Millicent was a red-haired swordswoman, tall and long tormented by illness, her cheeks gaunt from years of pain. Yet the fierce will to live in her made people look twice. Knowing she wasn't strong enough to protect Skyl, she asked him to allow her to leave for a while—so she could grow stronger, then return and repay her debt.
"I'll set foot on the path of training under the swordsman of flowing water. I hope to come back as soon as I've learned enough." After her disability was healed, Millicent bid Skyl farewell. Aside from the phone he'd given her, she took nothing with her. Alone in the world, with only a Shamshir in hand for company.
She understood perfectly well: Skyl didn't need her protection. Even if she became the greatest swordswoman in the Lands Between, it wouldn't change the gap between them. But Millicent refused to appear before Skyl as a useless person. She had the ambition to become stronger, and a goal worth chasing.
Along the way, Skyl helped many people. Many things that were effortless to him were life-saving ropes to those in crisis. So he made a lot of friends. Most of them met him only briefly, then hurried on their way. Everyone was a passerby in everyone else's life—Skyl included.
Melina only watched his deeds in silence. When Skyl chatted with her, he said that people were like butterflies: break their wings and they die. Yet there's a kind of butterfly that, after its wings are broken, will spin a cocoon again, pupate again—so that when it breaks free once more, it no longer clings to the old flower fields.
Melina asked him: after that butterfly emerges, does it gain a new life?
Skyl thought for a moment. "It does. I believe it does."
Light rose in Melina's eyes.
The world each person sees is different. From the people Skyl helped, Melina saw hope.
One night, Skyl received a call from Morgott, who said that Empyrean Ranni was investigating the truth behind the Erdtree's extinguishing.
"If she wants to find me, she can come to the Church of Irith in Liurnia," Skyl said, and hung up.
At the Church of Irith, there was a lonely sorcerer named Thops. Skyl admired the way he understood magic, so he invited him to join the Tower of Tomes. "It'll definitely satisfy your pursuit of magic, and the benefits are great, too."
Thops was deeply moved. He'd always been looked down on by the Academy's members, and he never expected to meet someone who truly recognized him. In this panic-stricken post-Erdtree age, finding a group of like-minded mages to form an alliance was about the best thing that could happen.
Ranni came quickly.
At dawn the next morning, she arrived at the Church of Irith. Her body was a blue doll with two pairs of arms, wrapped in thick snow-witch attire—especially that big hat. She looked fluffy, the kind of thing you'd expect to be warm. Empyrean Ranni, the fighter who rebelled against the Two Fingers—when she found Skyl, she wore the unmistakable delight of someone who felt they'd met him far too late.
"So it was you. I heard someone seized the law. A remarkable achievement. I am Ranni the Witch, and I came to thank you for everything you've done for the Lands Between."
"The law is the most valuable knowledge the Lands Between has," Skyl said, not hiding that his actions were driven by selfishness. He invited Ranni to join the Tower of Tomes—after all, she was a demigod-tier spellcaster. But when she learned there was a High Tower King within the Tower of Tomes, Ranni refused. She disliked all Outer Gods.
"Even if you don't join the Tower of Tomes, we can still keep an academic exchange," Skyl said, taking out his phone and handing it to her. Ranni toyed with it for a while and didn't refuse.
They shared their respective understandings of the Golden Order. From Ranni, Skyl also learned that the Greater Will still watched the Lands Between. It was dull, but sooner or later it would notice the anomaly—and many Outer Gods would also begin to compete for the Lands Between. If they did nothing, the future would inevitably drown in war.
"We must block the gaze of the Outer Gods. Either offer up the law, replace the Erdtree, and cloak the Lands Between beneath the radiance of the law… or send the Lands Between into the starry sky, to the cold moon, where we never need fear the Outer Gods' interference again."
Skyl fell silent for a moment. What popped into his head was: does this count as wandering the Lands Between? Then does that make Melina "Tu Yaya"?
The thought delighted him. "That's something you should decide for yourselves. Sooner or later, I'm leaving the Lands Between anyway."
Ranni was satisfied with his answer. She would carry out her plan—lead the Lands Between into an Age of the Stars, spend a thousand years, and reach the cold Dark Moon.
"I don't want you to think Ranni the Witch is some miser who only knows how to take." She spoke calmly. "I'll share all my spellbooks—consider it adding a little luster to your collection. Farewell, unfamiliar Outsider. Perhaps we'll meet again one day."
On the third day after parting with the ambitious witch, Skyl unconsciously performed a precise prophecy.
This was the magic he had been researching ever since taking the law. Even for him, it didn't succeed every time—but once it did, the prophecy could bring endless variables.
He said he would go meet one last person, and then leave the Lands Between.
"You're leaving? But aren't you supposed to collect the Great Runes?" Melina was startled by the sudden news. Then she nodded. "I understand."
"I have to leave the Lands Between. If I keep staying here, the Outer Gods will gang up on me. It's a headache." Skyl looked at her. "But don't be disappointed. The person I'm going to see will help you."
As the kindling maiden, Melina's body had already burned beneath the Erdtree. What remained—a pure soul—was what truly counted as kindling. Her current state was closer to a ghost. Beneath the clothes covering her figure, her body was actually riddled with burn scars—constant reminders of the fate she'd been assigned as a consumable.
The last person Skyl planned to meet was Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, headmaster of Raya Lucaria Academy. She held the magic of rebirth, able to return someone to the womb. Since Skyl had said he would give Melina a complete life, he naturally had to keep his promise—with a real body of flesh and blood.
Raya Lucaria was like the Lands Between's Hogwarts. The magic here had its own peculiarities: it began when stargazers drew inspiration from the night sky, then drew power from a mineral called glintstone. Glintstone was fallen starlight—stars that had dropped from beyond the heavens. The ultimate goal of primeval sorcerers was to cultivate themselves into a star and fly into the sky. Only their method was… strange: using other sorcerers' brains as material, merging everyone together into a single sphere.
It was an evil, crooked path, and the result was to become something inhuman. So research into primeval sorcery was forbidden at Raya Lucaria. Sellen was a primeval sorcerer. Skyl told her not to cling to chasing stars anymore—there were even more wondrous magics to pursue in other worlds. So she went to Winterhold, to study the magic of the Elder Scrolls world. Before leaving, Sellen gave Skyl an Academy Glintstone Key. With it, he could pass through the Academy's wards.
The Academy wasn't friendly to outsiders. At the very least, the sorcerers guarding the gate attacked Skyl with spells the moment they saw him.
Skyl was fair. If they hit him with attacks a few times, he returned the favor the same number of times. He could endure their magic; they couldn't endure his. That was simply a matter of strength.
Rennala lived at the top of the Academy, within the Grand Library. Ever since her husband Radagon left her, she had become a madwoman drowned in bitter yearning. All she did was cradle the amber egg that concealed the Great Rune, murmuring about the child who had never been born. The Academy's sorcerers used that as an excuse to place her under house arrest.
Seeing her like this, Melina couldn't bear it. "She's a widow. Do we really need to disturb her?"
"She's already a widow. I'm not letting her become a living widow too," Skyl said, striding into the Grand Library. "Rennala—do you want a husband or not?"
Don't misunderstand. Skyl wasn't going to become her husband. He planned to revive a Radagon thoughtform—see if he could ease the Full Moon Queen's madness. Put that way, he was really just a psychiatrist making a house call.
When Skyl first burst in, Rennala was floating in midair, her body wrapped in a golden spherical barrier. It was a shield maintained by the crippled juvenile scholars in the Grand Library, working together to protect her from harm.
Skyl pitied those disabled children as well. They were pitiful kids—if they didn't listen, a beating was all it took. Once Skyl dealt with them, the queen's shield collapsed on its own, and she fell from the air.
"Hey, Rennala. Radagon is back."
"…Radagon? My beloved—where is he?"
Skyl pressed a hand to her forehead. "Shh. He's back. Think carefully. Radagon—what does he look like?"
"My beloved… hair like flame. A hero who never knew defeat."
"That's right. Radagon—look. He's right here." From Rennala's soul, Skyl slowly drew out a wisp of thoughtform. Then he took out a ghostly skin, infused the thoughtform into it, and shaped it into a phantom.
A phantom—not a living body—naturally because Skyl didn't have any of Radagon's original tissue on hand. If he used transfiguration to sculpt a body from scratch, it wouldn't be authentic, and he worried the customer might feel dissatisfied after trying it.
Phantom Radagon was the embodiment of a thoughtform—Rennala's perfect husband as she imagined him. Handsome, red-haired, flawlessly built—a man whose masculine beauty made you sigh in admiration.
Seeing that ghost did, in fact, improve Rennala's mental state. A little reason returned to her, her gaze both joyful and sorrowful. "Outsider, thank you for your effort. But my Radagon has already left. He won't return… even so, I cherish your kindness. If there's anything I can do for you, speak plainly."
Skyl asked her to rebirth Melina. As payment, he offered the Great Rune within the amber egg—perfectly sufficient for a flawless outcome.
"A butterfly with broken wings… it's time to spin a cocoon again."
The kindling maiden stared at Skyl in a daze. "Why are you doing all this for me?"
"Because you're pitiful, and I have the ability to do it." Skyl waved at her, watching as Melina turned into motes of light and flew into the amber egg.
When the broken-winged butterfly broke free once more, she would no longer cling to the old flower fields.
Skyl returned to Hogwarts and went back to student life. Then he received a call—on the other end was a voice both familiar and unfamiliar.
"Hello?"
"Skyl, where are you?"
"I've left the Lands Between."
"I miss you."
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