He didn't appear to be lying…
Eleanor's gray eyes were locked upon the ceiling of the small room she had been given, her thoughts left to run wild without any interference.
Aaron had been housed in an adjacent room while the swordsman declared that he would be out fetching dinner.
Therefore, after parting ways with the boy, she was able to relax peacefully in her bed while pondering his words.
For this entire continent to be the corpse of one of those… demigods… is truly remarkable… That must be what Death meant when he spoke about their heavenly might.
Having been granted an audience with the God of Death and having obtained many of the world's deepest secrets, she was well aware of the existence of the Ten Great Ones and, more specifically, Nidhogg the Devourer.
On her first night back from the Great Beyond, she had gazed up into the stars, looking again at the place she had returned to, yet in their stead, the sheer size of the lunar mass overwhelmed her.
From Aaron's own testimony and her own logic, she could deduce what lay within the fast-approaching mass, and it frightened her beyond belief.
Our time is already short, and for a monstrosity of that level to be on a collision course for our world is truly disastrous…
Closing her eyes gently and inhaling the smells that surrounded her, she could hardly suppress the thoughts of the future.
Aaron had no more than another month alive, and the days only passed faster and faster as time ticked on, while his mental state, unreadable, was beginning to crumble.
Although she had not seen him awaken, his nervous manner when he entered the living room worried her.
Could it have just been the Vortex of Despair?
The thought clung to her mind like a dangling hope, praying eagerly to be true; however, in no world could her heart find that to be true.
Biting her lip, she tried to disregard the tragedies that were soon approaching, instead focusing on what now lay before her.
Mr. Kurogane agreed to train me along with Aaron, yet what could a swordsman do for a girl who hasn't even touched one before? Furthermore, this storm is suppressing my mana to an unimaginable extent, leaving only this rudimentary divinity as my only crutch…
Not only was she utterly defenseless with her basic understanding of her specialized abilities, but without mana, it would be nearly impossible for her to even stand beside a powerhouse without a crushing pressure driving her into the ground.
People like Masaru Kurogane, the Swordsman of the South, were beings who surpassed human limitation through sheer tenacity, not even requiring the use of Ghostships to rise to the pinnacle of existence.
And while she could in no way be considered to be one of those individuals, she allowed her mind to wander to a world in which she was, a place so far and distant that it couldn't have been more than a passing dream.
…
"Rudiger, is it true that I never explained Stormbreak to these children?"
The black-haired swordsman looked at the strange creature that was curled up in the corner, his hand never wavering even as he took a sip of his lifal tea.
After a moment of silence from the creature, he was given a weak tap from the terror's claw, raking against the ground.
"Ah. That is truly a shame…"
Masaru looked back across the table towards Eleanor, who was the one who had posed the question.
Aaron, having decided to sleep early due to a reason he would not disclose, was absent from the meal, leaving the two alone to chat about whatever came to mind.
After a brief conversation about her journey through the Great Beyond, she had finally posed the question that had bothered her the most.
If they were to begin training at Stormbreak, then they needed to know when this so-called Stormbreak was.
Holding her fork in one hand and a knife in another, the blonde-haired girl took a bite of her mammoth steak and watched quietly as the swordsman began to speak.
"It's simply a term that the locals here use to describe the only hour of the day in which the eye of the storm passes over their land. Far to the West in the Fortified City of Snow, Calgera, it is at two in the afternoon. Here, though, it is earlier in the morning at around eight."
Finishing his brief description, he took another sip of his lifal tea, a cold-resistant herb only found in the mountainous regions of the continent.
"Then, will our mana return during this hour?"
Posing another question almost immediately after her first was answered, Eleanor couldn't contain her curiosity at the brand new land before her.
Masaru seemed to enjoy it regardless of how many queries she had, as only a few moments later, he responded with a weak grin.
"It will."
The girl nearly leapt from her chair in joy at those words, her biggest fear: a lack of magic, now erased.
That relief was only temporary, though, as a second later, the man continued.
"This will be your first, and likely last, session during Stormbreak. After that, training will take place during the vortex and with limitations placed on both of you. I would like to prevent situations like what happened at the tournament from recurring at my home."
He paused, remembering something important.
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time that something has slashed the very foundations of this land."
At those words, Eleanor furrowed her brow.
"What do you mean?"
The black-haired man sighed while reaching below the table, his hand gripping around the hilt of his blade.
"When I was a mere guest at this estate during my darker years, the original owner had been attacked by a horde of rabid Kuraokami. I, of course, could not let those high-leveled terrors wreck his homestead, and as such, I cut them."
The last piece of his response slipped out slower than the rest, an emphasis on cut sending a chill down Eleanor's spine.
"Is there anything wrong with cutting monsters…?"
She couldn't make predictions based on what he had said, yet a sneaking feeling of fear had already begun to appear in her mind.
"No. Not in the slightest. However, when one's slash is powerful enough to sever space itself, even before obtaining a weapon by the very same nature, issues arise. That very same mountain range that I assume you saw as endlessly far away is a product of this. By parting the two peaks, I accidentally unanchored the entrance to this place from reality and created a pocket dimension of sorts."
Closing his eyes and groaning as if it were a mild inconvenience, he was left surprised when he noticed the look of absolute shock on the girl's face.
"Is something wrong?"
For a moment, there was silence, but soon after, she shook her head and returned to eating, albeit shell-shocked at best.
…
『You need to—』
Penelope's voice cut out as Aaron coughed up another clump of crimson blood, his eyes bloodshot and body shaking weakly.
His skin was pale and his heartbeat fragile, as if on the cusp of breaking.
This was no ordinary ailment; rather, the final stages of the most draining parasite in the known universe: whatever lay in that egg.
It took everything he had left in his body to prevent himself from collapsing onto the bed and falling into a slumber, his mere existence pure torture.
With his connection to the Ghostship weakened significantly due to the Vortex of Despair, there was also a lack of any accumulated abilities that balanced his soul.
The core he had received from Cauron Thorn's wife, the one that gave him a partial regeneration factor with a boost of strength, was cut off.
His poison resistance from the first core he had absorbed had faded.
Even Doppelganger, Forecast, Mana Vision, Absolute Tranquility, or the new Crimson Scales, which, while not providing aid against the terminal illness, still helped him during training, were all unavailable.
Aaron Grimstall was approaching his true demise, and the life support that had been keeping him going was fading faster than he could have hoped.
"I-If I stay here… How much time would I have…"
He spat out the words while leaning over a small sink that was filled with blood, carefully awaiting the answer from the only ally he could be open to.
『Without the regeneration of the Ghostship or your other abilities, you'll last three weeks at most. If you left now, you'd survive until mid-January.』
The simple estimation she made in seconds announced his grisly fate to himself fully; the weight of what was coming only sank deeper onto his shoulders.
Glancing over into the corner of the room, that same egg that had now brought him to his end sat peacefully near a heater.
Countless nights were spent dreaming of cracking it open and ending the suffering he would feel if it were to continue alive; however, long ago, he had made a promise to that Naelith, and such a thing was worth more than one could even know to him.
While he could not say definitively that his life was worth more than a promise, the other factors at play contributed to his decision.
First, there was the promise that he had already made to the Naelith in exchange for power to fight the Oblivacis during the Hunters' Exam.
It was the least compelling of the reasons, but also the one that resonated with his morals the most; an oath that the Naelith died believing he would uphold was one he could not break so simply.
Secondly, the sacrifice of the Naelith, a being that was likely centuries old, to awaken a mysterious egg within the Vault of Nautilus was something so perplexing to the boy that it mustn't have been a mistake.
Something, anything at all, could be growing within that small shell, and regardless of whether it was a baby Naelith or a monster far more terrifying, it was certainly worth the life of one of the Ancient Naeliths.
Finally, the most important factor that kept him in service to that egg was the way in which Penelope and even the deity inside his head reacted to such a thing.
The woman who had fought as the blade of the God Slayer understood the sheer might of the unhatched creature immediately after its removal from the vault, and for someone like her, who was not easily impressed, to react with genuine shock was something incredible.
Furthermore, that hellish god inside his head that controlled him and his mind dared not even attempt to touch the fragment of the egg inside his mind.
Even Penelope could be silenced by such a force; however, this egg was miraculously untouched, unchanged, and undamaged.
With all three of those reasons combined, it was convincing enough for the boy to remain as the steward of the creature.
For if the thing within were truly something powerful enough to ward off the influence of a deity, it would become a mighty asset to the world even if he were gone.
Getting that egg to the stage where it would be ready to hatch was his last gift to the world that he had forgotten, and if he couldn't change it with his actions, his sacrifice would.
No matter what happens now…
He coughed up a clump of black goo that had started secreting from his throat after the most recent set of life drains.
I'll work until I drop dead. I'll kill Azaroth Pane and avenge Sea Fallen… Yes… That is what I must do…