“It’s too bad you don’t want to improve anymore,” Eithan said. He buffed fingernails against the front of his robes, which would have been more elegant if he wasn’t still covered in marks from his fight earlier.
“Yeah, too bad.”
“We’d love to have you along.”
That irritated Ziel into responding, which itself irritated him further. Not long ago, nothing would have bothered him.
“Why do you want me? We’re not friends. There’s no connection between us. Are you trying to get me in your debt? What is this?”
“Oh, did Lindon not tell you?”
Ziel remembered the uncomfortably intense stare of the Void Sage and had to focus on not shivering. “I will admit, I underestimated you all. You’re freaks, and I say that with true admiration. I salute you. But you’re all burning with ambition, and that fire went out of me years ago.”
Eithan nodded along with every word. “It did, and it left behind a pile of ashes. But I can’t help but look at those ashes and think, ‘What a blaze that must have been.’”
In spite of himself, Ziel rested a hand on the head of his hammer. He remembered commissioning this hammer. He had earned the metal himself, designed it, and worked closely with the Soulsmith. He had imagined all the grand deeds he would perform with the hammer.
That hammer had taken the lives of many Dreadgod cultists. He remembered the fury that had filled him. The grief, back when it was an empowering force instead of a blanket smothering him.
“It’s too late for me anyway,” Ziel muttered, and even he didn’t know where the words were coming from. “I don’t have what it takes to become a Sage.”
“How would you know?” Eithan shot back. “What are you, some kind of Sage?”
Ziel glared at him.
“Besides, if you can reach peak Archlord, you know what it takes to become a Herald? Brute force.”
“Brute force as in enough raw resources to choke a Monarch, but you left out the part where you need such a thorough understanding of your own spirit that you and your Remnant can work together.”
Ziel gave Eithan a smug look. “Don’t think that just because I’m young I haven’t done my research.”
Just as many sacred artists remained stuck at different stages in the Lord realm because they didn’t understand how to pass their revelations, many Archlords remained stuck because they had no one to teach them how to reach Herald.
Often, by the time they did find someone to tell them the truth, their spirits were twisted against them. Sometimes because of injury, or broken oaths, and sometimes because their spirits hated them.
Ziel would fall into that last category, he was certain.
Even if his soul was stable enough after the Pure Storm Baptism to advance its level of existence, his Remnant wouldn’t work with him. He was certain. He wouldn’t work with himself, and that was the same thing.
“You think I underestimated you?” Eithan asked curiously. “Quite the opposite. I think I’m estimating you much more highly than you are.”
He waved a hand. “But forget it, then. I can’t drag you up a hill toward a glorious future. Instead, why don’t you help me? There are some young people here who could use our worldly guidance.”
Ziel gave a humorless laugh. “What am I supposed to teach an Overlord Sage or history’s first Overlord Herald?”
“I always find it arrogant to assume we know everything that has happened in history, but let’s leave that aside. Neither of them are Archlords, and neither of them have ever led a sect before. I believe your input could be very valuable to them.”
Ziel grumbled inwardly about it, but he was curious to see what these young people could do with such a start.
They had a fire for advancement that burned even brighter than his once had. How far could that take them, if it wasn’t snuffed out?
He had to admit, he did want to see it.
The hunger aura was steadily eating away at the natural treasures Lindon had placed all around the room, and the focus of the labyrinth itself was on Lindon. The hunger madra attacks were growing more frequent.
While Ziel and Eithan were talking on the other side of the room, he and Yerin kept the hunger madra under control and watched Mercy.
“You think she’s creeping up on Overlord?” Yerin asked.
“I think so,” Lindon said, watching Mercy battle the echo of her mother. They had closed to melee combat now—which was strange to watch, as neither could truly touch the other—but this was something like a meditative state.