A Waste of Time-Chapter 118: Verdant Murmurs

'This was well outside my expectations,'
Daemon muttered as his mind wandered all the way from his prison and through the mental link to this unfamiliar forest, watched as his clone was careful with each step as he explored.
'What happened to you over there, boss? How come you’ve got a new clone and I suddenly have a brother?'
Ippo’s voice came through the mental link, his excitement almost spilling over.
'You already know everything. Don’t bother asking me about things you can pull straight from the memories I shared',
Daemon replied dryly. Then he added, '
I’m going to check if the System will let me return to the Orc Camp'.
'I’m coming with you. I can feel it calling me through the connection!'
Ippo shouted.
Then the boy felt it—the link wavered, and the presence of both clones vanished, leaving him alone. Betrayal stabbed through him.
“Guys!” he called aloud, hoping they could somehow still hear him. “I think I know where I am…” Silence answered. He clenched his fists. “Bastards! Leaving me high and dry, butt naked in a forest.”
Grumbling, he crept toward the remains of the abandoned campsite. There he rummaged through the scattered supplies his servants had left behind. Among them he found a dirtied article of clothing Mei hadn’t had time to wash before everything spiraled out of control. He pulled it on gratefully.
“Young master Daemon!”
The boy froze mid-step, just as he was preparing to slip out of camp and make his way to the Nie’s Smithy. A familiar voice cut through the trees. Turning, he saw a man in white robes standing just beyond the treeline, gawking at him in open disbelief.
It was Protector Fu Jian.
“Is that really you?” the man demanded. “Are you his twin brother? Why didn’t you escape? If the Mountain’s Law Enforcers find you, you’ll be in serious trouble!” His white robes fluttered as he strode closer, already pulling a bundle from his own storage: black clothes, a hooded cloak, a white mask, and black leather shoes that shrank to the boy’s size once infused with Wind Qi.
Daemon's clone accepted them calmly, slipping the garments on piece by piece. “Well… I’m not Daemon. And I’m not the twin brother you once met, either.” He tugged the cloak around his shoulders, then fastened the mask over his face. “I’m the youngest of us triplets.”
Fu Jian’s eyes went wide. He had personally led the investigation into this child’s origins. Da Niu’s mother, Hoa, had confirmed to him with her own lips that she bore only one son from his father Da Wei, who met his death soon after the boy reached the age of five—no twins, no siblings. Yet he had seen with his own eyes two figures before: one brilliant with speed and strength, the other a quiet grinder who trained endlessly. And now… a third.
“Where is your second brother then?” Fu Jian asked, glancing back toward the direction Daemon had emerged from the forest.
“He’s with Daemon’s servants,” the boy replied without hesitation. “A merchant named Li Yue, and her niece. All of them are flying on Kirin’s back, heading straight to the White-Moon Syndicate’s Headquarters in the Burning Dawn Dynasty. They’ve already crossed the Iron-Tiger Kingdom’s borders.”
Fu Jian sifted through his intelligence s in his mind. The names matched—the merchant and her niece had indeed appeared in the records he received from the Main Branch of the Seven-Gold Pagoda last month. Their direction also aligned with the latest sightings of the Soul-Snatcher Eagle. The boy wasn’t lying.
“And your first brother—Daemon? Do you know where the Mountain has taken him?” Fu Jian pressed, desperation edging his voice.
“He’s being kept in the Azure Lock Chamber of the Merit Hall,” came the quiet reply. “They’re bleeding him dry, but he's awake and safe for now.”
Excitement flared in Fu Jian’s chest at this priceless piece of news—but it quickly twisted into shock. “You’re… able to keep track of your brothers’ locations?” he whispered, as though speaking louder might shatter the truth.
The boy turned his masked face toward him. Fu Jian couldn’t see his expression, but he saw the way those black eyes gleamed—smiling.
“We need to go. I hear someone coming from this direction… and another, a little further that way.” He pointed, sharp and precise.
A blink later, both vanished from the campsite.
“Whoa!” Fu Jian staggered as reality shifted, finding himself transported all the way to the Bat-Graveyard—a place villagers still whispered about, where a mortal once bested six Immortals in consecutive battles before finally collapsing into capture.
“Lead the way to Blue-Luan Town,” the boy said, already sprinting down the dirt road. “I can only teleport to places my brothers and I have been before. I can’t reach Daemon—he’s locked inside a Temporal Seal Formation. And Ippo and the others are too far; to get to them I’d have to leap across every place they stopped along their journey.”
Fu Jian ran at his side, mind racing. Every word this child spoke, he etched into memory. Information this valuable was gold—perhaps even more than gold.
Daemon found himself once again inside the System’s strange machinations. But this time, he wasn’t alone.
Ippo stood beside him, eyes wide with wonder as he took in the sight. They were standing at the edge of a tiny island—little more than a sandbar crowned with a patch of grass. At the center grew two curved palm trees, their fronds overlapping like an arch, casting a heart-shaped shade.
“I guess this was meant to be our honeymoon spot,” Ippo muttered, splashing water against Daemon’s legs as the waves rolled up the shore. “Heart-shaped palms, the ocean, clear skies, and total privacy!” With a whoop of laughter, the clone sprinted for the center of the island and collapsed beneath the palms. “This is heaven!”
Daemon wiped saltwater from his face, but his gaze wasn’t on the island. He turned toward the sea, staring down at the ocean floor beneath the waves. Yet there was nothing—just sand. No tiles, no darkness, no jaws of a leviathan. The torment he had endured at the Leviathan-Maw Trial now seemed like nothing more than a cruel illusion.
“Hey! What’s this?” Ippo’s shout pulled him back. The clone was crouched at the grassy center, hands wrapped around a thick metal lever protruding from the earth. Daemon felt the strain through their link as Ippo grunted and heaved. The lever didn’t budge. Face reddening, veins bulging, Ippo snarled, “Ugh… This thing… is… so… heavy!”
Daemon gave the sea one last glance before striding over. Together they pulled, their muscles trembling, until finally the lever began to shift. But the moment they paused to catch their breath, the mechanism groaned and dragged itself back into place.
The waves washed the shore, unending, bearing silent witness to their struggle. At one point, a larger swell rolled in, churning the sand at the spot Daemon had stared into earlier. For an instant, a white tile surfaced, golden number
1
gleaming at its center, with the name
Da Niu
etched below. Neither boy saw it. They were too busy lying flat beneath the palms, gasping for breath, their chests heaving.
“Damn it! We were so close this time.” Ippo slammed his fist into the grass.
“Save your strength. We need a new tactic.” Daemon pushed himself upright and moved to the opposite side of the lever.
Understanding flashed in Ippo’s eyes. Their bond carried the plan without words. One would push while the other pulled.
The new method yielded results, but only barely. The lever fought back with a relentless force, each inch gained threatening to grind their joints to dust. Still, they endured—shifting roles, one resting while the other held the strain, then switching again. Their bodies screamed, their muscles burned, and their bones ground against one another under the load of cumulative fatigue. But slowly, they advanced.
“Push!” Daemon barked when his collarbone nearly snapped under the pressure. Ippo obeyed, legs straining, forcing the lever forward. They swapped again, and again, each time holding the line by the barest margin.
Until—
Click.
The sound was soft, almost dainty. Yet it rang in their ears sweeter than any song they had ever heard.
Exhaustion claimed them both. Daemon and Ippo collapsed face-first into the grass, too drained to even cheer, their bodies buried in its cool, forgiving embrace.
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