Dyon decided to give up on the idea of taking his tribulation for now. It seemed the process was more complicated than he thought. All this time, he had assumed it would be a cake walk considering his body's and soul's strengths, but it seemed the universe was more prepared than he thought.
"Where've you been?" Ri asked with a frown the moment Dyon walked into the Elvin Palace.
Scratching the back of his head, Dyon told Ri about Jade and his tribulation mishap. There was no point in lying, after all, their souls were connected. Doing something like that would just fracture their relationship.
"Really?" Ri's look softened. She had thought that Dyon was goofing off or doing something dangerous without telling her again.
Ri understood Dyon's complicated feelings in regard to Jade. So, she knew that his feelings of guilt weren't related to feelings of love, but rather that he felt he should have been able to help more than he did.
Ultimately, it was Dyon that triggered Jade to act as she did. Dyon was the first person that Jade felt she could confide in, he was a person who was clear of mind and pure of intention. But, because of her past experiences, she became panicked over the thought of losing Dyon after seeing him with Ri. In her mind, the best way to keep him by her side was to cripple him emotionally so that he'd have to lean on her.
What made matters even worse was that it wasn't Dyon who figured this out himself. If it wasn't for Little Lyla explaining this to him, maybe he would still hate Jade with a burning passion.
Her views were sick and twisted, but from a depraved and basal human standpoint, Dyon understood.
The Eostre family gave up their sanity in order to provide a path for the Elves to survive. So much of their culture was predicated on the importance of the True Empath, everything from their ruler to even their ceremonial awakenings, all of it was reliant on this principle.
It could be argued that without the Eostre family, the elves wouldn't have survived to this day. And yet, they were currently all being punished. It was a sad twist of fate.
"Why don't we just release her?" Ri asked.
Dyon sighed. "It's not my place to forgive her. And the only person who can is dead."
Ri could only shake her head. She knew that her husband was even more bull-headed than the Minos. His stubborn nature was never going to change.
"Come, let's go see mother-in-law, I haven't seen her in a long time." Dyon smiled, pulling Ri along with him.
**
"Father, are we really going to go under someone else's command now?" Aoife pouted. Her long black hair flowed, seemingly reflecting red light every so often as she followed her father into a large Victorian style palace.
"What would you have me do, little girl?" The gruff King Mino sighed, strolling along the long, dark corridors.
"Father, you had dreams of ruling over the beast quadrants, are you just going to give up like that?" Aoife spoke again, unwilling to give up. "We've already been trampled upon by the Shruti for more than a decade, now that we finally have some freedom we're giving it right back?"
Aoife's dissent became fiercer the longer she spoke.
King Mino chuckled. "What do you know about the Shruti? You weren't even born yet. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as I am now."
Aoife's pout deepened. "So what? Did they think that they could just come here and do as they pleased? Then we'd shut up after they gave us a pat on the head and some treats?"
"Not everything can be solved by slamming your horns into it, Aoife. Your mother taught me a better way, and you should keep her will in mind."
"Don't mention that hag to me." Aoife frowned.
"Hey." King Mino's voice grew stern. "Be respectful of your mother's memory."
"Hmph." Aoife clearly didn't like her father's words. 'That hag just upped and left, and you expect me to be respectful? Clearly her frilly little princess was more important to her than her own daughter.'
The father and daughter pair soon made it to the basement floor of the Mino Palace.
On the far wall, there was an ancient archway, inscribed in complex runes reminiscent of historic Mayan script. Almost to follow the same motif, the archway was stone and flaked in a red paint that was eerily similar to dried blood.
"Why did you take me to this place?"
"This is our family's oldest secret. It's also for this ruin that the Shruti chose our planet over the other four."
"What is it?"
"Years before the Shruti came, there was another clan that came here from another world first, they call themselves the Jafari and they're currently on Planet Nix. With their treasures, they could have escaped to another, better universe, yet they decided to remain here because of a family legacy of theirs.
"This... This is half of that. The other half is located at the entrance of an ancient and abandoned universe named Chaos. Although it's still somehow hidden.
"The reason I hesitate to join that young Emperor is because joining almost certainly means giving our family ruin up because the Jafari are already allied with him."
Aoife's brows shot up. "Then just say no! They lost this ruin a long time ago, it's ours now."
King Mino sighed. "If it hadn't been for the Shruti, we wouldn't even understand how to use this treasure. Do you understand why you can never blame the Shruti now? They knew how great this treasure was, yet they didn't steal it from us when they left."
Aoife lowered her head.
"I've made my decision, little Aoife. After fighting that young Emperor, I understand his temperament. This treasure isn't one we could use alone. You should know that the Shruti concluded that it's impossible to make full use of this treasure without being someone of the Jafari bloodline." King Mino smiled, patting his daughter's head with his oversized hands.
"A pity. Then how about you give it to me?"
The sudden voice caused King Mino to turn in shock. He was a celestial, yet he hadn't sensed this person approach at all.
Seeing the middle-aged man approach with nine tails as black as night whipping behind him, King Mino's heart seized as he placed his daughter behind him.
"No need to be so frightened." The nine tailed man smiled lightly. "I only need your help finding a certain... Elvin Kingdom."
