It took another three days for Shira and his team to find the moonlight flower — and Elder Phenius of the Ashur clan prepared the ritual, waiting for the next full moon which was two days away.
Shira and his men stood guard for those two days, securing every corner to ensure nothing would go wrong.
The surviving students from the aftermath of what had transpired between Socrates and the elders had returned to the academy. The team that had entered the dungeon with Socrates had also reluctantly returned home.
They had searched everywhere for him — but he was nowhere to be found. So they had to give up.
With the thought that if Socrates was alive, he would come back to them — and if he was dead, they would keep remembering him.
Kamira had been reluctant about leaving, but they had to force her. Now all of them were out challenging the number one outer ranker while Judas needed to challenge no one — he had entered the inner ranking top 100 simply by submitting the two seeds of the Iceflame.
This made a top member of the Giant clan so pleased that he hosted a banquet in Judas' honor — and Judas invited his friends. They saw the beauty of the capital city for the first time and made a quiet promise to themselves to make it here someday.
They worked harder. Trained harder. All with the singular goal of defeating the number one outer ranker — a clan member of the Giant race.
Meanwhile, Socrates' eyes were still closed inside the energy restriction field, his body giving off a faint trace of warmth that hadn't been there before.
Socrates' body had been tempered by many things. First a pill that destroyed his meridians, then electric bolts, then a flame core that destroyed them further, then a grueling amount of physical training — death itself had been used to train him, dying almost a thousand times, relying on treasures and then on nothing but luck.
But this was the first time his body had been tempered using spiritual energy — and not just any passing energy, but an ancient energy drawn from a legendary beast. All of it thanks to the Goddess of Death.
When Socrates' consciousness became aware of the new presence in his sea of consciousness and the advantages it had brought him, he couldn't help but feel something warm move through him that had nothing to do with the energy.
Lady Achillia told him she was going back to sleep and not to be disturbed — and left him alone with the Monkey King, who sat quietly beside him saying nothing, staring at the ground as if reconsidering every decision that had led him to this moment.
The Monkey King — once a lofty beast standing twice the height of Socrates and twice as wide — had been reduced to half Socrates' size. After having his spiritual energy drawn out, he had fallen back to the Master Realm, and the displeasure of that fact sat on him like a physical weight.
But Socrates felt no pity for him. This same beast had tried to make him a slave. Why should he?
Socrates sat in the quiet of the restriction field as his brain, fed by the rich spiritual energy still settling through his system, began to develop in ways he could feel but not yet fully understand. Faint memories of a technique — an art, an imprint — appeared at the edges of his mind like something seen through frosted glass. Close. But not yet graspable.
Then his eyes snapped open.
His blue eyes shone — bright and sudden — as his face turned instinctively toward the sky above the mountain, drawn there before he had consciously decided to look. Light came out of his eyes and traveled upward toward the heavens — and a scene flashed before him like a window thrown open without warning.
Amelia was laid on the altar.
Elder Phenius moved around it slowly, a clay pot in his hands dripping with silver ash, its sharp mineral scent hanging thick in the air as he circled her and chanted — his voice low and rhythmic, the words of it old and deliberate. He was preparing the ritual, waiting for the full moon to reach its position so he could claim what he had come for.
Then Amelia's eyes flung open.
They shone — a light that shot upward and connected with the heavens directly, piercing the dark above the altar like something that had been waiting to be released. The moon responded, brightening sharply, its light flooding down and illuminating everything below with an intensity that had no business being natural.
The ground shook. The air shook. The clan members stationed below felt the tremor move through the atmosphere and exchanged uneasy glances.
Elder Phenius didn't falter.
"Brother—"
Amelia's scream tore through the air — and the light from her eyes intensified with it, the whole space shuddering from the force of both combined.
Phenius moved without hesitation. He grabbed a seed of the moonlight flower and shoved it into her nostril. The scent hit her system immediately — sharp and cold — and her body responded, the fight going out of it all at once as she fell back into unconsciousness. Her eyes stayed open wide, fixed and shining, exactly the way he needed them.
'Save me..'
The thought drifted through the space between them — faint, barely a whisper, more feeling than words.
"Just five minutes..." Elder Phenius murmured, his eyes moving to the sky where the full moon was climbing toward its peak, its silver light falling clean and direct across the altar. "Five minutes for the full moon to reach its full glory.. Hehehe.."
He pulled out the dagger.
He had sharpened it specifically for this — the blade thin and precise, built for extraction rather than violence. Under the full moon, with its light shining directly on her eyes, they would reflect and could be removed from their socket with the light still living inside them. Transferred to him while both sat beneath that same moon and the wound sealed itself under its glow.
He had planned every detail.
"Is everything ready?" Phenius asked.
"Everything is set..." Shira replied from his position. "Everyone is in place."
"No errors. I repeat."
"No errors."
"No one enters no matter what." Elder Phenius instructed — then turned toward the sky as the full moon finally shone down on him and Amelia both, the silver light cold and clean across her still face and open shining eyes.
She was unconscious. Or rather somewhere between — subconscious, fighting from the inside, something in her pulling against whatever was holding her down. But the moonlight flower kept her body still and her eyes open and that was all that mattered now.
"You're such a beautiful girl, Amelia..." Phenius said quietly, looking down at her with something that might have passed for gentleness if the dagger in his hands hadn't told the truth of it. "I'm sorry — but after I've extracted your eyes, I'll have to kill you to avoid any further complications..."
He raised the dagger with both hands and brought it down.
The blade pressed through the layers of air — straight and certain — driving toward her open shining eyes.
It bounced back.
A thin layer of restriction stopped it cold — and Elder Phenius stood there for a moment before the memory surfaced.
'The moonlight flower ash.' He sighed.
He walked to the clay pot sitting on the ground, dipped the blade into the silver ash, and returned to the altar. This time it would go through. He was certain of it.
He raised the dagger high — the moonlight catching the ash-coated blade — and looked up at the moon for a brief moment.
'Grandfather.. Are you watching? I want to accomplish what your son couldn't.'
He smiled.
Then his eyes caught a shadow at the edge of his vision.
He didn't pay it attention. He brought the dagger down — fast, deliberate, the blade tearing through the layers of restriction in the air, defeating every barrier between it and her eyes — until it stopped.
Completely.
Some inches from her eye.
Frozen in place.
Elder Phenius squinted — and saw the gauntlet. Large. Golden. The fingers closed around his blade with the grip of something that had decided the matter was over. He traced the arm upward.
Blue eyes. Red hair. The frame of someone who had no business being alive, let alone standing here — and yet here he was, the moonlight falling across him the same way it fell across everything else, indifferent to what should or shouldn't be possible.
"Socrates." Phenius said — recognizing him immediately.
A single snapping sound filled the air as the blade broke clean in Socrates' grip, the pieces falling to the altar floor.
Socrates looked at Elder Phenius. His voice was quiet. Quieter than the situation suggested it should be.
"You dare try to hurt my sister..."
His blue eyes didn't waver.
"You shall pay."