Chapter 220: I’ll Only Be Asleep for a While
At last, the walls of suspicion collapsed completely.
Ryan’s consciousness lifted its head and met Serandil’s pure, earnest golden gaze. Then he nodded solemnly.
“I am willing to accept your gift. And I will remember your charge.”
His voice rang clear and steady in that space of consciousness.
A profoundly complicated smile bloomed across Serandil’s face, as if an unbearable burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders.
That smile, on his gradually fading face, was beautiful enough to be breathtaking, and sorrowful enough to break the heart.
“Good... very good... thank you, child.” His voice was as soft as a whisper.
He slowly raised both hands, and the pale golden foundational Elven Gospel array floating in the air seemed to answer his call. It drifted gently toward Ryan’s consciousness.
As it moved, the array gradually shrank and condensed, until at last it became two palm-sized glyphs of breathtaking intricacy.
Serandil’s fingers began tracing mysterious patterns in the air. Every movement was slow, as though it consumed all the strength he had left, yet the expression on his face was utterly focused, almost reverent.
Following the path of his hands, the two pale golden glyphs slowly, gently descended toward Ryan’s shoulders.
“This is the Seal of Enlightenment... May it guide you to sense the tides of Mana... and discern the harmony of the elements...” Serandil’s low chant accompanied the descent of the glyphs, branding itself directly into the depths of Ryan’s consciousness.
“Urgh—!”
The instant the glyphs touched him, Ryan felt a strange heat spread through both shoulders.
It was not pain. It was a sensation of warm light pouring into him, resonating with the source of his Mana, smoothing away invisible obstructions. It was a deeply satisfying feeling.
He could clearly sense those two intricate pale golden arrays taking root like living seeds in the soil of his Mana circuits, sprouting there, rapidly blending and coexisting with his own Mana.
At that moment, the boundary between reality and spirit seemed to blur.
His perception of the magical elements in the surrounding space suddenly sharpened severalfold.
Those once-vague, intermixed fluctuations now seemed to possess far clearer colors.
He could even vaguely hear, from the direction of his real body, the soft hum of Vera’s wind-element probing spell, and the unstable chill radiating from Lillian’s Ice Mana, thrown into disorder by her anxiety.
It worked.
The feeling was... astonishing.
But just as the imprint of the first array was completed, just as it fused perfectly with Ryan’s Mana source—
Pop.
It sounded like a bubble bursting.
Ryan jerked his head up and saw that Serandil, the very moment the left seal was completed, had faded by nearly half.
The soft radiance around him flickered violently, waxing and waning. With every flicker, his presence weakened further.
“Serandil!” Ryan’s consciousness stepped forward. Syl also flew up from his shoulder, circling the nearly vanished figure in frantic distress.
Serandil drew in ragged breaths, barely managing to steady his almost-collapsing form.
He looked at Ryan, then at the other glyph still floating in the air. Its brilliance had dimmed by more than half, though its structure remained no less exquisite. Regret and urgency filled his golden eyes.
“What a pity... such a pity...” His voice came in broken fragments, faint as embers at the end of a dying candle. “The Gospel Array consists of twelve seals, paired into six resonant sets. Only together do they form a stable cycle, ceaseless and self-sustaining. I had intended to bestow upon you the most basic pair—the Seal of Enlightenment—so that your foundation would be complete. With that as your starting point, the rest... you could have explored and completed on your own...”
He raised a nearly transparent hand with effort and pointed weakly at the flickering right seal.
“But now... only the left seal remains... Its effect will be less than thirty percent of the complete pair... and without the balance of the right seal, it will not endure. Perhaps months. Perhaps years. But in time, it will gradually fade...”
His words, together with the sight of his disintegrating state, were like a basin of ice water poured straight over Ryan’s heart.
“Is there... no other way?” Ryan heard his own voice echo through the chamber of consciousness. The power this offered was too useful. Even if it was only temporary, he wanted to keep it.
And more than that, it was no longer merely power.
After seeing Avalon’s splendor and ruin, after hearing the tragic history of their resistance, this gift had taken on a heavier meaning in his heart. It was the final trust of a dying civilization.
Serandil slowly shook his head, the movement stiff and halting.
“My... remnant strength is spent... Unless... there is a source of pure energy of the same origin to sustain me for a while... then perhaps... the right seal could still be completed...” He paused, his eyes passing over Ryan, then Syl, who hovered nearby in mounting distress. “But though your Mana has undergone qualitative change through the left seal, its quantity is insufficient, and its attribute does not fully match... If forced, it may damage the very source of your being...”
Pure energy of the same origin?
Ryan instinctively looked down at his own half-transparent hands. His Mana had indeed been refined by the left seal, and in quality it perhaps carried a trace of that same origin now. But in scale and purity, it was clearly nowhere near enough.
At that moment, Syl—who had been circling him—suddenly stopped.
The little green bird hovered before Ryan, his azure eyes fixed on him. There was no longer only urgency and sorrow in that gaze. Something else had appeared there.
Resolve.
He let out a soft chirp, weak in sound, yet a clear mental message flowed straight into the depths of Ryan’s consciousness.
“Ryan... let me.”
Ryan froze. “Syl? You...”
“There is wind inside me. The wind of an elven source. And also... a little strength that has slowly returned since making the contract with you...” Syl’s mental voice was fragmented, but its meaning was unmistakable. “That power is pure, and it should... resonate with that array...”
“No!” Ryan rejected the idea almost at once.
Syl was his contracted Sacred Beast. More than that, he was his companion, and one of the most important cards he held in reserve.
Most of Syl’s power had been lost in the long years of his sealing. Only this sliver of his soul remained, kept alive by the Emerald Wind Oath pendant and their contract, and only now had it begun to slowly recover some vitality and awareness.
To strip away the little strength he had painstakingly regained?
“What will happen to you?” Ryan’s consciousness stared at him intently.
Syl tilted his head. In his azure eyes was the reflection of Ryan’s anxious face.
“I’ll... just sleep for a while. Maybe a bit longer than usual. But it’s fine.” He lightly touched Ryan’s cheek with his beak, his thoughts gentle. “This array is very important to you. I can feel it.”
“But—”
“Ryan, the forging of our contract was never an accident, nor was it a one-sided taking. Your soul’s resonance—especially that pure affinity for wind—was the key that awakened this fragment of my soul. But more importantly... in you, I sensed the aura of change.”
He beat his wings once, and specks of green light drifted down.
“Your soul’s trajectory is slightly out of alignment with the fixed strings of this world. Your choices, your path, do not wholly follow those roads that were already written or implied. For a seeker who must break stagnant time and find a new possibility... that may be a necessary quality.”
“Do you remember how our contract was formed? At that time, you were under attack by monsters, and I, after being sealed away for so long, was already on the verge of fading out of existence. Forming a contract with you was my only means of continuing to exist. But believe me, it was not a random choice. I chose you, Ryan Velt, because you are different.”
He paused, and a trace of guilt flickered in those azure eyes.
“And yet since forming that contract, I have done almost nothing for you. Most of my time has been spent asleep, nourishing myself through your soul and the contract. As your bonded partner, I have not been worthy of the role. My memories are shattered. My strength is meager. Even here, in the face of the ruins and mysteries of my own race, I have offered you almost no guidance.”
His gaze shifted to the nearly vanished Serandil, then to the floating right seal, whose light flickered weakly.
“But now, what lies before us comes from my people. The aura of this array... is ancient and orthodox. If it could be made whole, it would mean a qualitative leap for you. My strength is slight, yes, but the sliver of primordial wind-spirit power still left within me, along with the soul-force I’ve slowly regained through our contract, may be able to resonate with it and act as a bridge.”
“You need not feel burdened, Ryan.” Syl’s thoughts turned warm. “My existence itself, and the path I wish to pursue in the future, were always for the sake of uncovering the mystery of my race’s disappearance and recovering what was lost. Helping you gain strength is, in itself, another possibility added to that search. Your road ahead is hard. Powerful enemies surround you. You need strength enough to protect yourself and those you care for. If my brief sleep can buy you firmer footing, then it is worth it.”
He flew closer and touched Ryan’s brow with his beak of light, so lightly it was almost nothing. The touch was cool, yet it felt like a mother soothing her child.
“It will only be a somewhat longer sleep. When you become stronger, and our bond grows deeper, I will awaken on my own. By then, perhaps I will remember more. Perhaps I will truly be able to help you. And perhaps I will be closer to the answer I seek as well.”
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