Chapter 532: A Wager with the Old Turtle
Ethan’s expression shifted as he listened to Uncle Jed’s account.
"Strange armor? Was it like this...?" He tapped the Shatterstar control terminal strapped to his arm, and a projection flared into the air. The hologram was an image he had imprinted into the system from memory. The moment Uncle Jed mentioned a black-armored woman, unease had surged through him, as if something half-forgotten stirred awake.
When the armor’s image shimmered into view, Uncle Jed froze. His gaze locked on the strange, twisted design, his face blank, as though his mind had gone elsewhere.
"Well, is it? Speak up!" Ethan pressed, his voice tight with urgency.
But Uncle Jed only lowered his head and looked at him with dazed eyes. "I... I forgot. I don’t know if it was like that anymore... What the hell happened to me? Damn it..." He struck his forehead with his palm, hard.
A dull boom echoed in Ethan’s skull. Uncle Jed’s reaction was more unsettling than confirmation.
’Forgetting... wasn’t that what happened to me too?’
Ethan remembered only fragments, broken dreams and illusions, before his memories returned in pieces. The realization jolted him, and before he knew it, his body was already moving, accelerating toward the site where the Blood Clan had poured through.
The portal had stopped disgorging enemies, but the world around them was already crawling with Blood Clan creatures. They spread across the vast space sealed off by the Serpent-Turtle, filling the icy plains like a tide.
"Ethan..." The others had followed him, and soon they reached the triangular portal, formed by the City Lords’ Seals. At its center pulsed a curtain of blood-red light, rippling like a living wound.
"Ethan, those Seals won’t be easy to reclaim," the Dragon Child warned as she stepped up beside him. "The three of us tried before, but they wouldn’t budge."
"Why?" Ethan asked absently, his eyes fixed on the glowing ripples. His thoughts were far away, too clouded to give her words much weight.
"Because Baelor Wane and Shaw Zilo are dead..." the Dragon Child said softly, letting the words trail into the frozen air.
Ethan blinked. He hadn’t expected that when he woke, Baelor Wane—the sly old man—and Shaw Zilo, the arrogant Lord of the Forgotten City, would already have perished.
"Shaw Zilo is dead?" Uncle Jed snapped his head up, staring at the Dragon Child. When she nodded, a fleeting grief flickered in Jed’s eyes, raw and unspoken.
Ethan didn’t dwell on it. His thoughts were on the Seals. Each one required a City Lord’s attunement to function. The Lord of Hurricane City had died long ago, and now both Baelor Wane of Clearspring and Shaw Zilo of the Forgotten City had fallen. Yet somehow, the Blood Clan had harnessed their Seals to forge this gateway. He remembered too well: the trial grounds leading to the Spirit Realm had also been opened with City Lords’ Seals. Were they not keys at all, but pieces of a greater teleportation array? The idea struck him, but he pushed it aside for later.
He had already tried reaching out to the Seals; they gave no response. Instead, he smiled faintly. "Who said we have to close the portal?"
The others turned toward him, faces full of confusion.
"I’ll handle this. You all focus on clearing out the Blood Clan in this world." Ethan’s gaze swept across the endless swarm of creatures spreading over the ice plains.
"What are you planning?" Uncle Jed asked warily.
"They want to destroy our world, don’t they?" Ethan’s eyes narrowed, a predatory gleam flashing in their corners. "Then if I destroy theirs first... wouldn’t that solve everything?"
"Young man, do you even hear yourself? Destroy a world? That’s nothing but a fantasy!" The yellow-robed old man, the Serpent-Turtle, looked at him with open disdain.
"What if I can?" Ethan shot back. He had always bristled at the old man’s superior air, that look of a detached guardian who pretended to see through everything. But Ethan knew the truth too: for years, the Serpent-Turtle had anchored the Northern Ice Fields, holding back plague and invasion. Annoying as he was, he had once been a true defender of the world. Still, if the old beast wanted to sneer, Ethan was ready to slap the sneer right off.
"If you can destroy a world, then I’ll shed my shell and let you kick it around like a ball!" the old man blurted, hot-blooded. His turtle shell was his most prized defense, a treasure coveted by countless beings. Ethan’s heart leapt at the wager—he had long eyed that shell’s power. It wasn’t exactly stylish, but nothing could match its resilience. He was about to accept on the spot when a voice cut into his mind.
"Master, don’t fall for it. The old turtle’s lying again. He’s nearly at the age when he sheds his shell naturally. The cast-off shell crumbles to dust in a few days!" It was Beastie, speaking with a rare note of urgency.
Ethan froze, then smirked inwardly. So the old turtle thought he could trick him with a worthless husk. But instead of exposing him, Ethan shifted his terms. "How could I accept that? Here’s my wager instead. If I win, you must swear to guard the Sea of Death with all diligence. No more sleeping away centuries, no more slacking off. Do you dare?"
To his surprise, the simple demand made the old turtle’s face stiffen. Ethan knew the creature loved to doze, and if left unchecked, he would abandon his duty for centuries at a time. But soon, Ethan would be leaving. The Dragon Child would surely go with him, and Bongo he planned to entrust to Julian. Without a stalwart defender, the Sea of Death would lie vulnerable. Forcing the turtle to stay awake and guard it was worth more than any shell.
"What’s wrong, don’t you dare?" Ethan pressed, his tone sharp with mockery. "Or do you think your earlier words were just hot air? Just because you’ve lived longer doesn’t mean you’re above the rest of us. What you can’t do doesn’t mean I can’t. It’s just one world. I’ll destroy it if I want to. Do you believe me or not?"
"Hmph! I don’t believe a word of it. Fine, let’s gamble!" The old man, stung by the taunt, barked his agreement, forgetting entirely to ask what Ethan would wager in return.
"Good. Divine Contract—appear!" Ethan raised his hand, and a six-pointed star array blazed into existence, descending from the sky like judgment.
He smiled, gesturing politely toward the old turtle. "Please."
The yellow-robed elder stared at the glowing array, his eyes flickering with hesitation. "Divine Contract?" he muttered under his breath, unease finally surfacing.
"An old man gambling with a child, how shameful. And when the stakes get real, he suddenly loses his courage." Uncle Jed let out a long sigh, shaking his head. "So old, yet still unreliable... Ethan, maybe we shouldn’t bother with him after all."
Ethan tilted his head in agreement, his smile widening. "Uncle Jed has a point. And while we’re at it, maybe you should stop calling yourself the Northern Beast Spirit, Serpent-Turtle. From now on, you can be known as—"
Before he could finish, the old man gave a sharp snort. A bead of blood essence shot from between his brows and landed in the center of the glowing array.