"Congratulations on being an ascendant, youngest. You have done well."
Eden walked a few steps away from the precipice.
"Tell me, how do you feel?"
"I feel… strange, oldest sister. I feel like liquid fire is flowing in my veins."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. It's kind of overwhelming."
Seven flexed his fingers slowly, then his limbs. He did not just feel the burning sensation in his heart, but throughout his entire body.
"Then I am glad to hear that. It means your body is adjusting to the new environment just fine."
"Ah."
He shifted his gaze past his oldest sister's shoulders.
There, below the pale light of the sunset, corpses of the Yetis were half-burried in the snow and butchered in pieces. He didn't need to ask who had done it.
'It must be the Archduke's private force, those elite knights under his command. If memory serves me, the one assigned to Eden should be named Foile.'
As far as he could remember, each child had been assigned by one of those elite knights, even a failure of a child like him.
But a frown deepened on his face thereafter.
'Strange. They never interfere directly, not even when I was on my deathbed back then. Heh. To go as far as this… is it because it also concerns Eden?'
Eden smiled faintly, her eyes tracing the line of his thoughts as if she could see and read them.
"By the way, youngest, could you try to draw zi out of the ring?"
"That's…"
Seven wanted to refute but he then closed his eyes, having no choice but to try.
Focusing inwardly, he directed his intention to the blue ring orbiting his heart and visualized his arteries as a steady and calm river, and that is to allow zi to flow through.
He could sense zi flowing a little, but only a little distance, as if those hands from back then were preventing zi from leaving the ring.
Cracka!
He gasped, a sharp pain pulsed through his chest.
The thing is, the zi did not flow through a river as smoothly as he had intended; it recoiled like a startled snake and snapped back into the ring.
"It hurts like fudge, damn it…"
"Understandable. It has not even been five minutes since the ring had formed after all, so it is only natural for your body to resist the unfamiliar essence."
"If that's the case, why did—"
"Because I believe the youngest could do it."
Eden moved her hand atop the handle of her sword.
"Sorry?"
Eden didn't respond.
Seven blinked, feeling somehow that he was on edge.
"Oldest sister, what do you—"
Fwoosh!
Eden cut the jagged cliff in two halves. It groaned, vibrated, and fell down, carrying Seven along with the other half (the big chunk) of the cliff.
"—eh?!"
Seven looked up at his oldest sister, confused.
The calmness on Eden's face told him that she really believed he could draw out the zi from his newly formed ring and survive the fall through this method.
"Damn it all!"
- – – 7 7 7 – – -
Eden stood at the edge of the jagged cliff, her face a mask of serene indifference as her youngest brother plummeted into the white abyss.
Truth is, Eden had sliced the cliff in a fraction of a second that Seven wasn't even able to see it.
For the reason she did it, let's just say there was no faster way to learn the zi than a life or death struggle.
However.
As Eden stared down, she could not help but think about the possible consequences of her previous actions.
— You shall not intervene with your younger siblings' ascendance rite. The path is sacred and inviolate; each child must walk it alone. Should any elder sibling conspire, interfere, or bear influence upon the ascension, their life shall be forfeited.
Eden recalled the unchangeable rule of the house.
"Foile."
"Yes, milady."
A figure appeared beside her, wearing a half-faced mask that bore a design of a squirrel.
The figure was splattered with green streaks, the foul smelling blood of the Yetis, the lowly beasts that had tried to ambush the threat (Eden) when her guard was down.
Unfortunately, the Yetis met their demise by the hands of this squirrel.
"Tell me with all honesty. Have I overstepped my boundaries as the eldest child of the family?"
"You have not, milady. You have simply given your gift in advance, as you will be away for the next three to five months, eight if it didn't go as planned."
"Hm. You are right. That is one way to put it."
Still, Eden clearly knew their father, the Archduke, would not be convinced by this lousy excuse easily, as he was a man of principles.
But if it concerns the youngest, despite everything, she would have no choice but to intervene again, even if it meant a direct confrontation with the Archduke.
"Mother…"
Eden muttered.
Suddenly, her knees buckled as she clutched her chest. Her heart was also hammering against her ribs with a violent and agonizing rhythm.
"Uukr—!"
"Milady, what is wrong?"
Eden forced herself upright, her face had turned pale but still composed.
"...It is nothing. Leave and send a response back to Father. I will be accepting the given quest."
"At your word, milady."
"Hm. Do not forget the thing I told you to include."
The figure gave a brief nod and vanished.
Only then did Eden allow herself to cough, and a handful of dark blood stained her white palm. She then clenched her fist, trembling.
"This curse… I only took less than half of it, and yet it feels like it's dismantling me from the inside. I think I will be lucky to remain at the transcendent level for long."
Eden looked down at the cliff, thinking, 'if the burden she took was this heavy, how had the youngest carried the full weight of it his entire life?'
"Youngest. Just what are you…"
- – – 7 7 7 – – -
"Damn it. This is bad…"
Seven's voice was lost in the whistling wind.
He was still standing atop the massive chunk of the falling cliff with his knees bent to absorb the micro-vibrations of the boulder.
But if he stayed here until it hit the bottom, he would be pulverized.
Thud!
As luck would have it, the boulder clipped a protruding ledge that caused a sudden shift in momentum and threw him into the air.
He was now in terminal velocity.
'Five seconds. Think…'
His mind raced as he mapped out the safe spaces to land, but there was none.
'Fudge thinking! I should be drawing out zi from the ring.'
He turned his focus inward, specifically to the zi ring, trying to imagine his arteries as a flowing river where zi would pass through.
It recoiled back just like earlier, but he refused to give up and tried again.
Until.
Cracka!
Just one second before the impact, blue sparks of fire erupted on his boots.
In that same second, various trajectories filled his mind, telling him the best possible outcome wherein he survives the fall.
He slid his feet down the snowy slope at the base of the cliff and hopped above the big chunk of a boulder that bounced back a little after the impact on the ground.
He used that as a temporary springboard to bleed off his velocity before leaping to a thick pine branch like a panicked rabbit.
The wood groaned under the weight.
His balance also failed, sending him tumbling to the snowy ground, but he rolled to distribute the impact and forced himself back to his feet.
Contrary to what he had expected…
Step, step, step!
He was still stumbling forward like a drunk man, unable to stop his momentum like a runaway train.
It carried him all the way to the river.
Splash!
A big ripple in the river's surface.
The impact knocked the remaining air from his lungs, and gelid water bit into his bones as he sank deeper.
Blop, blop, blop!
Bubbles escaped his lips.
His feet finally touched the riverbed. He kicked upward, following the trail of his own breath until he broke the surface with a racking cough.
But the thing is…
"I can't… shit! I can't swim…"
He couldn't swim at all!
His mind flashed back to the PE classes he had skipped and the pool days he had avoided. Thus, he tried to tread but his movements were inefficient, a desperate struggle against his own lack of buoyancy.
"Oh-ooh, young lad?"
A dry voice called out from the riverbank.
"Why are you drowning in such a shallow river? Just stand up. More than that, what are you doing there in the first place?"
There were two questions, but Seven had only heard one:
'...Just stand up?'
Seven stopped trying to fight the water and simply let his legs drop, that soon after, his feet hit the pebbles below.
Dragging himself upright, water cascaded from his soaked clothes in heavy sheets as the river revealed its true depth, reaching only to his chest.
"..."
He stood there, soaking wet and shivering in the middle of a perfectly calm yet flowing river.
He turned his head.
On the riverbank sat an old man, silhouetted against the pale glow of the sunset. And he looked familiar! He was holding a fishing rod, a bucket of catch sitting by his side.
'That potato farmer from the village…?'
"Young lad?"
"Ah. Mister Aizen, it's nice to meet— oww!"
His greeting was cut short as a fish with saw-like teeth and long twitching antennae burst from the water. It clamped down hard on the bridge of his nose.
Tearing the wretched creature free, Seven threw the fish back into the current.
"Fudge, that hurts…"
The old man, Aizen, let out a soft and wheezing laugh.
"Aha. If I were you, I would get on the shore first. There are hundreds of those biters in there, you see?"
"...!!"
Seven scrambled onto the riverbank just as the school of those fishes swarmed the spot where he had been standing a few seconds ago.
"You should have told me that first, damn it!"