A Zoologist’s Guide to Surviving Magical Creatures

"You shouldn't be here," Vorta's voice thundered through my skull—less like speech, more like thought pressed into bone. "Leave. Immediately."

"Wow," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. "Right. Nice to meet you too…"

Sarcasm was a defense mechanism at this point. One I wielded like a rusty butter knife.

"Look, if we weren't neck-deep in apocalyptic threats and desperate for your so-called legendary wisdom, I wouldn't have risked letting an Unknown God's fragment yeet me halfway across space-time, okay?"

Vorta's glowing eyes narrowed. Then, with the weary grace of someone who'd long stopped being surprised by stupidity, he closed them again.

"My advice," he said, slow and heavy, "is still for you to leave."

His voice, though calm, held weight. Not anger. Not even disdain.

Warning.

"The palace isn't safe," he added after a pause. "Especially… not for you."

The way he said "you" made the back of my neck prickle. Like he knew something I didn't. Like I was the match in a room full of powder kegs.

"Well, excuse me for not being handed a handbook titled 'How to Save the World When You're Not a God but Somehow Partially Responsible Because You Accidentally Own It.'" I threw up my hands, half-exhausted, half-unhinged. "Not exactly something they cover in owner's orientation. OH WAIT… I don't have one!"

Vorta let out a low sound—somewhere between a scoff and a tired exhale. If a primordial bird could roll its eyes, I was pretty sure I just witnessed it.

"Still clinging to sarcasm, are we?" he rumbled, voice like thunder filtered through apathy. "Admirable. Or foolish. Hard to tell sometimes."

Vorta's eyes opened slowly, twin embers flickering behind a veil of ancient exhaustion. For a fleeting second—just one—I glimpsed something that didn't belong in an ancient divine beast: sorrow. But just as quickly, it vanished beneath the usual stoic cold.

"I can only freeze time for another ten minutes," he said, voice low, like a dying storm. "That's all I can give you… for now."

My mouth fell open. "Wait—what? Just like that?"

Ten minutes? That's barely enough time to survive a workplace meeting, let alone rewrite destiny.

My brain scrambled into panic mode. Think, Carl, think. You've got a literal god-bird in front of you, and the clock's already bleeding.

Right. Priorities.

"I came to deliver a message," I blurted. "From Bifang."

Vorta's gaze sharpened at that, his feathers ruffling ever so slightly.

"You do realize," I said carefully, "the Stragglers… they're coming."

There. I said it.

Bifang's last words—the dying breath of a flaming bird who technically wasn't dead, just temporarily out of commission in the whole "phoenix-cycle" rebirth department. Still, semantics aside, the message carried the weight of finality.

"Bifang?" Vorta's voice echoed in my mind, quiet, heavy. "How is he?"

"He's… gone. Well—sort of. He's in the middle of a rebirth phase," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "So not completely dead, just… temporarily unavailable."

At that, Vorta fell silent again. His eyes locked onto mine—ancient, unreadable, piercing enough to make my spine contract. I couldn't tell if he was grieving or calculating. Or both. Maybe neither. That was the worst part—trying to read a god-beast that stared at you like the last insect in a dying terrarium.

"I'm here because of the Stragglers," I said, careful with my tone now. "They're coming. And we need your help."

He didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Just kept staring.

I swallowed. The stillness between us felt sharp, like the air had been strung tight on invisible wire. Vorta's presence was so heavy it weighed on my bones, and craning my neck to look up at him from the floor was becoming borderline spinal trauma.

"Also… random request," I said with a wince, "but would it kill you to shrink down a little? Not that your majestic towering presence isn't terrifyingly impressive, but my neck's about to file a complaint."

He stared.

Nothing changed.

Still towering. Still bird-zilla mode. Still no signs of mercy.

Somewhere in my skull, I heard the faintest hmm—the kind that sounded less like thinking and more like quiet judgment. Fantastic.

Okay, so not a hard no, but definitely not a yes either.

I resisted the urge to check an actual watch—because time didn't need help reminding me that I only had, what, eight minutes left now? Eight minutes to convince a semi-dormant celestial Roc to get involved in a potential apocalyptic showdown. Piece of cake, right?

Outside the fragment space, the beast guarding the Eternal Prison was probably still hovering mid-air, teeth bared, salivating over the moment the time-freeze lifted and I dropped back down into snack range. No pressure.

My throat tightened as I stared back up at Vorta.

"I know I'm not a god," I said. "I know I'm not even supposed to be in here. But if Bifang trusted me enough to carry that message—then you owe it to him to listen."

His gaze didn't soften.

But it didn't turn away either.

And that… might've been a start.

Vorta exhaled slowly, the sound less like a breath and more like the quiet shattering of glass in a darkened room.

"I cannot help you," his voice rang out inside my mind, heavy with finality. "My power is no longer what it once was. I have not recovered from my last injury."

My stomach dropped.

"Injury?" I echoed, the word catching on the edge of disbelief. "Wait—you're injured?"

Of all the things I expected, hearing that from him—a celestial Roc, one of the Unknown Gods, the keeper of Mythica's Leylines—was not on the bingo card. My brain scrambled to process it, but it kept getting snagged on one thought: If Vorta was down for the count, who the hell was left to defend the realms?

Creation and Destruction said only Vorta could withstand the Stragglers.

So if he couldn't stand…

My throat tightened. "Isn't there anything you can do? What happened to you?"

Vorta's eyes, bright as burning suns dimmed behind centuries of weariness, locked with mine.

"The last realm war," he said, "left me shattered. I fought alongside Kaleon to repel the original wave of Stragglers. I barely survived. The scars remain… and the wound festers."

I didn't breathe.

"Only Kaleon has the power to restore what was lost," he added, quieter now. "But my master is…" He trailed off, and for the first time, I saw something flicker in his eyes—grief. Ancient, buried deep, but still glowing like coal under frost.

It vanished quickly. The glint of vulnerability was gone, replaced by the cold clarity of command.

"Time is running out," he said. "Leave. Now."

"But—"

"I'm casting you out. Go."

And just like that, the world folded around me.

Light fractured. Gravity swirled. And the next thing I knew—

—I was back in midair.

Vorta's fragment still hovered above me, glowing like a miniature star caught mid-breath. I reached up, fingers brushing its edge, and it pulsed once—softly, like a sigh—before I tucked it back into my pack with trembling hands.

The moment it disappeared beneath the flap, the light dimmed.

Everything around me remained unchanged—frozen in that impossible stillness.

The Eternal Prison loomed behind me like a sleeping god. The guardian beast above was still locked in mid-roar, its wings suspended like an oil painting on the edge of fury. Below, Agnos, Heim, and Jiuge were stuck in the same moment—caught in panic, mid-rescue, mid-chaos.

Time hadn't resumed yet.

But the weight in the air was different now.

Like the clock was winding itself back up.

Like the world was ready to move again.