The world blurred into streaks of green and gray.
Ed didn't run anymore—he became motion.
Hermes Dash ignited the instant he left the ruined square of Lirien's Rest.
Golden wind wrapped his body like living silk, lifting him just high enough that his boots skimmed the grass instead of crushing it.
The landscape hurtled past in smears: collapsed barns flashing by, skeletal orchards whipping overhead, rivers reduced to silver threads.
Sound collapsed into a single roaring tunnel—wind in his ears, his own heartbeat thundering louder than thunder.
He didn't feel the strain yet. Not really.
The exiled skill drank mana from the air itself, feeding his muscles, sharpening his senses until every leaf, every distant bird, every shift in the wind registered like a shout.
But beneath the exhilaration ran a thin, constant thread of panic.
Tia was alive.
The compass had shown him the treehouse—clear as daylight, fragile as hope.
A single lamp burning behind shutters.
A rope bridge swaying.
The faint scent-memory of pine resin and cedar smoke that clung to her clothes back when they still traveled together.
Alive.
After ten years of silence, after the old man's weary certainty that the entire party had perished, after Ed had spent a century believing he'd left nothing behind but graves—
Alive.
He pushed harder.
The golden wind howled louder.
Trees bent away from his passage as though fleeing.
He crossed the first stretch of demon frontier in minutes—ground that had once taken the party days of cautious marching.
Blackened earth gave way to cracked stone plains, then to twisted thickets where the trees grew thorns instead of leaves.
The sky darkened overhead, not from clouds but from the creeping miasma that had always marked the border between human lands and demon territory.
He didn't slow.
A lake appeared ahead—wide, glassy, ringed with jagged black reeds.
At its center a swarm of monsters milled: hulking shapes with too many limbs, scales that caught the dying light like oil slicks.
They turned as one when they sensed him coming, red eyes flaring.
Ed didn't detour.
He spoke a single word under his breath.
"Mirage Shift."
Reality folded around him like paper.
His body turned translucent, ghostly—still solid enough to feel the wind, but no longer fully present in the world.
The monsters lunged. Claws and fangs passed straight through him.
He kept running, feet skimming the lake's surface now, ripples blooming outward in perfect circles that never touched him.
One hour. That was all the skill allowed.
He crossed the water in heartbeats.
On the far shore the ground rose into low, jagged hills.
He vaulted them without breaking stride.
Cold bit deeper here—unnatural frost that clung to his cloak and tried to slow his blood.
He ignored it.
Heat followed soon after: patches of scorched earth where lava veins glowed beneath cracked stone.
Sweat beaded on his brow and froze again in the next breath.
He kept going.
Memories flickered at the edges of his vision, unbidden, triggered by the rhythm of his own desperate flight.
Tia laughing beside a campfire, braiding flowers into her golden hair while she pretended not to notice him watching.
The way she'd once pressed a warm cloth to his forehead after he collapsed from carrying too much gear in one go, scolding him softly in that lilting elven accent.
Her hand brushing his when she handed him a waterskin—accidental, always accidental, yet never quite pulling away fast enough.
He clenched his jaw until it ached.
Not yet. Not until he saw her with his own eyes.
The compass warmth in his palm pulsed stronger now—closer, closer—like a second heartbeat guiding him through the haze.
He crossed a final ridge.
Below him stretched a vast, dark forest—ancient trees so tall their canopies swallowed the sky.
Mist coiled between trunks like living smoke.
Somewhere deep inside, a single point of silver light flickered.
The treehouse.
Ed's breath caught.
He dropped out of Hermes Dash mid-stride.
The golden wind snapped away; gravity reclaimed him with bruising force.
He stumbled once, caught himself, then started forward again—this time at a normal human run, lungs burning, legs trembling from the sudden shift.
The forest swallowed him.
Branches clawed at his cloak.
Roots snagged his boots.
The air grew thick with the scent of moss, damp earth, and something sweeter—elderflower, maybe, or the faint trace of whatever herbs Tia used to burn for calm.
He pushed through the last wall of undergrowth.
There it was.
A massive elder tree, trunk wider than three men standing shoulder-to-shoulder.
High in its branches, woven seamlessly into the living wood, sat the treehouse: simple planks and shingles, vines curling protectively around the railings, a single rope bridge swaying gently in the breeze.
Lamplight glowed soft and steady behind one shuttered window.
Ed stopped at the base of the tree.
His chest heaved.
Sweat stung his eyes.
Every muscle screamed.
He stared up at the treehouse for a long moment—long enough for the reality to sink in, long enough for the terror to catch up with the hope.
What if she hated him?
What if she didn't remember him at all?
What if the compass had lied?
He lifted his right hand again.
The faint golden warmth of Akashic's Compass still lingered in his palm.
Still pointing up.
Still true.
Ed exhaled shakily.
Then he began to climb.