Darian slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying on a bed. Niara was wrapped around him from the front, her head resting on his chest, still sleeping deeply.
But on the edge of the bed, there was a woman sitting beside him. Darian quickly sat up when he saw her.
Physically, if you compared her to a human, she gave off the vibe of a young adult who'd just left her teens. Her jet-black hair brushed her shoulders, and her face had soft, delicate features that really made her deep reddish skin pop.
What stood out the most were her four graceful arms. On top of that, there were markings resembling colorful tribal symbols on her arms, shoulders, and the center of her chest. They pulsed in five colors, releasing a subtle elental aura.
It was strange. Darian could clearly sense the five natural elents coming from her, yet at the sa ti, it felt like sothing almost entirely different.
At the center of her forehead was the mark of a third eye, which remained closed. It wasn't sothing physical, and it gave off the sa sensation as the tribal markings. She wore a simple black feather dress that gave her an exotic elegance, blending the fragility of a girl with the strength of an ancient entity.
This woman was the one who had guided Darian away from the spatial rift earlier and the one with whom he felt a karmic connection.
Only later did he realize that she had recognized him as an enemy of another race. Following the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," she tried to warn him that he needed to leave.
That strange race Darian had fought was a mortal enemy of her people. They preferred to destroy their own territory and trigger a massive spatial rift rather than submit.
The woman had probably sensed sothing and tried to take him away. But the enemy race hated him and launched suicide attacks just to drag him down with them.
"You… woke up… are you okay?"
The woman smiled and started speaking in a language Darian could understand. Still, her pronunciation was stiff and sounded a bit awkward.
"Yes, thanks. Were you the one who brought here?" Darian asked. Most likely, she had studied his language but didn't speak it fluently, so he began gesturing as he talked.
Darian's language was sothing Heaven's Will had spread across the universe so everyone could understand one another. In most mid-level or high-level universes, the sa language was spoken.
It was possible that this language from Heaven's Will had spread to all universes, but so hadn't fully adopted it.
The woman seed to be trying hard to understand him. After a mont, she nodded. "You… Roc… fell…"
She mimicked Darian's gestures, indicating that when he fell from the corpse of the Primordial Beast, she rushed to save him. Darian also learned that the na of that Primordial Beast was Roc.
That way of communicating was far too inefficient. Darian hesitated, then extended a finger, slowly moving closer to touch her forehead.
The woman pulled back slightly, but when she realized he was signaling for her not to move, she took a deep breath and allowed him to touch her forehead, just below the 'third eye.'
Darian imdiately tensed. He noticed that her body wasn't fully physical, but it also wasn't a transformation. At the center of her soul, there was a strange rune, pulsing with life.
That could only be her true body. She was a Heavenly Elental Spirit, but at the sa ti, she wasn't.
Darian took a deep breath and slowly inserted a spiritual power rune filled with information into her ntal sea. Her body trembled, and she grimaced.
It rged with her instantly, causing natural discomfort, but it would allow her to communicate with him much more easily. Inside her mind, all the knowledge of that language flowed in.
Suddenly…
"ZAAAAAR!"
A figure appeared out of nowhere and threw a punch at Darian, shouting sothing he couldn't understand.
Darian had already sensed that person sneaking around outside. So he didn't even look at him; he simply raised his hand and calmly blocked the strike.
"!"
The newcor was a large man. Seeing Darian so close to that woman filled him with explosive rage. But when he saw his sneak attack blocked as if he were a child, he froze in shock.
Without hesitation, he stepped back a few paces, then pulled a bow from his back and, in an instant, aid an arrow at Darian.
"Mazali!" The woman hurriedly stepped in front of him, blocking him and making him even angrier.
He pointed at Darian, shouting sothing with his eyes burning red with fury.
The woman just let out a loud roar with sharp fangs, but the man was still furious. Even so, he stomped his foot and left.
Darian snorted, then looked around and realized he was inside a simple tent. Judging by the layout, it seed to be the woman's ho.
"Sorry, Zaowe is very hot-headed," she said. She could now speak much more smoothly, though her voice was still a bit hoarse.
"Is he your boyfriend?" Darian asked calmly, as he gently pulled Niara off his chest and placed her back onto his back.
The woman shook her head with a sigh. "Not exactly… he's my childhood friend, but we ended up in a strange situation because of my race's rules."
Darian took a deep breath, feeling a subtle dizziness. It was as if his soul and mind had gone through sothing they shouldn't have, and now that was reflecting in his body.
When he grabbed that corpse, he learned the hard way that it radiated an absurd level of ti power. The vision he saw should have been that universe's past.
Now that he was awake, just thinking about it made him vividly rember everything. But those weren't seconds of images; it was like everything had been compressed and forcibly shoved into his brain.
Now he could decompress it all and observe it in detail. Even so, even if he spent a hundred years studying it, it still wouldn't be enough to see everything. Fortunately, he felt that he could use his new control over space-ti to manipulate it and research exactly what he wanted to see.
Darian instinctively felt that he had gained sothing insane, sothing that would be extrely useful in this universe. Everything had happened far too suddenly and quickly. It couldn't have been a coincidence that that thing appeared in the skies at that exact mont.
Anyone else would have turned to dust doing what he did, because no one could withstand ti power at that level. Darian reacted fast and activated his domain, blocking everything that could affect Niara, and because of that, he ended up taking part of that destructive power into his own soul and mind.
But, fortunately, he had ti to rest. Since he had already woken up, it shouldn't take long for him to recover.
Darian noticed the woman's gaze shift toward Niara.
"My na is Darian. This is my wife, her na is Niara. We ran into so trouble, and now she's sleeping," he said with a faint smile. "How long was I out?"
The young woman nodded. "Two days."
Darian let out a relieved sigh. So he still had four days left to restore Niara.
On top of that, with the existence of that primordial beast, even though it was dead, Darian finally had a direction to solve the situation.
Niara's mutation was the key to her recovery. She could fully absorb the Draconic Bloodline, but she could also, even though it was sothing very different and caused her serious problems, absorb other primordial Bloodlines.
Niara had told him that when she was a child, they also tried to make her absorb the blood of Mannaz, descendants of the Enfiled. She succeeded, but it was absurdly bad and ended up contaminating her Bloodline, harming her more than helping. Still, in the current situation, she only needed a small amount of energy to wake up.
There was a chance that there were people with the Bloodline of a Primordial Beast, since that one was dead. Or even that Darian could find another one still alive and ask for help.
"Allow to introduce myself. I am Ailik, daughter of the leader of this tribe of the Nether Spirit Race. I am very grateful to you for helping us defeat the Nether Beasts. We will always rember your kindness."
The woman suddenly knelt in front of Darian, her right hand over her chest in a peculiar gesture.
"You're too kind." Darian quickly helped her up. "To be honest, I wasn't there to help you. They wanted to kill , so I had to defend myself. If thanks are needed, I should be thanking you for risking your life to pull out of there. May I ask where you found ?"
Ailik explained that everyone felt awful when they saw him being dragged into the spatial rift, believing he had died. They were cleaning up the battlefield to check if there were any enemies still alive when they saw the God Roc flying out of the spatial rift. Then they saw Darian fall from it.
According to her, the appearance of that figure was extrely rare, having last happened more than ten thousand years ago. Even so, there had always been stories passed down by their ancestors about the God Roc passing through the region.
Darian could tell from her expression that there was sothing she was having trouble telling him.
Before he could ask anything else, Ailik spoke with a serious look. "Co, I'll take you to see my father."
Darian nodded and stood up, adjusting Niara properly on his back. The two of them left the tent.
Looking around, Darian saw that they lived on a vast plain. There were many tents set up, of different sizes and colors, all made of animal hides.
It looked like a very ancient tribe. He saw people wearing animal skins and carrying bows on their backs. Behind the tribe, there was a lush forest stretching all the way to the horizon. Interestingly, the tribe seed to follow the forest.
Ailik led the way, and several people bowed to her, following a strange etiquette. They looked at Darian with curiosity, but also with a certain discomfort.
Everyone had red skin and four arms, with a wide range of body sizes. However, Darian noticed that they didn't have the sa tribal markings as Ailik, nor did they give off the sa feeling as her.
"Don't you have any children here?" Darian asked. He hadn't seen a single child in that massive tribe.
"Our young warriors are training in the forest. Only adult mbers are qualified to leave it," Ailik explained.
"This is one of the main strongholds of our race. We have been mortal enemies of the Nether Beasts for hundreds of thousands of years. They launched a surprise attack on us, which we managed to repel successfully. They suffered heavy losses, so they activated the sacrificial altar to summon Nether Beast kings from other places for support. We wouldn't stand a chance if they summoned hundreds of them, so we were preparing to retreat into the forest and use the terrain for a battle to the death, but… you interrupted them. You managed to stop them, preventing the loss of many of our lives. That's why you truly are our benefactor. My father will certainly thank you."
Darian hadn't expected such a coincidence. Ailik seed genuinely grateful.
The two kept walking when, suddenly…
…thousands of n appeared in front of them, all aiming arrows at Darian, murderous intent in their eyes. Among them, he recognized that Zaowe from before.
Darian shook his head. "Looks like your people don't welco very well."
Their bows and arrows were of the most primitive kind, made of wood. Still, Darian had personally witnessed their power. That race could manipulate a strange energy and embed it into their arrows.
Facing the hostile stares of thousands of n from the Nether Spirit Race, Darian remained calm. He believed Ailik would resolve the situation. If she didn't, since he hadn't done anything wrong, he wouldn't mind being a bit rough.
As expected, Ailik imdiately shouted sothing at them, and they responded in unison.
Even after a long argunt, there was no sign of retreat. It wasn't just Zaowe; the others also didn't seem to accept her words.
Suddenly, Ailik drew her bow in fury. Without hesitation, she nocked an arrow and aid it at her childhood friend.
This caused gasps of shock among the others. Zaowe went pale, but remained standing, pointing at Darian while shouting sothing.
Ailik replied coldly, making him turn even paler.
Even though Darian couldn't understand them, he could tell that this was far from a friendly reception.
"Miss Ailik, I appreciate your kindness. I don't need to speak with your leader. If there's an opportunity, we'll et again in the future."
Darian didn't want unnecessary trouble, and he also had his own pride. If they didn't want him there, he wouldn't stay. It would be ridiculous to start a conflict within that race because of him.
He turned to leave, not giving Ailik a chance to stop him.
*Buzz*
However, space suddenly trembled. Darian turned around and saw a group of people charging aggressively toward him.
Among them was a tall, grim-looking old man. The crowd parted to let him pass.
Darian snorted. That person was strong. The old man was the only one there who gave him a subtle sense of danger.
But… if they wanted blood, they would get it.
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