“Oh, so it’s the mysterious helper of my three princesses.” Effie joked.
“Oi.
I’m a man,” Sunny protested immediately.
“Sure, Doofus.” Orren chuckled behind his mask.
“Well then, it’s a pleasure to meet another beautiful lady in this lovely little corner of hell.
I’m Orren.” Caster studied him for a moment before speaking.
“I don’t remember anyone by that name from the Academy.
I’m Caster, by the way.” “It’s hard to remember every name from the Academy, don’t you think?” Orren replied casually, offering no further explanation.
Kai, who had finally regained consciousness, pushed himself into a sitting position.
“And I’m Kai.” “Pleasure to meet you.” “The same to you,” Kai answered with a warm smile.
Nephis had been silently observing Orren since his arrival.
After a long moment, she finally spoke.
“You’ve grown stronger.” Orren shrugged.
“Did you really expect me to survive seven months in this place without getting stronger?
I had to.” Nephis gave a small nod.
“Good.
Since you’re here, keep watch.
We’re exhausted.” Without waiting for a response, she leaned back against the stone and closed her eyes.
‘Is she… angry?’ Orren wondered, watching her for a moment before dismissing the thought.
The others were simply too drained to question anything.
One after another they settled down, and within minutes the platform had fallen silent.
Orren kept his promise.
He remained on watch until well past noon, using the quiet hours to prepare a proper meal from the meat he had brought with him.
Only after everything was ready did he wake them one by one.
Soon the cohort sat in a loose circle, quietly enjoying warm roasted meat for what felt like the first time in ages.
Naturally, Effie was the first to break the silence.
“So…
we’ve got another shortie.” She pointed her skewer at Orren.
“And he even eats through his mask.” “I am not short.” “I’m still growing.” Sunny and Orren answered at exactly the same time.
For a heartbeat everyone stared.
Then Effie burst into laughter.
Sunny groaned.
Orren clicked his tongue.
“And the mask is just a habit.” Since there was little point hiding behind it anymore, he dismissed the Memory.
The plain wooden mask dissolved into sparks, revealing his youthful face.
The entire group froze.
“You’re a kid.” This time it wasn’t just Effie.
Kai and Caster were staring at him with open disbelief, while Sunny doubled over laughing.
Even Cassie and Nephis couldn’t completely hide their smiles.
“I’m almost sixteen,” Orren protested.
“I’ll have you know that’s practically an adult.” Sunny laughed even harder.
“And somehow that makes it worse!” Effie wiped a tear from her eye.
“I honestly thought there was some dark, brooding veteran hiding under that thing.” Kai looked genuinely sympathetic.
“You’ve been surviving here…
alone?” Caster, meanwhile, was quietly reevaluating everything he knew.
He was racking his brain, trying to figure out which legacy clan Orren belonged to.
He refused to believe that just any nobody could survive in this harrowing abyss alone.
“Well, doesn’t matter, does it?” Orren said, scratching the back of his head.
“AHHH, I like him already, he is such a cutie.” Effie squealed.
Sunny immediately seized the opportunity.
“Yes!
Finally!
I won’t be the only one suffering under her anymore.” Orren just shot him a look but didn’t say anything.
Cassie couldn’t help but giggle, and even Nephis’ lips curved upward for the briefest instant.
The relaxed atmosphere lasted only another second.
Without warning, Orren’s head snapped toward the sky.
Almost simultaneously, Kai reacted as well.
In one fluid motion he nocked an arrow, drew the string, and released.
The sharp twang of the bowstring echoed across the silent expanse.
Moments later, a human-sized black locust crashed onto the stone platform with a sickening thud, its body pierced clean through by Kai’s arrow.
Kai’s expression darkened.
“Swarms!” he shouted.
“These fiends hunt in swarms!
Get ready!” “It’s true,” Orren added calmly.
“Individually they’re nothing special, but once they gather in numbers, they become a nightmare.” His gaze shifted downward.
“Though that’s not our only problem.” Everyone looked at him.
“There are monsters climbing the statue from below.” Thanks to him having grown stronger, the range of Orren’s Aspect Ability: Stray, the metaphysical perception, had already expanded to more than five hundred meters.
Long before anyone else noticed, he had sensed dozens of Nightmare Creatures making their way up the giant stone body.
He summoned several Memories in quick succession.
The dark wooden mask settled over his face.
A pair of immense black wings unfolded from his back.
A radiant white sword appeared in his hand.
“I’ll deal with the swarm together with Kai,” Orren said evenly.
“The rest of you hold back whatever’s climbing up.
Draco will protect Cassie.” Caster opened his mouth to object, but his words died before they left his lips.
Space beside Cassie distorted.
A gigantic reptilian beast emerged from nowhere without a sound, its body swallowing every trace of light.
It no longer resembled the familiar Venomhide Tyrant they had heard about months ago.
Its scales seemed less like flesh and more like a hole carved into reality itself, so utterly black that I looked empty… that staring at it felt like peering into an endless void.
Cassie instinctively reached out until her hand rested against one of its scales and for a moment she forgot what she was thinking.
Sunny blinked.
“…Is that really Draco?
He looks…
different.” Orren merely smiled beneath the mask.
He had transformed Draco into a Lost.
There was no time to explain.
With a single beat of his enormous wings, he disappeared.
A deafening gust swept across the platform as Orren shot into the sky so quickly that most of them completely lost sight of him after the first instant.
The cohort instinctively turned toward Nephis.
She watched the black silhouette carve through the air for a brief moment before speaking.
“It’s fine.
Do as he said.” Her tone remained as calm as ever.
“If he says he’ll handle the swarm, then let him.” Without another word, she headed toward the statue’s shoulder where the climbing abominations would emerge.
The others hurried after her.
High above the wandering colossus, Orren became nothing more than a streak of darkness weaving through the air.
The Flesh Reavers never even understood what was killing them.
A flash of white steel.
A severed wing.
Another body tumbling into the endless sea below.
Kai did everything he could to support him from the platform beneath, each arrow finding an opening whenever the swarm tried to surround Orren.
The cooperation was almost effortless.
With the speed granted by his Fallen wings, the locust-like creatures simply couldn’t catch him.
The Spell echoed continuously inside his mind.
[You have slain an awakened beast, Flesh Reaver.] [You have slain an awakened beast, Flesh Reaver.] [You have slain an awakened beast, Flesh Reaver.] [A Lost Fragment has been recovered.] [A Lost Fragment has…] [A Lost Fragment…] [A Lost…] He ignored every notification.
There was no room for distractions in the middle of battle.
With his wings, a fourth-tier memory of the Ascendent rank, he was too fast to catch for any of them.
Then, just as suddenly as the attack had begun, the swarm broke formation.
Without warning, every remaining Flesh Reaver abandoned the fight.
They snatched up the corpses of their fallen kin and fled into the distance as though escaping from something far more terrifying than Orren.
He didn’t pursue them.
Instead, he followed their line of retreat and looked toward the horizon.
Far ahead, directly in the path of the wandering statue, a monstrous wall of dark clouds churned across the sea.
A storm.
They still had some time before reaching it.
Folding his wings, Orren descended back onto the platform.
The sight waiting for him wasn’t encouraging.
Although he had intercepted most of the flying Nightmare Creatures before they could reach the group, the monsters climbing from below had still pushed the cohort to their limits.
Nephis, Sunny, Effie, and Caster were covered in cuts and bruises, their clothes stained with blood from countless wounds.
Kai looked exhausted from continuously firing his bow.
Only Cassie remained unharmed, seated safely beside Draco, whose enormous body had served as an impenetrable shield throughout the battle.
By the time Nephis had finished healing everyone’s injuries, the wandering statue had already drawn dangerously close to the storm.
The gale howled louder with each passing second, carrying sheets of rain that stung like needles.
Orren glanced at Draco before giving a quick command.
“Turn sideways.” The massive Lost silently obeyed, planting itself across the width of the platform.
Its enormous body formed a solid barrier against the incoming wind.
“Get behind him,” Orren instructed.
“Crouch low and use Draco as a windbreak.
He’s heavier than all of us combined, so the storm won’t move him easily.” No one questioned the order.
They hurried behind Draco’s towering form just as the first violent gust struck.
However, the moment their hands touched his unnaturally dark hide, every one of them froze.
For the briefest instant, it felt as though their minds had gone blank.
Thoughts dissolved.
Their sense of direction vanished.
It was like reaching into empty space where something should have existed, only to realize that nothing was there at all.
The strange sensation lasted less than a heartbeat before everyone violently snapped back to reality.
“What…
was that?” Effie muttered, shaking her head.
No one answered.
There was no time.
The storm hit them with its full fury.
The platform trembled beneath their feet as hurricane-force winds slammed into the wandering statue.
Everyone immediately drove their weapons deep into the ancient stone and gripped them with all their strength, using them as anchors while Draco remained utterly motionless before them, his impossible body breaking the force of the wind like an unmovable wall.
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