Gorsa didn’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed when Kist used the phrase “spank your butt.” In fact, he even chuckled along.
“Heh, they’ve got no ti to co over and spank my butt right now.”
The tension from their earlier standoff, sharp enough to draw blood, vanished the mont they started talking.
The two fell into a strange silence again.
About a minute passed before Gorsa broke it.
“Why are you following Saul?”
“Ah, now that’s an excuse I need to think carefully about.” Kist cradled his harp but didn’t even pause for three seconds. “I guess it’s because I’m curious about what’s happened to him.”
He seed to sink into his mories, wearing an intrigued smile.
“I’ve never seen a fate line that twisted before. So I’m curious, what secret is he hiding?”
Gorsa’s eyes curved like a sly grin.
“I’ve already sent word of you on the Western Continent back to Skyé City. I imagine plenty of people are dying to have a word with you.”
Kist’s smile disappeared.
Gorsa kept piling it on. “Oh, and Lady Oriphia also wrote to remind you that it’s about ti you returned to Skyé to see her.”
The look on Kist’s face was dark enough to drip water.
He stared hard at Gorsa for a while before speaking. “As expected of the Glare family’s prodigy. Your web of connections is wide. Even Oriphia is your client?”
There was obvious mockery beneath his words, but Gorsa had no interest in bickering. He just looked at him with an easygoing smile.
Kist knew he was at a slight disadvantage now. He spun the harp around his fingers and sighed. “Fine, you win. What a pity. The tale of the Western Continent hasn't even begun, and I already have to step off the stage. How dull!”
“To climb up and take in the view, only to turn back just before the sun rises over the sea... My life is always filled with such helplessness. Ah, Fate, you press down on , mocking my struggles, laughing as I sink~”
He strumd mournfully, singing in a strange tone, and turned to walk toward Hanging Hands Valley.
Wind and dust rose, shrouding his silhouette.
Gorsa watched Kist leave the entire ti. Only after the figure vanished completely did he suddenly slide down against a tree trunk.
He clutched his chest, his body twitching twice before he slowly cald down.
“Are you about to die?” ca a clear, pleasant voice from beneath the tree.
Gorsa looked down and saw the slightly bedraggled yet still striking half-elf.
He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he smiled gently and asked, “Did you kill him?”
“He ran,” the half-elf replied without a care.
Gorsa didn’t seem disappointed. “Wilder used Soul Devouring Flowers, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. He popped up out of nowhere lately, but I’m in a critical phase and can’t afford too much attention on him. If you can’t kill him, crippling him for ten years is enough.”
“Then I suppose the commission’s complete.” The half-elf nodded and turned to walk into the woods.
Gorsa frowned slightly, pink bandages bunching on his forehead. “You’ve always avoided the Forest of Four Seasons.”
The half-elf stopped, back still to him.
“I don’t want to live anymore.”
He lowered his head, staring at his hands. “The corruption inside is almost out of control. That fight just now only accelerated the collapse.”
Gorsa sighed softly. When he asked the half-elf to strike the Land Drifters, he had already anticipated this would worsen the man’s breakdown.
He’d expected the half-elf to ask for an outrageous price, but surprisingly, the other agreed imdiately.
So the truth was, the half-elf had already given up on himself when he agreed to use his power so recklessly to slaughter a vessel.
Gorsa understood. The man was simply tired of living.
“I heard the ancestors calling .” The half-elf suddenly turned around, letting Gorsa see his face. “Gorsa, this world hates elves. That’s not sothing I can change.”
The mont Gorsa saw his face, his facial muscles clenched tight.
The half-elf noticed the reaction but said nothing. He turned again and continued walking deeper into the woods.
“Half-elf! Kick Saul out before you die!” Gorsa shouted, pressing down his surging chest.
His voice shot through the air like an arrow, slicing through vegetation and space alike, landing clearly in the half-elf’s ears.
The man waved his hand in response. That was enough of a promise.
Gorsa let out a breath. “Seriously…”
He’d always known the half-elf was beautiful, but no matter how he tried, he could never describe it.
He couldn’t recall what color his skin was, how many eyes he had, how long his hair was… He only knew that all those features together created a beauty that defied description.
Yet such a beautiful being was not even allowed to exist.
The half-elf didn’t even dare to have a proper na.
Though Gorsa was already a Second Rank wizard, he still didn’t know the true reason the elves had disappeared.
After eting this half-elf, he had his suspicions, but he didn’t want to think too hard about them.
When the half-elf said the world hated his kind, the harmony and beauty of his features twisted into sothing terrifying and grotesque. All the lovely words that could describe him were instantly replaced by disgust and horror.
Even soone like Gorsa, with Top Tier Second Rank power, felt nauseated just looking at him, nearly overco by the urge to kill the man himself, erase him from existence.
Thankfully, he restrained that impulse.
The implications were too horrific to dwell on.
“There’s too much unknown in this world, what’s one more?” Gorsa knocked on his skull, as if trying to shake loose the mory.
“Now, let’s talk about you.” Gorsa suddenly looked down and said.
A black shadow, shaped like a small, delicate girl, slid out from his body—paper-thin and trembling in the wind.
“You were supposed to locate him. Why did you chat with Wilder for so long?”
Yura’s voice ca out, “I knew him from before. Since he’s dying, I just said goodbye.”
“You didn’t say anything unnecessary?”
Yura giggled. “Are you mad?”
Gorsa reached out and stroked her head, his pink fingers sinking into the black shadow and then erging again.
His voice was still gentle as water. “Yura, rember—only I will go to any lengths to bring you back.”
The shadow trembled under his touch, and her laughter cut off instantly.
She whispered, “I know. Only by completing the resurrection experint can I live like a real person.”
“Exactly. Living like a person—sothing that used to be so simple. Look at the half-elf. He wants to live like a person too, but his elven blood keeps dragging him into an unknown abyss.” Gorsa suddenly pressed hard, forcing Yura back into his body. Once the shadow fully submitted and sank in, he murmured, “So you should be grateful.”
“I allow mischief, but not betrayal.”
“…I understand,” ca Yura’s suppressed voice from his chest.
Gorsa smiled in satisfaction, and the next mont, his figure vanished into the forest.
As if he’d never been there.
Outside the woods, the vessel that had beco a hellish battlefield was now freezing over.
All the struggling and agony turned to sculpture.
And in the end, everything beca one enormous ice statue.
The sun shone, and the temperature rose. Ice and snow began to lt.
Seeping into the soil, into cracks in the stone, into the spring breeze. Absorbed by trees, flowers, grass, and insects.
The massive sculpture vanished without a trace—not even a scrap was left behind.
While the outside world seed peaceful again, Saul could only run through a dense forest on foot.
He leapt over bushes and dodged falling branches, sprinting through the ancient woods alongside Mark.
And the reason they were running? Mark had suddenly shouted, “An elf’s coming!”
Then he dove into the underbrush, leaving behind only one sentence:
“If you don’t wanna die, follow !”
(End of Chapter)
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