The sun rose and set, spring gave way to autumn, and soon, fifteen hundred years had passed.
That day, in a corner of the Sea of Blood.
"Buzz~" A vast expanse of golden mandala flowers trembled. Then their petals began to fall, and tiny fruits emerged from their buds. They were... bearing fruit!
Standing before the flowers, a plump, black-and-white bear wearing a mask saw this, and his eyes immediately lit up. He hurriedly turned and shouted, "Great One, the Godslaying Flowers are bearing fruit!"
"Whoosh!" As his words fell, a streak of blood-red light flashed past, and a gaunt old man with a sinister face appeared beside him. Looking at the fruit-bearing golden mandalas, River Styx nodded and smiled. "Thirty years earlier than I expected. It seems your careful tending deserves the credit."
"You flatter me, Great One." Gungun, whose mask kept out the fragrance of the Godslaying Flowers, scratched his head and spoke with some embarrassment.
As for his thousand-odd years in the Sea of Blood, how should he put it...
At first, things really had been unpleasant. He had to hold up a stone and could never put it down. Later, though, he felt his days were quite decent. While transporting bloodstone from the depths of the Sea of Blood, he could distinctly feel wisps of pure life force flowing into his body. It felt wonderfully comfortable, like soaking in a bath.
Tending these golden mandalas afterward carried a certain amount of danger, but with the Dust-Cleansing Mask, a superior-grade acquired magical treasure, and the red Mandala Fruits River Styx occasionally rewarded him with, that danger was practically nonexistent. After all, he was only tending them, not eating them.
Sometimes, after watering them with spirit water and using spells to adjust the hostile energy to the right