Renzoku turned away from the yellowed tree and the weeping crowd, his face an unreadable mask. One of the village guards who had drawn his blade stood frozen, his weapon trembling, unsure whether to attack the boy who had apparently drained their sacred protector or to run in fear from the sheer, freezing pressure radiating from him.
Renzoku looked at him, his metallic, silver-gray eyes indifferent to the guards panic.
"Where can I go to eat?" Renzoku asked, his voice flat and raspy.
The guard blinked, his mouth opening and closing in mute confusion. He had expected a threat, a curse, or a swift shadow-blade to his throat. Instead, the terrifying entity before him was asking for a diner.
"E-eat?" the guard stammered.
Renzoku nodded slightly. As a member of the Eien no Bannin, he was an immortal guardian whose body was sustained by divine essence. Technically, he did not need mortal food to survive. However, he had been frozen in time as a youth, and his physical vessel still retained the deep, lingering habits and desires of humanity. The psychological need to quench his thirst and satisfy his hunger remained. Furthermore, he had not eaten since his ship was attacked by the Abyssal Terror the previous night, and his muscles still carried the leaden fatigue of that grueling, near-fatal clash.
The guard, hesitant to anger the boy who was an Awakened, lowered his blade. "There... there is a small tavern down the street. But we have almost nothing left."
He led Renzoku to a low, timber-framed building with shuttered windows. Inside, the shop was dark and quiet, carrying the faint scent of stale beer and dry wood. The owner, a nervous middle-aged woman, looked up in alarm as the guard entered with the pale, ragged stranger. Oakhaven had been cut off from the sea for a month; their remaining food supplies were critically low.
After a hushed, urgent exchange with the guard, the owner went into the back and returned with a meager offering: a small bowl of wrinkled, salt-cured fruits and a single portion of dried, tough mutton.
Renzoku sat at a corner table and began to eat, chewing methodically. He did not complain about the poor quality or the small portion. He ate with the quiet, pragmatic efficiency of a soldier who had spent decades wandering the corrupted wilds.
When the plate was clean, the owner stood nearby, wringing her hands nervously. Renzoku reached into his pockets, but he had no coin of this era—currency meant nothing in a dead, silent city. He looked up, locked his silver-gray eyes onto the guard who had escorted him, and gestured with his chin toward the empty bowl.
The guard stared at him in disbelief, his jaw tightening. For a moment, he looked ready to refuse. But as Renzoku's metallic gaze lingered, carrying the weight of nearly a century of combat experience, the guard swallowed hard, reached into his pouch, and reluctantly slapped a few copper coins onto the wooden counter.
Renzoku stood up, entirely unbothered by the guard's silent frustration. "Take me back to the chief," he commanded.
Returning to the chief's quarters, Renzoku stepped briefly into the office. Chief Silas was already shouting orders to his assistants, initiating the evacuation of the villagers.
"I am heading to the shore," Renzoku informed the old warrior, not waiting for a reply. "I will be back before night falls."
He turned on his heel and left the village alone. The walk to the beach was short, the cool, salty air clearing his mind as he navigated the gravel path.
Reaching the shoreline, he walked up to his marooned ship. The battered vessel lay tilted on the dark sand, its wooden hull cracked and scarred by the Abyssal Terror's colossal tentacles. It was in no condition to float, let alone sail.
Renzoku climbed aboard, his footsteps hollow on the dry deck. He descended into the lower hold, where spare timber planks, heavy tar, and caulking tools were stored for emergency repairs. Working alone in the dim, cramped quarters of the hold, he got to work. He used his shadow manipulation to hold the heavy wooden planks in place, driving nails and packing the sealant into the deep gashes with his hands. He worked quickly, his movements silent and precise, patching the holes well enough to ensure the ship would remain buoyant when pushed back into the black tide.
Meanwhile, in a quiet, stone-walled room in the village, Eirene and her squad were gathered around a wooden table, the atmosphere heavy with unresolved tension.
"We can't seriously be doing this," Theron said, pacing back and forth, his hand resting on the pommel of his broadsword. "He threatened Eirene, disarmed Kaelen, and just drained the life out of the sacred tree. He is a phantom. For all we know, he's leading us into a trap to offer us to that creature."
"Spiritually, he is a void," Lyra whispered, her pale eyes wide as she sat huddled in her chair. "Looking at him makes my senses scream. But... I didn't feel malice from him. Just a cold, heavy absolute certainty. And when he spoke of the Titan... my soul felt the truth of it. If we don't act, that thing in the ocean will consume us all."
Kaelen, sitting in the corner with his heavy shield leaning against his knee, grunted in agreement. "He's right about one thing. We aren't strong enough to fight that Terror in its own element. If we go into the deep water, we die. His plan is the only one that forces it to the shallows. It's a gamble, but it's the only one we have."
Mira looked toward the head of the table. "Eirene? What do we do?"
Eirene sat in silence, her amber eyes reflecting the flickering flame of the single candle between them. Her pride was still stinging from how easily the stranger had put a blade to her throat, but she was the Heir of Orithys. Her duty was to protect these people, not her ego.
"We have only two choices," Eirene said, her voice quiet but firm. "We either trust his plan, or we ride back to Aethelgard to request a stronger force of Ascended Masters from the elders. But assembling a force and riding back will take at least four days. By then, the Terror will have consumed the remaining souls in the harbor and achieved the rank of an Awakened Titan. If that happens, Oakhaven will be gone, and the entire coast will fall. We do not have four days."
She stood up, her golden ponytail swaying as she looked at her squad. "We follow him. But we keep our guards up. If he shows any sign of betrayal, we kill him. For now, get the boats ready and retrieve the leviathan net from the eastern warehouse."
The squad nodded, their faces grim but resolved. They dispersed to prepare for the night ahead.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in deep purples and bruised oranges, Renzoku returned to Chief Silas's quarters.
Silas was waiting behind his desk. The old veteran looked completely drained of essence, his face pale and drawn, his breathing shallow. Pouring his Ascended soul essence into the five energy-storing crystals had pushed his aging body to its absolute limit.
He pushed the five glowing, saturated crystals across the desk. They hummed with a soft, warm light, vibrating with stored energy.
"They are filled," Silas rasped, his voice barely a whisper.
Renzoku picked them up, feeling the warmth of the essence radiating through the facets, and slid them into his coat. "You did well. Ensure the villagers are moved to the secure location immediately."
Before Silas could respond, the door opened, and Eirene and her squad entered. They were fully geared, weapons checked, and wearing expressions of tense readiness.
"The boats are prepared on the shore," Eirene said, her voice tight as she met Renzoku's metallic gaze. "And we have retrieved the iron-reinforced net."
"Good," Renzoku replied, turning toward the door. "Follow me."
He led the five young warriors out of the village, bypassing the main docks and heading to a secluded cove far down the coast. The sun had already set, and the dark, corrupt mist that hovered over the sea was beginning to roll back onto the shore, bringing with it a biting chill.
At the edge of the cove, Renzoku walked onto a flat expanse of dark sand.
On the ground, a massive runic array had been carved deep into the sand, its lines reinforced with pulsing, black shadow essence that seemed to swallow the dim light.
"This is a short-range transportation formation," Renzoku explained, pointing to the main circle. He knelt down, tracing a smaller, matching pattern in the sand beside it. "Take note of this drawing. You must carve this exact secondary array onto the decks of your three boats. It will act as the anchor for the transportation."
He took one of the five charged energy-storing crystals from his coat and placed it in the dead center of the main transportation formation. The array instantly flared with a faint, dark purple light, humming softly as it absorbed the essence.
Surrounding the central transport array were three smaller, secondary circles. These were "bounding formations"—spiritually reinforced traps designed to lock down a target. The shadows clinging to the edges of these bounding formations were unnaturally dense, pooling on the sand like liquid ink.
Renzoku reached into his coat and withdrew three glowing, crystalline spheres—Awakened monster cores he had harvested during his seventy-five-year pilgrimage. He placed one core in the center of each of the three bounding formations.
The sand vibrated as the arrays fully awakened, waiting for the trap to spring.