His eyes lingered on the last message, face completely drained of color. The Labyrinth had referred to him as the ’Heir of Sacrifice’ instead of Peace or Bloom, hell, even War would have worked.

Does this mean why connection to Sacrifice is stronger than those to both my Source Elements?

But that could not be, after all, he was 70% Bloom and 30% Peace, at least he was the last time he had seen his profile.

While he was on the topic, Leonidas decided to summon his profile as well. With a wave of his hand, golden droplets, like morning dew, dripped softly from the ocean above and formed a pale glass sheet.

A river of platinum flowed onto the golden plate, forming words upon it.

————〔 PROFILE 〕————

Name: [Leonidas Hector]

Age: [17]

Source Element: [Bloom(70%)] [Peace(30%)]

Rank: [Enlightened]

Epithet: [Faithfully Faithless]

————〔 EDICT 〕————

→ [Gleam and Glow]

→ [Wisdom Of The Lamb]

→[Infernal Knight]

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

————〔 FUNCTIONS 〕————

Artifacts: [Shroud of Sacrifice]

Mark: —

Manifest: [Infernal Knight, Savior]

Realm: —

Nexus: [Sanctum of Sacrifice]

Access: [Phosphene Space] [Imaginative World]

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

Everything was more or less the same...well, not really, but his profile was the same. The functions category, which was previously just limited to Access, was now full of information.

Leonidas felt a swell of pride at the lack of dashes, but it didn’t last long. His gaze hardened, eyes lingering on his newest Edict.

Leonidas gave a mental command, and the panel changed, now showing details of his Edict, Infernal Knight.

Name: [Infernal Knight]

Rank: [N/A]

Source Element: [Sacrifice]

Description: [Everything has a beginning and an end, or that is what is believed. The Infernal Knights were made to be free from the flow of time, present in both the past and the future.]

Place Holder: [An empty Edict, born only to serve as the base for a Manifestation.]

Leonidas’s mind churned, trying his best to decipher what he could. The Edict was an empty one, giving him no power. That much was given to him.

Knights, it said, knights with an ’s’, which means there are others of Saviour’s kind.

A whole race, a race other than humans and pilgrims, a mixture of both. The implications were many, bringing about excitement and dread in equal measure. And the part about them being free from the clutches of time...Leonidas didn’t quite get what it meant, but he assumed that Savior’s abilities were related to time?

Wanting to confirm it himself, Leonidas summoned details about his Infernal Knight.

————〔 PROFILE 〕————

Name: [Savior]

Age: [N/A]

Source Element: [Unknown]

Rank: [Enlightened]

Epithet: [Hidden Behind A Helmet]

————〔 EDICT 〕————

→[One Above All]

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

Leondias’s eyes glazed over the details of the Edict. Although it was filled with a lot of unnecessary garble, the main function was simple.

The first ability made Saviors’ rank equal to his, while the second one, called [Ambivalent], was her heritage as a being torn between two ends, a mixture of pilgrim and human.

How fascinating. It means her other abilities were all racial.

Shaking his head, Leonidas dismissed the profile window and the other messages. He wanted to check the details about the mask that had fused in him and his new Nexus, but now wasn’t the time.

Who knows what’s happening to my body?

As far as he knew, time was constant in both realms, and who knew if Bloom’s ’punishment’ had actually affected him before everything had collapsed.

Then there’s the fact that she knew she was dead...

Bloom had told him not to underestimate her just because she was dead...Gods were truly unfathomable beings.

Leonidas had learned another thing as well...or more like his belief for that particular thing had increased.

Women are scary...

He stepped forward, feet pressing lightly into the cloudy floor. Curiosity still burned in the depths of his eyes, but Leonidas pushed it down.

A massive gate started forming before him, pooling from a sea of gold and silver. The gate burst to life, and Leonidas stepped through, the world behind him smothered into a dark hush.

* * * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * * * *

A woman ran through a twisted forest, each step crushing branches underneath her feet. She held a sword in her right arm, twisted to hug her body.

Her eyes, darker than the shadows that surrounded her, scanned ahead in wide motions. They were frantic, a representation of her panic. If one were to see them, they would also find them to be glassy, as if looking at a mirror.

One that there was no one, not in front of her, not behind her, and neither to her sides. Yet she ran as if her life depended on it.

Dammit, dammit it all. Where is he?

A root burst from the ground, shooting towards her midsection. Willow barely glanced at it, twisting mid-run to dodge the muddy plant, and continued running. At this point, she was too used to the attacks.

The being had been chasing her for more than a month, a constant game of cat and mouse, a single mistake away from death.

Not only that, the mad pilgrim held a peculiar ability, one that made Willow hesitate. Another root shot towards her, this time rushing from above, while another wrapped around her feet.

With fluid movements, she swung her sword, an arc of black. It cut into the root that held her ankle, while her gaze locked onto the green blur blitzing towards her.

Willow activated her Mark, coercing the elements to do her bidding. Bloom was the first to respond, which, in hindsight, made sense. She was, after all, standing in a forest.

A tree to her right caught the damned vine, pulling it towards itself. The distraction was enough for Willow to slice through it like paper, an arc of green puss exploding from impact.

She didn’t linger, speeding up as her destination came in sight. A massive black temple loomed in the distance, towering over everything else.

She had been told by Barbossa that Art would be inside the forsaken temple. Willow had been skeptical, but their survival depended entirely on him; as such, she decided to trust the seer.

That oracle had best been right.