As Damien stared at the portals, he couldn't help but remember the ones created by Merak. But where Merak's had been a mix of Sapphire, purple, and black, Narkyra's was a simple black with thin streaks of white, And frankly, her's scared him more than Merak's. He didn't know whether it was the resemblance it had to a dark abyss in comparison to Merak's shining one, but no, he didn't want to go into that. But what choice did he have?

  As he watched the others move towards the various portals, Damien finally realized that aside from Vanis and Nalon, there were still other Spirit lords who also bore the emblem of the house Verrille.

  "Who are they?" He whispered to Vanis, making sure to keep his voice hidden. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Narkyra glance in his direction and then back at the exiting lords.

  For his part, the young Verrille lord raised an eyebrow. "Why the sudden question? They have been with us since the beginning, and you never asked."

  Chagrined, Damien gave a nervous laugh. "Well, with all the life and death situations we've been in since the beginning, my mind wasn't all too... focused on the people in the group, especially ones who chose to stay in the background. I just don't want to have made any slights by not acknowledging them."

  Vanis nodded. "Good point. However, you have nothing to be afraid of. Those are wielders sworn to the house. They are of the house but not of the family."

  Damien nodded slowly, even though he understood nothing of what had just been said. Probably they were simply common soldiers.

  Now that he was satisfied he wasn't going to be making new enemies right off the bat, Damien turned his worry back on the portal.

  Behind the Verille young lord, he followed as they approached the portal used by the other members of the Verrille house.

  In an effort to hide his anxiety, Damien began looking around. His eyes hadn't gone more than a few seconds when it jammed another that had also been looking his way.

  Looking at the snow-white eyes of Morec, the ice-wielding Spirit lord from house Queilon, Damien forced a smile, hoping the other man hadn't seen the nervous look on his face. His worries were confirmed when the man raised an eyebrow, glanced at the swirling black portals, and then back at Damien with a questioning look.

  Unsure what to do, Damien smiled back again, this time with his body forcibly relaxed. He hoped that was enough to disarm the other man... Who then ignored Damien and stepped into his portal.

  Huh...

  Sighing, he turned forward, watching as Vanis calmly stepped through the portal.

  Slowly, Damien approached the portal. Worrying his hands, he tried to form up the will, whispering encouraging words in his mind.

  He closed his eyes and was about to take a step closer when a voice whispered in his ear. "The woes that I go through for you," and before Damien could turn, he felt a booted foot slam into his back, launching him straight into the swirling black abyssal maw.

  Damien only had time to get out a tiny squeak before he found himself sprawled on solid ground, and then anger came.

  He rose, fist cocked with a furious expression as he made to deliver a punch to Keilan's face, but instead, he felt his fist redirected as a tiny breeze pushed it away.

  Slowly and with shock, he looked up at Keilan. "I didn't know you could do that."

  "Because I couldn't," his brother said with a frown, eyes trained on the left side of his head where the wind had directed Damien's fist to, an inch from his face.

  Now that was surprising. Damien wasn't an expert on the concept of wind. In fact, he barely knew anything at all, and the only source of knowledge he had was from Keilan, who... If they were being entirely honest, didn't know much as well, being entirely self taught, but he was pretty sure that wind wasn't supposed to exist in space, so how did that happen?

  Well, that question had to be shelved for a later date, seeing as they had already attracted attention.

  Amongst the other curious gazes trained their way, Damien met those of Vanis, who was looking at Keilan with a frown, which was also mirrored on the face of Nalon. But unlike Vanis who only watched, the Spirit King moved forward, a demand clearly written on his face. Luckily, his movement was halted by a gesture from Vanis.

  Relieved, Damien nodded at the other man, grateful.

  "Now that everyone is done with the gawking, let's get going," a voice said behind them, and Damien fought not to jump at the sudden appearance of Narkyra. How could he have forgotten she was with them?

  Taking a deep breath, Damien turned his attention from the group and down to where they were, which was, now that he finally saw, was probably a bad idea.

  Calling what they stood on as a platform was probably an overstatement. The platform, or more correctly, a thin disk, so dark Damien could actually see his reflection, and a few feet wide, stood unmoved in the vastness of space, or maybe it was moving so fast Damien couldn't tell.

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  Nevertheless, he wasn't taking any risk. Slowly, in the most natural way he could muster, he stepped closer to Keilan, making sure to position himself within arms reach.

  Keilan, on his part, noticed what Damien was doing, but probably as a sign of apology or something else—not that Damien was going to easily forgive him—he made no mention of it, nor did he attempt to push Damien away.

  And then Damien looked at space, and his eyes widened.

  Approaching from Xirou's ship, he hadn't really taken in the view before him, and now Damien regretted that, because what was in front of him was the wet dream of an artist come to life.

  To his left and stretching so far and wide as to seem endless, was a sea of sky blue mist. The sea looked thick and, at the same time, transparent. Inside it, Damien could make out the shadowy silhouettes of an uncountable number of creatures, gliding gently through the mist as it glowed brightly, engulfing the dark space in blue, ethereal light.

  That wasn't all.

  On the opposite side of the blue sea was what looked like a green forest. Damien looked again, and yes, he saw them. Trees so tall that they would have reached the skies on any planet. They were thick with an aura of life so powerful Damien immediately felt his injuries begin to heal.

  The space forest was just like the blue sea opposite of it, stretching far and wide Damien failed to see where it ended. And even from where he stood, millions of kilometers away on a platform of darkness, he still made out the forms of what must have been titans moving within the forest.

  And sitting between them both was one of the weirdest planets Damien had ever seen. He wasn't even sure it was a planet, seeing as it was flat and round like a disk, with a colossal amount of crimson mists pouring down its edges like a waterfall, with thousands of red lightning streaking within.

  There were two of the disk-shaped planets, both so large that Damien reckoned another couple of planets could fit right inside each of them with space to spare.

  There wasn't a moon that he could tell, but there was another anomaly: a stream of gas crisscrossing in and out of itself, its light so bright that his eyes watered as they stared at it, which made Damien look away before he incurred any unknown and unwanted side effects.

  Together, the triple wonders painted the dark space for miles in a mesmerizing blend of Crimson, blue, and green.

  Trying and finding no explanation whatsoever why both planets and sun looked like that, Damien chucked them all to Reality shenanigans. He'd ask Gray about it later.

  Being a Spirit lord, Damien had borne witness to countless cracks in space, mainly from battles where astral images came to play—heck, he'd been the cause of a majority of them, so it was easy enough for him to recognize the cracks behind the planets for what it was. What stumped him though, as they got closer, were the massive black chains with crimson streaks that came out of those cracks, ending at a seemingly random location In space.

  There were four chains, each large enough that a single chink would be mistaken for a mountain—larger than one, if what Damien was seeing was right. And each chain had one end through the cracks in space, going to some unknown location, while the other end ended at some random place in space, sticking to it like an adhesive had been added.

  Unwilling to let this slide, he looked towards Vanis for answers, the other man instantly sensing his gaze.

  It took him a second for him to piece out Damien's shock and the reason for it, and then he smiled.

  "Grandmother fought and imprisoned an apocalypse-tier dragon who had attempted to take this star system from her." The man explained.

  Damien frowned. "Apocalypse tier?"

  "Not surprised you don't know of this. Starting from Spirit lord, creatures of each realm are given certain classifications to help differentiate them from..." He grimaced. "Us. If you know what I mean."

  Damien understood clearly: another form of racism. Although creatures with animalistic origins gained sapience and could think and interact just as much as any other being, there was still a certain supremacist mentality that some humans rode over them. He was a little shocked, though, that they'd use something like that for Dragons. After all, everyone knew they were one of the supreme races.

  "Calamity for Spirit lord creatures. Desolation for Spirit Kings, and then we have the apocalypse, which is the worst, if what I'm being told is true.

  "Anyway, to continue. After defeating the dragon, Grandmother imprisoned it as a silent warning to anyone who would attempt to take her home again," he then chuckled. "Of course, there's always going to be one person who thinks they're the exception."

  Vanis then pointed at the other pair. "I don't really know, and from what some rumors say, but the spouse of the dragon attempted to rescue them and also teach grandmother a... Lesson." He smiled. "Well, I'll simply say that she made sure that they stayed together."

  "How long have they been there?" Keilan asked.

  The Verrille lord shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure, but I'm certain it's close to or more than three hundred thousand years."

  Damien's eyes nearly fell off at that. Beside him, he heard Keilan gasp.

  He could scarcely comprehend a single millennium, talk less of thousands. How could people withstand such amounts of years?

  "Not to be boastful or anything," Damien said after getting himself back together. "But I've fought dragons before, and although their powers are recognizable, they aren't anything special."

  Vanis quirked an eyebrow, a smile tugging on his lips. "Nest dragons?"

  Damien frowned. "Yes."

  "Then I'm not surprised," the young man said. "Dragons don't fully come into their powers until Spirit King. Fighting them at that stage is tantamount to suicide."

  Damien disagreed, but he kept his mouth shut. This wasn't an argument that could be settled with mouth alone, so he turned his attention back on the chains.

  "Why haven't their nest come for them?" Keilan asked. "Usually, dragons do not suffer any humiliation done to one of theirs, so I'm surprised why they haven't attacked to free the imprisoned after all these years."

  Chuckling, Vanis said. "To explain a bit of draconic society. Nests are mainly for the dragons below Spirit Kings. They are considered children in the eyes of those beyond, and as such, referred to as nests. Beyond that are the Dragon empires. Large, monolithic societies spread across dozens and hundreds of star systems. There are very few who are capable of challenging a dragon empire," he then smiled grimly. "We are not one of them."

  "These two," Vanis pointed at the chains. "Are definitely from an empire, but since the draconic society is built on personal power and that alone, those two have been left to suffer the consequences of their weaknesses."

  Damien nodded in understanding. He knew how much weight the Dragons put on personal power. The strong ruled, and the weak either followed or were crushed underfoot, so it wasn't all that surprising that two dragons who had lost and were subsequently imprisoned would be left to rot. Instantly, the thought took his mind back to Renogoth, the Sea Dragon king.

  Last he'd heard, the creature had been hunting for his head because of Damien's hand in the death of his son, Regonoth.

  Well, Damien shrugged. He wished them well in that endeavor.

  Ciao!