"Knock, knock."
The sound of rapping wood echoed in the quiet hallway. "Master Kenta..."
Jing Yuan waited, but there was no response from behind the door.
"...Forget it, Jing Yuan. Kenta... he just needs time," Jingliu whispered. Though she spoke the words, her own voice was brittle, a mirror of the fragility she was trying to hide.
Unlike Kenta, Jingliu had been knocked unconscious during the heat of the battle. By the time she awoke, the ash had settled and the sky was clear. She hadn't witnessed Bai Heng's final plunge into the "black sun," but the hole in her heart was just as deep. She knew, however, that she had to remain the pillar; Kenta was drowning, and he needed her.
As soon as Jing Yuan and Jingliu departed, two other shadows emerged from the gloom: Dan Feng and Yingxing. They didn't bother with the etiquette of knocking; they pushed the door open directly.
The room was a tomb. The curtains were drawn tight, a barricade against the golden Luofu sunlight. Kenta was slumped over his desk, surrounded by scattered sheets of rice paper covered in obscure, jagged characters—the frantic scribbles of a man trying to calculate a way out of grief.
Dan Feng nudged his shoulder. Kenta slowly opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused. "Hmm? Why are you two here?"
He looked at his friends. Their expressions were grave, but their eyes held a flickering, dangerous spark of hope.
Dan Feng gripped Kenta's shoulder, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "Kenta! Listen to me. I've found a way to bring Bai Heng back!"
"!!!"
Kenta bolted upright. He looked at Yingxing, who nodded solemnly, confirming this wasn't some cruel hallucination born of sorrow.
"What do you plan to do?" Kenta asked, his voice trembling.
"It's like this..."
They laid out the plan—a madness centered on the Dragonizing Miraculous Method. They spoke of using Bai Heng's remaining blood as a medium, combined with the flesh of an Abundance Emissary, to force a resurrection.
After they finished, Kenta fell into a long, agonizing silence.
"Well? Kenta! We can save her!" Yingxing was unusually agitated, his hands shaking. He needed Kenta's approval to justify the sin they were about to commit.
But to their shock, Kenta shook his head. "No."
His voice was calm, but it bled with pain. "It won't work. You want to use the power of Abundance to mend a soul that turned itself into a sun? Dan Feng, even the High Elder's secrets cannot—"
"Kenta, I know this is hard for you," Dan Feng interrupted, his disappointment palpable. "But trust me. I am ninety percent certain!"
Kenta remained silent. His stillness was his answer. Eventually, the two left, their faces set in grim determination. Kenta didn't have time to chase them; he had his own path to follow. He had to make a trip to the Yuque Xianzhou—the land of diviners.
Star Calendar Year 7379
A hideous, twisted dragon rampaged through the streets of the Luofu, a nightmare of bone and mutated flesh. Its eyes were scarlet pits of primal hunger.
Dan Feng and Yingxing had failed. Their plan hadn't brought back the girl with the brilliant smile; it had birthed an Abundance abomination. In the end, Jingliu was forced to slay the beast.
And the Wanderer—Kenta—was nowhere to be found.
He vanished. The entire Xianzhou Alliance searched for centuries, but the Carefree Wanderer had slipped through the cracks of the universe.
[There were five people, but three paid the price.]
Dan Feng was imprisoned for his hubris. Yingxing was cursed with immortality, his mind fracturing as he became Blade. And Jingliu succumbed to the Mara, becoming a fugitive of the very Alliance she once led.
Was this the end of the Quintet?
On a Distant Planet
The man the Alliance couldn't find stood on a windswept ridge, looking down at a small black cat.
"Are you Elio?" Kenta asked.
The cat offered no sound, but its golden eyes held the weight of a billion futures. Kenta took that as a "yes."
"I used the divinations of the Yuque and my own travels to find you," Kenta stated, his eyes locked on the creature. "I need the answer."
The cat smoothed a paw over its ear, then stared at Kenta. A wave of unfamiliar, crushing information flooded Kenta's brain.
"Ugh..." He clutched his head, falling to one knee. When he finally looked up, he wasn't crying. He was laughing—a sound of pure, crystalline relief.
"So that's how it's done... I understand. Thank you, Elio. Once I complete this, I will join your Hunters."
Boundless Space
Phantylia was drifting through the void, contemplating her next move of destruction, when a streak of black fire hit her like a supernova. Before the Lord Ravager could even manifest her full form, she was struck unconscious.
Kenta looked at the spirit-form of the Ravager. He held his palm open, then clenched it. The body of the cosmic destroyer began to shrink, compressed by a terrifying gravitational force until she was a small, glowing mass in his hand.
He drew his Shard of the Void. "I'm sorry, Yingxing," he whispered to his absent friend.
With a roar of Black Flame, he exerted his full power. The blade of the Shard of the Void shattered into dozens of jagged, burning fragments. He grabbed one of the largest pieces and thrust it directly into Phantylia's essence, anchoring his power to her. Then, he ignited a final burst of fire to incinerate her Remembrance of this encounter.
He tossed the Lord Ravager aside like a piece of refuse, letting her drift toward the future he had just rewritten.
"It will still take a few centuries," Kenta muttered, his gaze piercing the veil of the stars toward a newly formed Vidyadhara egg on a distant shore.
"Bai Heng... I told you. I will find you in your next life."