Goodbye

"Goodbye. Stop messing around," Yicha said.

Goodbye? Nese thought for half a second before realizing that was probably the name of the dog currently sitting on his stomach.

The hellhound planted its two teapot-sized paws on his shoulders and feasted greedily, soon licking every last flame off his body.

Nese went out, covered in saliva. Yicha gave a whistle.

Hearing the command, "Goodbye" unhurriedly stepped on the sorcerer, knocked over two stone spheres with two leaps, and pounced toward the demon.

Yicha stroked his beloved hound's head and looked at it fondly without scolding it too much.

His sudden disappearance must have frightened it. Fortunately, he had returned now. He knew Goodbye had been waiting for him at the edge of Chaos Hell.

Hellhounds were stubborn creatures whose minds were connected to their demons. Each one had to choose its master, be chosen in return, and form a contract. So long as they were on the same plane as their master, no matter how far apart they were, these dogs could lock onto their master's location and rush to their side.

Goodbye obediently lay beside Yicha, rubbing its head against the thigh of its long-separated master and lazily belching black smoke.

Nese sat blankly on the ground, several paw prints on his chest and abdomen, still thinking about what had just happened.

The suddenly intruding giant dog had eaten the contents of the test, making it impossible to tell whether that hasty, straightforward spellcasting had worked.

He felt so sticky, and smelled awful.

There were still two kinds left.

He looked up at his mentor and spread his energy vision.

The Core of Disorder twitched and writhed, surrounded by cyan life-star points like fireflies, while a thousand soft tentacles swayed like snakes, appearing and vanishing. Beneath his fitted black-and-red robe, many laws were hidden as well.

Against a pitch-black background, energies of every color shifted and changed across Yicha's body.

There was one point of doubt he had noticed earlier.

The sorcerer narrowed his eyes and calmed himself.

His gaze shifted to Yicha's waist. A gold-inlaid scimitar hung there.

The scimitar was shrouded in black mist, making it hard to see clearly, but the smoke there looked denser. Small spherical objects were mixed within it.

Looking carefully, it was not the core-bearing black mist that represented disorder, but countless black particles.

Hundreds... perhaps thousands, tens of thousands of black particles.

They wriggled and bounced, flying only a short distance outward before dissolving without a trace.

Then several thousand, tens of thousands more black particles formed, flew outward, and repeated the cycle endlessly.

Nese's gaze returned to the gold-inlaid scimitar. The blade. It was radiating energy.

He recalled an extremely rare material: Yin Iron.

If that was the case, then the scattered particulate power should be the equally rare power of true chaos.

The power of true chaos.

It could not be summoned, synthesized, transformed, or contained.

According to current records, it existed naturally only in Yin Iron ore growing at the end of the Reversing River of Hell.

Many scholars did not even know this energy domain existed, while the few senior scholars often confused the power of true chaos with disorder energy, because they were quite similar both in sound and in appearance under energy vision.

Nese had once asked Yicha about this:

Why was the most common core-bearing black mist in hell not named chaos, but disorder?

He remembered Yicha answering like this:

"First, the names of energy domains were not coined by demons. As with every domain, whenever someone discovers a new one, they first report it to the Garden of the Equilibrator. If the existence of this new domain can be reproduced and confirmed, then either the discoverer proposes a name, or the Round Table discusses and decides on the final name.

"The names and characteristics of the energy domains I told you about are the accumulated conclusions of the Garden of the Equilibrator over tens of thousands of years.

"As for the names of the disorder energy domain and the power of true chaos, if you want to get to the bottom of it, I think we should ask the scholar who first came to Chaos Hell twenty thousand years ago. His report and proposal from back then are in a record called <Distribution and Classification of Chaos Hell Energy Sources>.

"Lastly, I share your question. This is one of the studies I intend to carry out in the future. If there is a future."

Another study he intended to do. There was still such a vast expanse of blank space, so many unsolved mysteries...

Nese truly wanted to be able to help.

Not merely help. He wanted a share in all of it...

For that, he had to study hard.

"The fifth kind: the power of true chaos."

Nese gathered his thoughts and spoke the answer in his heart, while unhesitatingly giving himself a point.

Five kinds.

Correct. Yicha nodded absentmindedly.

The sorcerer looked him over from head to toe again. The demon had not concealed anything, reclining halfway against a massive gray-white stone sphere, yet he could no longer see anything.

There was one more kind. Answer the last one correctly, and he would earn the right to travel through hell with his mentor.

Xiqisi and Keir had actually failed to cherish such a precious opportunity. He felt sorry for them.

Nese's gaze swept back and forth over the demon, his eyes almost splitting wide open.

Only the last kind remained, but he could not see anything new.

Yicha glanced at him. Seeming to notice his predicament, he patted the hellhound's head.

"Ah. Forget it. There's one kind I rarely use. We'll leave it out for now. You pass."

"Please give me a little more time."

The sorcerer felt as though this was charity.

"There's no time left." Yicha lazily raised a hand and pointed.

Nese looked in the direction he indicated.

At some point, the Fork-tongue Willow had lost its final form. Its flames had gone out, black smoke rose, and it had become a pool of charred black ash.

"Just a little more time," Nese pleaded.

He suddenly felt hot.

That was strange. Since becoming an energy creature, he had barely felt any heat even when he had just been set on fire.

Yicha abruptly sat up. Cyan flames flickered in his eye sockets.

"Perfect, there isn't any left," he said shortly.

Goodbye let out a low growl.

The demon turned the direction of his pointing hand. His finger now aimed at the distant horizon where sulfur flowed backward.

Nese stared at it blankly.

He felt a scorching heat.

The night sky, pale as a dead man's face, grew darker, and a blot of black like spilled ink appeared on the horizon.

"Transform. Yourself."

Yicha leaped down and spoke to the sorcerer. The hellhound nimbly followed behind him.

Yicha understood what was happening in an instant. Other demons had followed Goodbye's trail and found them.

They could not stay here any longer.

He stared fixedly at the edge of the sky, his back to Nese, and drew a circle behind him with one hand. "Use this."

With the movement of his hand, as though a cookie cutter had pressed out a blueberry biscuit, a huge piece of dense, core-bearing disorder mist steaming with black vapor was sliced out of thin air, its cross-section perfectly neat.

Nese said nothing more and stirred the mass of energy.

He had never tried transforming with the power of disorder. But he knew what it would bring him.

Black mist spread and swelled around him. Those twitching, flickering eyeballs arranged themselves before him, bobbing up and down as they locked onto the same direction.

His direction.

Stars... He drew a sigil in his palm and instinctively raised his head, trying to find the correct star positions.

"No need." Yicha's voice came from somewhere near and far at once.

Scorching heat.

Don't go.

Don't go.

Don't go, the little people in Nese's heart who represented "rules" said.

Scorching heat.

Goodbye, little people. He steeled himself, stepped forward, and threw himself into the darkness of disorder.

Screech screech screech screech

Screech screech screech screech—

Screech screech screech screech...

It was like walking into a collection of solid sound waves. A noise capable of blasting apart one's nerves suddenly rang through his eardrums without warning.

The sound of fingernails scraping across glass, of a dull saw cutting through sheep bones, of a heavy axe shattering a skull, the rustling of maggots writhing, screams, moans, crazed shrill laughter.

Scorching heat.

Clamor.

His body seemed to be quietly changing.

A powerful hand grabbed and pulled him up. His body rose into the air, and he was carried away in flight.

The air compressed and trembled, whistling beneath his feet.

Yicha's unhurried voice came from beside his ear. "Remember, your name is Villed. You are my steward. A little demon."