The moment the pillar of light pierced the firmament, Everwinter Peak fell into a deep silence.
The howling wind and driving snow ceased in an instant. Ice crystals, suspended in the air only a moment before, melted away in a wave of sudden warmth, refracting the golden light into billions of tiny, shimmering suns.
"Truly... remarkable." Welt couldn't help but push up his glasses again. Behind the lenses, his gaze was a complex mixture of awe and deep contemplation. 'Just how many more tricks do you have hidden up your sleeve?'
Such effortless, life-giving power was a rarity even in Welt's long and storied journey. Most powerful beings expressed their strength through destruction and finality; the ability to awaken life with the gentleness of a spring breeze was a path mastered by precious few.
"What a coincidence," Leon remarked casually. "My dear Ruan Mei can do something similar, though her method involves activating entire planets. It's not quite as... friendly."
The more he observed, the more unfathomable Leon became to Welt. He was an Emanator, at the very least... but of which Path?
No one knew. The abilities Leon displayed were far too varied. What was even more baffling was that Welt had almost never been able to clearly sense the characteristic energy of a Path when Leon chose to act.
He was hiding far, far too much.
"Every time you appear, you bring a new shock."
Aboard the Astral Express, Himeko gazed through the observation window at the astonishing changes unfolding on the planet below, a soft sigh escaping her lips. From her vantage point in the cosmos, her field of vision was far broader than that of anyone on Everwinter Peak.
She could clearly see Jarilo-VI, once a planet shrouded in a thick, pale shell of ice, shedding its pallor at a visible rate. In the wake of Leon's intervention, nearly a third of its surface was already stained with the vibrant, impossible green of new life.
As the navigator of the Astral Express, Himeko had witnessed countless miracles, but power like this—so casually rewriting an entire planet's ecology...
This was a first.
If not for the fact that Leon completely lacked the aura of Abundance, Himeko might have assumed he was one of their Emanators.
'Hmm, no, that's not right,'she mused.'Leon previously used the Power of Trailblaze to help expand the Express's carriages. He's definitely a Pathstrider of the Trailblaze; that much is certain.'
Then... an Emanator of Trailblaze? Was such a thing even possible?
Himeko took a sip of her coffee and frowned. She'd been too sparing with the beans this time; the flavor wasn't nearly strong enough.
"This is simply... a miracle."
"But this... doesn't really seem like the style of 'Elation,' does it?"
Sampo, having snuck out of the tavern, wiped a bead of non-existent cold sweat from his forehead, his heart hammering against his ribs.
'Leon... are you really an Emanator of Elation?'
Could it be like that time their own lord of mirth, Aha, decided it would be hilarious to disguise himself as a Trailblazer? Was it possible some other Aeon, acting on a similar whim, had disguised themselves as one of the Masked Fools... and somehow become the strongest Emanator of Elation in the process?
But besides Aha, who else possessed such an absurd sense of humor?
The moment the cataclysmic change occurred, Sampo had clearly sensed it: a sudden, vast, ocean-like power of the Path that nearly made his heart stop. A Pathstrider of Abundance might be able to restore life to all things, but the essence of that power... it was definitely not Abundance.
The more Sampo thought about it, the more his unease grew. He just wanted to find some fun on this frozen backwater planet; surely that wasn't enough to attract an entity of this caliber, right?
"It really feels like a dream..." Serval felt the long-lost warmth of the sun falling on her shoulders and couldn't help but sigh softly. She had been at the very back of the battlefield and was now slowly making her way to Cocolia's side.
"Wait, oh no..." Cocolia's head snapped up as she heard the distinct sound of ice cracking, her expression instantly shifting.
The melting of the ice and snow was a blessing, but the Antimatter Legion, frozen solid for seven hundred years, would also thaw and revive with it.
Crack... Crackle...
Cocolia's body went rigid with vigilance, her eyes fixed on the frost splintering across the surface of the frozen legionnaires...
But to her astonishment, as the frost shattered, the legion did not revive.
Instead, the monstrous soldiers shattered right along with the ice, crumbling into dust and dissipating on the warm breeze.
"This is..." Cocolia's pupils shrank. For a moment, she couldn't tell if the Antimatter Legion had simply lost all signs of life after being frozen for over seven centuries... or if their benefactor had quietly taken care of that, too.
"What are you thinking about?" As her closest friend, Serval knew exactly what was running through Cocolia's mind. "Whichever it is, Belobog has been reborn, hasn't it?" she said with a gentle chuckle, nudging Cocolia not to get lost in the details.
"Yes... I was overthinking it." A watery smile bloomed on Cocolia's face.
The Eternal Freeze, the problem that had plagued her, her predecessors, and her entire world for her whole life, seemed to have been solved in a single, stunning instant.
Tears began to flow uncontrollably down her cheeks. Belobog was saved. She was weeping with joy.
"Wow! Leon, are you that amazing?! Just a wave of your hand... and the Eternal Freeze is gone?!" March 7th couldn't help but exclaim, her eyes wide with wonder. "No wonder you said you usually don't make a move—if you had acted from the start, we would've lost our chance to 'Trailblaze'!"
"Of course. My big brother is amazing," Stelle declared, puffing out her chest as if she were the one being praised.
"Exactly!" Caelus immediately nodded in agreement, his expression a perfect mirror of his sister's.
"By the way, what's going on with you two?" March 7th's attention quickly shifted to the new weapons in their hands. She couldn't help but tease, "And you got a new look?"
"This is the Flame Lance." Stelle slammed the butt of the spear onto the ground, her tone brimming with pride. "Just now, in a vision from the Path, I saw the Amber Lord with my own eyes."
"This is the Judgment of Shamash. I also saw the Amber Lord," Caelus followed up, deliberately tilting the greatsword's blade so the complex patterns on its surface caught the golden light that had not yet faded from the sky.
"Then..." Welt pushed up his glasses, his gaze from behind the lenses falling upon the two of them. "And what about that 'Why do birds fly?' from just now?"
"Oh, that!" Stelle and Caelus spoke in near-perfect unison, their voices filled with an eager pride. "It was Leon who told us—"
"—he said that if we shouted that, it would look really cool."
"What do you think, Mr. Yang?" The two of them looked at Welt expectantly, their eyes clearly pleading, 'Hurry up and praise us for being cool.'
A faint, almost invisible vein pulsed at Welt's temple. His fingers, gripping the head of his cane, tightened just slightly.
...His hands were getting a bit itchy.
"My assistance ends here," Leon spoke at the perfect moment, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "The road ahead must ultimately be walked by you yourselves."
He turned slightly, bringing a woman who had been standing quietly to the side into everyone's view.
"Allow me to introduce her—this is Miss Topaz, from the Strategic Investment Department of the Interstellar Peace Corporation, and a senior manager ranked among the 'Ten Stonehearts'."
The calm, faint smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth, and his voice spread with perfect clarity across the silent peak of Everwinter.
"Her visit here is precisely to discuss with you all... the debt that Belobog has owed for over seven hundred years."
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