Apollo.
Sleeping like a content fool, even in the cramped trunk.
Wang Xiao's gaze didn't change.
From behind, the driver chuckled, voice stretching like silk over knife.
"He was sniffing around your na. So I snatched him up. Slapped so lullabies into his soul. Had to tie his ego down with three dream-chains."
Wang Xiao turned slightly.
And the driver shimred.
The illusion lted.
His form morphed.
His limbs straightened.
His coat extended into a long, ethereal robe of midnight stitched with nebula threads.
His eyes now glowed like mirrored moons, and from his back unfolded four phantom wings, featherless, composed entirely of dream-smoke and shifting symbols, runes, ancient tongues forgotten.
"I suppose it's polite to finally say it-" He bowed in mock theatre. "Morpheus. Keeper of the Eleventh Realm. Weaver of Sleep. Lord of Dreams and Delirium. Forr simp. Now freelance lunatic."
Wang Xiao raised a brow.
"You again."
Morpheus snapped his fingers. The lollipop turned into a dagger made of starlight, then into a rose, then back into candy. "Hey. That hurts. I gave you two gifts already. Orb of protection, the Book of Dream Consciousness. This-" he waved toward the trunk, "-is the third... Don't I deserve sothing back?"
Wang Xiao stayed silent.
But a faint tremor cracked through the ground.
A thick stone slab erupted!
BOOM
Right in front of Morpheus, nearly smashing into his shin.
"Still not a hugger, huh?" Morpheus sighed. "Aurora was like that too. So cold, both of you... So... rigid."
Wang Xiao's gaze darkened.
"Are you still trying to please her?"
Morpheus laughed hollowly.
"Oh, I gave up. I now experint with everything. n. Monsters. Mirror spirits. I even dated a concept of regret last month, it didn't end well."
Wang Xiao didn't speak.
He raised a finger.
Snap.
Morpheus blinked.
Then scread.
"AAAAHHHHHH!! MY DREAMMAKER!"
He clutched between his legs.
Nothing.
Not even a hint of anatomical nostalgia.
He looked down.
Still nothing!
His ding-dong was gone.
Clean.
Vanished into the realm of conceptual absence.
"W-WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" he scread, collapsing to the floor.
Wang Xiao shut the trunk slowly.
Then stepped over the crying god like stepping over a forgotten toy.
He glared, "Co within ten ters of again... and I'll erase you from existence."
Morpheus lay fetal, whimpering, wings flickering like dying fireflies.
"WHY DO I ONLY LOVE THE TOXIC ONES?!-Ah?"
Morpheus wailed into the heavens, his voice like broken porcelain, but mid-cry, he paused.
He looked down.
His arms were dissolving.
Not vanishing.
Evaporating... Like dream-mist pulled into the void.
"Hey—WAIT! WAIT! HOLD ON—!"
Shhhhhh...
Too late.
By the ti he even finished his sentence, his torso was gone.
Only his head remained.
Wang Xiao watched in silence.
Shatter.
A dull crack echoed as Morpheus's remaining form burst into glittering particles, like broken glass in a snowstorm.
Gone.
Just like that.
Wang Xiao frowned. "…There was no need to kill him yet. He might've had more to say."
A few seconds passed.
"Ooh~"
A soft voice ca from behind, floating like the sound of dew landing on fire.
A pale hand poked the trunk lid open.
Then a second.
Then a head popped in, upside down.
Long silver-white hair cascading like moonlight, brushing the side of the unconscious won's faces.
Wide, coral blue eyes sparkled like she'd just stumbled upon a box of kittens instead of kidnappings.
"Hmm…" she mused, pouting slightly. "I rember these two… What were their nas…"
She tilted her head cutely, like a confused fox pretending to be a kitten.
"The red-haired one… must be Lian! And the black-haired one's definitely… Linda!"
Wang Xiao's eye twitched.
Even her nonsense had style.
It was Aurora, in all her witch-like radiance.
Wrapped in a white robe that floated like mist, lips pink and slightly curved in mock confusion. She looked like a priestess… or the final boss behind the ga.
Behind that innocent facade, he knew, lay a snake that had coiled through tilines and torn hearts from angels.
She clasped her hands together, eyes wide.
"So cute, you kept them alive~… only for soone to use them as bloodhounds to sniff you out!"
Wang Xiao ignored her sarcasm and looked back at the bodies.
Now that she brought it up, it made sense.
These two weren't just random sluts.
They were the bar and brothel owners from the ti he fled Xianthera, in Icevale buried under dust and betrayal.
Won who once treated him as a runaway dog, then as a potential cash cow.
Now?
They were the bait.
Apollo must've been poking around, tracing his footprints. These two were likely chard, or bribed, into leaking info. And Morpheus, picked them up like forgotten chips and delivered the whole platter.
Wang Xiao looked at Aurora.
Her expression now completely calm, one finger twirling her hair.
He narrowed his eyes.
"How long have you known about it?"
Aurora smiled faintly, resting her chin in her palm.
"What do you think I do when no one's keeping company?"
"…"
Wang Xiao's gaze reflexively dropped to her slender fingers.
Aurora's face twitched, offended.
"I don't do that, okay?"
Her lips pursed, a faint rosy tint dusting her cheeks. Then her expression turned cold.
"I spread fragnts of your past. Fabricated so. Exaggerated others. Just enough to attract flies... and see who'd co sniffing."
She flicked her finger.
A soft hum of resonance echoed in the trunk, like blood rembering betrayal.
"They're not just looking into you for curiosity's sake. That man calling himself 'Zeus', he has an entire faction. Apollo is just one of the mutts."
She paused, brushing her white hair back as she looked at the two unconscious won.
"You should learn to wipe your hands properly after eating."
"…You think I left them behind on purpose?" Wang Xiao muttered.
"No. But sloppiness and sentint... they both stink the sa after a while." Aurora's voice was strangely distant.
Wang Xiao's eyes narrowed further.
He had always been cautious. He cleaned his kills, like every predator should. But back then, before the Graveyard of Gods, he was different. Fragnted. Less awake.
So mories from that ti were like fogged mirror, only visible when stared into too long.
It wasn't that he forgot.
It was that he didn't rember.
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