Seeing Kain and the dwarves tensing, Bai Lian raised a calming hand.
A mont later, a massive shadow erged from the dense greenery around the tree.
It was a bear.
No—three bears.
Each one was nearly the size of a comrcial transport truck, with fur like iron shavings and eyes that glowed with erald-green luminescence. They stepped forward in unison, their movent fluid, predatory, but not hostile.
The dwarves froze again.
But this ti, Bai Lian stepped in front of them and spoke—not aloud, but in a low, lodic rhythm. A language not of words, but of thought and resonance. A whisper that rode the wind.
The lead bear stopped. Tilted its head. Then let out a short huff of breath that sounded almost like acknowledgnt.
"They’ll serve as escorts," Bai Lian said. "The mines are far. A day’s walk for these children. But on these three... it’s only a half an hour ride."
Kain blinked. "That’ll do."
The dwarves didn’t seem entirely convinced at first.
Several clustered closer to Kain again, whispering quietly to one another in a broken, stuttering version of a baby’s babbling that they were sohow all able to understand, clearly confused but beginning to process their thoughts. Who knows, maybe just being in proximity to the World Tree has increased their intelligence to make them able to sowhat communicate with one another.
One of them, a brawny female with fiery orange hair, pointed cautiously at the nearest bear.
"...Baba?"
"Yala," another responded to her, but Kain couldn’t understand what that ant.
The silver-haired Dark Dwarf furrowed his brows and stared, not at the bears, but at Bai Lian. His lips were quivering and Kain could see him stretching and puckering his lips into various shapes, trying to mimic Bai Lian’s speech pattern until..."R-R-Ra-Ri-Rid-e-Ride."
Kain’s gaze sharpened.
The words were clumsy, but coherent. Maybe they could understand more than he’d thought. He stepped forward and gestured to the bear. "Ride. Safety. Work."
They looked between him and the bear. One of the regular dwarves—a burly male with a bushy blond beard—moved forward hesitantly. He reached out a hand, brushing it against the bear’s massive leg.
The bear didn’t flinch.
Instead, it dropped low to the mossy ground, making itself easier to climb.
Bai Lian smiled faintly. "They’ll be safe."
Kain exhaled slowly.
As the bears knelt, allowing the dwarves to awkwardly climb aboard with Bai Lian’s help, Kain gave one last set of instructions regarding safety and return routes. Although they didn’t yet have the equipnt to mine, there was no reason why they shouldn’t familiarize themselves with the journey from now. Especially since it would only take half an hour each way.
The World Tree glowed faintly above them, its vines gently wrapping so of the dwarves’ hands for a brief mont—a faint imprint in the shape of a golden leaf appeared on their hands, and Kain took this to be a way for the tree to watch out for them during their travels. When everything was settled, Kain exhaled and let his awareness shift.
With a pulse of will, his consciousness phased out of Pangea and returned to his real body back in the Storm estate.
The cool silence of his guest room greeted him. He sat up slowly in bed, rubbing his temples as the weight of Pangea fell away from his mind. The evening sky outside had long dimd into true night. It was too late to start anything new and, although he could go a long ti without sleeping as a beast-tar, he still would function better the next day with a good night’s sleep
He flopped onto the mattress with a groan.
One night of actual rest before heading back to school.
-------------------------
The next morning, Kain was already seated at the dining table when Serena walked in. Her hair was damp from a shower, and she wore a simple t-shirt and shorts.
There was sothing disarming about her like this. No makeup, no fancy uniform, no polished noble aura. Just Serena, casually dressed, still blinking sleep from her eyes. And sohow, the relaxed appearance made her beauty stand out even more. Her long legs were bare, her shirt slightly oversized, slipping off one shoulder, and her usually sharp gaze was soft with sleep.
It shouldn’t have been striking. But it was.
Maybe it was because this was the first ti he’d seen her at ho. Really at ho. Unguarded and comfortable.
And devastatingly pretty in the kind of way that made him montarily forget how to chew his breakfast...
"Ahem!" A cold voice and stare coming from nearby, snapped Kain out of his daze and he quickly refocused on his plate.
Her father was already seated, reading from the latest newspaper delivered this morning. The man hadn’t spoken a word since Kain entered the room.
Which was fine.
Kain was here to change that cold attitude toward himself.
Without waiting for the food to finish arriving for Serena, Kain took out the folded paper he’d written in the Laboratory the other night. It was a clean transcription of Prismarin’s evolutionary formula—complete with compatibility percentages, risk factors, and catalyst variables.
He slid the paper across the table toward Serena.
"For your contract," he said. "Like I promised."
She blinked. Took it. Began to read.
But her father’s hand appeared to yank it out of her grasp. He unfolded the sheet and gave it a long, slow once-over. His eyes narrowed slightly as they reached the midsection—where the Luminous Glacite interacted with the other materials introduced into the formula. His brow furrowed when he reached the tertiary material Kain had included which was the Moonlit Frost Flower.
Then he raised an eyebrow. Said nothing.
And passed the paper silently to Serena.
Kain couldn’t resist smirking slightly while bending his head lower to avoid her father seeing.
Her father may not have said anything out loud, but that silence said more than words.
Approval.
Her father wouldn’t hand over an evolutionary formula to Serena he felt wasn’t good enough or if he felt that he could commission a better one.
Serena read it through for herself, then tucked it carefully into her spatial ring. "Thanks. It looks good," she said quietly.
He shrugged. "Well, I am the best."
She rolled her eyes.
Their breakfast continued quietly, punctuated only by the occasional clink of cutlery. Afterward, just as Kain was about to leave for the teleportation array, Serena caught up with him in the hall.
"I’ll be late for training," she said, adjusting her glove. "Not skipping the whole day of training, just... evolving Prismarin this morning. My dad will supervise."
Kain nodded. "Good. You’ll want everything perfect."
"It’s already approved," she added. "Director gave the okay. Apparently, it counts as essential developnt that would improve my strength before the tournant."
"That, and your dad is pretty intimidating. No one’s going to say no to him."
She smirked. "Try not to blow anything up before I get there."
"No promises."
He left the Storm manor in the vehicle provided to get to the Capital’s main teleportation array, and soon returned to Dark Moon City in a flash of light.
Reviews
All reviews (0)