The black statue loomed behind a veil of twilight haze, the faint glow of violet cracks pulsing like a slumbering heart. Mist curled low across the clearing, weaving through the forest floor like whispering smoke. Wolf stood with his hands still faintly tense at his sides, the air clinging to his skin as if the night itself were waiting to listen.
Lamentia tilted her head slightly within the obsidian form, her silver eyes flickering with a faint mirth that danced beneath their ancient weight.
"Ah… that was really a long time ago," she said, her tone soft, distant—as though her voice had to reach across centuries just to touch this moment.
"Wait—wait. You remember the date?" Wolf asked abruptly. His brows knit close; his voice sharpened without malice, the way a hunter narrows his eyes at an unfamiliar print in the dirt.
"Hm?" Lamentia's gaze refocused on him. A faint curl of a smile ghosted across her lips.
"I don't remember the specific day. It's been so long. Why'd you ask?"
Wolf didn't relax. If anything, his voice tightened further, pressing gently but firmly.
"What about the year?"
Her brows pinched together, a slight pout forming—a gesture too human for someone who called herself The Crown of Perpetual Paradox.
"Mmm… I think it was thirteen hundred… something around that. Yep."
She shrugged lightly, her purple hair shifting like strands of mercury.
"You know, it's been so long I just kind of forgot about all that."
Wolf's thoughts churned like grinding stones.
Thirteen hundred… that's before he started his homunculus project. His jaw tensed.
He was already here at least ten years before then. Injured too—maybe from whatever else he was researching…
Then it hit him like the snap of a bowstring. His mouth twitched. His eyes sharpened with sudden amusement.
"Oh… in a sense Leo is Lysander's apprentice," he thought. "Well… more of a shadow disciple."
He exhaled through his nose, a quiet laugh slipping from the corner of his mouth.
Hah… now that's interesting.
He looked up at the statue again.
"Alright, let's get back to it. Can you explain about ether?"
Lamentia's expression softened almost imperceptibly—her gaze brightened, the tone of her voice loosening, as if someone had just asked about a topic she truly liked.
"Think of ether," she began slowly, "as the fundamental energy that flows through all things. It's all around us like air."
Her voice took on a subtle rhythm, her words trailing in a lyrical cadence.
"Now… you might be curious how to use it, right?"
Wolf nodded faintly. His stance shifted, weight balanced on the balls of his feet, every sense focused on her explanation.
"In order to use ether," Lamentia said, raising her chin slightly, "you need both willpower and concentration—to clearly imagine the outcome of the spell."
Her tone hardened like steel on the word "clearly."
"For example, if you want to use a wind spell, in your head you need a precise image of it. The shape. The mechanics. The outcome. All of it must align perfectly with your incantation."
Her voice deepened slightly as she recited, slow and deliberate:
"Elemental Air.
Hear my will.
Formless, now Condense.
Soundless, now Accelerate.
Wing be gone, Edge be born.
Let the Wind be the Shadow's Knuckle
Let the Sky grant me its blade!
… Sever!"
She let the last word roll off her tongue like silk sharpened into a knife's edge.
"…Or something like that."
A soft laugh fluttered from her lips, teasing, light. "Or," she added, her tone shifting playful, "just use it to enhance your body. Force it to circulate through various parts of your body and skin. You can use it for both attack and defense."
"…You forgot to tell me the most basic part," Wolf said, deadpan.
He scratched the back of his head, the corner of his mouth tightening into a dry, faint smirk. "How to control ether."
Lamentia blinked—
Then burst out laughing. Her laugh was clear, musical, and just slightly unhinged.
"I guess I'm just too excited and forgot about that," she admitted, still chuckling.
"Everyone has the ether center in their body," she continued, regaining some composure, "located in the heart. So—try to focus on your heart. The ether stored within the body is called the Flow. It can feel like a weak electric current… or cold water flowing through it."
Wolf's eyes narrowed slightly. He inhaled slowly, then let the breath sink deep into his lungs.
The heart… the flow.
"As I said," she reminded him softly, "you need both willpower and concentration to use it. So first, once you feel it…"
Wolf lowered his eyelids. His breaths grew slower. He let his awareness settle beneath his ribs. Breathe in.
Find it.
"…you need a clear desire," her voice guided him, echoing faintly in the cold night air.
"A shape of what you want the ether to do. Then—tune your inner feelings to it. Let it answer you."
He felt it—a faint, threadlike hum beneath his sternum. Something cool, alive. A restless river coiling at the edges of his awareness. His heartbeat drummed softly, like tapping knuckles against old wood.
"Once you feel it," she said, "you can release ether through every part of the body."
Wolf slowly opened his eyes. A thin mist of breath left his lips. His stance widened, knees flexing slightly, fingers curling as if the air between them had turned heavier. His pulse and the flow in his chest began to match rhythm—a heartbeat that wasn't just blood.
"And now…" Lamentia's voice lowered into a slow, inviting purr. Her silver eyes gleamed faintly through the statue's violet cracks.
"Show me what your first spell would be."
Wolf drew in a deep, steadying breath—one last lungful before plunging into the invisible. The air tasted faintly of cold stone and stale ether, a still, brittle sharpness that clung to his throat as if anticipating what was to come.
Then, closing his eyes, he recited the words in the silence of his mind, each syllable cutting through his focus like the precise stroke of a blade.
"Mind, I command thee, deny
Flesh, be made as air.
Sound, Sound, Be silent.
Light, Be refused.
Veil of… Shadow!"
The moment the incantation flowed to completion, a sensation like frozen needles rushed through the core of his body. It wasn't just cold—it was the kind of cold that bit, that carved itself through marrow and nerve, forcing every drop of ether inside him into a state of dead, motionless calm.
His breathing grew faint, thin, as though the air itself recoiled from him.
The world changed.
He could feel the atmosphere pressing in—the invisible weave of ether draped over the forest like a soft but immense pressure, humming faintly in his skull.
His senses sharpened, and he held on to the visualization: skin peeling away, form unraveling, dissolving into a veil of clear, weightless mist. His heartbeat slowed.
He willed his body to tune—to vibrate at the same soft frequency as the surrounding air.
Then came the tearing.
It was a sudden, razor-like strain against the skin's surface—tiny, invisible hooks tugging outward as the ether burst from beneath his flesh, bending the light itself around him. In that instant, every nerve screamed and then… fell silent.
There was nothing. An exquisite, hollow absence where his body should have been.
No warmth. No weight. No edges.
His presence slipped away like smoke fading from a candle flame.
"Oh, oh oh oh," a honey-slick voice spilled through the forest, thick with amusement.
Lamentia's eyes, a soft wine-red, flared with lively curiosity, reflecting a faint shimmer from the forest's weak glow. Her lips curled upward—not quite a smile, but something more feline, more pleased.
"An invisibility spell, huh? Well well, you'd be able to fool a lot of people with this."
She tilted her head slightly, her purple hair falling in silk-like strands over one shoulder.
"As expected of a chosen human," she purred, each word lingering with a deliberate slowness.
"You sure are gifted…"
The tone wasn't pure admiration. It was the way one might marvel at a polished blade—or an exotic dish set before them.
A kind of admiration that stripped away the person and saw only the object.
Wolf glanced down at his hands—or rather, at the space where they should've been.
His form was a whisper in the air. A presence displaced. His heartbeat sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else. He tried shifting his weight; the sound of his boots was swallowed whole by the magic. Nothing remained of him but thought.
Lamentia's voice slipped in again, playful.
"To cancel your little trick, all you have to do is decide to appear. Just break your intent. Simple as that."
He exhaled slowly and willed himself visible. His outline bled back into the world, mist knitting into shape, limbs solidifying with a faint ripple.
The sensation of weight slammed back into his bones, like stepping out of cold water. He flexed his fingers once, twice. A thin mist lingered around his shoulders before dispersing.
Lamentia clapped her hands lightly—more a gesture of theatrical amusement than genuine praise. "Hahaha, that was fun, wasn't it?"
"A little bit, I'd say," Wolf answered, his voice still roughened by the aftermath of the spell. His shoulders lifted and fell with a deep breath, the aftertaste of cold still clinging to him.
Her expression shifted with a cunning sparkle. "Sooo… how about you ask me how to get me out of this statue, hm?" She leaned forward within the cracked stone surface that bound her, a predator pretending to be playful.
Wolf's brow creased. He wanted to keep experimenting—wanted to feel the spell again, stretch its limits—but her voice was a persistent thorn.
He sighed through his nose, frustration slipping between his teeth.
"Alright, alright. How do I get you out of here?" The words came with a tightness in his jaw, as if dragged out rather than spoken.
"Finally!" she sang, feigning delight, stretching her arms outward as far as the jagged stone fissures would let her.
"You see this little crack at the heart of the statue?" She tapped the space where the fissure glimmered faintly with escaping ether. "That's the reason you can talk to me at all. My ether was too strong—this stupid thing couldn't contain me. So that guy left a gap and forced me to keep leaking it out. That's why this place feels like a big frozen graveyard of ether."
As she spoke, thin curls of her ether drifted from the crack, coiling through the stale air like pale smoke.
She tilted her head again, voice lowering into a mock whisper.
"So, you wanna help me, right? Bring me about uhh… two or three hundred thousand. Should be enough to break the statue from the outside."
Wolf blinked once, slowly.
"…Kill them here?" His voice was flat, but it wasn't a question of surprise—more of confirmation. He already knew her answer.
"Yes, of course." She stretched the words like honey dripping from a blade.
"You know, life force is so much stronger than ether. With that much of it, this cage won't stand a chance."
Wolf's lips twitched—not quite a smile, not quite disgust. He met her gaze with a detached steadiness.
"I hear you loud and clear. And I can guarantee I'll help you…" His tone dipped slightly, as if drawing out the last part just to make her hear it, "…but I can't guarantee when."
Lamentia let out a bright, careless laugh, head thrown slightly back. "That sounds like a bit of bullshit, boy. But I don't have a choice anyway, hahahaha."
Her laughter rippled through the forest like a breeze that didn't care whether it froze or burned.
She didn't look disappointed. If anything, she looked amused—like a cat watching a mouse convince itself it had options.