Taira released the hair of the final hero and roughly shoved him back into bed.

As the oaf began a dreamless sleep, the fox demon became incorporeal once more and made his way back into the hallway.

He’d gone into just about every room in the castle by now. His compulsion had taken roots in the minds of

He hoped that, by the time he finished, Aveena and Shakti hadn’t already fallen asleep.

His eyes briefly turned pink, and his stomach growled with a different flavor of hunger.

"Is that all you can think about...? I’m not complaining, I’m just asking."

Startled, Taira shot to the ceiling and looked around for danger like a wild animal.

Instead of an enemy, the only thing he found was an annoying old fox in the form of a wispy spirit.

"Ha! Blood of the fox, bat, and cat apparently! You seem to have the entire animal kingdom resting within your bones, boy."

Fenris’ deep cackle reverberated against Taira’s eardrums. Slowly, the master of Black Myth descended from his place on the ceiling with an annoyed look.

"What are you doing here...? How are you speaking to me like this...?"

Fenris didn’t even spare him a glance as he looked around.

"Enough time has passed. The link between us is strong enough that I do not need to simply appear in moments you are unconscious."

"How about you do not appear at all?"

"Cheeky little bitch. Is that any way to greet your patriarch and benefactor!?"

Taira decided it was best to ignore the old man and continue working. However, Fenris seemed unusually chatty that night because he continued to follow Taira around while asking questions about things he usually wouldn’t have cared less about.

"What are you doing in a place with so many humans?"

"Working."

"I see. Diplomacy, is it?"

"An attempt at the matter."

"You’re wasting your time then. You would be better served in training, hastening your time to reach the upper realm." Fenris urged.

Taira rolled his eyes as he put another maid to sleep. "There are many things that I have learned to value beyond my training. Whether they hold any importance to you matters so infinitely insignificant to me that I won’t even bother finishing my..."

The fox smirked as Fenris seethed with rage.

"Mark my words, whelp. You are wasting your time. And showing your naivety to boot."

Taira didn’t know why, but he decided to pause and hear out the ancient immortal. Perhaps he figured there was no way to stop him from talking anyway...

He leaned against the wall, folding his arms while giving Fenris a condescending look.

"You clearly have something to say. Speak and be done."

Fenris rolled his eyes. "You’re wasting your time playing stupid games! You are trying to stop insects from crawling through dirt!"

"Spare me your euphemisms..." Taira yawned.

"You are trying to change the very nature of mortality, boy! This is what they do! Tribalism is what they are; it is all that they know! They will always find something to pick the other apart about because they can’t see anything else!"

Taira frowned in annoyance.

"Mark my words, boy. They squabbled like this before you; they will do it long after you. Do you think you can compel the entire planet? I don’t care how strong you think you are now, a spell of that level would kill you in a fortnight."

Taira spoke once again, and his voice was noticeably colder.

"What do you want, Fenris...?"

"I’ve been telling you, boy, but you aren’t listening!" Fenris roared. "I want you to stop wasting your time on this foolish crusade and focus on ascending! You waste your power and your talents on those who do not deserve it!"

In an instant, Yasuke was pointed at Fenris’ Adam’s apple, and the temperature in the room quickly began to drop.

"You have said your piece. Stop talking."

Fenris didn’t seem very threatened by Taira. Then again, he wasn’t really expecting him to be.

He had simply grown so annoyed that he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

"...Mark this, boy. Fighting the inevitable is a game for fools and madmen. Unburden yourself from this folly. Focus on what truly matters."

Fenris disappeared shortly afterward. And Taira, despite his annoyance, finally realized exactly why Fenris had come to see him.

Something in the upper realm was making the beast god panic.

-

Aveena found Taira sitting on the edge of their bed.

He had arrived silently, as always. But he had also returned without his usual playful, doting energy.

Taira must have sensed her staring at him, because he spoke without turning his head.

"Are we attempting to stop ants from crawling through the dirt...?"

Aveena sat up slowly, gently shifting Shakti’s weight onto the pillow so that she could keep sleeping.

"Honey, you know I’m bad with euphemisms..."

Aveena shuffled across the bed, reaching behind her husband to undress him.

He confessed to her his conversation with Fenris as Aveena pulled away the layers of his clothing. He recounted every word shared with perfect clarity.

Taira even included his own suspicions about there being something amiss in the upper realm to make the beast god feel rushed.

In the end, Aveena held her husband from behind, her cheek resting against the nape of his neck.

"So our mission seems unobtainable to you now, does it?"

"...I will admit that it does not seem as plausible as it once did."

"You are looking at this as if it is a problem only you can solve. And thus, you see it as an issue that will surely arise again after you have turned your back."

Taira could be a slightly worrisome man. Any problem that he didn’t directly solve was liable to come back up again. Or at least, that was his belief.

"I think we’ve been away from home for too long." Aveena guessed. "You get a bit cynical when you haven’t seen Vermeil smile in a while."

If there were no truth to Aveena’s words, then Taira could have easily dismissed them. And yet, as he remembered Vermeil, he felt slightly unsettled.

His little human was like a dream. Soft as a cloud. As patient as an old sage.

She was a special existence. One who had stolen not only his heart, but Inadu’s as well. The one among them who should have hated humans the most.

But Taira was aware that he could not compel every individual into being Vermeil. Nor was it feasible for him to kill everyone who wasn’t.

So if the solution to his problem wasn’t feasible through murder, and it wasn’t realistic to do so with compulsion, then was there an answer to the world’s problems that he just wasn’t seeing...?

Or was it better to simply let mortality be mortality, and focus his attention on helping his people and his family ascend to the upper realm?