"I wonder if you ever felt pain when you descended, lady Ranyu?" Nicol applied a compress to her 3 stacked swollen forehead. "Indeed, consider it a blessing I took a moment of suffering away from you." Ranyu replied with telepathy, trying to make herself sound compassionate. It had been 2 weeks now that Nicol had been following Pablo quietly.
After Ranyu told Pablo that Tianqi was the eschaton who would put an end to this world, Pablo fell into denial and never said a word since. She tried to explain how close she was with Tianqi and how hard it was for her too. She told him how long Tianqi had been fighting eschatons and that it was for her sake before she could no longer fight the cycle of fate. Nothing got through to Pablo, as Tianqi was his first love. If it took someone in his mid-30s to fall in love for the first time, no one could imagine how hard he fell or how long he would take to recover from the fact that he was the only one who could take her life.
As for Nilrend, the devil sword, it seemed to cut down through the earth and oscillated back to the same spot at the same height it had fallen from Bovorn's hand. Pablo found it and had it back that same day. Their next destination was to find Tianqi's whereabouts. With the gap in power, Pablo knew he wouldn't overpower her even if he spent a lifetime practicing elsewhere. That was why when they finally found Tianqi, he immediately knelt before her. "Please, take me as your disciple." Tianqi declined and disappeared faster than any eye could catch her once again.
"What's with that request? Who in their right mind would take a disciple who's fated to kill them?" Nicol was curious. Pablo then got up on his feet. "Call Ranyu, and I'll answer that afterward."
After being ignored for so long, Ranyu descended almost immediately and pounced at Pablo with excitement. "Your omnia has arrived, my solemn hero~"
Pablo then knuckled her forehead once again to stop her approach. "She crushed 7 eschatons from 7 eras without a second thought, but hesitated when she became one herself. Did she perhaps seek..." Before he finished his sentence, Ranyu hushed him with her finger on his lips. "Immortality was never her intention. She's just a lost girl who's waiting for someone and wished she'd stay long enough for their return. And my apologies, it's not you. You're just someone who'll trample on the dream she's cherished for millennia by killing her to save your people and the world."
"Thank you for not giving me hope." Pablo felt his heart wrench, now that he had finally felt something other than duty and gratitude. "My aim is still unchanged. Tianqi is the fastest one who can make me stronger. Rational or not, I have to be her disciple."
Nil was against Pablo's idea of placing himself under someone else and revoked the power of the devil sword as a boycott. Nicol and Ranyu couldn't imagine how Pablo would succeed, but still followed along quietly.
Pablo looked out for Tianqi mountain after mountain, asking her to become his master every time they met. From being told to go away, to getting beaten up, to watching her leap away, Tianqi finally stopped avoiding him after 6 seasons. "Your dialect has gotten a lot clearer now."
That amount of time was enough for Nicol to have memorised the terrain of all thousand cloud-crowned mountains. But little did they know there was a special enchantment on the area until Tianqi undid one that had concealed her home's physical dimension from everyone. Pablo and Nicol were invited in for tea.
"I heard that this world is already too old. It should have died after the 996th hero fell. Yet a once retired hero defied its fate and fought even more powerful cycles by herself to lengthen its lifespan for almost another 3,000 years." Pablo paused and looked into Tianqi's deep ocean-blue eyes. He flushed. Her beauty and proportions so perfectly balanced, like an illustration, that Pablo had to punch himself in the cheek to get a hold of himself.
Pow.
"As her junior, I want to help her as much as I can. Even if that means defying my role as a hero. If you teach me the way of the sage, I can live long enough to calm you down whenever you need it. Maybe not now, but I promise I'll train hard enough to be strong enough. Nicol will work hard to make you live comfortably."
"Hey, who said I'd do that?" Nicol hit Pablo's back though he still continued with his offer.
"Think of us as companions to make sure you're not going through hard times alone before the one you're waiting for arrives. How does that sound to you?"
Tianqi knew Pablo was partly trying to be close to her and to guarantee he could deal with her if she lost to the destructive force within. "I can live off meditation and exercise alone." Tianqi closed her eyes. Pablo and Nicol lowered their teacups deflated.
"However, I do respect your dedication in this pursuit all this time. Either way, this is the most solid guarantee we have for the world if things go wrong." With Tianqi's acceptance, Pablo's and Nicol's faces lit up as they sipped their tea eagerly.
It was her own attachment. An attachment to a promise to meet someone once again.
No matter how slim the chance was, Tianqi was wholeheartedly willing to take it.
She faced every hardship and endured every pain just to live another day. Just to take one step closer to fulfilling that promise. Through the ages, that determination forged a shackle of will too strong for Tianqi to break free from even if she tried. The memory may have faded, contrary to her ever-growing cultivation of power. Tianqi's only way to resist a power far exceeding her own capabilities was the hope of keeping her promise. The promise of which only a hazy face was left for her to hold onto.
On the other hand, Ranyu was furious at Pablo. He had actually gotten a few chances to strike Tianqi down while she was in deep meditation during the 6 seasons of the chase. Pablo refused every time and declared he would only defeat Tianqi head on. Though these days, Ranyu was the one who never missed a chance to have a moment with her old friend. Whether it was a tea break from training Pablo, a stretch after a meditation session, or even bathing, she would hog Tianqi's time so completely that Nicol felt like she was living in a trance all the time.
Pablo always felt awkward whenever he wanted to spend time with Tianqi outside of training. Before asking her somewhere casual, like watching the rainbow view from above the clouds, it would frustrate Nicol so much that she had to drag him to Tianqi to make sure it wasn't the third time they missed the chance before he worked up the nerve to speak. But sometimes Pablo's inexperienced attempts also made Tianqi adore his effort, so much that she reached out her hand towards his head before she knew it. Then pulled back once she came to her senses.
Living under the same sky for so long, things did not change much and not many things could interest Tianqi anymore. Perhaps only Ranyu could understand her. "That's why meeting new people changes everything. Endless possibilities, unpredictable interactions over time that might even change how you see the world..." Seeing Tianqi's worried face, Ranyu paused. Then she conjured a light-guarded bell around them. "Speak your thoughts. I want to hear them. No one will hear us in this luminous bell."
Tianqi spoke. "Pablo, Nicol — they're good kids. I'm going to miss them."
Ranyu wasn't so sure who would outlast whom this time, but she had to lift her old friend's spirit. "You know, help them become adults, then you might not have to worry about them anymore once you see them mature. I could show you all nights they'd never forget, that might be eye-opening even for yo—"
Nicol woke up again with an overwhelming headache as she heard Pablo's voice.
"Five, six?! Seven???...twelve... seventeen?!!... how many stacked bulges on your forehead were there?!?!"
Nicol was so annoyed that she chased Pablo for hours. "How have you kept tampering with this maiden's beauty like this?! Will you take responsibility if I can't find a groom?"
"It's a state of the art I have no idea how to do either. I might ask master to teach me sometime too, bwahahahaha." Pablo ran away as he mocked Nicol with Bovorn's laughing style. After that, Ranyu was refused descent for a week after Nicol found out why Tianqi hit her.
Those peaceful days passed by like a fleeting moment of sweet dreams. So sweet that even the omnia and the devil forgot how they had become friends, and so cozy it even warmed the once freezing cold heart of a sage. "The river is not going anywhere. You don't have to be in such a hurry." Tianqi was grabbed by the wrist and dragged to the riverside by Nicol. When Nicol was enthusiastic about taking a bath, she could muster a monstrous strength, and if Tianqi wasn't careful her wrapped towel might fall from her chest from the wind caused by this maiden's movement. "Cool river, clear water, how can I resist being embraced by it any later than now? No way~"
Splash.
Nicol was so comfortable with Tianqi that she could playfully tease her without a second thought.
Years before Tianqi met Pablo and Nicol, she had never imagined having any friends. Now she would visit sweetshops in town and volunteer to help townsfolk with Ranyu during the day, then follow Nicol to this spot and bathe together by night. The devil sword had been placed on a nearby rock by Pablo before he left for an isolation practice. "If only I could possess you the way Ranyu does Nicol, the first thing I would do is punch that foolish Pablo's face. That way he would stop showing that face of pity before he took my suggestion to go travelling somewhere." Nil's spirit body started dipping into the river alongside Tianqi and Nicol. Even with her power revoked, Pablo still used the devil sword for practice like it was a normal sword. It annoyed Nil that he even looked cooler in her eyes for it. The girls always talked about everything and often gossiped about Pablo's growth and his demeanor. "Then, should we try that sometime?" But today Tianqi was a bit more proactive than usual. It may have been because years had passed and she wanted to try something new. But most likely Tianqi simply wanted to make memories with them more deliberately.
Earlier that morning at a sweetshop, Tianqi had suddenly leaked a fearsome aura. As she swayed and swept all the sweets on their table away, her deep ocean-blue eyes started to turn red. It was only a brief moment before Tianqi got a hold of herself. But that alone was enough to drain the colour from Pablo's face. He knew the time they had to enjoy together was not forever. Witnessing calm and collected Tianqi become the thing that confirmed she was the eschaton was not something he had been prepared for. He never would be. Ranyu had seen it coming, but the part of Nicol still in her subconscious made her shed tears nonstop.
From that day, Tianqi's aggressiveness and the reddening started to show up more and more frequently. From a few months between episodes to a few weeks, to a few days, to a few times a day, until it stopped Tianqi from leaving the thousand cloud-crowned mountains area entirely. The reddening aura grew strong enough to burn things around her, and the life nearby started wilting and slowly breaking down.
One day after training, Tianqi called Pablo over and handed him an enchanted envelope. "I'd like you to keep this for me."
It was a light piece of folded paper with a tiny wax drop seal, but it felt so heavy it was almost unbearable for Pablo to hold. "Master... Don't tell me it's a love letter?! Isn't our 9th year master-disciple anniversary tomorrow? Aww, you don't have to be this impatient to let this student know your feelings. I thank you kindly." By that time Pablo had completed the trials of the four guardians in all directions and ascended to the pre-sage level. His power and combat prowess had improved a thousandfold. Yet it was not even a question whether he could stand a chance against Tianqi head on.
"Enough of your jests. I want you to deliver it to someone when the time—" Tianqi stopped, seeing Pablo raising his hand. This might have been the first and last time he ever interrupted his master. "I understand. Please say no more, master." As Pablo stood before Tianqi, her heart still belonged somewhere further from him, to someone long lost in the past. He knew it had been decided even before they met. Even so, Pablo wished he could spend more time with her regardless of how she viewed him. But that would be too selfish of him. For someone like Tianqi to pass the torch to him, it could only mean she was on the verge of the end. She could fall at any time. Pablo had watched Tianqi suffer, fighting the unimaginable power raging from within. Day and night, their talks after training grew shorter and shorter. Her laughter got interrupted more and more until there was none left to be heard. It was hard to accept she was about to go, but even harder to ask her to stay.