The Lone Wanderer

Percy listened to Nesha as she briefed him in on her progress. It was great that they’d managed to get the Radiant Lord on board without a hitch, though that wasn’t enough to wipe the frown off his face.

“What’s wrong? You don’t look very happy.” Nesha asked, noticing something.

“Micky contacted me a couple hours ago. They’ve entered the Valley…”

Her eyes widened.

“Immediately? Without even stopping to rest?”

He sighed.

“Micky was starting to get hungry again, and the kid knows he’ll refuse to eat people. So… I guess we forced his hand.”

At least, Micky wouldn’t have to worry about food as long as he stayed there, since the place was packed full of Yellow and Green beasts. Of course, the Valley’s ecosystem was entirely artificial. After all, beasts of such high grades had difficulty surviving in even the densest forests and lushest jungles, let alone a barren wasteland like the Thirsty Valley.

However, the Order didn’t want their Green-borns to sit idly for decades at a time, guzzling down elixirs while never bothering to hone their magic. If they did that, they’d grow up into weak gods, wholly incapable of defending their world. And that was assuming that they even made it that far. Most likely, they’d never attain divinity in the first place.

Thus, they’d tasked the Root with gathering beasts from all across Remior, and dumping them in the Valley on a daily basis. They didn’t really care about creating a balanced ecosystem: that wasn’t even possible to begin with. Most of the beasts got eaten immediately, while plenty more still starved to death. But enough survived, serving as practice dummies for the Holy Children.

Suffice to say, the expenditure was enormous. Especially since the ecosystem was embedded in vastly accelerated time. This was one of the reasons why the Divine Root was always short on manpower, despite being the largest noble House on Remior by far. On top of that, they had to maintain all the supply chains that they needed to function, escort the younger Holy Children wherever they travelled, ensure that all their temples operated as intended, and the list went on…

But Percy didn’t really care about their problems. The only thing that mattered was how it all reflected back to him and his companions.

“Have you heard any disconcerting rumours?”

Nesha shrugged.

“Nothing I haven’t told you already.”

News of the strange crow with a second core were already circulating Remior, having reached Twilight City before the Holy Child himself. The bird’s existence had sparked interest everywhere, but most people still treated it as an isolated case: a freak of nature. Still fascinating, of course, but not as much as if they’d found a human like that. After all, nobody had any idea Micky’s circumstances were man-made, or potentially reproducible.

Of course, the Order would likely pressure the kid into breeding Micky with other crows once he returned, just on the off chance that he could pass his condition down. For the time being, nobody had dared to investigate the matter further, unwilling to get involved in Acton’s business.

People had learned about the tragedy in Goldenfield town too, though their reaction to that was more lukewarm, everyone collectively choosing to sweep the incident under the rug. It wasn’t every day a Green-born went on a massacre, but cases like that weren’t unheard of either. As far as the rest of Remior was concerned, the residents of the decimated town had simply been unlucky to find themselves in those circumstances.

“Alright. Keep an ear out for any updates. The Root should have learned about the missing guards too.”

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Unlike the other matters, this hadn’t spread yet. After all, nobody but Acton had known about that, so the Root had only learned about it today, upon receiving the boy’s report.

This was the story most likely to affect Percy’s group in the short-term, though he wasn’t too worried about that. Nobody knew he’d stolen so much elixir from House Tantalus, nor could they imagine he was bold enough to try sneaking into the Valley. Consequently, he’d be surprised if they connected Micky or the missing guards to him and Nesha. The odds of them guessing he was currently hiding in Twilight City were even lower.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious.

“What’s our new timeline?” Nesha asked.

While they knew time passed several times faster inside the Valley: hence their reason for even coming here in the first place: they didn’t know exactly how much faster that was. Not because it was a secret, but because the temporal acceleration wasn’t fixed. It fluctuated every few years, creating a very unique dynamic.

Time inside the Valley was separated into fast and… less fast seasons. The flow ranged from forty to twenty times that of the rest of Remior. The Order tended to send the Holy Children there during the faster seasons, giving the Root a chance to replenish the dead beasts during the slower seasons. But the kids weren’t really prohibited from going there during the off-season either, if they wanted.

“Let me check.” Percy replied, asking his familiar to send him back a few images of his surroundings.

The crow got back to him promptly, though the sensory input was way too fast for Percy to process.

‘Woah! Slow down buddy! Remember, time is flowing much faster for you right now!’

Dizzy as he was from the excessive stimuli, Percy had to suppress a chuckle, imagining how funny his words must have sounded to his familiar, coming in slow motion. He should also make an effort to speak faster as long as Micky was in the Valley, so that they’d hopefully meet somewhere in the middle…

In any case, the bird didn’t take long to adjust course. The images still reached Percy faster than he was used to, but it was more manageable now.

Micky was munching on some Yellow lion. Acton stood some distance away, tormenting a Green variant of the same species with his earth spells, probably working on improving them.

Most notably, the area was densely covered in floating globules of water, each about the size of a peach. They inhibited Micky’s vision, preventing him from seeing very far.

‘I don’t know if he’s warned you about this, but try not to touch the globules. Certainly don’t drink them. If you’re thirsty, make water out of your mana.’ Percy said, speaking as fast as he could manage.

The Thirsty Valley was actually full of water, though it hadn’t earned its name by accident. The temporal magic clung to the water more closely than everything else, effectively poisoning it. Coming into contact with it would cause one to age faster, without getting any benefits back. Drinking it was even worse.

Of course, the effect was subtle: touching a few globules or even drinking one might not be immediately noticeable. Still, people were supposed to spend decades in there, so the effects could easily accumulate if one wasn’t careful.

Consequently, people were advised to do everything they could to shield their bodies from the globules during their stay. As for drinking water… many of them tended to bring a water user with them, as water mana wasn’t affected directly. The time magic only began to poison it after it turned into regular water, and the process wasn’t instant.

Alternatively, people could bring water with them, as long as it was stored in a spatial device, as that supposedly shielded it from the environment. This was what Percy had originally planned to do, at least until Micky got the petal and Elaine joined the group.

Of course, this phenomenon wasn’t exactly an accident. Percy suspected it was very much intentional: built into the Decree by Kronos to make it more efficient, allowing it to cover a wider area and to exhibit a greater temporal acceleration.

After all, living beings consisted mostly of water, so this was a way to target the people training inside the Valley more so than the inert rocks and dirt in the environment. As for all the unfortunate side-effects, they were just a necessary inconvenience.

‘Such a flawed Decree…’

It was a strange thought, but a true one, regardless. No Decree was perfect, some having more drawbacks than others.

Percy considered himself a bit of a connoisseur of divine magic, having run into a few Decrees by now. Phoebe’s and Ea’s were perfect examples of how two Decrees with similar effects could be so different from one another. Metatron’s was quite niche too, only useful for a very specific purpose.

It was a stark reminder that titans, however powerful, were ultimately just people. And Decrees were just spells. Insanely complicated and incomparably vast… yes. But spells nonetheless, subject to their caster’s abilities and talents all the same.

Alas, this wasn’t the time to ponder the shortcomings of divine magic. Percy had already pieced together the information they needed.

He turned back to Nesha, before speaking.

“I’ve got good news and bad news.”