"I just don't understand," the Oracle muttered under her breath, wearing furrows in the floor with her pacing back and forth. Agitated was too mild a word to describe her demeanor. "I just don't understand! They kept an alternative reawakening ritual secret from me? The Stirring Cradle was our holiest of holy sites! The symbol of the undying life of the Lord of the Moon!"

"Well, th—"

"How?" she shrieked, cutting off Eik. Vendekaabe sat quietly in the corner, looking exceedingly uncomfortable with his lady's outbursts. "It doesn't make any sense! I am the Oracle of Moon Shall Swallow, for crying out loud! The Oracle! Knowing stuff is in the job title!"

"Listen, if Qarr the Pillar and the others were purposefully keeping you in the dark because they suspected your change of heart since long before we met, then it's obvious that you wouldn't know what a bunch of S-rankers were doing."

That didn't seem to calm her down at all. "No, Eik, you don't understand. I'm the Oracle, okay? My job—my entire existence, is to be the head of Moon Shall Swallow and the person who knows the organization! I'm supposed to act as the link that connects the past, present, and future of Moon Shall Swallow in order to maintain spiritual continuity and unbroken dedication to the mission. To act independently of me like this, it's… it's…" she trailed off.

"It's sacrilegious," Vendekaabe finished for her, speaking for the first time. His eyes were hard and furious.

"Yes, exactly! It's sacrilegious!"

"All religious organizations have dissenters."

"Not us!" she insisted, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Because of the torture and forced cannibalism…" Eik mumbled under his breath. It was often easy to forget that these two cultists still were exactly that—cultists.

"What?" she snapped.

"Nothing," he sighed. "Well, if it's of any consolation to you, Qarr the Pillar, Woulaxi the Mover, and whoever the other S-rankers present there were are all dead and gone."

Both she and Vendekaabe froze. "They're dead? But you said the awakening ritual was performed."

Eik nodded. "It was. And then we killed them. I took out both Woulaxi and several other S-rankers myself. Gul and Mn'Toakh finished off Qarr after his fight with me."

They both just stared at him, unable to find the words. "Wh… But they're…"

Eik shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. They're dead and that's it. But they were pretty strong."

"Qarr is d-dead?" she stammered. "But how? He should be capable of completely incapacitating even the most powerful S-rankers."

Eik tapped his temple, recalling how Noble Mentality had shut the mental attacks down nearly instantly. "I've got a thick skull, I suppose. And when you hurt someone enough, they usually die. Turns out it was the same for that pale, old fart. But he set off the ritual just before he died."

For a few moments, her brain seemed to be using all of its capacity to digest the world-shaking information. "Okay," she finally said, almost as if to force a conclusion to her own confusion. "Something doesn't make sense."

"What?"

"If the ritual was successful, then… why are you and everybody else not dead?"

He nodded along, totally on top of the topic. "Good question, and I've got a good answer. You see, Qarr and the other S-rankers were dead by the time the fuel from the Expulsion began to flow into the ritual, meaning there was no primary caster to oversee the final moments. Furthermore, with such a complicated and unique ritual arrangement, there was no certainty that everything would go to plan in the first place."

The Oracle watched him with narrowed eyes.

"And last but not least, once the ritual began activating, it seemed to find the atmospheric energy to be lacking for its purposes, so it took off. Like, to a different world, closer to the Chasm."

She arched an eyebrow. "Did you quote that from Andihar Dayarunar or Gul Ougi?"

"Shut up," he grumbled.

"All right, but one thing I can say then is that the Lord of the Moon has very likely been awakened in a severely weakened state."

"How so?"

"Even if they had another ritual hidden from me, it was painstakingly developed over many, many years, so it would surely have been the same arrangement with the same materials."

"But I destroyed those when I attacked the Stirring Cradle," Eik noted, frowning.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She sighed. "Yes, but since they have been deceiving me as well, they must have had extras of those as well. They went behind my back with all of it. But I still know that ritual. If it ended like you described, then the Lord couldn't have been awakened in anything near optimal condition."

"Or maybe it failed."

She pulled a face. "We can hope, but if the dark orb appeared…"

"And what does the weakened state mean?" he asked.

"That the Lord of the Moon will have a tough time in the beginning. He will most likely not be capable of traveling between worlds without regaining his strength between each attempt."

"Well, then we should be striking now, while he's weak!" Eik exclaimed getting up from the chair he had been sitting in. "There's no time to waste!"

"Wait," she said, holding up her hand. "There's a problem with that as well."

"What?"

She bit her lower lip with worry. "He'll be looking to regain his power but especially in a weakened state, someone of his caliber will be capable of hiding himself. For the time being, he's going to be impossible to track."

***

"Man… Sun, a gentle breeze, bird song, and a cup of exquisite chocolate milk. Now this… this is a good day to di—"

"Dear, if you talk about good days to d-i-e in front of the k-i-d-s again, I will r-i-p your h-e-a-d off, whether you're a big, strong S-ranker or not, got it?" Ihasu said.

"Yes…" he muttered sheepishly.

"Not to mention we're in the middle of a pretty important meeting about the company's expansion," Robert said.

They were sitting in the café on the premises of Eik's company, Eik's Excellent Elixir Emporium, his family sitting at a table next to his, Aohan, and Robert's.

Now that he had become an established celebrity for his incredible and unique permanent stat boosting potions called Eik's Legendary Mystery medicine, he was regularly meeting with Aohan to discuss his movement on the markets.

There was a lot of strategy involved with moving the type of extremely high value product he was creating, most of which he happily left to his more than capable assistant Robert, but it was still good to keep himself in the loop once in a while. He was the boss after all.

Eik preferred this over the stuffy, boring office, which he still hadn't gotten around to filling with strange and mysterious artifacts and plants although he promised himself he would once things eventually calmed down a bit.

Plenty of other customers around them were enjoying a drink and a slice of cake. The quiet murmur of their surroundings helped Eik concentrate and focus on his own work.

Aohan smiled awkwardly at the scene. Despite having had several meetings with Eik Magnasen at this point, he was having a hard time reconciling the man being nagged by the mother of his children with the man who was slowly but steadily building up his image of being the most powerful Awakened in the Nidafjeld Alliance. This scene just didn't match with his mental image of what that was supposed to look like.

But he was glad that it was someone as warm and kindhearted as Eik who was taking up that position. Maybe that would change the cosmic society into something a bit less… cruel. Just knowing that Eik had such a big part to play in the fight against the frightening developments regarding Moon Shall Swallow was a relief.

"That's okay. I think we're more or less done here for today anyway" he chuckled, ruffling Goo's hair as the little boy silently handed him a flower he had plucked out of one of the pots lining the walnut counter in the center of the cozy café. "Thank you, Goo."

"Here, kiddo," Eik said and lobbed a flat sugar cookie into the air. Goo's neck stretched bizarrely, extending more than a meter as he snatched the snack out of the air. Aohan gasped sharply, jerking back in shock, nearly sliding off his chair.

"Eik! I told you not to do that!" Ihasu snapped. "He's already wild enough as it is without you doing dumb crap like that!"

Eik cleared his throat and sat back, doing everything he could to look away.

"What is, uuh…" Aohan began with hesitation. "What is your boy… doing?"

"Goo, can you turn into a cat for daddy?" Eik cooed instead of answering. The little boy immediately did, morphing swiftly as his skin and hair lost their human color in favor of brilliant blue. "That," Eik said with a smile at Aohan.

"H… Huh… Interesting."

"He's a very good boy," Ihasu said as the little boy changed back into his now primary human shape and leapt into her arms.

Eik's own body had returned to the familiar flesh and blood once True Toxic Harmony had worn off. At some point he would have to show the ability to the little man so he could see that he really was his daddy.

"I know," Aohan said with a grin, forcing himself to simply accept it as it was—yet another oddity that became commonplace when viewed through the lens of Eik Magnasen's odd reality. "I'll get going then."

"Take a drink to go, mate. For the kids too."

"Don't mind if I do!"

"See you around."

Aohan took the chocolate milks and headed out the door.

"I'll head out too, then," Robert said. "I have some paperwork back at the office, and you'd better do yours as well," he growled threateningly.

"Yes, boss," Eik said dutifully.

Robert grumbled and left.

"You wanna help me with my boring documents, kids?"

They both hopped onto his lap, Bin immediately telling him where to sign his name and which documents and contracts to throw on the trash pile. He was tempted to listen to her.

Fifteen minutes later they had both gotten tired of it, and when Eik was actually taking the paperwork seriously for once, a raggedy old man walked in, looking around curiously. The cafe was a circular building, its walls and ceiling consisting almost exclusively of large windows in order to let as much sun in as possible. The bar was built in the middle of the space with chairs, couches, and tables scattered all the way around.

Slender trees sporting enormous, fleshy fronds along with countless potted plants, flowers, and hanging plants cast a gentle green light and filled the café with the aromatic scent of nature. Vibrant vines climbed all the way to the central section of the ceiling. It was one of Eik's favorite places.

Without a glance at Eik, Ihasu, and the kids, the old man began a slow shuffle around the circle in the opposite direction of where they sat. It took him several minutes to make it all the way back to the main counter since he stopped every couple meters to study a plant or smell some flowers. Eik kept an eye on him, just in case he had to throw in a gooey cushion to catch a fall.

"What can I do for you?" the young woman behind the counter asked with a smile.

The man didn't appear to have heard her and almost stumbled over to the glass display case with all of the cakes and pastries, squishing his nose against the glass as he looked. "Well, just holler if you have any questions," she said. The old man smiled but kept his eyes on the dessert.

For another several minutes he stood frozen, watching, and Eik went back to work. He only looked up again when he sensed movement in his periphery. Smile still on his lips, the old man slowly turned his head, gaze focusing on Eik for the first time.

And with it came a sensation of a depth of power he had never felt before. Just this old fart's eyes were enough to make him want to puke.

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