Dyon stood, gently laying the flustered and still weak legged Ri and Madeleine down where he had sat.
There was a large panned window before them. Or, there would have been had Dyon not lowered the shield.
Hearing the blaring alarms, Dyon had a good idea of what was going on. So, he raised the tower's metal shields to find a very familiar sight.
In the distance, there was the city line of a large and technologically advanced coastline. But, it was still tens of kilometers away. What was more glaringly obvious was the large space-station-like silver construct that hovered over the ocean.
It was made up of tens of spherical hubs connected by long and transparent pathways that extended in each direction as far as the eye could see. Each spherical hub housed hundreds, if not thousands, of patrolling soldiers and also had numerous fighter jets and helicopters on their roofs.
Dyon covered his eyes as he looked out. He had seen this sight before. The last time was when the silver yacht that brought him away from it. The times before was when he had helped in its upgrade.
"Stop all forward progress. State your purpose."
Hearing this voice, Dyon couldn't help but grin. Flashing outside, Dyon stood in the air on his array and looked out before projecting his voice.
"Unc, when'd you become such a cockblock?"
"Dyon?" A soldier standing on the roof of one of the spherical structures asked in confusion. His eyesight obviously wasn't as good as Dyon, being a mortal, so he immediately pulled out a set of binoculars to set his eyes on Dyon's figure. He almost didn't recognize the mature young man that stood before him, but when he couldn't mistake was that wardrobe. Only Dyon would step out of a glowing tower with a white shirt and sweat pants.
"You snotty nosed kid. If your father were here, you wouldn't dare say those words out loud!" The soldier's voice boomed in laughter.
This soldier was a close friend of Dyon's late father. Dyon called him Unc, short for Uncle, but they weren't actually related.
Dyon laughed. "So what's up? Are you going to let me through?"
"Ah, this. We've got new management. But, you shouldn't have too many hoops to jump through. Go ahead and come onto the station, we can skip the search step for you."
Dyon smiled and nodded, heading back in to get Ri and Madeleine. He knew who this new manager was. It was a running joke really because this manager wasn't new at all. After Dyon's father died, he had become the new highest-ranking member of the military. This meant he had been here for decades and had been managing for seven years already. But, loyalty to General Sacharro wasn't something hard to come by.
Walking back into the throne room, Dyon found Ri and Madeleine tangled around each other. They had seemingly ignored the blaring noises, assuming that Dyon would handle it.
Dyon couldn't help but pause at this seen. He never thought he would be happy to see his woman entangled with someone else, but this was definitely an exception. 'Definitely an exception.'
It was clear that Ri and Madeleine's bestial aura had … opened them up a bit. Dyon definitely wasn't complaining. They hadn't gone so far as to kiss, though. Or, yet, more accurately. It was almost a shame to break up their cuddle.
Dyon chuckled. "Let's go meet my uncle. Well. He's not really my uncle. But, he is for all intents and purposes."
Ri and Madeleine pouted at first, but also realized that this was an important moment. So, they both went to tidy themselves up before Dyon gave them more modern clothing to wear.
Ri settled for skin tight black leggings and a blue blouse that complemented her long blue-silver hair, while Madeleine wore tight fitting dark jeans a white shirt, and long purple cardigan.
**
Moments later, Dyon had shrunk the tower down to once again fit into his spatial ring and had stepped onto the roof of the silver spherical structure to find a tall and stout man with an ugly scar running vertically down his left eye. It was partially covered by an eyepatch, but the scar was too long to cover completely.
He looked quite menacing and held an aura that shocked even Ri and Madeleine despite their years of battle experience. They couldn't help but involuntarily shiver under this man's gaze even though he clearly had no cultivation.
However, that demeanor of his completely shattered when he saw Dyon. In fact, the large man even started tearing up, bringing Dyon into a tight embrace. "You stupid kid. Were you too distracted by women to think of visiting me?"
"Ah, Unc. You're still a big cry baby. This is why dad never promoted you!"
Ri and Madeleine didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This guy was a cry baby? What about the rest of them then?
"Let me introduce you, Unc. This is Ri." Pointed toward the beautiful Elvin girl, before shifting his gaze. "And this is Madeleine. They're my wives."
"Wives?" Unc leaned in and whispered. "As in two? That's allowed? Get me out of here!"
Ri and Madeleine giggled. Unc didn't know that their hearing was too good for his voice to escape them. But, even more than that, they found it funny that his first reaction wasn't that Dyon was too young, but rather that there were two of them.
"Lieutenant General Barbaros." A sharp voice came from an opening stair case. It seemed to come out of the ground but was covered by a trap door that had to be opened with a special access code.
"General. The unidentified vehicle was just Dyon and his wives."
Soon, the head of the general came into view and Madeleine and Ri suddenly understood that Barbaros really was a cry baby. Their General was nothing like him. The aura was so stifling that Ri was reminded of the sentinels that guarded dead kings valley. She remembered how Dyon had to step in front of her at that time and she remembered how strong Dyon's back had been during that whole experience and she suddenly understood something…
It wasn't normal for someone as young as Dyon to be so used to dealing with such pressure. This was a pressure that was meant to be built and forged over years of experience. And yet, between Ri and Madeleine, how often had they seen Dyon ignore such pressure?
During the opening ceremony, Dyon stood unperturbed by 6 elders. During Madeleine's "wedding", he had faced the head elders of the big sects, completely unfazed. When he was forced to run to the Elvin Kingdom, Dyon had maintained his composure even while being chased by experts from God level clans. In the Elvin Kingdom, Dyon stood to even their grand elders and then their ancestors. Then, as if all of this wasn't enough already, Dyon had challenged the head of a God Clan. The head of the guild headquarters. And through all of this? He had never put any of them in his eyes.
Why? That was all anyone who witnessed these things could ask themselves. But, what they never thought was to ask Dyon. Because if they had, he would have given them one very honest answer.
"I don't feel anything from them."
