"We really escaped."
Outside the Legacy Domain, Maruun and the others took in their surroundings. Seeing the familiar interior of the marketplace, they felt a rush of relief flood their chests, a warm pressure that made fingers tremble and knees soften.
So dropped to the ground and kissed the marble floor within the tent, lips pressed to the cool stone as if it could anchor them to life. Others lifted their hands and prayed to their gods, thanking them for sparing their lives, voices breaking on words they had not spoken since childhood.
Their journey inside the crumbling Sanctuary had been more dangerous than they expected. They had even lost many lives within, and especially after witnessing that last scene where 2 gates opened and godlike figures descended from within, the sense that they were alive only because of luck did not feel like a mistake in judgnt. It felt true, heavy, and undeniable.
As everyone celebrated in their own way, offering their thanks in their own manner, a voice reached them, calm and near.
"It was a hard journey, wasn’t it?"
They turned and saw a black-furred goatman standing at ease, wearing a single white robe, no extra armor, as if none were needed. The fabric fell straight and clean, the weave faintly catching the air, and the fur at his wrists and throat caught the tent’s filtered light.
"We greet the revered Wanderer rchant."
All the Practitioners set aside their emotions and celebrations at once. They dropped to their knees and bowed, greeting the one who held power in his hands in all the Outer Region.
"Easy, easy, get up." The rchant’s light yellow eyes swept the group, asuring them with a small, relaxed smile. "You have more valuable things to give than your respect and greetings, don’t you?"
The Rank 5 Adept’s deanor eased the taut air. Feeling the warmth of the Astra Path in him, the Practitioners straightened one by one, shoulders loosening as if heat had bled back into their limbs.
After a brief silence, a few glances, and a swift decision among the group, Maruun stepped forward, as if chosen to be the spokesperson.
"Sir Wanderer rchant, we bring you the Core as we said." He bowed slightly and kept his voice no louder than necessary, controlled and respectful.
The rchant did not answer imdiately. He looked at the giant book that seed to float just above the ground. Then he lifted his hand and extended it.
The book began to shrink. It grew smaller and smaller until it reached the size of a standard volu, a thing that could be tucked beneath an arm. It drifted to the Adept’s hand and vanished into his Sanctuary, slipping from sight as if swallowed by quiet water.
His face looked satisfied, if only for a second.
He stroked his goatee with one hand, thoughtful and composed, then turned his gaze back to the Practitioners before him, his expression tightening into a frown.
"You lost many faces among you, I see. Care to tell what the story is?"
At the Rank 5 Adept’s question, a single ripple of tension moved through the group, a rush of worry tightening throats and drawing eyes to the ground.
They all knew what the rchant wanted to hear. The top 3 geniuses who had entered with them were missing. It was a story anyone would be eager to learn—where they were and what had happened.
"We..."
Before Maruun could open his fishlike lips to explain, a loud, excited voice echoed from the entrance of the tent.
"They are back! Lucen, co, hurry!"
Mirela’s rainbow hair caught the midday sun, reflecting off the tent’s edge, a scattered shimr that danced over her shoulders as she ran toward them.
"Lady Mirela, please, control yourself. We cannot enter here as we wish." Lucen, in a white robe and with a calm face, followed a heartbeat later, steps long and steady.
Sensing the movent inside the tent, the leaders and elders waiting outside understood that their youngsters had finally returned. Most of them chose to remain outside out of respect for the owner of the tent. Mirela, however, was in no mood for respect, and with Liora absent—no one there to restrain her—she rushed directly inside.
"Huh? Why can’t I see Adyr?" She swept to the front of the group, scanning every face. Her bronze features tightened, her beautiful brows drawing together.
Lucen followed a step behind and imdiately bowed his head to the Adept. "We seek forgiveness for the sudden interruption."
The Wanderer rchant looked at the two figures and smiled, not appearing disturbed, not even slightly diminished. "Worrying for the family is the most common thing." He turned his gaze back to Maruun. "This young man was about to explain why so faces are missing. Let us listen."
He was calm, yet curiosity moved beneath that calm, and a faint line of worry could be seen if one knew where to look, even though he hid it well.
The face he wanted to see most was Adyr’s, the one he had deed a descendant of the Elder Race. If anything had happened to him inside the Legacy Domain, and worst of all, if he had died, it would bring trouble the rchant did not wish to face. He silently hoped what he was about to hear would not be grim.
"I... yes... Adyr... he was..."
Maruun stumbled for a mont, especially under the fierce glow of Mirela’s rainbow eyes, then gathered his thoughts and steadied his words. "When we last left, he was chasing the Rank 4 Spark, so..."
He started to explain, but was interrupted before he could finish.
"Rank 4 Spark? What do you an he was being chased by a Rank 4 Spark?"
Mirela stepped closer, her entire deanor changing as panic cracked through her composure. She seized Maruun by both arms and shook him. "How can there be a Rank 4 Spark?"
She turned to the Wanderer rchant, voice rising. "You knew it? How can there be a Rank 4 Spark? Didn’t you say there would be at most Rank 3? How could you send them into a place that dangerous?"
Faces fell throughout the tent. Shock and tension settled over the Practitioners like a sheet of cold air. Even Lucen, who always held to his calm, was left with his mouth slightly open, words failing him as he tried to stop this storm of a woman.
"Young girl, why do you not let him speak and listen properly?" Wanderer rchant sighed. He did not look offended; instead, his voice smoothed itself to soothe her.
She behaved like a mother who had lost a child to injustice. Seeing this, he could not bring himself to bla his fellow follower of the Astra Path.
Still, sothing felt wrong.
One of the rchant’s brows lifted. He stroked his goatee again and asked Maruun, "I think you chose your words poorly. You said he was chasing a Rank 4 Spark?"
Even he had not expected such a thing. A Rank 4 Spark inside that old and drained Legacy Domain was almost impossible.
But what was even more impossible were the words that ca from the Aqualeth’s mouth.
"Yes, Sir Wanderer rchant, I said that." Maruun’s answer was firm now. "He was chasing the Rank 4 Spark when we left. To be clearer, the Rank 4 Spark was fleeing for its life, badly injured."
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