Ares woke at the crack of dawn and Shifted quietly out of the cave. He didn’t want to cause a ruckus and wake anyone up. Everyone in that cave was a cultivator and would be aware of even the slightest noise, hence why he used his art to leave stealthily. He was feeling much better and could tell he had been healed by one of Enyo’s clansmen, even if it wasn’t necessary. They weren’t aware of his bloodline, thus they had no clue he would have been right as rain on his own by the time he woke up regardless. Sleep essentially kicked his bloodline regeneration up a gear into overdrive.


    “Morning sleepy head.”


    “Well, aren’t you the early bird,” Ares responded to Bellona who was leaning on the cave entrance, blocking his way out with her arm.


    “And would you look at that? I caught myself a worm!”


    Ares chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Fair enough.”


    “How’d you do it?”


    “Do what?”


    “Lie to Enyo. Even our parents can’t dupe her bloodline, and their cultivation is unfathomable compared to ours.”


    Ares thought for a moment. “Can you keep a secret?”


    “Depends on the secret.”


    Ares leant closer and whispered in her ear, “Who said I was lying to her?”


    Bellona couldn’t help but start laughing. “Hahahaha, oh, you really are a character. I think keeping this secret could be fun. I won’t speak on Enyo’s preferences, but you can’t be any worse than Trew.” Something dawned on her as she mentioned Trew’s name. “Wait, did you set him up yesterday? So that he would accidentally call Enyo stupid?”


    “I mean, he said it himself. I fight dirty.” Ares smiled innocently.


    “Hahaha, you know, I think our mother would approve of you. She likes people with ‘spunk’. She thinks our whole clan is as up their own ass as they are boring.”


    “Am I missing something? Are they not?”


    “Oooh, ouch, I’m standing right here ya know?”


    “Ha, not you.”


    “I guess you can thank our mother for setting me on the right path.”


    “And Enyo?”


    “Tsk, you can thank her father for that. Who knows how many times I’ve argued with her, trying to convince her there’s more to life than just our father’s wishes, or should I say orders.”


    “Yeah, our situations are similar, so I figured I’d give it a go too, convincing her that is. It got me kicked out of our little adventure group quite quickly though.”


    “Ha, why am I not surprised? We had one particularly big row the last time we saw each other. It’s part of why she stormed off to go hide in Red Sun by herself. It''s been good to see her again. For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing her a lot of good.”


    “Me?”


    “Mhm, she seems a lot more… Emotive? I guess? She was never really the type to be expressive, but she seems to be a lot more easy-going with you, even if that’s because you’re setting her off on temper tantrums.”


    “I wouldn’t call that easy-going.”


    “I would, at least in comparison to what she was like before, anyway. Was Allie right?”


    “... About what?”


    “I know you were still awake.”


    “How?”


    “I didn’t actually know, but you just admitted it. You aren’t the only sly person here.” Bellona stuck out her tongue.


    “Yeah, I hid my injuries because I care. I didn’t want her to feel like she was to blame for my own decision.”


    “Aww, Cute. I think if you stop annoying her at every possible opportunity, you might have a shot.” Bellona pushed off the cave wall and started to walk back inside. “Good luck.”


    Ares smiled to himself and set off deeper into the forest.


    ---------------------------------


    “Mmmmmmmmm.”


    “...a.”


    “Mmmmmm.”


    “..pa.”


    “Mmm.”


    “Appa!”


    “Hm? Huh?” Appa woke up in a daze and looked around to find Loopo staring at it.


    “Appa, I know you miss Ares but you need to focus on your cultivation. He didn’t bring you with him for your sake, he did it so you could continue to cultivate past the mental accumulation realm. You should at least pay attention during these lectures.”


    Appa begrudgingly lifted itself from the Ares clone’s lap. “Mhm, ok,” Appa responded half-heartedly.


    Li Li stopped chatting to a disciple and moved over to sit next to Appa. “Hey sweetie, you ok?” Li Li petted Appa.


    “I miss dad.”


    “I know, I know.” Li Li hugged Appa. “He’ll be back before you know it, you’re doing great. Loopo is right though, you should really cultivate more often. You haven’t made much progress recently. Imagine what will happen when Ares comes back and he sees how far behind you’ve fallen, he’ll be upset and blame himself.”


    Appa hadn’t thought of that before. “I guess so. Ok! I’ll go back to cultivating!” Appa floated out of the room.


    “Huh? W… Wait!” Loopo hadn’t expected this. He was about to run after Appa but mulled things over and decided it was probably better if he didn’t. If Appa was going to cultivate, then that was better than keeping it here against its will and stymying its progress. Perhaps this was for the best. He was here, after all, to help the disciples cultivate in whatever fashion worked for them, so why not just let the shade do what it wants? As long as it was actively pursuing cultivation, there was no real reason for him to complain anymore.


    Appa was slowly, but surely, floating its way home with its rope wrapped around the Ares clone’s hand, when it came across a hunched man wearing a dusty cloak that covered his face. Appa felt this was strange, but decided to ignore this weird man who it assumed was just an Elder it had never met before.


    As the old man passed by, he flourished a dagger with incredible sleight of hand and ran his weapon directly through the Ares clone, which disappeared instantly. “A talisman? Fuck. I must be getting old, falling for such a silly thing... What are you looking at? Go on your merry way and pretend you saw nothing,” the old man threatened Appa who just floated there silently. “I’m telling you to leave, now.” The old man took a step towards Appa who wasn’t moving, but stopped when he noticed the shade’s rope was taut. “Huh?” The old man flicked his wrist and swatted away a giant block of ice that Appa had swung at him and looked back in fury at the thing responsible.


    “WHY? Why are you attacking me, you stupid shade!? Do you not understand the situation? I’m not someone a thing like you can mess with!”


    “You killed my Ares clone!” Appa’s voice was cold and shrill. It had a little upside-down triangular indent at the top of its eye socket indicating it was mad.


    “So damn what? Why do you care? Why do you even have an Ares clone?”


    “He’s my dad! I’ll kill you!” Appa summoned a barrage of icicles and fired them off without hesitation.


    “Dad? Are you insane? Whatever, if you’re close to him, that means I can use you.” The old man raised a palm and time froze. The icicles melted in mid-air and the water hung motionless, defying gravity.


    Appa couldn’t move or use its magic. It knew that time magic was troublesome, especially if the person using it was stronger than you by a significant margin. There was basically no way to fight it. They could erode or decay just about anything and could halt people in place effortlessly.


    The old man stepped towards Appa and reached out to grab it like it was a piece of cloth. He felt a sudden change in the air and tried to move back, but took a punch to the face before he could make any meaningful distance between him and his attacker. The old man kissed his teeth and spat some blood to get the metal taste out of his mouth. “Well, aren’t you good at your job when you want to be, Slick.”


    “Appa is cute, innocent, and adorable. Fen was an intolerable moron, why should I have protected him? If he wanted to kill Ares quietly when no one was looking, then he should be prepared to die with no one looking out for him either. Lo, your Chen family is seriously filled to the brim with imbeciles, and you''re no better. I’ve gotta say, watching you sneak around only to murder a clone was absolutely hilarious, I even got a good recording of it! As for Ares, he isn’t here right now, meaning you couldn’t even get an assassination on a 4th realm cultivator right, no wonder you couldn’t get your children right either.”


    “Say what you want, guardian, but I’m here because I love my children. You’re here because you were an unloved child. Those prominent figures you call your parents couldn’t have you ruining their image, now could they?”


    “Haha, that was part of it, sure, but they were caring folk, they primarily did it for my benefit. If you’re going to prattle on about ‘images’, then I don’t want to hear it. What would you know about maintaining an image anyway? You let your Chen clan run rampant and piss off everyone in Red Sun. Maybe if you abandoned your children, your image would improve too, but not much mind you, you’re still a piece of shit regardless. That’s the difference between you and my parents, they can at least be important when I’m not in the picture and, for that, I’ll gladly leave considering everything they’ve done for me. None of your stupid little ingrates would be willing to lift a finger for you. Who knows how many of them wish you would just keel over already so they could take your position.”


    Chen Lo, deciding that the verbal confrontation had run its course, lunged at Slick and threw a punch. Lo was at aspect assimilation, 4th stage, and Slick was only at sensory enhancement, 10th stage, so Slick had to dodge it.


    Slick wasn’t actually the highest cultivation Elder in Heaven’s Path. There were a few others that were in aspect assimilation like Lo, one realm above Slick, but he was still the guardian because he was undeniably the strongest person, excluding Rud and Yulo, in the sect. It’s not that the Elders were weak for their cultivation, nothing of the sort; but rather, Slick was far stronger than his cultivation would have you believe. He was similar to Ares in a way, hard to hit, extremely fast, and a real nuisance to beat. Most of his annoying-to-deal-with traits were a result of his magic and his sturdy frame.


    Slick took a low-stance, that bore resemblance to the one Li Li had used during the entrance exam, and jabbed at Lo who jumped back. Slick being as light on his feet as he was allowed him to chase after Lo and keep the pressure on despite the fact that he should have been the one at a disadvantage.


    Lo stuck to the defensive, palming aside attacks and occasionally retaliating whenever he found an opportunity, only to dully strike cold, hard metal and leave little-to-no impact.


    Slick managed to break through Lo’s guard and found a chance to deliver a blow to the gut but, just before his fist could connect, Lo suddenly disappeared. Slick could see traces of mana and knew exactly what happened. Lo had frozen time.


    There were some constraints to using time magic, namely, you couldn’t directly attack someone who was frozen in time as the attacks would just bounce right off. It was also near impossible to freeze someone for an extended period of time unless their cultivation was drastically lower than the person using the magic. Still, the space-time pillar, in spite of its various restrictions, was still one of the stronger pillars. There were only two aspects under the pillar, but they were some of the most convenient aspects imaginable, so many people used variety cultivation to enable its usage even if they weren’t particularly good at it.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Slick made an educated guess that Lo had used the ‘Temporal Distortion’ art, under the time aspect, to lock him in place while Lo repositioned and manoeuvred behind him. Slick didn’t even bother turning around, instead, it was time for him to use his own magic.


    “Scrapyard Meltdown!”


    Scrapyard Meltdown was Slick’s unique art of the oil-core aspect in the summoning pillar. Despite being a scrap and having neo-droid parts, Slick’s core was that of a gear folk. A metal hand coalesced from Slick’s back, slowly emerging to reveal an arm and shoulder. The hand grabbed Lo’s attempt at a sneak attack and, while Lo was struggling to remove the tight grip, a second hand formed and punched Lo in the face. Lo staggered back and watched as a second Slick separated itself from the original Slick’s back. This whole process looked almost the exact same as Onno’s use of the Doppelb?nger art. It was easy to tell which one was the clone, though, as it had the word ‘Flare’ emblazoned across its chest. To make distinguishing the two even easier, a goopy, black, oil-like substance was now leaking out of every crevice of Slick’s frame.


    Part of what made Slick such a pain to fight was that his summon was an identical, or carbon, if you will, copy of himself. It could fight, think, strategize, and dodge exactly as Slick would do. Normal clones typically had reduced effectiveness in one, or usually all combat-related areas but, Slick’s clone, Flare, had no such drawbacks. This, in addition to the fact that Slick could consistently fight against people with higher cultivation bases, meant he was truly a menace. His unique art turned every one-on-one fight into a two on one, so to say he himself was the strongest of all the Elders was technically not true, but it was literally true. Of course, if that was all his unique art did, he might not have been able to rely on his strong physique and excellent combat capabilities to solidify his position as number one, but his unique art still had one major trick up its sleeve.


    Slick ran up to Lo and swung downward. The strike missed but some of the leaking oil flicked off, catching onto Lo’s clothes. Slick hunched over to accommodate the swinging motion and, in doing so, gave Lo a clear view of Flare who leapfrogged over Slick’s back and converted his momentum into a spinning kick.


    Unlike Slick who could only throw around his excess oil, Flare could convert its oil into fire magic. The spin kick sparked and became a fiery tornado that bore into Lo’s arms, drilling into and burning his flesh.


    Lo was pushed back and quickly realised that Slick was the primer and Flare was the ignition. The oily clothes had been burnt to cinders during the last attack and hot ashes clung to Lo’s leg.


    Slick’s dripping, pungent oil and Flare’s blazing fists, crackling away like a warm hearth was the definition of double trouble and Lo wanted nothing to do with it. He was at a complete disadvantage due to the nature of their respective magics. Lo could only barely manage freezing one Slick in time, two would be unfathomably hard. That, and it was impossible to use time magic to erode or decay Slick’s oily substance as oil was a by-product of time to begin with! He couldn’t actively stop Slick from oiling him, and all it would take is a single misstep for Flare to light him up like a Christmas tree. To put the nail in the coffin, the longer this went on, the higher the chance other Elders were going to show up and then he wouldn’t even be able to escape.


    “Haste!”


    Lo used an art of the support pillar’s ‘Buff’ aspect to speed himself up, turn tail, and run. Although he used variety cultivation, he never could wrap his head around spatial magic or teleportation properly, so this would have to do in its stead. Just because someone used variety cultivation, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t still occasionally struggle to learn specific pillars, aspects, and arts if they weren’t talented enough.


    Flare held the back of Slick’s shoulders and jumped feet first right back inside of him. Slick watched Lo flee in fear with a triumphant grin and his hands resting on his waist. “Hmph, coward!”


    Other Elders started to arrive on the scene and Slick gave a brief explanation of what happened, mostly so that everyone was aware of the enmity that Heaven’s Path would now inevitably have with the Chen clan, but also so he could showboat for a while. When the Elders eventually dispersed, he felt something soft on his leg. He looked down and found a sad Appa doing the shade equivalent of a hug.


    “Are you ok?”


    Sniffle


    Appa was crying.


    “Hey, hey what’s wrong?” Slick kneeled down and spoke gently to try and sooth the shade.


    “My Ares died,” Appa whimpered.


    “Don’t worry, that was just a clone, remember?”


    “I… I know, but it still upset me seeing dad die. What… What if my real dad died?” Appa sniffed again and struggled to speak normally, “What if... He’s already…” Appa wept uncontrollably.


    “It’s ok, it’s ok. Shhh, it’s fine. Ares is fine,” Slick reassured it and patted it gently.


    “I miss dad… I wanna see dad.” Appa was still bawling miserably.


    “Ares will come back, I promise. We wouldn’t have let him out of the sect if we didn’t have the utmost confidence that he would be safe on his own. It’s nearly time for Zhang to leave and go check up on them on the way to Venti City anyhow, do you want him to pass on a message to Ares when he sees him?”


    Sniffle


    “...Yes... Tell him I love him and I miss him and I want to see him and I love him,” Appa spat out her demand rapid-fire.


    “Ok, ok, I’ll let Zhang know. Also, I promise I’ll keep an eye out for when Ares returns. As soon as he gets through the gates, I’ll let you know, ok?”


    “... Ok… Ok,” Appa mumbled.


    “Ares would never leave you, that includes dying. He’d fight his way out of the afterlife to come back to you if he had to, you know that right?”


    “... I know.”


    “Good! Now, do you want a hug!?”


    “... No, you’re cold.” Appa floated away.


    “Haha, it’s a good thing you’re so damn cute.” Slick laughed and shook his head. Between my parents and Chen Lo, who would have thought the best parent of all would be Ares, Slick mused.


    ---------------------------------


    Ares could tell he was getting close now. Whatever was calling to him was practically screeching at him. He kept up his pace and passed through an area densely packed with trees, eventually finding an exit that led outside the forest. The path was winding with progressively fewer and fewer trees obscuring Ares’ view of the immediate area. It was impossible to tell what lay at the end of the path other than a bright light signalling the edge of the forest. Ares reached the clearing and two things immediately caught his attention: one thing was a large mansion, the other was that this area was a cliffside and that, although there was a giant wooden sign with the word ‘danger’ on it, it stood tall in front of the mansion, and not near the edges of the cliff.


    The view at dawn was something to be enamoured by. The orange-tinged sky rose elegantly from behind the mansion as if it were emanating the very essence of the world. The mansion hardly seemed like it warranted the term dangerous. Accommodating and welcoming would perhaps be more appropriate adjectives.


    Ares felt there was no need to rush, so he took a look around the outskirts and at what lay below the cliffs before sitting down and leaning against a tree. He didn’t find anything too surprising. Ares had heard the sound of waves lapping against the rocks before he went to go check and correctly guessed he was near the sea. The breeze, occasional chirping of birds, squeaking of squirrels, and rustles of brush were quite relaxing. Ares was waiting for his mana to restock itself after yesterday, he really couldn’t tell whether this place would be problematic or not so he took appropriate caution. Although his bloodline could fix his injuries, there was nothing it could do to aid him with a lack of mana. Ares’ gut instinct was that this mansion was troublesome, but his mind kept telling him everything would be alright for him and him alone. That was why he hadn’t brought anyone else along, because he had no clue what kind of mess he was about to throw himself headfirst into.


    Ares waited for so long that it had slowly turned from dawn to dusk, all without him even realising as he had taken a chance to cultivate at some point. Ares had managed to progress to the 4th stage of skeletal structuring thanks to the fight yesterday. Although nothing had actually changed in his surroundings during his cultivation session, there was certainly a different feel and atmosphere in the air.


    The view at dusk was nothing short of a stark contrast compared to before. It was something to fear and find repulsion in. The mansion now more closely resembled a pitch-black, dark abyss that only the truly brave would dare enter. If the twisting route through gnarled, decrepit trees behind Ares wasn’t enough to drive the foolhardy away, he imagined the perilous positioning of the building dangling near the edge of the cliff would now do the trick. The sea below had become some form of foul and foetid lagoon akin to a dimensional portal straight to a demonic land.


    The grass underfoot, dull grey in colour thanks to the pale moonlight, spread outward in intermittent patches, forming an almost ritualistic circle with the mansion present at the epicentre. The grass had become rotten and crisp, giving way and crumbling when stepped on, and gave a feeling of walking atop the decrepit bones of decaying skeletons. The faux greenery had contaminated a nearby plot of lemongrass. What was once a fresh herb with an astringent taste now bore resemblance to a ghostly pale weed that would inevitably be the root cause of thousands of deaths were it to be sold at market and consumed en-masse.


    As for the building, paint graced the mansion with a touch of death that appeared to bleed and smudge over the windows, drowning them in an ebon tint. The night sky tightly wove itself around the building’s serrated contours that were sharp enough to perforate flesh, restraining it in an unholy, blackened aura. The moon would rise from behind the top of the residence as though it were released and unshackled from its prison, clawing its way through the howling winds to the farthest edges of the sky, away from the abomination below, only to eventually, inevitably be reeled back, kicking and screaming into the dying hours of the night.


    Truthfully, it wasn’t actually that bad, but Ares had been reading varied literature in his down time at the sect and was becoming progressively fonder of waxing poetic, so this was how he imagined it. He couldn’t just cook and destroy things all day long, so he searched for another hobby, one that could be done at any time and place, and this is what he had decided on. In fact, one of the books he read was created by a disciple of the sect, no less, named ‘Eagerton’ who was apparently rather famous for his work.


    Ares pushed past the rusty, squeaking gate and up the narrow trail leading to the mansion. A bat rustled through the trees and Ares rolled his eyes at the unoriginality of it all. What next? A crow? An owl?


    Ca-Caw


    Hoot-Hoot


    God damn it. Ares face-palmed and kept walking. When he reached the door, he could smell blood coming from a hole in the wall. The door itself had no way of opening it as far as Ares could tell, so he decided to bite the bullet and shove his hand into the unknown hole.


    AGH! Son of a... Ares was complaining in his head as some spiked object latched onto his hand, puncturing it in numerous places and letting his blood flow further along the hole. Thankfully, the nerves had all been severed, so his hand went numb and the pain subsided shortly after. He pulled out his hand and the spiked thing, whatever it was, was no longer present. Luckily his bloodline was capable of restoring missing flesh, otherwise he would have had a real hard time fixing his hand given its current state.


    The door turned a translucent red, and Ares figured blood was the catalyst to enter the mansion. He also couldn’t help but wonder if a haemomancer had lived here as that was really the safest bet but, then again, what kind of haemomancer-related thing would be calling out to Ares of all people? It didn’t make sense, but nothing was going to make any sense until he learnt more about this place, so he ventured inside.


    FUCK-GODDAMN-WHY?!


    Ares was more than just a little miffed as the translucent door had sliced off two layers of his skin as he passed through it. His bloodline could fix it, but that didn’t stop it from hurting any less.


    Ares took a breather to wait for his skin to come back, and then moved along through an expansive, dark, narrow hall with fancy wooden decor. The wood decor was strange in the sense that all the wood was twisted into shapes you really wouldn’t expect wood to be carved into, like spiral helices and infinity loops. The fact that the only sources of lights were flickering flames, that used the wood decor as something akin to a candle, didn’t make it any less weird either.


    At the end of the hallway was a massive set of spiked, red double doors. Ares stood in front of them and wondered how he was going to get these things to open, and whether or not the method would include any further suffering, when the doors suddenly swung wide open on their own, revealing a pitch-black nothingness. Well, it wasn’t actually nothingness, at least not the kind Ares was familiar with anyway, but it was certainly some form of blank void.


    No matter how Ares tried, he couldn’t fathom the depths of this blackness. He had tried flinging an Echo inside, and even a Shock Bead, but nothing lit up, no noises were made, and no information was given.


    Ares, for the first time in his life, was feeling antsy.


    Surely people knew about this place, right?


    If so, why hasn''t it been fully explored yet?


    Why was there still something here left to call out to him?


    The worst-case scenario was that this was a place not even transition realm cultivators dared to explore, and that thought was not a pretty one. Yet the voice in his head just kept telling him to keep moving forward, to find the thing that was calling him. Now that Ares had gotten this far, he’d come to realise the voice in his head, and the thing calling him, were two separate entities, and he had absolutely no idea what was happening to him anymore. This only served to make him even more curious though.


    Ares set up a Shift location in advance that he could come back to on the off-chance things went horribly wrong, and took his first step into the black space.


    As soon as he fully committed, the doors slammed shut behind him.


    He felt something creeping up his leg.


    He couldn’t see what it was, he couldn’t see anything at all, but he could tell it wasn’t a snake. It just felt too… Wrong to be a snake.


    It felt more like a rope.


    Ares started to feel panic seeping in as he was unable to Shift out.


    His backup plan was no longer an option and this thing climbing up his body couldn’t be removed no matter how hard he tried.


    It only got worse when more of these rope-like things wrapped themselves around his other ankle and started climbing him as well. Ares'' only solace was that they genuinely felt like rope and nothing else, or so he convinced himself.


    For the sake of his sanity, he sincerely hoped that was the case.


    A minute later he was completely tied up and couldn’t move even an inch. Nothing regarding his vision had changed as he could see nothing regardless, or so he thought. A tiny light appeared in front of him, albeit distant. The slight light was enough for him to realise that it was, in fact, rope tying him up right now, and that the rope had very conveniently left a gap near his eyes for him to see out of.


    Another light appeared.


    And then another.


    And another.


    And another.


    This kept happening until there were hundreds of lights in the distance.


    Ares was starting to think these things weren’t lights.


    Whatever they were, they were getting nearer and, more importantly, bigger.


    When they were close enough to visualise their shape, Ares began struggling wildly with the rope in a desperate attempt to free himself.


    He couldn’t do it.


    He tried to move his body and managed to turn just enough to realise the situation behind him was the exact same and there was no escape.


    On either side of him, rapidly closing in, were hundreds of bright, sharp, spikes.


    This room was a makeshift iron maiden.


    FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK, Ares’ thoughts had become manic as he tried to come up with a solution to the room and kept repeatedly failing to think of anything that would be any use. It was only a matter of seconds until he was crushed by the spikes and there was nothing left for Ares to try. All he could do was pray that this was an illusion magic of some kind but, as the first spike punctured his lung, he realised he was completely helpless. Thoughts of Aejaz, Appa, Allie, and Enyo ran through his head and, despite his punctured lung, he yelled in frustration that he was going to die in such a stupid manner. It was so stupid in fact, that even his bloodline felt indignant and Ares felt a stubborn refusal to die welling as more and more spikes ran him through. All his major organs had been pierced multiple times but none had been obliterated entirely yet so he could still cling onto life for a while longer. Ares could see less and less as his vision grew darker. This was like the time the Primordial Blade had run him through and he could feel himself dying. As if to put the final nail in the coffin, the light of the final two spikes came boring into Ares’ eyes, blinding him, and making the world around him turn to black once more.


    ---------------------------------


    Earlier.


    “Go～od mor～nin’ ya lazy bed bugs,” Bellona cheerfully greeted everyone as they woke from their rest.


    “How many times must you be told to speak properly, with grace and decorum befitting that of our Legion clan?” Trew groggily complained.


    “I don’t wanna hear it coming from the guy who’s half asleep and slurring his words.” Bellona stuck her tongue out at Trew who just rolled his eyes in a disapproving way.


    “Where’s Ares?” Enyo was the first to notice Ares had gone missing and this titbit was not lost on Bellona, even though she didn’t pry any further.


    “He left earlier to go… Actually… I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. Really shoulda in hindsight, huh?”


    “Tsk, as much as I hate the idea of babysitting him, he’s an injured idiot prone to doing stupid things at the best of times, let alone with his wounds still fresh.”


    “Meh, he seemed good as new when I saw him.”


    “Seriously?” Charity was in disbelief.


    “Looks like you’re a better healer than you give yourself credit for,” Gladius commented with an ‘I told you so’ look on his face.


    “Enough with the flattery, I’m not responsible for his condition. I just stabilised him. He must have had one hell of a healing pill on him.”


    “Or maybe…” Trew started.


    “Don’t go there Trew, he really doesn’t seem like one of them,” Bellona interrupted.


    Aejaz and Allie were utterly lost, but they could tell from Bellona’s tone that Trew had insinuated something of considerable importance.


    “Enyo, you can ask him the next time you see him… Just in case. I don’t think he is either… But, you know. We can’t be easy-going about these things,” Gladius said.


    “First off, don’t be ridiculous. He isn''t one of them, that’s absurd. Second of all, I can’t ask him and, lastly, it would all be meaningless anyway,” Enyo said sternly while shaking her head.


    “What do you mean?” Trew asked.


    “His family situation is complicated and he knows basically nothing about anything. He has no bloodline relatives in his life and would have made contact with at least one person from his clan by now if that weren’t the case. He’s been completely unguarded around me and all of us this entire time. I can’t ask him because, as we’ve already established, he can lie to my bloodline and, even if, by some ludicrous chance, he really is a revenant, I seriously doubt we could kill him anyway. If nothing else, he would be impossible to catch.”


    “And would we even want to? He seems annoying, sure, but harmless otherwise,” Bellona added hastily.


    “Harmless? He killed a Mecha-dryad. He could be a serious threat. And how do you know for sure he hasn’t lied to you before? You said it yourself, you can’t trust your bloodline, right?” Trew said. Silence filled the cave and many glances were shared until eventually Trew caught a glimpse of Aejaz. “Ah, well, I think I have a good idea,” Trew said happily. “Let’s ask this fellow. He’s his brother, right? I seriously doubt he too can lie to Enyo’s bloodline, right?”


    Aejaz gulped as everyone was staring directly at him now and he had a bad feeling about what was to come. Not in the sense that they were going to do anything untoward to him, but rather that he was going to have to do something incredibly unpleasant to himself.