Elias moved the moment the illusions scattered. The forest had become a maze of light and shadow. Copies of him sprinted through the forest in every direction—some vaulting over fallen trunks, others weaving between the trees, their forms flickering as if the air itself were distorting around them.
The wolves lunged. One slammed through a clone and burst apart into mist. Another pounced on a second Elias, jaws snapping shut around nothing. Above them the birds wheeled, shrieking silently as they dove through the phantom figures.
Elias watched it all unfold while sprinting between the trees.
'Good.' The confusion bought him seconds. Not much, but enough.
He had infused the leaves with sensory arrays, and more importantly with his own blood. The blood acted as a reservoir. Normally an artificer would continuously feed energy into such constructs to keep them active until the crafting process was complete and the artifact could sustain itself. That was what SK had taught them, but Elias's internal energy was still haywire from the soul shards. Trying to maintain them, even temporarily, would have been impossible.
So he cheated.
His blood carried his signature, his Flow. Once the arrays were activated, they could sustain themselves briefly by consuming that imprint. It would not last long. But long enough to confuse predators.
Behind him, a wolf shattered one of the illusions and lunged at him. Elias pivoted, his sword coming up—not to block, but to cut. The edge, coated in Soul Predation, sliced through the creature's crystalline form. Three slices and it shattered. Fragments of Ortis's essence scattered across the forest floor. Elias kept running.
Branches lashed against his arms and face as he forced his body forward using parameter manipulation. He thinned the air before him, reduced resistance by fractions that would tear an ordinary body apart. His body held. Barely.
Most of his remaining energy was not being used to run. It was being fed into Soul Predation. The technique wrapped itself around the crude wooden blades he carried, a thin invisible sheath of devouring energy.
Elias glanced at the wolves chasing his illusions briefly.
'Still crude.'
He grimaced. Things would have been easier if he could have used actual cloning, but that technique wasn't perfected and it would be a liability now that Ortis's soul shards had messed up his whole flow.
'Tch.'
Another wolf lunged. He cut it down with three pre-determined strikes.
Two.
A bird dove from above. He spun, his second sword rising, and bisected it mid-flight.
Three.
The shards scattered onto the forest floor.
Behind him, above the forest canopy, Ortis watched.
"…Interesting."
Another wolf shattered.
Elias felt the taint spreading. Every fragment he devoured stole something from Ortis. Tiny pieces. Insignificant individually. But cumulative.
Ortis flicked his finger. A shard fired through the forest. Elias sensed it a heartbeat before impact. He swung one of the wooden swords. The blade collided with the projectile. Normally the wood would have shattered instantly. Instead the predation coating caught the shard. The collision detonated in a burst of sparks, but the blade held.
Elias staggered but did not fall. Another shard came, faster this time. He deflected that one too. Then another, faster still. The forest erupted with sharp cracks as the projectiles deflected into trunks and stones around him.
Ortis's voice drifted lazily through the trees. "Oh?"
Another shard screamed toward Elias. He knocked it aside. The impact numbed his arm.
"That's… new."
Normally those crude sticks would have exploded instantly. But the predation coating devoured the edges of the attacks, weakening them just enough.
Ortis chuckled. "You're cheating."
Elias didn't answer. He shattered another wolf instead.
Ortis lifted his hand again. This time the energy gathering at his fingertip was different. Denser. Heavier. Something that made the air itself tremble. Elias's eyes widened. He instinctively raised both swords, crossing them in front of his chest, pouring every scrap of Soul Predation he could muster into the blades.
The blast fired. It struck the crossed swords like a collapsing star. For a moment—just a moment—they held. Then they shattered.
The blast tore through Elias's left shoulder, exiting in a spray of blood and fragmented bone. He dropped to the ground, his arm dangling uselessly at his side, his vision swimming with white light and shadow.
Ortis landed beside him lightly. He stood over Elias, hands in his pockets, head tilted, studying the boy with the same expression a scientist might give a particularly interesting specimen.
Elias looked up. Blood dripped from his mouth. Then he smiled. Ortis raised an eyebrow.
"You're smiling?"
Elias's hand moved. Flow coalesced in his palm—not much, just enough—and formed a shape. A gun. Small. Crude. But functional.
The trigger snapped. A red crystalline bullet fired directly into Ortis's face.
The projectile shattered instantly against the Paragon's skin. Of course it did. Being a Paragon, his skin was denser than steel, his body a fortress of compressed energy. But it stunned him.
For a single heartbeat, Ortis's eyes went wide. Slowly… very slowly… he turned his head.
"…Did you just shoot me?"
Elias blinked.
"Obviously."
There was a pause.
"…Why?"
Elias didn't answer. He just blasted himself backward with wind as he fired at Ortis. Once he was three or four feet away, he slammed his palm against the forest floor.
Light blazed around them. A dome of Containment Arrays flared to life, their boundaries marked by the makeshift talismans Elias had stuck to the trees while he ran. He had drawn them in blood, infused them with the last dregs of his energy, and positioned them in a circle nearly ten meters across. Elias had been placing them while running.
The boy coughed weakly but grinned. He had intentionally slowed his movements earlier, letting Ortis believe he was exhausting himself destroying the soul beasts. He had known Ortis would descend eventually.
The Paragon reached out and touched the barrier, pressing his finger against the shimmering light. The array held.
"A stable containment array." His gaze returned to Elias.
"You're seven, yet you're capable of drawing stable arrays of this complexity. Impressive given your age."
He smiled faintly.
"I see a bright future for you as an artificer. However…"
He pressed harder. The barrier popped. It did not crack. It did not shatter. It simply ceased, as if it had never been, like a soap bubble that had been burst.
"You're still several decades too young to even dream of containing someone as strong as me," Ortis said, mildly amused.
The shards of his soul that Elias had shattered reformed in an instant. Wolves and birds, born again from fractured light, surrounded the boy in a tightening circle.
Elias forced himself to stand. He manifested another gun and made his move toward Ortis. A wolf lunged. He shot it in the throat. Seven. A bird dove. He shattered its wing. Eight. Each shot shattered another soul creature. Birds dove. He twisted, ducked, slid through the chaos. His body moved purely on instinct now. Exhaustion clawed at him.
Still, he managed to evade all of the soul beasts and slide behind Ortis, wrapping his arms around the Paragon's leg.
Ortis looked down.
"Begging won't save you from—"
Multicolored sparks erupted.
Elias released everything. Every drop of energy his body could contain. Just like when he fought Aina when they first met.
The explosion tore through the forest, sending a rainbow mushroom cloud billowing into the sky. The light was blinding. The heat was immense. The shockwave flattened trees for hundreds of meters in every direction.
When the light faded, Elias knelt in the center of a crater. His skin looked pale. Almost grey. Like someone suffering severe anemia. He breathed slowly, painfully.
"…Did I get him?"
"Don't be silly."
Ortis stood behind him. His clothes were singed, his hair was slightly disheveled. Otherwise, he was untouched.
He smacked Elias on the back of the head and the boy collapsed face first into the dirt.
Ortis waved his hand. The rainbow cloud dispersed, revealing a crater filled with crystallized Flow formations—sharp, jagged, beautiful. The shards of his own soul returned to him, sinking into his flesh like water into sand.
He looked down at Elias, then slowly removed his hands from his pockets.
Elias flinched. Ortis began clapping. Slowly. "…That was impressive." He stopped in front of the boy.
"For an Acolyte."
Elias groaned and pushed himself up onto his elbows. Ortis continued.
"You've demonstrated something very important today."
He tilted his head slightly.
"You truly are of Mellou blood. And your Dukker half hasn't overshadowed it."
Elias blinked.
"…Wait."
He squinted up at him.
"…This was a test?"
Ortis shrugged.
"I was bored."
He smiled faintly.
"I have an acquaintance who talks about his nephew constantly. He says the boy is the only one he can play with like a man instead of being gentle like he has to be with his daughters."
Elias sighed. His mind drifted, unbidden, to Aina.
Ortis squatted beside him again. He folded his arms.
"Now."
His voice became slightly more serious.
"What are you? And how are you so knowledgeable about arrays?"
He tapped one of the broken talismans leaves between his fingers.
"This technique… isn't standard artificer practice."
Elias stared at him.
Ortis grunted and stood.
"You can tell me now. Or I can give you a few minutes to rest, and we can play another round of Hunt the Mouse."
Elias thought about it. He was out of juice. His head throbbed. And honestly? He really didn't want to get shot again and have to chew through more soul fragments. He sighed.
"Fine."
---
Evening fell by the time Ortis returned to the keep. This time he flew much slower. Elias hung over his shoulder.
He dropped the boy unceremoniously at the entrance.
"Young Lord."
The servants at the entrance gasped when they saw the young lord's condition. His clothes were torn. His face was pale, smeared with dried blood and dirt.
"I need to take a bath after such a hot day," Ortis murmured thoughtfully as he casually moved past the maids. He eyed Elias before stepping inside.
Elias did not meet his gaze.
The servants rushed forward, fussing, asking questions, reaching for him with trembling hands. Elias waved them off.
"I'm fine."
He walked inside, deep in thought.
'Ortis has given me a true glimpse at the progression of power within this world's power system. His speed... I'm naturally faster than a regular person. A Votary should be faster—subsonic at full speed. A Saint or Praetorian would be supersonic, and hypersonic if they really wanted to move. And a Paragon...'
He looked down at his hands. 'Sub-light?'
He shook his head. "I don't have evidence…"
And he still couldn't explain the strange black flashes Ortis made when he moved.
Elias rubbed his eyes.
'I'm exhausted.'
His stomach grumbled.
'And hungry.'
He turned a corner. Miss Gable was scolding the cook, Martha, her voice sharp, her posture rigid.
Elias approached.
"Young master, what happened?" Miss Gable asked, noticing his appearance.
"It's fine," Elias said, smiling.
"I was just having some... bonding time with my uncle."
"Alright," Miss Gable said, concern still in her voice.
"Anyway, have either of you seen Jamie?"
Miss Gable glanced at the cook. Her expression was complicated.
"The thing is…"
---
Upstairs, Ortis approached his room. He paused. Elias was leaving the keep again. The servants were calling after him, but he ignored them and left.
Ortis's reflection in the hallway window smiled, then spoke.
"Interesting child."
Ortis's expression turned serious instantly, his voice flat.
"I warned you not to use reflections to talk to me."
The reflection laughed. Unamused, Ortis continued walking.
The reflection smiled.
"I want to know what Mr. World's ward is capable of. I didn't think you would attack the boy."
Ortis stopped. Then turned toward the reflection.
"Don't command me to go after my family again." His voice hardened.
"Or I'll punch your teeth in."
A voice laughed softly.
"That's always been your problem. You're too soft. Then again, that's what I liked about you when I made you my Apostle."
Ortis turned away and entered his room.
The voice continued.
"As for Deus's ward…"
The voice laughed again.
"At the stage he's at?"
Another laugh that slowly faded
. "…He poses no threat."