Phantos opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was the blue sky where the storm clouds had cleared.
The sky was so high and clear it felt endless.
In the soundless stillness, Phantos realized he was quietly floating atop the water.
He recalled the final moments before he lost consciousness.
The last thing he saw was the Elemental Lord spreading its massive jaws wide, and then his memory cut off.
“I lost, then.”
Phantos muttered in a hollow voice.
He had broken through countless obstructions and reached right before the Elemental Lord of Water’s nose.
He thrust his harpoon toward it, but ultimately failed.
Was it the backlash of forcing his body far past its limits for battle?
Or the price of failing to grasp his prey yet again?
He felt strangely devoid of strength.
Completely drained, Phantos floated on the calm sea surface like drifting duckweed.
“Awake?”
A voice came from beside him.
He didn’t have the strength to turn his head—he only rolled his eyes, and saw Ludger floating in midair, looking down at him.
“You’ve been watching all this time?”
“I figured it was about time you woke up. When you came to but still didn’t move, I thought maybe you were enjoying a rare moment of peace.”
“Hmph. Mock me if you want.”
Phantos had failed his hunt.
What value did a hunter have if he failed to seize his prey?
“You’ve gotten sentimental since I last saw you. Why would I mock you?”
“You charged forward so boldly, yet still lost.”
“If I wanted to laugh, I would’ve laughed at you back when you kept challenging a wall you couldn’t possibly climb.”
Ludger’s lips curved faintly.
“I am hardly in a position to mock someone like that. Neither you, nor I.”
“......”
Phantos stared blankly up at the sky.
“Next time, I’ll win.”
“Yes. That’s a good mindset. And that fellow over there says it’s looking forward to it too.”
That fellow?
Only then did Phantos sense something odd.
The fight was over—yet he was floating in the sea.
This northern sea was famous for violent waves.
A place where rough swells raged three hundred and sixty-five days a year, yet now it was eerily calm.
Phantos rose.
For someone of his level, standing atop water required no effort.
What he saw was a massive whale, staring straight at him.
The Elemental Lord of Water.
The pinnacle of water, possessing an immense body and overwhelming power, waiting in silence for him to wake up.
“Why are you...?”
To an Elemental Lord, humans were beings unworthy of attention.
Phantos, bewildered, received an answer from Ludger instead.
“It says you’ve piqued its interest.”
“Interest? Wait—can you communicate with it?”
“It’s closer to sensing intention. You can feel it too, can’t you?”
It was exactly as Ludger said.
While fighting the Elemental Lord of Water, Phantos had vaguely sensed its emotions directed toward him—
Curiosity.
Admiration.
Competitive spirit.
It meant it did not see him as something to ignore, but as a proper individual.
He had forced himself to forget that truth, or look away from it, in the heat of battle.
“...Yes. That’s true.”
Phantos accepted it without resistance.
One of the greatest possible prey had acknowledged him, how could he ignore that?
‘For an Elemental Lord to regard a human as something akin to itself... That’s astonishing.’
The existence of Elemental Lords was no secret.
People—especially scholars—knew well.
This world contained spirits and shades.
Spirit mages all believed they understood the nature and origin of the spirits they commanded, and countless scholars devoted themselves to uncovering those mysteries.
Though the veil had not been completely lifted, humanity had acquired a considerable amount of knowledge.
‘But the one thing scholars gave up researching altogether—was the Elemental Lords.’
The apex of spirits.
The essence of nature.
A living natural disaster.
That was the Elemental Lord.
Just as humans could not oppose nature, Elemental Lords, who were nature itself, were an unfathomable abyss beyond human understanding.
Furthermore, they were difficult even to witness with the naked eye.
Dwelling deep within nature, they were so elusive that even seasoned explorers rarely encountered them once in their lifetime.
Among them, the most commonly sighted—relatively speaking—was the Elemental Lord of Water.
It would sometimes surface to bask in the sun or scatter mist.
But even that happened only rarely.
Fishermen who went far into the open sea might, with extraordinarily good fortune, catch a glimpse.
‘They never interacted with humans, and even when they appeared, they took no interest. To an Elemental Lord, humans and demi-humans living on the continent were just part of the landscape.’
Of course, there were exceptions.
The Elemental Lord of Earth had taken interest in Ludger.
A Saint had once contracted with the Elemental Lord of Wind.
But both of those cases were tied to divine power.
Considering who created the world, and who sowed the seeds from which all life sprang, it wasn’t surprising that an Elemental Lord would be drawn to such individuals.
But Phantos was different.
He was just a beastkin.
Granted—far stronger than any ordinary beastkin.
‘But no matter how much of a mutant he is, Phantos gained his strength through his own power. With talent, and relentless training, he reached this level.’
Throughout history, there must have been individuals as strong as Phantos.
Yet humans could never interest Elemental Lords, or so everyone believed.
But the Elemental Lord of Water had acted differently.
Perhaps its nature was simply gentle, water was the source of life, after all.
Maybe the nature of the being who embodied water was innately mild.
Or perhaps Phantos’s relentless, inexplicable obsession had stirred something within the Lord.
A being universally revered... had, for the first time, encountered a new kind of emotion.
Whatever the reason, the fact remained unchanged:
The Elemental Lord of Water had taken interest in Phantos, not as one of the countless beings living on the continent, but as a beastkin hunter who did not lose his spirit even before an Elemental Lord.
For scholars, it was an earth-shattering event.
But regardless of such academic shock, Phantos remained himself.
“I must become stronger.”
More than joy at being acknowledged, his competitive spirit burned with the vow to win next time.
* * *
The Elemental Lord of Water departed.
Its massive body submerged into the endless sea and vanished.
And the once-quiet sea soon returned to its natural state, whipping up massive waves.
Phantos remained until the very end, watching it disappear.
In his heart, no doubt, churned the desire to surpass it one day.
“Let’s go. We ought to treat our guest properly, after all.”
Ludger followed Phantos to his dwelling, a small hut not far from the coast.
It was a simple hut, built by hand, every detail touched by Phantos.
He must have lived here for quite some time.
It had nearly everything needed for daily life.
And judging from the rabbit and deer pelts hung along the walls, he hadn’t neglected hunting either.
‘Still, the most eye-catching thing is the taxidermied predator head.’
Mounted on the wall was the head of a massive bear, surely the apex predator of this forest.
A striking sight.
Phantos expertly lit the campfire and brought out salt-cured meat to prepare.
“Unexpected. You know how to cook?”
“Of course. I roam the continent hunting prey. Eating alone is common.”
He roasted the prepared meat swiftly, sprinkling spices atop it.
“Eat.”
Ludger accepted the skewer of grilled venison, gazing at it in admiration.
It was cooked perfectly—juices dripping, aroma rich with spices.
Even Ludger, who wasn’t particularly gluttonous, felt his appetite stir.
And the taste—
Ludger involuntarily let out a low hum.
Not in disappointment, but in praise.
“To say this sounds strange, but... you could settle somewhere and open a restaurant.”
Having traveled widely, Ludger had sampled many fine meals, at Seorn, in the Imperial Palace, even as a VIP guest in the Yuta Kingdom.
His experience with cuisine was substantial.
From that perspective, this meat was incredibly well prepared.
The pinnacle of fundamentals.
No fancy techniques, just honest roasting, yet producing such flavor.
But despite Ludger’s genuine praise, Phantos only snorted.
To someone who had lived his life for hunting, being good at cooking was not a point of pride.
“When a hunter takes a prey, he must honor its remains. This is just part of that process.”
Of course, in truth, Phantos preferred good food when he could get it.
Had he not enjoyed the chocolates the children gave him back in Lederbelk?
“More importantly, you—”
Phantos looked toward Ludger with a complicated expression.
Beside Ludger, warming itself by the fire, sat a small turtle.
Small in appearance—yet still 1.5 meters long.
Compared to its true form, it was barely a speck.
Phantos knew full well that this turtle was an existence equal to the Elemental Lord of Water, his desired prey.
The question was—why was it here?
“Well... let’s say we got along somehow.”
It was the only way Ludger could put it.
In truth, the Elemental Lord of Earth had simply taken interest in Ludger and offered considerable aid.
Likely because Ludger had intervened to stop a leylines eruption.
The Earth Lord had sensed that the power within Ludger was far from ordinary, and had watched his path closely ever since.
And when Ludger fully opened the Celestial Gates, it had surely understood, one of its own kin, the Elemental Lord of Flames, had been struck down by him.
“Why? You interested?”
“It is intriguing that it’s on the same level as the one I chase—but no, not particularly. My target is only that one.”
Phantos’s target was the Elemental Lord of Water.
He had chosen it, he would not change prey simply because another appeared.
Besides, the Water Lord held symbolic meaning for him.
As a beastkin who was innately weak to water, confronting it represented the desire to overcome his nature.
‘Though, considering he runs on water and swims well, it seems he’s long since overcome it.’
Given what kind of animal bloodline Phantos possessed, it made sense.
Among bear beastkin, he was a mutant, a polar bear beastkin.
“Unexpectedly single-minded.”
“You’ve picked up some useless jokes. Were you that lonely?”
“Perhaps so.”
When Ludger admitted it without resistance, Phantos shot him a surprised look.
Ludger’s soft smile as he watched the fire was quite different from the man he once knew.
His essence remained unchanged, but his expression had evolved.
In the past, Ludger rarely showed his emotions outwardly.
“You’ve changed. A great deal.”
“Have I? I don’t see it myself. But I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“I’m not sure change is a good thing.”
Phantos tore a chunk of venison with one bite, then drank deeply from a water flask.
“To grow stronger, I did anything. That was my purpose—my life. So everything else felt meaningless.”
When Arfa came to recruit him.
When Ludger later summoned him to Owens.
When he acted alongside his comrades afterward.
He had followed Ludger because Ludger was stronger, but Phantos always wondered:
Was this truly the path to strength?
Camaraderie, friendship, the desire to protect, he thought all of it unnecessary.
Such emotions softened one’s edge.
Rust formed where sharpness should be.
To avoid rusting, you had to apply heat and hammer the blade constantly.
Only then could your edge stay keen, able to pierce your prey.
Phantos never doubted it.
“So that’s why you never came searching for me, even knowing I had returned?”
Ludger glanced at a newspaper lying by the fire.
Its front page—left unfinished—held an article about Demon King Heathcliff.
Phantos had known all along that Ludger had returned.
“I wasn’t sure. Whether those emotions were poison to me. And if they were, whether I should sever them cleanly.”
“And did you find your answer?”
“There is one thing I know for certain.”
Phantos rarely smiled, yet now he smiled faintly as he placed another piece of meat over the fire.
“Talking face-to-face like this... is enjoyable.”