After flying for a while, with Lily enhancing the Flight skillstrip with her own mana, the two of them eventually made it back to Lostfon. He couldn’t quite remember how he managed to take conscious the whole time, since he was feeling an overwhelming amount of fatigue that threatened to condemn him to sleep at any moment.

The two of them landed near the inn, and Lily patted his face. “We’re here.”

“Mhm.” Claud shook his head once. Another set of translucent notifications had appeared in his vision at some point in time, presumably related to the extra things that the Bearers of Destiny had going on for them, but he lacked the mental strength to check through them now. “Sorry.”

“It’s my fault, not yours.” Lily grimaced. “If only I was stronger. You wouldn’t need to take up all these on your own. It’s always been you. It’s always you. You’re always doing all the hard work.”

“Then catch up to me,” Claud replied slowly, a trace of a smile. “But I am one of them. I guess this is expected.”

Lily trembled. “Don’t go dying on me.”

“I’m not dying, I’m just tired,” Claud shot back. “And you know me. I will not die. I’ll never let myself or anyone I care about be killed. Dying is not conducive to protecting people.”

“…Okay.” Lily looked at him once. “Shall we go back up?”

Claud was about to say yes, but his stomach rumbled once. Instead of returning back to bed to rest, he decided to fill up his stomach somewhat first. He didn’t know what had allowed him to heal up from Greater Half’s attack, but it couldn’t have been good for his body. Flesh came from food. No matter how much lifeforce he gained, the fact that all his injuries had healed meant that he was probably unhealthily thin now.

“Food.” Claud paused. “Maybe that’s why I’m hungry too.”

Lily’s eyes sparkled for a moment, and then she shook her head. “But you’re injured.”

“I’m tired. My body’s fine now. I think I’m tired because of everything my body did to heal me back up,” Claud replied. “My organs were definitely badly injured. Maybe some areas had been destroyed. But…I feel fine now. But very, very hungry.”

“Alright.” Lily looked at him worriedly, before looking around. “It’s late at night, though. We’ll get something at the tavern.”

“Lots of meat preferred,” Claud added. “And good cold drinks. I feel a little hot. Maybe my body heated up too much when healing me.”

As they ambled slowly over to the tavern, Claud looked at his lifespan. The hour-long shower of lifeforce, when combined with the incredible surge of life that Crown had granted to the two of them, had resulted in him now having 1072 years of life. This was more than enough for him to actually push himself to his fifth mana circuit and make good progress on his sixth, given his earlier progress on his fourth mana circuit.

“My lifespan has increased to such an extent,” Claud muttered.

“Your lifespan, huh.” Lily grinned. “It’s lucky that we came out today, though. Or else we would have missed the whole thing.”

Claud nodded, and then glanced at his status.

[Name: Claud Primus

Class: Omen

Lifespan: 1072 years

Active Skills: Presence Nullification (9), Flight (5), Binding Order (7), Cleanse (6), FiBoD;O??? (0), FiBoD;O??? (0)

Passive Skills: DiL???C, Mana Locus, Omen, Understanding, Master of Permanence, Artificial Life Contractor

Mana Circuit Superimposition: 4.82

Mana Control Proficiency: Master

Authority: 4

Comments: The battlefield is open, Omen. Dance. Sing. Rampage. Hold on to that frail flame in your heart and confront your destiny. The winds of change shall only serve to stoke your power.]

The comments were a bit interesting, though, and Claud saw it fit to repeat it out loud. “The winds of change shall only serve to stoke your power.”

“Where did that come from?” Lily asked.

“That was written in the comments of my status,” Claud replied. “And I can’t help but think it’s true. Every upheaval has been beneficial to me, indirectly or otherwise. The only question was…”

He glanced at the pocket that held Crown, Throne and Sceptre. They were all sleeping in his pocket happily, especially Crown, who had worked really hard at his request. Did all that start after he met Crown? Or was meeting Crown considered a benefit that came after the upheaval that was Ruler Umbra’s death?

He didn’t know what to think.

The two of them entered Lostfon’s only operating inn at that point, and the old man, who was busy pouring out drinks for someone, did a double take as they entered. Without any further conversation, Claud made his way to their usual corner seat, which was thankfully unoccupied, while Lily headed over to the counter to order some food.

While she was busying herself, Claud finally worked up the mental fortitude to examine the initial flurry of small notifications that he had wilfully chosen to overlook earlier. After all, he was too tired from drinking all that lifeforce, and had been injured prior to that, so this lapse was excusable…

Probably.

He spent a few seconds justifying to his inner critic his actions, and then looked at the small notification. Other than the ominous messages and proclamation of the Last Godsfall, there were three other…screens.

[Faction Mission: Shadowed Victory

Mission introduction: The time has come for the Dark to rise. The winds of victory blow with the Dark, and its forces have gained key points of victory. With only one Bearer of Destiny left, the Moons is now on the defensive. Now is the time to burn your life for rewards far greater.

Mission requirements: Defeat the Moons.

Personal Mission Contribution: 10.03093%

Overall Mission Progress: 15.01248%

Prize Pool: 15000 years of lifespan.

Additional remarks: Contribution can be gained by killing Moon-aligned Bearers of Destiny (5% each), the soldiers of the Moons (0.0001% each), the Moons themselves (10% each) and the adversary (22%).]

Claud stared at the mission, unsure of what to make of it. First, what exactly was a prize pool? Did it mean what he thought it did? That people who contributed to this mission would get a cut from the prize pool afterwards? A simple calculation was enough to tell him that he had already earned slightly more than 1500 years of lifespan, which was…well, pretty damn awesome.

He looked a deep breath and looked at the remarks. Funnily enough, the Moons’ contribution to this particular mission was actually lesser than that of “the adversary”, whatever that was.

His eyes turned to the second quest afterwards, which was almost the same thing. In fact, it was so similar that he didn’t even know what to say…but was he even meant to receive this particular mission?

It sure didn’t feel like it, but he decided to look at it properly anyway.

[Faction Mission: Moonlit Victory

Mission introduction: The time has come for the Moons to rise. The winds of victory blow with the Moons, with only one of the great Dark’s Bearers of Destiny left. With only one Bearer of Destiny left, the Dark is now on the defensive. Now is the time to burn your life for rewards far greater.

Mission requirements: Defeat the great Dark.

Personal Mission Contribution: 0.1931%

Overall Mission Progress: 11.357%

Prize Pool: 15000 years of lifespan.

Additional remarks: Contribution can be gained by killing Dark-aligned Bearers of Destiny (5% each), the soldiers of the Dark (0.00001% each), the two Halves of the great Dark themselves (15% each) and the adversary (22%).]

Lily came back with a tray shortly after he verified the existence of this “adversary” in both missions…as well as the fact that both missions seemed to be suspiciously similar. He wasn’t sure how he earned that 0.1931% of contribution for the Moons, however.

“Something wrong?” Lily asked, passing a plate of black pepper chicken to him. “You look very distracted.”

Claud nodded. “Can you check if you have faction missions on your status?”

“Faction missions?” Lily paused. “Yeah, I do have one. I haven’t examined them yet, though.”

Claud didn’t need to ask why she hadn’t looked at them yet. The answer was obvious, after all, and he smiled at her. “Let’s see if we received the same thing later. I’m a bit paranoid about the whole thing, after all.”

“I do want to discuss it too. This seems really important.” Lily paused. “How about we discuss it tomorrow? You don’t look that lively, and I’m fairly tired too. We could just lie around and talk about it after we wake up tomorrow.”

“Screw the table and chair, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ll just pop my head on your chest, and we’ll just talk under the sheets or something.” Lily paused. “Is that romantic?”

“You’re asking me?” Claud replied. “Good question. I don’t know if that’s considered romantic, but they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If it feels romantic, that should be good enough, right?”

“And we’ll need to discuss our plans moving forward too,” Lily added. “There’s a lot of things to be done, right? Especially for you.”

“Yeah.” Claud grinned. “I’ll end up being the youngest hexa-folder folder in history if all goes well. It should all go well too, given my mana control and the amount of lifestones we still have.”

“…That’s one heck of a title.”

“I like to think that I’m breaking records, heh. Youngest penta-folder incoming, I suppose?” Claud asked.

“How old is Nero, by the way?” Lily asked.

Claud froze. The Holy Son of the Black God was a tetra-folder when the two of them fled. What was the possibility that he would become a penta-folder soon? He didn’t know, but Nero was around three years younger than both him and Lily.

“He should be twenty-four this year,” Claud noted. “And now that I think about it, this year just flew right by. It’s already at the halfway mark…”

“Two months of Gibbous Moon, four months of Full Moon, and we’ll be done, huh.” Lily rubbed her nose. “It’ll be terrifying if Nero’s already a penta-folder, though.”

“Agreed.” Claud looked at his meal. “Let’s finish this, and then go to sleep.”

Their utensils glittered in the dim light, and the two of them dove into their meal.