Pillar of Yita

”We’ve arrived!”

Mist Shield Manor loomed in the distance, but Fang Hong did not wait for the crowd’s cheer; he turned back to look and saw the throng on the main street of Haggston Cemetery District standing starkly divided as if by an invisible line.

There the people stopped, silently watching him and Hilveld, reflecting the sea of fire at the edge of the sky, billowing smoke, a golden net hanging down from above the city.

A painting freezing time at this moment, the silent crowd left a particularly deep impression on Fang Hong.

He suddenly understood something.

Even if an invisible hand moved the hands of the clock within the dream, letting the events of thirty years ago no longer overlap with destiny’s trajectory, the moment to awaken from the dream inevitably arrived.

A ripple spread among the tightly packed crowd.

The faces of those standing at the forefront grew pale and haggard, ghostlike, with only a confused vigil remaining in the eyes where once the Soul Fire burned.

For thirty years, some unseen force still bound these souls of Dolifen here.

But perhaps it was not in vain.

In Fang Hong’s vision, the man at the forefront of the crowd – not too tall, slightly corpulent, balding, with a pallid face covered in the bruising of the dead – bent slightly, bowing towards him.

Then came a woman with hair like withered grass, holding her daughter’s hand—a small, frail skeleton—bowing slightly towards him.

All those he had tried his utmost to save within the Phantom Realm.

They all bowed to him.

After the people had paid their tribute, their forms gradually dispersed into specks of light, some even turning to walk back into the crowd, thus the lights merged into a stream, majestically rising into the air.

It was like the dispersing crowd from a feast’s end, maintaining their last vestiges of dignity and composure.

Some specks of light drifted slowly down from the sky, like rain.

One merged with the Scepter of Regret in Hilveld’s hand.

One merged with the Seal of No Regret on Fang Hong’s chest.

Hilveld walked over, handing the scepter back to Fang Hong. He took it, and though it showed no changes, it weighed more in his grasp.

Just at that moment.

The Phantom Realm around the two began to blot and fade, like a shattered glass pane, the entire realm collapsing into endless black dust.

Fang Hong thought he heard the raging screech of Dragon’s Golden Eyes from behind the rolling dust.

”Human boy, just you wait, that damned woman...”

The dust scattered.

An office desk was revealed.

A window facing the shimmer of the lake.

A silent office.

Outside the window, the Silver Moon quietly climbed over the sill, entering the room, casting the shadows of three on the carpet.

The papers on the desk were a bit of a mess, as if recently rifled through. It was a roster, smeared with the blood and tears of thirty years past.

On the nearby wall, several portraits of young girls were nailed.

Next to each portrait hung a blood-stained brooch.

And the one farthest out, her voice and laughter still as if in the ear, only beside her the hook remained empty. Here, the hands of time seemed to move peculiarly slow.

Fang Hong looked at Hilveld, the noble girl was also looking at him, the positions they occupied seemed as if no time had passed from a quarter hour ago.

It was still the midnight before dawn.

The forest remained as silent as ever.

Urgent footsteps came from the corridor outside.

But Fang Hong paid them no mind. He simply, carefully closed the roster and then placed it back on the desk. The last name on the roster became unusually clear under the moonlight.

Hes—

A letter slipped out from within the roster; it seemed as if it had always been there, yet they hadn’t noticed it before. Fang Hong gently caught the letter with his hand.

It was a man’s letter to Manlo, the paper seemingly weathered by decades, slightly yellowed, but pressed so flat beneath the roster as if even time had carefully preserved it.

’Respected Headmaster, my daughter has not come home for a week, and I am very worried. Is she still at the academy? Is it because of some arrangement for the upcoming celebration?’

Fang Hong folded the letter.

And carefully kept it on his person.

Hilveld watched his motions carefully; to them, the previous event seemed like a dream, but the shimmering unicorn brooch on Fang Hong’s chest,

And the Scepter of Regret he still gripped tightly in his hand,

Told them everything silently.

The footsteps outside stopped abruptly.

The door was flung open with a bang, and a figure stumbled in. The person was not lightly injured; a bleeding redness covered the left shoulder with an arrow stuck in it, while the glove of the Combat Artisan’s Omnimeter on the right hand had been slashed, the shell curling back to reveal a deep gash to the bone.

Her hand hung naturally limp, dripping with blood, her complexion somewhat pale from blood loss as she stumbled into the office like a small, panicked animal on the run.

Red Leaf looked up in a flurry, taken aback to find other people here. She instinctively stepped back.

But a hand was already supporting her.

Miss Maid reached out to catch her to prevent her from falling. She looked up at the two Dragon Worshippers who had followed them through the darkness, precisely the ones Fang Hong had encountered earlier.