After seconds of silence, it was Damian who broke it.
He looked toward the wise woman who had her gaze shifting between him and the Holy Daughter with jittery anticipation, and he said flatly...
"You are healed. You can leave at any time."
...!
BOOM!
His words shocked Serala and Grandmother Essun alike!
Grandmother Essun shook her head with incredulity and admonishment, her expression clearly telling Damian that he didn’t know how to talk to a woman.
And Serala...
She blinked with disbelief as her bearing erupted, her wing-shaped pupils becoming sharp as she said, "I know this. I just wanted to give my thanks for going out of your way to save me and ask how you did it. For your contribution, I can ask for many things to be given to you on your behal-"
"Not necessary."
Damian cut her off without hesitation.
"I don’t want anything. Grandmother Essun will take care of anything you need. You can leave right after."
...!
He said such words as it looked like he was already about to step out, and Grandmother Essun had begun to pull at her gray hair in frustration!
To Damian, this girl represented nothing but trouble.
He was already honorable enough to save her. Right now, he was not powerful enough to be embroiled in conflicts between not just one, but two Neolithic Empires.
Until he had a plan for himself, at least...
As he was leaving, Serala calmly composed herself. Her figure was held high as she said with a firm voice, "I must know what happened to me. I must-"
HUUUM!
Her words were stopped short.
Strands of her dark hair began to rise as if caught by invisible winds, lifting and separating from the rest as something formed within them. A spinning blue gem bloomed from those floating strands, crystallizing out of nothing, its facets catching the dim light of the hut and refracting it into patterns that danced across the mud walls.
This scene stopped Damian short.
He turned around with sharp eyes.
Even Serala was surprised as she saw this blue gem float in front of her, hovering at eye level with a gentle rotation that hummed with concentrated Mana.
And around it...
The illusory manifestation of the Saint of Stone formed!
Her figure was translucent, composed of that same blue light that the gem radiated, but her features were unmistakable. The ancient woman whose stellar eyes had burned like captured stars now looked weary, her expression heavy with burdens that even her centuries of existence had not prepared her for.
Wounds marked her illusory form. Tears in her robes. Blood that glowed blue rather than red.
She had been fighting.
She was still fighting!
Her gaze moved toward the general direction of Serala, not quite seeing her but knowing where she would be, and she began to speak.
"My disciple, this is the only message I will be able to send for now, so listen closely."
Her voice carried the weight of urgency barely contained.
"If you are alive and seeing this, I need you to hide. They are searching for you with means that you cannot currently overcome."
She paused, and even in illusory form, relief flickered across her features.
"The only respite is that there seems to be a unique phenomenon in that region we were observing that masked their senses earlier. It might be that mountain or something within that tribe."
Her stellar eyes, even translucent, held intensity.
"If you can force yourself and your injured body to go toward it and recuperate there, then at the moment I am able to move, I will come to you."
Her expression grew heavier.
"If I am unable to come to you... I may have fallen."
...!
The words landed like stones in still water.
"Something horrid seems to be happening within the empire. The higher families have colluded with others."
Her voice grew harder.
"The Murderous Saint is ambitious. Far too ambitious, as we have all known. Change is coming to the Lands of Stone, and the rest of us are only pieces of an unfathomably large puzzle."
She closed her eyes briefly.
"As they chased, Imperator Luddya said something that I cannot ignore. He said... the powers that be that stand above all others in the Lands of Stone seek to shroud their brilliance over these entire lands. That we either join in or get left behind."
Her eyes opened, burning with determination even through the illusory projection.
"So stand firm, my disciple. They will likely have covered the Lands of Stone with their forces looking for you. They know that I left with your decoy, so you cannot come toward the empire until you have sufficient strength to hide or overcome those you might meet."
Her voice softened, but did not weaken.
"Persevere, my disciple. Persevere as much as you can. With your Land and Sky Physique, as soon as you heal and grow stronger, anything is a possibility. You will be the key to stabilize the Covenant of the First Stone and uproot those who have betrayed us."
She raised her chin, that same gesture of Anointed Ones that Damian had just been resenting.
But from her, it looked different.
It looked like defiance against forces that sought to crush everything she had built.
"Stand firm."
...!
After that, the illusory visage of the Saint flickered once, twice, and then the jewel that had been sustaining it cracked.
It shattered.
Blue fragments dissolved into motes of light that faded before they touched the ground.
A heavy silence settled in the surroundings.
The Holy Daughter was ashen.
She was in the middle of a conspiracy that spanned empires, caught between forces that wanted her dead and an empire that might already be falling apart from within. Her master was wounded and fleeing. Her guards were dead. She was alone in a Dross tribe at the edge of nowhere with nothing but the clothes on her back and powers she couldn’t fully use.
Damian had a heavy expression as well.
But not for the same reasons.
The Murderous Saint.
The one who destroyed his family.
The one who killed his father and his mother.
The one who painted the Vakochev Empire red and renamed it the Dominion of Crimson Stone.
That monster was at the center of this conspiracy!