Save them. You couldn’t save that disciple, but you can still save others. Save them.

  Realm-arts: Desert of Stars

  On the deck, where the nodes above Suiming’s head were gone, stars fell but all crushed into cinders of light by the flesh limbs. He made sure that nobody was on the deck with him as he evacuated them all, including the fainted Acryl, back to the inside of the aircraft. His hat was almost holding on to his head as the wind blew. Yet he stood with an upright back, staring right into the abnormality’s eyes and distracting himself by humming a tune. He was worried about it, the aircraft couldn’t go either forward or backward due to its enormous flesh mass surrounding it like a ring.

  Suiming had a clear idea of what he is capable of right now. His power isn’t as destructive as the friend he mentioned of his has nor strange and otherworldly like the Letter-Writer or some cultists he encountered over the years.

  But he has an advantage over them all, no side effect of casting Realm-arts, as far as he knows, he is the only one outside Barricades who could cast with no limitations. Sadly, his Realm-art had lost its full ability a long time ago. Nowadays, he could only manifest images of stars. But Suiming didn’t worry about it all. He had two choices on his hands: improvise with his Realm-arts or seek external help. But he knows what he likes to do, and most importantly, he has experience dealing with this abnormality.

  The melody in his mouth stopped. Suiming slightly adjusted his monocle and waved his hand in the air. The stars that he had manifested connected into shapes and figures.

  The last time he encountered that abnormality was in the War that Euth raged, scorching the land of Treisaules, piercing into the heart of Siyue, where the Burnt Codex was located. He hid between soldiers, negotiating between troops if he could, if not, then he had done all to save as many as he could. Despite that, that abnormality was one of his regrets; it was not invincible, but saving lives from it was difficult even for him.

  “Two centuries, huh? You should be in a war museum, veteran.”

  “I don’t know who banished you here, but-”

  “I suppose I’ll finish up what Treisaules, Euth, Auderheim, and whichever country failed to neutralize you,” he said with a grin.

  As he was casting, he heard heavy footsteps coming from behind. It sounded like the leather boots of messengers, but the sound of paper flapping and copper coins clashing with each other says otherwise.

  “A Realm-arts caster who smells like an abnormality to me,” the person said, standing right behind Suiming. His voice reminded Suiming of his student’s voice, which always sounds like he has a sore throat. Different from that voice, the man’s voice sounded more comforting as if he were an old man telling stories by the fireplace.

  “Key archetype…or Door, a dulled Realm-arts? Unlucky…how did you manage to walk this far?”

  Suiming didn’t turn back to take a look at the man, nor pay attention to his words, as if they were blown away by the wind.

  His attention was on the flesh limb. That thing overlapped with his memory as a spectator of many things, war, famine, and the Realm corrupting this world. But now he felt nothing but rush-hour impatience of getting it over.

  He knows this abnormality well, it could leave the so-called effect of ‘mind death’, leaving an entire platoon’s soldiers’ consciousness disappearing while their armor and weapons were in good condition. There is only one way of rescuing them-forcefully breaching into the core of the abnormality and forcefully breaking out at the same time. He couldn’t be sure that Acryl would know how to act in a situation like this, and he could only pray to a deity that won’t drive him insane.

  “Ah, yes, quite dull, can’t hold on to my promises, I guess,” Suiming answered with a tone of laughter at himself. He grabbed one of the many constellations he manifested and wrapped it around his wrist.

  “And you, my dear stranger? How is your Realm-art?” Suiming asked, both hands over the broken node of the aircraft, one leg already outside as he felt the cloud-breaking wind

  blowing against him. His hair danced in the wind.

  “Four. I don’t regret my decisions,” the caster answered.

  “Good for You!” Suiming cheered as he threw his hat onto the aircraft’s deck while the flesh pillar of the abnormality crashed into him. Right before it reached him, he maneuvered away, further from the tip of the deck.

  “Do me a favor, pal, look after the gray-haired Euthian guy. Leave the rest for me.”

  “Where does that almost egoistic confidence come from, Forget-me-not?”

  “Why do you think I can’t? Didn’t expect to see a fellow Brotherhood member today…let me guess…Parsley’s the name?”

  He kept an eye on the Realm-arts caster behind him. The caster was dressed in white clothes and a few cloud decorations around his waist belt. Copper coins and a yellow talisman were held in his hands. The large hood covered his face, but Suiming saw a slight nod.

  These Realm-arts casters aren’t rare; usually, every aircraft would hire around two or five of them to minimize the damage in such situations. But a four-times-sharpened caster? How expensive would that be? And not even considering how uncommon they are.

  “Good to see you then, Parsley.”

  He stood on the edge of the aircraft, squinting his eyes as other constellations emerged around him. As he did so, all the eyes of the abnormality stared at him. He didn’t feel any stress in this situation, although he knew that it could be a hard battle; he had seen more terrifying things. In Suiming’s eyes, the abnormality seemed like a meteor crater made of flesh, something that used to be a disaster, but was now only a remnant. His body feared the flesh in front of him, yet Suiming kept his mind calm.

  “What does your Realm-art do? Forget-me-not?”

  “Nothing much, but good enough for bridge-making. And you? My dear stranger?”

  “…You can’t die as long as I’m here, no one can.”

  He could smell the smell of iron, he could feel the accelerating heartbeat and strengthened muscle, he feared, but he had seen more horrific things than this. In that war that burnt the land of Treisaules and Siyue, this abnormality was only one of the many harbingers of destruction. It was the war that crowned itself the first emperor of Realm-art warfare. It was a war that attracted the attention of two Existences. Suiming would not dare to imagine if Nameless fought in that war; he was afraid.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  As he was standing right on the edge while the constellations formed a bridge, he felt a slight unnatural shift in the air. And his sense of Realm-art felt a powerful wave, crushing him.

  Realm-arts: The Judges of Fate

  Suiming felt a feeling from the Realm-arts caster. It was tingly, a sense of warm danger came up his spine. He felt like it was a campfire right next to a bucket of oil, comforting yet dangerous. The caster had summoned something. Something Suiming dared not think or imagine.

  ‘The power of Realm-arts sharpened four times…I could mistake it as the strange powers of Lily or Letter-Writer, oh Existence, when was the last time I saw four times sharpened Realm-arts? The last caster like that I know is Seren…’

  In Suiming’s mind, a Realm-arts like that for ordinary people is almost as powerful as someone with the gifted power of an Existence. And what they manifest or evoke…might be as otherworldly as the beings in the source of all Realm-arts-the Realm.

  “Before I do you a favor,” the man said with a calm voice.

  “I remind you, considering the long life you had, we are not far from our goals.”

  He saw the caster more clearly as he kept his gaze down only to the caster, avoiding the thing he had evoked. He was afraid. Afraid to remember the painful past filled with regret and pain. Even if he knew the same tragedy would happen, he still did all to compensate.

  “Now go, with two Heavenly Judges and the blessing of the Xu star-mansion, I believe victory is on your side, Forget-me-not,” the caster said, walking away.

  Suiming was wondering why he hadn’t felt any movement from the abnormality. When he turned back, the two ‘Judges of Fate’. The two figures with their faces covered by a long cloth decorated with purple threads. Their porcelain-like hands were visible as the space around them vibrated and warped. The abnormality was left there unmoved like a statue.

  Save them, so many lives you ruined, but so many yet to be saved.

  “The Judges of Fate…” Suiming muttered to himself.

  “It’s almost…like an actual deity of life and death…only it isn’t.”

  “But why? Who really are you? Why do you have a power so similar to hers?” he asked, as if to himself.

  Suiming stepped on the bridge of his Realm-arts hand, holding a chain of constellations so that he wouldn’t fall and become a man-ketchup. He knew what he could and could not do with his Realm-arts.

  Suiming stopped before the edge of the Realm-arts bridge, almost falling off like a wet cat. He didn’t know what was going on inside the abnormality, but he was sure that the time was running out.

  The Judges of Fate paved the way for Suiming as the mist in front of him was clear from the limbs.

  The core of that abnormality was visible, exposed like a candle in a dark room.

  He shoved his hand into his pocket and felt the smooth fabric. Suiming slapped his palm on his forehead, recalling that he had left his arcane items in his baggage.

  “…Monocle…Monocle!” he said to himself, taking off his monocle from his face, feeling the time flowing in it.

  He initially had an idea to work around this situation, but Suiming just now realized that the condition of using it was not met. Or as he’d like to call it-not charged.

  As he extended the bridge of his Realm-arts with fewer and fewer constellations, the bridge became looser and looser. Suiming did not look down, he put his foot where he felt that he cast his Realm-arts.

  He found himself closer to the two Arbiters. Both of them were within reach distances if he jumped. Balancing on a loose web of stars while under him was the abnormality’s core, an idea popped up like a shooting star. He smiled and took off his monocle. It was trembling in his hand, lusting for time to be consumed, the decoration of hands of time started ticking as if the monocle was an actual clock.

  Now, he had found a way to charge it. Scraping the time off something timeless and inanimate, alive.

  With the Judges of Fate, his work would be easier, but Suiming was unsure of the exact effect of that Realm-arts outside of protecting the target or the range of these summons.

  “The Judges of Fate! Lend me a hand!” Suiming cried out loud as he jumped upwards. As he was airborne and removing the constellations behind him to extend the one on his hand, his other hand reaching towards the Judge of Fate, he saw the abnormality more clearly. Without the limbs of it, without the frightening violet haze, he saw the center of that thing.

  It was unbelievably dark in color. As if it were the theoretical dark star that devours everything in its path. Yet, surrounding the unlit darkness was something extremely light. A hue that no titanium white nor the mighty sun can compare to. Its surface was wriggling like a swarm of tapeworms.

  It looked even huger from his view. Suiming doubted that he could take the abnormality out, but a cut on its core was enough. But he just hoped that the consciousness of Acryl within the core could realize the same thing.

  “Allons-y, suckers!”

  Suiming’s hand reached the cloth of the Judge of Fate; his monocle shone a dim light when it scratched the surface of the Judge of Life. The Realm-arts bridge fell apart as he was blown by the wind, falling.

  The wind blew against him as if he were a meteor. It was getting hot; he could smell cinder. His thoughts and plans fell into nothing as the wind yelled into his ears. It was so loud that all thoughts flew away, except the thought of using the monocle.

  In the last second before hitting the ground, everything stopped. Air stopped flowing, the flesh was not wriggling as if everything was a painting.

  Suiming felt that unpleasant tingle coming from his eyes. As if his eyeballs had just withstood an explosion. He could feel ‘time’ flowing through his body, leaving marks on his Realm-arts, blocking his casting; the flow of Realm-arts felt like sandpaper polishing his spine.

  He heard the sound of a clock ticking as the hand of time decoration on his monocle started to tick. Suiming swam down from midair. As he did so, starlight shone on his fingertip, leaving a trail of Realm-arts longer than him before the monocle stopped him completely from casting. The hand of time stopped at ‘midnight’ as everything started moving.

  As Suiming balanced himself, the constellation shot through the abnormality, and its blood oozed out of the wound. The abnormality looked like a mountain of flesh and eyes.

  What came out of the wound was a dirty-colored haze. Some of them, denser than air, fell, and some fled above. The haze moved as if it were tormented faces, whispers came out of the wound with the haze. The haze floated as if the wound were a chimney of pain.

  The whispers were in a dead tongue, some even were dialects only spoken in the remote towns of Treisaules that later died out after the War.

  But in Suiming’s ears, they were speaking oracles, a bad one. He reached into his inner pocket for a pen and started to write on his arm.

  As Suiming wrote, the haze slowly blended with the air of the Prolonged Mist. He could see that the ink was running out, but he made it in time. He looked up to the sky, through the mist, he could see the aircraft, but in the haze was a figure that he could recognize. It was Acryl who slowly floated upwards as Suiming smiled and raised his thumb in his direction. He wasn’t sure if Acryl saw it, but he felt the warm joy of knowing that he was now safe.

  “…How in the world am I supposed to get back?” he muttered to himself as he tried to cast his Realm-arts.

  The Realm-arts were still blocked by the side effects of the monocle. Suiming could not feel the power flowing in him. As he started to calculate how many days it would take him to walk to Auderheim and then go to Euth by train or boat, a voice broke him from his thoughts:

  “Forget-me-not, take my hand.”

  It was the caster, he was floating mid-air with his hair and jacket flowing in the wind. The two Judges of fate stood by his side. The summons looked like porcelain statues. Suiming grabbed the caster’s hand like accepting a dance with him.

  “Thanks, Parsley.”