Gudan's grin didn't fade as he set his elbows on the table. The bar's lanterns hummed low, and the air smelled of oil and rain. He tapped the map Sys had been handed and spoke with the blunt, impatient cadence of someone who'd seen too many bargains and too few bargains kept.
"The next checkpoint is Greed," he said. "Not greed for gold. Greed for more of what you want. You've already taken a piece of your goal — Desire opened the door. Now you have to want more, and then take it."
William felt the branch at his temple pulse, a slow, unfamiliar heartbeat. Jigoku's claws flexed at his sides, embers licking the air. The absence of Thimble sat between them like a cold stone. Greed sounded ugly and small next to what they'd just faced, but Gudan's eyes were sharp and serious.
"We stay sixty days," Gudan continued. "Trial Forest outside Sky Island. Sixty days to push, to take, to want. Sixty days to either grow or break."
William swallowed. "What's Sky Island?" he asked, the question coming out smaller than he'd meant.
Gudan's grin softened into something like explanation. "We're on an island that floats on clouds. The bottom is clouds, the top is land. The Trial Forest is under the island
where the clouds thicken and the roots of the world tangle. It's cheap to get there if you ride a cloud lizard. Expensive to buy a ride. Free if you steal an egg. Or you can try to pay."
They argued the options in low voices, the practical and the reckless trading places like coins. Steal an egg. Pay for a ride. Gamble with a creature's life. The bar's patrons watched, uninterested, until a man in a star cloak slid between tables and left a folded scrap of paper on the wood.
"I know where you can get a cloud lizard," he said, voice like wind through glass. He handed the paper to Sys, then vanished into the night, the star cloak swallowing him as if the sky had taken him back.
Sys opened the paper. The map was crude but honest: a path to the cloud ocean, a place where the sky thinned and the water of the world met the clouds. "We go tonight," Sys said. "If we're going to take an egg, we take it now."
They walked until the lanterns thinned and the velvet banners gave way to open sky. Velvel Land fell behind them, a scatter of lights. Ahead, the world opened into a horizon of white and blue — the cloud ocean. It looked like water from a distance, but it moved with a softness that made the skin on William's arms prickle. The surface rippled like silk, and the air tasted of salt and thunder.
Gudan led them to the edge and pointed. "Jump," he said. "You'll sink like into a sea, but it's not water. It's cloud. It holds you. It will carry you to the lizards."
They leapt together. The fall was not a fall at all but a slow, buoyant descent. The cloud ocean closed around them like a tide, cool and strange. When they broke through the surface, the world rearranged itself: the sky above, the cloud beneath, and a creature the size of a small house drifting on the horizon.
The cloud lizard was more than a beast. It was a living weather. Its body was long and lithe, scales like wet stone. At the end of its tail a soft, billowing cloud unfurled, puffing and curling like a living sail. Its wings were not feathered but formed of condensed mist, supported by rings of faint, humming magic that floated around its torso like orbiting moons. Those rings glowed with a pale, inner light.
Gudan explained as they watched. "Cloud lizards are born with the ability to fly, but they gain their rings from their mother. The rings help them steer, hold altitude, and carry heavy loads. Without rings, they can still fly, but they're clumsy and slow. The rings are passed down, or stolen, or given."
They drifted closer and saw a smaller lizard near the larger one — a hatchling, its egg cracked open, rings hovering like a halo around it. The hatchling chirped, and the rings trembled as if unsure.
Then they saw the impossible: a giant, ancient cloud lizard, vast as an island, anchored beneath the floating land itself. Its back was a plateau of cloud and moss; its shoulders held up the underside of Sky Island like a living pillar. The old lizard's eyes were tired and patient. It held the island steady with a slow, endless effort.
"He's holding the island," Sys breathed. "He can't spare the rings. He can't help his child."
The hatchling's rings drifted, searching for a place to rest. The smaller lizard near the giant nudged its egg, anxious. The air hummed with the weight of choices.
Jigoku stepped forward without hesitation. He moved differently near water — the ocean, the cloud sea — as if the element recognized him. "I can help," he said simply.
He explained in a voice that was both soldier and child: "Any ocean makes my power stronger. Salt, fresh, cloud — it doesn't matter. In any ocean, my strength multiplies. Four hundred times."
William felt the words like a promise and a threat. Jigoku's palms glowed faintly, the mantis arms twitching. He waded into the cloud water. The surface accepted him like a hand into warm cloth. The glow around his claws flared, and the air around him tightened.
He walked toward the giant lizard. The beast's eyes opened, ancient and slow. It watched him with the patience of mountains. Jigoku reached up and placed his palms against the creature's flank. The cloud lizard shuddered, then relaxed as if a weight had been lifted.
"Hold," Jigoku said, and the word was not a command but a pact.
The giant lizard's muscles tightened, and for a moment the island trembled. Then, with a sound like distant thunder, the old lizard shifted its burden. It loosened its hold just enough to allow the hatchling's rings to drift free. Two rings, bright and humming, floated from the air and settled around the hatchling's small body. The rings glowed
and the hatchling's wings beat with new confidence.
The old lizard turned its vast head toward Jigoku. Its eyes were wet with something like relief. It could not care for both island and child. It could not spare the rings and still hold the world. It nudged the hatchling toward Jigoku and, with a voice that was more felt than heard, seemed to say: "I cannot care for my child. Take him."
The rings hovered around the egg, then around the hatchling, then drifted toward Jigoku's outstretched hands. They circled the child and then, impossibly, settled into the air around the egg like a crown. The hatchling chirped, and the rings hummed in response.
Jigoku cradled the small creature with the careful reverence of a man who understood sacrifice. "I will hold," he said. "I will hold the island while you grow."
The giant lizard resumed its burden, shoulders settling back into place. The island steadied. The hatchling's rings glowed steady and true. The cloud lizard that had been the child's mother nudged the egg once more, then drifted away, free to learn to fly without the weight of the island on its back.
When they returned to the shore, the hatchling tucked into Jigoku's arms like a living ember. Its rings floated around it, bright and patient. Gudan whistled low, impressed. Sys watched with a soldier's appraisal, eyes narrowed.
"You took a child from its parent," William said quietly, the branch at his temple throbbing. "We stole an egg."
Gudan shrugged. "We didn't steal. We answered a need."
Jigoku looked at William and then at the hatchling. "This is not theft," he said. "This is a pact. The old lizard could not do both. We will help the child. We will help the island."
Sys folded the map and slid it into his coat. "Sixty days in the Trial Forest," he said. "Greed is the checkpoint. We take what we need, and then we take more. We train. We grow. We become something that can stand against the imperfect perfect human."
William felt the branch at his head warm, as if in agreement. The hatchling chirped, a small, bright sound that cut through the weight of the night. The cloud ocean sighed around them, and the island above held steady on the back of an ancient beast.
They had a child now, a floating crown of rings and a promise. They had a path: sixty days, a forest, a trial. Greed would be the test. The world had shifted again, and with it, the shape of what they would become.