"Wait," Lucid called out, his voice cutting through the heavy rain.
The solitary figure did not stop. Pilt turned his back completely, disappearing into the dark alleyway. He left behind a bitter atmosphere of absolute defeat and permanent severance.
"Do not chase him," Alice advised, her tone ringing clearly within his mind. "He is entirely ungrateful for our benevolence. He will soon understand the reality of what just happened."
Lucid stepped forward hesitantly. He let his hand drop down to rest near his waist. Who was Pilt to decide the absolute morality of this situation? If anything, this entire ordeal was completely unwarranted on his part. If he had simply remained a compliant subordinate and returned directly to the newly crowned queen, none of this would have happened.
He did not give a single scrap of care whether this outcome was his fault or not. The truth remained perfectly clear. If he had not intervened, none of these people would have made it out alive. The celestial domain would have continued its structural collapse, eventually spewing its chaotic contents outward. It would have kept the citizens of Port Evxis trapped forever in a stagnant, rotting stasis without any possibility of moving forward.
Lucid looked down at his damp hands. He turned his attention back to his companions.
Arthur and Ayame were finally stirring. The freezing rain had jolted them awake. Lucid had managed to drag them under the canvas canopy of an abandoned merchant stall nearby. The thick fabric offered a small barrier against the violent downpour.
Lucid stepped out from under the canopy and looked over the cityscape. The architecture was familiar. The gateway had not brought them to Valen after all. They were standing directly in the upper districts Port Vexis. The town looked entirely normal. People were walking in the distance, holding umbrellas and carrying lanterns. The unnatural stagnation had lifted. And there were no more suspended debris in the air or any golden vibrance coating the sky... everything was normal.
He shook his head slowly. He had been trapped in this specific region for a while and had gained absolutely nothing of value, except for that specific ring relic.
The thought triggered an immediate realization. He felt around his wet pockets frantically. He found nothing. He drove his fingers deep into his pockets, actively searching for the physical presence of the ring.
It was completely gone.
"No," Lucid muttered under his breath.
"That missing relic," Alice spoke up, sensing his sudden internal panic. "Was it that specific ring? If so, what was so important about it?"
"It is complicated," Lucid replied, keeping his voice low so the others would not hear.
He recalled how that small piece of jewelry had been the primary driving factor behind this entire disaster. To think that a measly little ring held such massive significance.
Lucid organized his chaotic thoughts and continued his silent explanation to Alice.
"The ring was born from a settlement between two Monoliths," Lucid thought as he stared into the rain. "Long ago, the Monolith of Contracts and the Monolith of Trade and Commerce entered a wager. The ring became the price that settled their agreement before it was sealed away in Shenzhou."
"One of Mercyros' most cherished servants eventually reincarnated as an ordinary girl. Though she remembered nothing of her previous lives, faint fragments lingered within her soul. She searched endlessly for a ring said to be worth millions, believing it could save her struggling town. The desire buried in her soul resonated with the relic, allowing Mercyros to pinpoint her exact location."
"By then she was trapped in a brutal naval war, surrounded by pirate ships as they were torn apart. Hearing her desperate prayer to Mother Alesia, Mercyros answered instead. He offered her a transaction. In exchange for her faith forever, he preserved her as a ghost for the prosperity of her town."
"He then extended his domain over Port Vexis, making the town the centre of his authority over trade and commerce. When her faith was finally exhausted and her spirit remained suspended in stasis, she entrusted the ring to a nameless traveller who happened to pass through the town. That traveller was nothing more than a stranger in the right place at the right time."
"This is deeply confusing," Alice stated flatly.
Lucid nodded in agreement.
"Well, maybe not entirely," Alice corrected herself after a brief moment of processing. "Perhaps he took a liking to the town simply because the girl had taken a liking to it first."
"Yeah," Lucid agreed quietly. "Maybe so."
He looked back toward the dark pavement where Pilt had walked away. The generous scoundrel was no longer there. Lucid fully recognized the gravity of what had just occurred. He had just made one of the biggest, most influential enemies in the entire realm.
A heavy, gloved hand suddenly found his shoulder.
Lucid turned back hastily, stepping away and dropping into a defensive stance.
"Who is there!" Lucid snapped.
It was Arthur. The veteran knight wore a patient, exhausted look on his weathered face. Ayame stood a few feet behind him, leaning heavily against the wooden support pillar of the merchant stall.
"It looks like we are still alive," Arthur said, offering a weak, tired smile.
Lucid looked at the two of them.
He thought deeply about their presence in the celestial domain. They were actively fighting the Monolith when he first arrived. Just what were they doing challenging a monolith in the first place?
Lucid had gone through a literal vacuum and been torn apart by black holes just to survive that encounter.
If Mercyros had genuinely wanted Arthur and Ayame dead, he could have effortlessly erased them long before Lucid ever showed up.
Lucid brushed that lingering thought aside. He didn't have the energy to interrogate himself further right now.
He managed a tired smile.
"You guys are insane," he laughed, the sound coming out as a breathless chuckle.
Arthur noted the reaction. "Oh, you're laughing after all of that?"
Ayame stood beside him with blank precision, as if she shared the same sentiment despite showing none of it outwardly.
Lucid waved his hands. "No, no, no. It's just that—"
He fell quiet.
Alice nudged something inside him, gentle and persistent.
"What is it, dear? Spit it out."
He sighed, an honest expression crossing his features even beneath the persistent mist.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "Thank you so, so much."
Arthur crossed his arms. "Ah, so you're getting emotional now. Great." Beneath the teasing tone, something genuine colored his voice, playful but sincere.
"It's good to see you alive," Ayame said. Though she didn't wear a smile, gratitude was visible in her eyes, unmistakable despite her otherwise composed expression.
'Maybe I've spent too much time reading her wrong,' Lucid thought.
She looked around, as if searching for another individual who should have been present.
"Where is—" Arthur started, apparently intending to ask the same question forming in Ayame's expression.
Alice spoke first within Lucid's mind. "Do you need to tell them?"
He lingered for a moment, uncertainty crossing his expression.
He answered back to Alice internally. "No, the question is whether I want to tell them."
"I can trust them, can't I?" he asked her.
A moment of silence passed between them, tension building within their shared consciousness.
"Trust them?" Alice repeated, her tone carrying something probing, searching for whatever hesitation lingered beneath his question.
Lucid answered before Alice could venture further into his thoughts.
He told them directly.
"Well, the yellow-haired bastard stormed off after we came outside the domain."
"I don't know why, but it seemed like he wanted something out of this. There was a specific goal of his that seemed suspended—" Arthur gestured his hand forward toward Lucid, waiting for further explanation.
Ayame stared at him without breaking eye contact once.
"Spare us the details," Arthur said, his tone shifting to something more measured and calm. "Whatever he was after, he should have told us directly. It's none of your concern. Judging from his demeanor, he seemed to be hiding considerably more than he was willing to share. So don't fret over it."
He delivered the reassurance with steady, deliberate calm.
Lucid's attention drifted beyond them.
The golden chamber had fallen quiet after Mercyros's death, yet the air ahead continued to tremble. At first, he mistook it for heat rising from the glowing puddle below. Then the distortion tightened into a single vertical line.
He leaned forward.
Arthur and Ayame turned at the same moment.
Neither asked what he had seen.
A narrow opening hung several steps away, suspended above the molten-gold surface. It was no wider than the space between two fingers, but it stretched high enough for someone to pass through. The edges shifted whenever Lucid tried to focus on them. One moment, the opening appeared to be a clean incision through the air. The next, it resembled a door left barely ajar.
Nothing waited behind it except darkness.