Mythic.

—

Gazing at the beautiful ethereal fauna and flora ecosystem brought by Yggdrasil alone, Richard took a deep breath, feeling the cool sensation of the misty air throughout the realm. Turning his head away from the different celestial bodies, he realized there was no literal sun lighting up this entire plane of existence. Despite that, there was no concept of darkness in this realm, as the sky glowed with every kaleidoscopic color, and the land beneath it was filled with fauna and flora that always had an ethereal purple glow.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Turning toward Margarita, Richard looked back at the expanses of the aurora borealis. Raising his hand to caress the misty glowing air after some time, he replied, "Yes. Yes, it is." Inhaling the cool, refreshing sensation that this land had to offer, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and asked, "What happened? Did we… Did we escape?"

Shaking her head with a downcast expression, Margarita answered, "No, not yet. We are still being hunted down by Archimonde. He has more advanced knowledge of tracking magic than any of us. We have been flying Yggdrasil and teleporting it out of here for two whole days straight. Luckily, he and his army do not have any kind of flying transportation yet; if they did, we would probably be doomed by now."

Recognizing the name of the one who had beaten him black and blue, Richard found a random tree trunk, sat down, and replied with one sentence, "I see." Looking at the small pond in front of him and seeing its calmness and tranquility, he sighed in defeat. Watching peculiar magenta-colored frogs peacefully swimming in the water, Richard just sat there contemplating his options at that moment.

Weaving a spell to move away the green-purple moss from the trunk, Margarita proceeded to sit beside Richard, who was lost in thought. Seeing the glimmering pond with all kinds of aquatic ethereal fauna and flora, Margarita remembered to ask Richard's opinion, "Oh yeah. You don't mind that we used Huginn and Muninn plus Skidbladnir to help us cast the levitation and teleportation spells, do you?"

Seeing luminescent leaves of a tree shaped like straws within arm's length, Richard gently took and caressed one, feeling its cotton-like structure for quite a while. Letting go of the plant, he replied, "I don't," while flipping his translucent ashen-gray watch, seeing the endless notifications of attacks on Yggdrasil's brain. Summoning a keyboard with Aon logographic symbols on each key, Richard then started to work his cybersecurity mind to the maximum, even using his flaming mark Sun Breathing to boost his brain.

Noticing Richard becoming silent as a way of coping, Margarita played with the unique leaves as well while contemplating what was happening to them.

From Philipa, who couldn't contain her rage, flipping out at anyone who made a single mistake, to Logain and Lanfear, who mumbled to themselves like terminally ill patients, to Narishma and Ciri, who trained themselves to madness, not caring about their bodies, to her and Triss, who became so emotional and couldn't control their sadness, every one of them was affected differently.

They, the twelve Heralds, just embarking on their own new Mythic Path, didn't realize that losing to someone with their own Mythic Path as well would affect their state of mind so profoundly. She and the others didn't even know what a Mythic Path was before the phantom image appeared in the sky.

They only knew that they wanted to create something that could be considered a legend by common people, not that they would start to become legends themselves. Maybe this is the drawback of having an immortal soul; maybe this is the challenge they need to face when mortals in the physical world step into the realms of the gods. One thing is for sure, though, they didn't like it one bit.

Noticing Margarita's unstable state of mind and recognizing that each of them was affected—perhaps because their souls had transformed into something different—Richard silently opened another program after finishing the upgrade of Yggdrasil and Skidbladnir's defense mechanisms, with an extra something he had secretly added.

[Science Cybersecurity: Honeypot.]

[Detail: Create a virtual system to mimic the real system. Can be used to create fake data that looks genuine but is isolated from the main data. Able to mislead and deceive someone into thinking it is the real user.]

Pressing the enter button to launch the program, Richard instantly felt his mind clear from the gloomy atmosphere. Seeing the marble ball of data materialize into the world, he picked up this useless junk contaminated with Archimonde's Demon Mythic Path and Gaunter O'Dimm's Devil Mythic Path.

Rubbing the marble ball of data and chuckling to himself, Richard couldn't imagine that just after he started to become a legend, he was already being played and toyed with by these two seniors of his. One wanted to conquer him, and the other wanted to manipulate him—what a very warm welcome that was.

Sighing, since there was nothing he could do when power and authority came into play, Richard looked at Margarita, who was currently emotionally unstable and on the verge of tears. Employing the same tactics with the twelve Heralds, especially Yennefer, who was currently holding the Wish Access Key, he saw many marbles of useless junk data materializing one after the other.

There was even a new one, Cenarius' Azata Mythic Path, appearing in the data owned by the only elven person in the group, Faralda. Taking the colorful bunch of marbles into his pocket, Richard asked the confused Margarita, curious, "Oh yes, Rita. Do you know where Faralda is?"

Confused as to why she suddenly did not feel emotional anymore and not noticing the marble balls Richard had collected, Margarita was startled at being called by her short name. Quickly composing herself, she told him where Faralda had gone, "She is currently scrying on the ground, searching for potential allies, after we did the divination on how to win against Archimonde. And she should return anytime now, considering the last contact we had with her."

Turning back to his watch and seeing the new kernel of Yggdrasil and Skidbladnir, which he had secretly overhauled to be the same as Huginn and Muninn, Richard decided to let it go. Knowing that sooner or later they would fight Archimonde and his lackeys anyway and that the more allies they had, the easier it would be for them to defend the tree without his help.

Moreover, after realizing that he had almost been manipulated so many times, he thought it would be better to stay silent and have one or two trump cards. Gazing once more at the new kernel of Yggdrasil and Skidbladnir, which had become the background system for the virtual kernel machine created by the other Heralds, Richard just replied, "Okay," to Margarita's news.

—