The bright, deep purple Void hologram that Faustus had allowed to float over the wooden table extinguished with a soft, hissing sound. The purple light sparks fell like ash onto the massive platters of food remnants. But the silence that fell in the giant feast tent afterward was unnaturally leaden. The revelation about the bloodline, the portal, and especially the direct link to Juro hung over the crowd like a suffocating blanket.
Silarias sat suddenly steadfast as a stone statue, his whole body stiff as a board. The breathing in his chest stopped completely. The memory of the mysterious tear in reality, the brute sacrifice of his own flesh and blood, and the sudden realization that his very first mentor carried a giant secret hit his brain like a nuclear strike. His fingers began to tremble uncontrollably. The golden yellow, pure solar energy in his bloodstream flared up to a dangerous level due to the sudden emotional shock. The air around his forearms began to simmer and vibrate so intensely with pure heat that the wooden table surfaces beneath them turned black.
CRACK! SNAP!
The heavy, thick glass drinking cup in his right hand exploded into hundreds of razor sharp, glistening splinters under the sudden, brute hydraulic pressure of his squeezing fist. The dark drink mixed with the shards and flowed hissing and scalding hot over his palm and the wooden table. Silarias did not even notice the physical pain. His golden pupils stared straight ahead into the absolute void with a murderous, possessed gaze. His jaws ground together so hard that the bone audibly creaked against his temples.
“So that old man just knew… damn it!!” Silarias muttered to himself in a hoarse, terrifyingly deep voice, his lips pulling back to expose his teeth in pure, pent up frustration. “Juro knew who I was the whole time… He knew everything from the very first second!”
However, the giant, epic tension vibrating in the air was made completely ridiculous in one brute, clumsy strike by a noisy, drawn out sound from the opposite side.
“HUUUAAAAAAHHH…”
Aurelius sat with his arms stretched wide in the air, his spine bent all the way back, while holding his mouth open so wide that you could see his tonsils. He let out a giant, shameless yawn that echoed through the entire tent. Right next to him sat Miki, rubbing her small hands in her eyes. Immediately after, she let out the exact same deep, cute yawn, her head dropping with a heavy thud against Ren’s shoulder.
The two fighters burst into a lazy, dead tired laugh at the same time upon noticing Silarias’ intense, heavy gaze.
“Yeah, very intense all of it, king,” Aurelius laughed in a hoarse voice, trying to wipe the remaining sauce stains from his cheeks with a limp, wooden hand gesture. “But my god, I really cannot take a single step anymore after that landing in that damn fridge. Time to take a wonderful bath and sleep.”
Upon hearing the word ‘bath’, a collective, sharp shockwave shot through the bodies of Jane and Nyx. Their eyes began to glisten and glow synchronously in a terrifying, predatory way in the dim light of the tent. The immense fatigue, the rushing adrenaline of the past hours, the abundance of shocking emotions, and the pure, possessed hormones exploded all at once through their systems. Both thought of the exact same thing at the exact same moment: this was the absolute reason why we demanded those giant, marble inlaid luxury baths in our rooms from Lyn!
Nyx simply could not hold back anymore. Her royal, heavy aura flashed up in total visual escalation, wild, dominant, and completely possessed. She leaped over the massive wooden bench in one fluid motion, ignoring the splinters, grabbed Silarias without mercy by the collar of his shirt stained with blood, sand, and grease, and began dragging him behind her toward the rear quarters with inhuman, terrifying strength.
“You are coming with me right now! No more excuses, no political nonsense, we are going straight into that room!” Nyx snapped at him with quick, heated breath. Silarias slid halfway across the sandy ground behind her, letting go of his freshly shattered glass with a completely amazed, helpless look.
Almost immediately after, logic dried up completely for Jane as well. A heat struck, possessed, and jealous look overcome her entire face. Her pupils narrowed to slits as she fixed her eyes on Aurelius, as if looking at a juicy prey trying to escape. Before the poor swordsman could strain a muscle or grab his sword, Jane literally flew across the table, mowed two platters of meat aside, grabbed him by both wrists, and dragged him at a murderous speed toward the dark corridors of their quarters.
Everyone at the table watched the bizarre spectacle with wide eyes and open mouths. A wave of held breath went through the ranks of soldiers, after which the tough officers and the brute beasthumans collectively had to cover their mouths to keep from bursting out laughing at their mighty leaders.
Only a few seconds after Jane and Aurelius vanished into the darkness of the corridor, Aurelius suddenly came running back around the corner in blind panic. It was a hilarious sight: the great hero was already half undressed. His heavy leather top flapped loosely over his shoulders, his belt was loose, and his heavy boots hung halfway off his feet as he tried to flee across the crater floor with wide, desperate steps, waving his arms in the air.
“I KNOW THAT LOOK!! HELP ME THEN?! I KNOW THAT LOOK OF HERS!!” Aurelius screamed with pure mortal dread in his voice, waving his arms wildly at the laughing crowd to seek help.
WOOSH!
From the side out of the shadows, Jane flew back out of the corridor like a possessed phantom. She launched her whole body forward with a perfect tackle, locked Aurelius around his waist with an iron grip, and began dragging him backward into the absolute darkness again with a terrifying, heat struck smile. Aurelius clawed fruitlessly at the corner of a heavy wooden feast table in his flight, causing the wood to creak and his boots to leave deep, wide tracks in the sand as he was dragged away inch by inch.
“Don't be so stingy and clumsy, honey! I am just really happy to see you back in one piece?!” the possessed, demanding voice of Jane echoed through the stone corridors, after which the heavy, meters thick oak door slammed shut with a deafening CLAP. You could hear the lock turn three times.
Miki and Ren were still watching motionless, right in the middle of the partygoers. They stared at the empty, dark corridor where two of the most feared fighters of the alliance had just been kidnapped in the most brute and tactless way by their own women. Miki held her half eaten roasted meat bone still in her hand, looked at Ren with big, completely innocent and pure eyes, and blinked her eyelids a few times slowly.
“Mm… They must be really tired from all that fighting, I think,” Miki spoke with a dead serious, soft, and questioning voice, totally unaware of what was actually going on.
Upon hearing that unbelievably pure, innocent remark, Beat and Apollo could no longer hold it in. The alcohol and humor rushed to their heads. They burst out at the same time into a roaring, bellowing laugh that struck so hard against the rock walls that the lanterns shook. They slapped each other hard on the shoulders and almost rolled off their benches with laughter.
Nicola shook his head chuckling, grabbed his large quill, and began rolling up his tactical parchments at a calm pace to restore order. Faustus sat meanwhile with a broad, heavily amused grin on his face and raised his hand with the shiny rings into the air to catch the crowd's attention and calm the situation.
“All right, people, little lady, little man, you hit the nail right on the head,” Faustus spoke with a big wink to Miki, completely distracting the remaining soldiers and beasthumans from the noise that was now softly beginning to sound from the corridors. “It is also high time for you young fighters to go to bed. The grand stories and the show are over for tonight.”
Nicola helped right away and began guiding the young beasthumans and the rest of the sleepy residents toward the safe sleeping quarters with his calm voice, slowly bringing warm peace back to the massive feast tent. Lila and Lyn stood up quietly together from their wooden chairs. They looked one last time with a telling, smiling glance at the heavy corridor door where Aurelius had just disappeared, held hands, and then left quietly laughing and mysteriously whispering hand in hand to their own quiet room.
Peace finally returned completely to the deep crater, and for the first time in an eternity, the group was complete under one roof. The noisy party sounds in the central tent slowly died out into a soft, warm smoldering bed of ash. The soldiers, the beasthumans, Beat, Apollo, Nicola, and Faustus; everyone had found their room by now. The deep, stone corridors of the quarters breathed a serene peace. At least, that was the intention.
The silence in the corridors was abruptly shattered as soon as you passed the heavy oak door of Jane’s room. Even through the meters thick wood, the stone walls vibrated to their foundations. Loud, rhythmic thuds echoed through the hallway, followed by furniture rattling as it shifted across the floor. In between sounded the unmistakable, rock hard, and possessed laughter of pure ecstasy from Jane, who was truly showing Aurelius every corner of the room. Her triumphant shouts filled the space, alternated with the muffled, exhausted, but surrendered panting of the swordsman who had completely accepted his fate.
Further down at the end of the hallway, behind the deepest set doors, a completely different world reigned.
Behind the heavy doors of Nyx’s room, the atmosphere was serene, warm, and heavily charged with a deep, intimate peace. Steaming wisps of mist hung in the air, coming from the giant marble bath carved into the stone floor. The water was perfectly hot and glistered softly under the flickering light of a few candles.
Silarias sat with his back against the smooth marble edge, his tired body sunk deep into the warm water. The tension, grease, and blood of the past struggle were slowly being washed away. Nyx sat right behind him on the edge. With extreme caution and tenderness, she slid a warm, wet cloth over his broad shoulders, tending to the scratches and scars on his back one by one. Her breathing was heavy, and her royal aura, normally so sharp and dominant, now felt soft and fragile.
The rhythmic sound of the rippling water was the only thing filling the silence, until Nyx held the cloth still on his shoulder. Her hands began to tremble softly.
“I really thought you were dead, Sill…” Nyx whispered suddenly, her voice cracking from intensity. She bent her head forward, causing her hair to touch his neck softly. “When that huge explosion tore through the sky… I felt my whole world collapse. Never do that again… please never do that to me again.”
It was an emotional, raw dialogue of a long lost love that had been bottled up for far too long.
Silarias opened his golden pupils and felt a huge lump rise in his throat. He wanted to turn around to respond seriously and strongly. “Nyx… listen, I—”
But the moment he uttered her name, everything that had happened recently flashed through his head in one all destroying fraction of a second. The death of his mentors, the heavy restrictions, the sacrifice of his uncle whom he had never known, the fact that Juro had known the truth the whole time, and the unbearable pressure of the God he carried on his young shoulders like a curse. The complete visual storm of memories flooded his mind so mercilessly that it completely overwhelmed him.
The king, the reincarnation of the most powerful entity ever, collapsed internally.
Silarias turned around in the water and slumped powerlessly, his head buried heavily in the arms and against the chest of Nyx. The emotions broke through all his barriers, and he began to weep uncontrollably. The tears flowed scalding hot over his cheeks and mixed with the bathwater. It was not a soft sob, but the raw, unleashed grief of a boy who had been forced to carry the whole world for far too long.
“YEAH… really, right…” Silarias brought out sobbing and faltering, clinging tightly to her as if afraid she would vanish. “I will get stronger… I must get stronger! Become better than this! You do not have to be scared anymore, you do not have to—”
He was abruptly interrupted by Nyx. She did not hesitate for a single millisecond, stepped fully into the scalding hot bathwater, and pulled his trembling body tight against her with an overwhelming, possessed tenderness.
In an intense visual escalation, they locked mouths completely. Their lips met in a fiery, deep, and hungry kiss that scorched away all the pain, fear, and distance of the past time in one single blow. The warmth of the water and the flaring energy of their auras made the steam in the room grow thicker.
Nyx broke the kiss briefly to take his face between her hands. Her own eyes overflowed with tears, but her gaze was steadfast and intense.
“I missed you so terribly…” Nyx said half in tears, her voice trembling with pure sincerity. “I feel so useless and empty when you are not around, Sill. But listen to me. I have not been sitting still. I have trained, harder than ever. I am never leaving you behind again, and I am not letting myself be left behind anymore, whatever all those prophecies and legends claim you turn out to be. I do not care what kind of God or Liberator is inside you.”
She pressed her forehead softly against his, while the candles slowly burned down and the steam enveloped them completely.
“You are my Sil… my sun.”
The warm marble bathwater rippled softly against the edges, while their breathing slowly synced up in the thick, white steam. Silarias held Nyx tightly, as if the entire cosmos outside this room could collapse at this moment without him caring in the slightest. Her words, the scent of her skin, and the pure warmth of her embrace gave him, for the first time in years, the feeling that he was no longer standing alone in the all consuming battle ahead.
Nyx stroked gently through his wet hair, her tears drying on his cheeks. Nothing more needed to be said. The battle was fought, the secrets were shared, and the sacrifices were made. Now there was only the silence of the night surrounding them both like a protective blanket.
Slowly, the last candles in the corners of the room flickered out one by one, until the shiny reflection on the marble water surface faded. The steam cleared in the absolute silence of the quarters, and the final contours of the two lovers dissolved into the darkness.
It became pitch black.