Part 1

*Michael’s Perspective*

A long time ago, when I first heard about a ‘Dragon King’ wanting to see me, I figured it probably wasn’t that important. After all, I had a lot to deal with at the time and really didn’t quite understand how serious the threats that Alfirin faced would be. I didn’t realize that there would be gigantic tree stumps that could decide the fate of the entire planet.

After the little dinner party, where Amber just happened to plop out a few babies, life was pretty casual for a while. Our kids were pretty cute, looked more like tiger cubs, but that wasn’t a bad thing. One of them inherited an annoying piece of my Soul, Abaddon the Douchebag, so I had to put a little seal on him. Turning the boy into Donald the Adorable Kitten. The girls ‘just happened’ to be incarnations of Rae’s original daughters, though it wasn’t really that surprising… Considering my ‘relationship’ with Karma.

For the next two months, we became hunters and gatherers. Literally, we ventured into the Forest of Corruption on a daily basis. Since I was directly connected to Hithu and Lum, we never got lost, even if it was just Amber going in alone. Even Morneth avoided actually entering that hellhole, but the fiery tigress and I treated it like a fun playground. With our fancy Lunar equipment and the fact that our bodies had far surpassed the ‘level’ of that zone, we could have completely exterminated all the demonic beasts in there if we wanted to… But that would have been counterproductive. Also, the hard part was keeping the bodies of the creatures in one piece, or digging up ancient artifacts that were buried underground. There were a few instances where we actually captured things alive, like a few Dryads that weren’t totally insane yet, or a giant minotaur that was a lot like that random Snake Tribe hermaphrodite person.

In two months, we made a fortune. At least enough money that we never needed to mooch off of Lorelei again. We were banned from Lunar Blessings though. Our feast had put a huge dent in their stock of ingredients. The Garden of Eden wasn’t that big after all.

I still hadn’t expended any of my ‘gigaton rounds’ yet. In fact, I was actually afraid to keep them on me or anywhere near civilization. Even if they went off in the Forest of Corruption, it would be catastrophic. Thus, I was forced to hide them off in a hole in the desert. Somewhere Hithu’s tendrils could just barely reach, so that even if they started decaying rapidly or accidentally exploded, no one important would be obliterated. They were so highly condensed and sealed so well, that they barely released any Mana radiation… But shit happens. Anyway, I didn’t regret making them, since I knew that sooner or later, I would have to shoot something or someone with a portable nuke. 

Hell, if it was just a kiloton bomb, I wouldn’t have even worried so much. A megaton would be a thousand kilotons, of TNT. It would theoretically be the equivalent, but who would ever be crazy enough to waste a million tons of TNT just to test out whether it would be as destructive as a megaton nuclear explosive? A gigaton is a billion tons, so it was even more ridiculous. Well, there are obvious limits to how much damage a weapon like that would even do on the surface of Earth. Underground would be a totally different story.

Eventually, Amber and I took our kids to spend a fun, ‘relaxing’ day at the beach with Rae and Ethir. While the two of us were having fun underwater, I heard someone calling my name… Yeah, it wasn’t any of the brats on the beach. That damn ‘Dragon King’ was calling me from deep within the northern mountain range, often called the Endless Peaks by people in Lorthon. They obviously weren’t endless, but no one had ever passed over them and come back to tell the tale.

For someone to yell from a mountain a thousand miles away and be heard in Ael Tol… That’d have to be as loud as a volcanic eruption, then focused only towards our direction. Why they couldn’t just send a messenger or use a telepathy? I’m not going to explain that now.

Somehow or another, I ended up going on an extremely dangerous expedition into the mountains with my family. Three borderline babies, two reincarnated children and an annoying little brat named Lucy. Rae and I built a simple bunker and Ethir enchanted it to keep the pests at bay… It started out as a fun little adventure.

“Raelin’s gone… She just… Disappeared. We were ambushed by… A Manticore. She got envenomed and after we killed the enemy, she vanished.” That’s what Ethir told me when I woke up in the middle of the night to piss off the giant cliff next to our base.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” I grumbled, then reached out to her through my mark. Even if she was a thousand miles away, there wasn’t nearly as much ‘interference’ as there was in Lorthon. Also, I had gotten way stronger.

“Michael!” As soon as I connected to her, I could see her surroundings clearly. I yawned, as she told me “I talked to Mike a while ago, but he cut me off before I could say much. Listen, I know that you want me to come back right now, it’s just that… A situation came up.”

“Calm down Rae, it’s fine. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.” I yawned again, taking in a colossal amount of Mana from the surroundings. Even if it was like the Third Ring of Lorthon, the air was a lot thinner than I liked, and freezing cold. My body required a massive amount of energy and Mana just to be ‘comfortable’ while standing naked at the edge of that cliff.

She sighed, I could see that she was wearing leather armor, with some thick hide clothing. Most of it was brown and black, like bear pelts or tanned leather of various animals. There were dozens of people near her, who were also wearing similar outfits. Except they were fucking huge compared to her tiny body.

Eventually, she explained: “I was just going to head over to the nearest edge of Lorthon Forest, three hundred miles from here… But then I smelled blood and heard screams, so I couldn’t help myself. When I found this village of Elves besieged by vicious Lizard Tribe forces, I helped them a bit… I also may have brought some people back from the dead, so they started to see me as more of a ‘God’ than a monster. It turns out that there are ‘Fire Elves’ and ‘Redscales’, two huge groups of people who originally stayed within the mountains, but have now come to the surface and spread chaos among the tiny villages. There aren’t any cities or significant powers in the Snow Elf civilization, so I felt the need to save them. Or at least try.”

“Like you did with the Orcs.” I snickered, “Don’t get me wrong Kid. I think you made the right decision. I probably would have done the same thing in your place. It isn’t a big deal. In fact, it might be just what we need right now. I’ll get in contact with Lorelei and she’ll talk to some construction companies. There are some trees connected to Lum about… Two hundred miles from your position. You don’t need to take all those people directly over to Lorthon Forest. We can start building a city right here, and I’ll just teleport your group over here… Once you’ve gathered up at least a few hundred or thousand. It’s kind of funny if you think about it… No matter how hard we try, we just can’t seem to escape. Anyway, I’m going the fuck back to sleep. Let me know if you run into anything you can’t handle on your own. Love you, be careful out there. And good luck.”

Part 2

*Michael’s Perspective*

I’ll never claim to be some kind of saint or hero, but I won’t stand by and allow ‘innocent’ people to die because I’m just too lazy. Once I finished pissing, I got to work. By that, I mean that I telepathically called Lorelei.

“Mikey~?! It’s not what it looks like!” The moment I connected with the little mouse-girl, sorry, lizard girl… She was in a bathtub, with a familiar man. He was literally fingering her, or so it seemed at first glance. The ‘man’ looked eerily similar to me, except his arms were normal and he only had two purple, snake-like eyes. If I was human, that’s kind of what I would have looked like, probably.

“God damn it!” The man cursed, glaring at me as he complained “Can’t you see that we’re busy here? How back and play with your stupid kids! Lori is finally over you! She’s mine now!”

“Shut the fuck up~!” The girl whispered to the man, before getting out of the water and asking “Mikey, what brings you to my humble abode today? Hmmm? Do you need some money? Or maybe you finally got bored of that giant loser? Don’t worry, I’m willing to have a secret affair with you!”

“Alright, will the two of you Brats be quiet for a moment?” I sighed, “There’s something I need you to do for me… And no, it isn’t related to sex at all. So please stop acting so childish for a moment, okay? I originally wasn’t going to bother you with this, but nothing ever goes according to plan. Anyway, I’m up here on a mountain… North of the Nexus. I need help building a fortified and possibly ‘underground’ city up here. Rae found out that there are actually Elves up here and they aren’t evil slavers, so we’re going to help them out. On the other hand, there are two hostile races, along with a bunch of annoying magical beasts. The Mana Level is Three. Where I’m at right now feels like it’s on the borderline though, almost Level Two, so it shouldn’t be too much or too little for the majority of natives to Lorthon Forest.”

She started grinning, with her long fangs exposed. Then she squinted and licked her whiskers as she asked, “I gotta hand it to you Mikey… No matter where you go, profit seems to follow hehe~! Seems like wherever you go, war and chaos follows… Well, that, and obviously the enormous cost of rebuilding shit you break. Ironically, my ‘money’ never seems to run out. People keep building new stuff, I keep financing it, they pay me back loans, I get dividends here and there… Even without any conventional taxes, we still have plenty of coin to spare for future investments. It’s good being the Spirit of Commerce!”

“Yeah yeah, I get it. Money doesn’t really mean much at this point. Right now, Alfirin is the only actual country. We can’t buy or sell from other nations, since they don’t really exist. The only economic competitions happen between our own states, but for the moment at least, no one is starving to death or struggling to survive. The homeless situation is more of a choice, since not everyone wants to be tied down to a single place in such a rapidly expanding country. There’s always something to do, somewhere to be, a new thing to see… I hope that sense of adventure never dies down. Even after conquering all the land on this planet, we’ll still have the subterranean and submarine world to explore. Hell, we already have a handful of aquatic or amphibious Races in the mix. The Great Lake is being colonized. I just don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. At the very least, no extraterrestrial conquests until the planet itself is completely under our domain.”

I snickered, shaking my head as I climbed up on top of the bunker and laid down on the freezing stone. The cold didn’t really bother me. Those scales on my back and tail constantly released a decent amount of heat. I could be burned by molten steel or chilled by liquid nitrogen, but even then, I would need to consciously resist my instincts to protect myself. I definitely wasn’t at the level of withstanding a volcanic eruption at close range or even a small-scale nuclear explosion, even if I tried to resist it with magical defenses.

Anyway, soon enough, Lorelei dried her body off and got dressed. Then she made some calls, telepathically and through radio broadcasts. Eventually, she sighed and told me: “There’s been an ‘incident’.”

“What kind of incident?” I frowned, thinking of the myriad of annoying things that could have possibly happened.

She snickered, “Don’t worry, nobody got killed. But the Followers of Michael and the Children of Flame are fighting again. The little cults that used to worship you and that stupid cat like deities… They’re full blown religions now, that span the whole fucking country!”

“Well what the hell are they fighting about?” I grumbled, because it turned out to be one of the most irritating subjects: Religion. No matter how much I tried to get those people to stop, at most, they just changed their practices a bit. At least they stopped sacrificing animals, but Amber… She was so young and naive back then. Actually enjoying the fanfare and idolatry. At least her people never wasted food for stupid reasons or tried fasting. Still, both of those religions were so belligerent, probably because they saw us ‘sparring’ together all the time.

Lorelei giggled, “The reason nobody died yet is probably ‘cause most of them are soldiers in Trixie’s army. They literally can’t kill each other, even if they wanted to… But they really need something to fight together against, if you know what I mean. They aren’t the kind of people who would do well in any sort of ‘peace keeping’ force. You know what, fuck it, I’m the same way! Except I’m strong enough to fight on the edge of Corruption, but most of those idiots are too weak!”

“I get what you’re trying to say.” I smirked, then asked “So how long will it take to send some people up here to start construction on Snow City? I’ll set up a permanent link between here and umm, whatever that intermediary town is called. The one on the road between Ael Tol and Angren.”

Lorelei grinned, “Great! I love Gator Brook! Ah, this is a great opportunity too! Because Gator Brook is one of the only places you can get magical alligator meat and leather for a cheap price…”

Part 3

*MIchael’s Perspective*

Lorelei worked fast. Yet before her first group arrived through the teleportation tree, I could see a flock of ‘birds’ flying over from the distance. Of course, when you’re standing on the edge of a mountain five or six miles from the ground, looking over at something flying even higher… Especially with my eyesight at the time, they were really far away. Maybe an hour of flying at their speed.

Harpies and Wyverns. To be more specific, the Lorthon Wyvern Union and the Brood of Rimeth. Yeah, that little bird had been very busy. Although she did actually have quite a few kids, they were still toddlers at most. Unlike Lucy, they didn’t have my genes. The Brood of Rimeth was more of a mismatched flock of Harpy refugees that she gathered up throughout Lorthon Forest.

Their altitude was only a kilometer above the trees, but even that was really high. Since the Mana in the atmosphere was generally much thinner the farther you got from the ground, especially in the Forest of Lorthon, they were essentially on the very edge of the Level-One Mana Zone. If they didn’t have any equipment, there was no way they would have been able to fly at that altitude without running out of Mana or simply losing it due to the super-low Mana-Pressure in the air. On the positive side though, the lower the Mana-Density, the greater the effect you can get from the same amount of Mana.

Since they came from Ael Tol and Angren, they must have started flying long before I contacted Lorelei. Under Rimeth’s lead, in order to retrieve her prodigal daughter… And because the Wyverns heard the voice of their ‘King’.

I could have easily told them to go down into the forest so that I could teleport them over, but I didn’t. That poor tree was already going to be abused enough. In fact, I wanted a land and sky route to be established as quickly as possible. Well, getting down was the easy part. Anyone with a wingsuit and a bit of Wind Manipulation technique could probably reach a hundred miles if they jumped off the edge of the cliff near our bunker. If they had wings, then it was even easier. How else would those weak Harpies have made it so far otherwise?

“Mikey~, I missed you so much! Muah~!”

While I was sitting on the edge of the top of my bunker, a little lizard-girl hopped up next to me and ‘kissed’ my left cheek. Since her mouth obviously wasn’t nearly the same as a human’s, so it was kind of cute. Regardless, I still complained “Alright, I get it. We see each other every few days, so don’t act like I’ve been gone for a long time. Anyway, let’s get down to business.”

“Ah~. now you’re really turning me on! Hahah~!” The little brat was wearing a heavy pink fur coat, but she was still shivering from the cold. She tried to hide her discomfort with flirtatious bullshit. Obviously she actually did like me, Lori always made that painfully apparent. I won’t pretend like I didn’t realize her feelings… It’s a good thing Amber was so dense, or things would have gotten really complicated.

“If you weren’t so lazy, you’d know how to manipulate heat by now.” I sighed, then pulled the girl closer to me. I was only wearing a simply t-shirt and something akin to sweatpants, but my body was like a furnace. The frigid breeze was blowing past us, yet the warmth from my skin was enough that she tried to take off her coat. I smirked, then asked “Why don’t we just go inside if you’re so cold?”

“No!” She yelped, before grumbling “I can hear that horrible snoring from out here! Mikey, I’m being serious here… I’m a beautiful, young woman of petite stature and perfect figure. I don’t snore and I basically run your whole country! Most importantly, I love you! Even with all that, I’m willing to be your mistress… Why won’t you love me?”

“I do love you.” As I wrapped my left arm around the tiny girl and hugged her tightly, she made some weird noises and squeaking sounds. Then she screamed as I used a little bit too much strength, “This is why you’d never make it as my mistress hahahah~! Sure, you got a little tougher, but that’s it. Listen Kid, I do like you. And you’re a great friend, however… Until you can fight Amber on even ground, we can’t be anything more than that. I don’t want you getting killed in the middle of a three-way fist-fight fuckfest! You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. That sad fact is that there are very few people in this world that would survive a night with two of us. And I don’t cheat, at least not when it comes to love.”

When you’ve experienced and can remember as many lifetimes as me, relationships become a lot more complex. Hell, I’ve had harems before, literally and figuratively. I’ve also been in a harem or two, as a guy and a girl. Fuck, I can vaguely remember being an anthropomorphic genderless slime-like creature as well.

However, the most important thing I’ve learned is that in order to build a strong and lasting partnership, everyone needs to be equal. It’s not easy to love multiple people equally and there’s no guarantee that they’ll treat you and each other the same way. Amber and I loved each other, violently, but sincerely.

I snickered, patting the little girl on the head and suggesting “If you truly want to be with me, you’ll need to also love that woman you can’t stand, heh… I’m serious though. Amber and I have already bonded to a level where we probably won’t break up unless one of us dies or we get literally separated from each other for a considerable amount of time. If you try to make either of those things happen Lori, you know you’ll regret it. Anyway, you’re young, there’s no reason why you can’t find a new crush to pine over. That’s just how life goes. You’re willing to risk your life to be with someone and then they end up marrying someone else without even considering your feelings. I mean, we only really knew each other for a few weeks back then, if you think about it. If I didn’t give you my Seal, you probably would’ve moved on with your life a long-ass time ago.”

Lorelei pouted, then grumbled “MIkey, you’re an asshole.”

Part 4

*Michael’s Perspective*

After Lorelei arrived, there was a  short delay, before a huge wave of people started to pour out of the teleportation tree. The first few groups consisted of Dwarven, Dark Dwarven and Rat Tribe engineers. Of course, they were armed to the teeth with all sorts of weapons and even some explosives. 

I needed to warn them about the possibility of avalanches or rock slides if they recklessly threw grenades around… Then again, Amber’s magic was usually a lot more noisy and devastating than ‘normal’ bombs.

Shortly after the engineers, were combat medics, construction workers, miners and some soldiers. The size of the whole ‘even’ space was about a square mile, so we had plenty of room to spare, but there were tons of trees, boulders and other objects that needed to be cleared. We couldn’t really accommodate too many people at a time, so at least until some infrastructure was created, there shouldn’t have been more than a few hundred people on the plateau at a time. 

Unfortunately, things usually don’t go as planned.

“Push back the invaders! For the Goddess!”

“For the Goddess!”

Some uninvited guests arrived shortly after people started to set up their camps. They had red skin, black horns coming out of their heads and goat-like legs. The long and pointy ears indicated that they were technically Elves. Though unlike Wood Elves and Dark Elves, those red fuckers were pretty damn tall: Six to seven feet on average.

The beefy men in front wore heavy steel armor, while the women generally only had some fur or leather gear. Either way, they didn’t fare too well against the first volley of bullets. Even though they had some scantily clad, female Fire Mages in the back who protected their vanguard from the weaker magical attacks, they had no way to defend against regular ammunition.

“Well that was disappointing.” I snickered, “We didn’t even get a chance to have fun.”

Their army of seven hundred ‘Fire Elves’, were already frigid corpses before Lori and I had to make any moves. Well, it wasn’t really our job to wipe out the small fries anyway. Let’s say that the average ‘creatures’ that lived within a Level-3 Mana-Zone were also considered Level-3, for simplicity’s sake. There could also be things like Yuri or Maeleth, who are definitely way above that average power level. For that matter, without her fancy Dryad suit, Lori was only about Level-4 in the sense that she could survive in that zone without any gear. Obviously using weapons and ammo also makes a massive difference, so even though Amber and I were around Level-6 naked, we could have potentially dealt with totally unarmed Level-7 ‘people’.

Anyway, that kind of hypothetical bullshit is pretty pointless, especially in the past-tense. But people still ask me those kinds of questions anyway. Could I have killed Yuri back then? Sure, yet I never needed to find out. I could have also destroyed the whole planet if I wanted to, for that matter, I could have crashed it into another planet that was nearby. Why am I even talking about this?

“Alright Kids, be careful. Don’t get cocky just because you vastly overpowered a few weaklings. None of you are immortal or indestructible. We don’t know much about our enemies, aside from the fact that they’re religious fanatics and really fucking stupid. Set up some traps around the perimeter, along with underground bunkers. Keep in mind that our enemies aren’t limited to those Fire Elves. There are red-scaled Lizard Tribe, along with plenty of magical beasts. That includes ogres, trolls, wyverns, yetis and plenty of things I haven’t even seen yet. The most important factor is keeping yourselves from freezing to death, without creating any fires that might give away our position.”

I gave a short speech, or maybe it was more like a few orders. Lori was literally sitting on my left pauldron, as she asked “We’re facing a serious logistics crisis right now Mikey. It’s too expensive to teleport materials in huge quantities, but it’s way too time consuming and dangerous to have them physically transported up the mountain. Hell, they can’t even make it through the hundreds of miles of Lorthon Forest. What we really need is a train.”

“Ailyn’s Disciples only recently finished working on that big-ass train to go from Black Mithril, to Angren. Even with all the magic at our disposal, we really don’t have enough people to lay down thousands of miles of train tracks. Anyway, there’s no need to go out of our way to transport materials from Lorthon…” I snickered, then told her “Aside from basic tools, that can be easily teleported up here, we only really need people. A handful of Earth Mages working together would be more effective than a thousand people casually digging with shovels. Cut down all the trees in the surroundings, then plant some Instant-Oaks or Hypervines around the perimeter, whatever the fuck you kids are calling them now days. That should be able to keep out the majority of enemies. At the very least, they won’t be able to ambush us as easily… Plus, the roots will fortify the plateau and keep the whole city from falling apart in the near future.”

Lori giggled, then complained “You’re going to go wandering off again, aren’t you? Can you at least come back occasionally? Don’t just disappear for months or years again… I need you. For that matter, the whole fucking country needs you!”

“I get it, I really do.” I snickered, then shook my head and gazed over at the flock of wyverns and harpies that just arrived from the south. With a sigh, I whispered “We all have our strong suits. Amber and I are two of the physically and magically strongest people in Lorthon. Even if I let you come with us, you’d probably just slow us down. But what you can do, much better than I would ever be able to… Is build a city on a damn mountain, in only a few weeks. Right?”

“Fine Mikey…” Lorelei sighed, “But you have to promise to come back soon. What’s the point in ruling the world, if I don’t have you by my side?”

“Wait a second, who said anything about ruling the world?” I glared at the little lizard-girl, as she giggled and hopped off my shoulder. Then heard the annoying bickering of Harpies, Wyverns and Rat Tribe in the distance… I grumbled, “If I don’t get Amber out of here fast, she’s going to go on a rampage… Again.”

Part 5

*Michael’s Perspective*

Bows are fun, but guns are always going to be more effective and efficient. The reason for that, lies with the ammunition. A bow is pretty simple, just like a slingshot. And sure, bows do generally leave more room for the archer to use their magic. The arrows also fire much more slowly overall, so they can be manipulated more easily. Especially since you can add on a bunch of features to an arrow, which should be larger than a bullet.

However, the general principle is different. A conventional rifle, will not require you to exert a significant amount of energy or spent a shitload of time loading the round. Once it’s loaded, all you need to do is pull the trigger. The source of propulsion is part of the ammunition, instead of relying on the rifle itself.

Bows are generally more useful at closer ranges and in stealthy situations, like hunting. While guns, are inherently louder, since their source of power comes from a literal explosion. That then launches the tiny projectile at considerable speeds. The bullets are almost always deformed or completely destroyed upon hitting their target, but that’s good, it’s what they’re made to do. On the other hand, arrows can sometimes be reused… Just not when Amber is the one shooting them.

That girl just never learned or well, refused to learn restraint. Her ideology was “Why should I shoot one scaly bird, when I can blow up ten? I’m not stupid. I know Math.”

It was cute, but also terrifying. I’m glad I never gave her any nuclear arrowheads. Knowing her, she’d end up getting killed by curiosity sooner or later, not to mention the people she’d obliterate in the process.

On the other hand, I’ve always liked guns. Whether it’s a simple bolt-action rifle or an artillery cannon, the simple act of using an explosion to launch a projectile will always have a special place in my heart. Railguns are cool too, but they’re kind of closer to a bow from my perspective. Especially if they’re powered by magic that you personally have to provide. For example, if I used Earth Manipulation to launch a tiny metal pellet, out of a normal steel pipe… Sure, I could reach the force of a conventional pistol or beyond that. However, it requires far too much energy and concentration on my part, compared to the leisure of just shooting a firearm the normal way.

At my level of strength at the time, I could have used Amber’s bow and blew up wyverns for kicks and giggles. Yet, with around the same Mana expenditure, I could have simply created an explosion at the center of the flock and killed them all without wasting an arrow or any physical strength. I also could have jumped into the air and punched them to death, without using any Mana.

My point is that, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Or that it’s worthwhile, compared to the easier alternative.

“As much as I wanna find out if the Dragon King is actually a sexy Queen, I think my skills are better used where they’re overpowered.”

Speaking of which, that was the first thing Mike said Amber and I were preparing to leave. Of course he didn’t stop there, he continued on for a while…

“I mean, think of all the beautiful Snow Elves I could be rescuing right now! The East is probably full of em! Sure, I might not be able to physically have sex with anything at the moment, but I’m getting there! I might not be able to get the sensations right… Look at this though! It’s a fully functional holographic robot dick! I could make it look more humanoid, but I figured this would be cooler.”

I complained, “We don’t want to see your fucking robo-cock. Just, you know what, I don’t really care. Now can you fuck off and let me say goodbye to my family?”

Metal Mike was going to traverse the Eastern side of the mountain range, while Raelin was coming back from the far West.

“But Mommy~, I wanna got with Michael and explore~!” Lucy was begging her mother, at the edge of the cliff.

Meanwhile, Amber was ‘smirking’ down at our children, growling: “Get stronger, little cubs. If you weren’t such weaklings, we would take you hunting with us.”

“Umm, yeah, I love you kids, but we have to go away for a little while. Ethir, Lori… I trust you two. I know you’ll be able to take care of them in case anything happens to us out there. I love you both. I’d hug you, but the armor makes things awkward. Goodbye!”

Yeah, it wasn’t a very long farewell. Technically, I could telepathically communicate with both of them whenever necessary, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal. My daughters though, I would definitely miss them. They weren’t exactly aware enough to ‘talk’ to me any time soon, while ‘Donald’… Well, I wasn’t too worried about him. He had Abaddon’s Soul, so at the very least, he wouldn’t be in any danger and could protect his sisters in the event that something went horribly wrong. That sounded a lot more ominous than I intended.

“Alright, let’s go.” I picked up my bag of big bag of guns and ammo, then kicked off the ground and started flying through the air. Amber was already soaring ahead of me, with her scythe in its spear form and gripped in her right hand. I sighed as I watched her stab the blade into the snowy peak of the mountain we were supposed to be leaving.

“Roah~! Graou~!” Standing next to the pole that was as long as she was tall, the fiery tigress let out two deafening roars… And caused an avalanche.

I let out another sigh and pushed out my left palm. The snow and ice that was tumbling down chaotically was abruptly compacted, at least the part that was going to crash down onto the plateau below me. The rest kept falling down freely.

“Amber, stop fooling around and let’s get out of here!” I shouted, as I continued soaring past the ‘balding’ mountain top. Our journey to the North had just begun.