapped like a mummy, her head swathed in bandages reminiscent of a peculiar infantryman from a certain large country on Earth. Her right arm was in a cast and suspended.
"You okay? You look pretty banged up," Elyon said, instinctively assessing that her injuries were more severe than his last bout, otherwise she wouldn't be in a cast.
"I'm alright, fractured my right arm and hit my head. But considering over thirty people died at the scene, we're the lucky ones. So, what did you see there? Monge and his cronies have confessed, and I think someone will come tomorrow to ask you for details."
Elyon looked at the woman who spoke as rapidly as frying beans and added, "Aren't you curious? What exactly did I go through?"
Emma shook her head. "Not curious. After all, you were my first partner. Oh, and my father is furious. He said he'd give you a beating once you woke up, but Orion, the Chief of Police, stopped him. He'd have beaten you in the hospital if not for that."
Elyon shrugged his shoulders. "Why are you unscathed? He's smart enough to know you volunteered, right?"
"Face-saving," she said. "The commander of the city defense force, a brigadier general, can't have his daughter casually joining a rookie to storm the gates of a cult. If I had single-handedly taken them down, I'd have made him proud. But I was blown away in less than half a minute. Where would his face be then?"