Watching the monster slowly crumble away, Solus left his eyes to linger on the magical particles the monster decomposed into, furrowing his brow in contemplation. As he stood there, its flame-textured and slightly viscous appearance was undeniable. The emergence of such a familial energy set off all of Solus' red flags, cascading a wave of concern through his mind as it entered overdrive to piece things together.
It was nothing short of a yokai in Solus' mind, given how it unravelled into spirit chakra and especially the sinister aura the creature released. He was adamant on his conclusion but he had to relent, despite what his brain had him believe; given the facts, the main one being how he defeated it without Nebi or the lots' help, the monster was at the very least not the same as the yokai back home.
"The nerve of that thing, to brazenly use spirit chakra and not fully commit," Kyoshina announced aggressively inside Solus' mind, her words alone conveying her animosity for the monster. Despite sharing the same animosity for the monster, Solus thought Kyoshina should refrain from badmouthing it, given her track record involving yokai.
With a tempered sigh, Solus shook his head lightly, his expression unfazed as he heard Kara's light-footed approach.
"Got any clue what that thing was, Miss Know-It-All?" Solus asked as he faced Kara's direction. Kara scoffed, flipping her bangs at the preposterous undertone of Solus' request.
"Luckily for you, The Chronicle Codex does have a few entries on this world; although...," Kara replied sullenly as her wrapped-up wings twitched with mild annoyance. Knowing what she was going to say, Solus couldn't hold back a begrudging exhale.
"Locked pages?" Solus asked unamusedly, expecting such course of action the moment Kara mentioned that consistently inconsistent book. Kara snapped her fingers at Solus, a cheeky grin miraculously adjoining her smug expression.
"Seems One's intuition has rubbed off on you," Kara said in a teasing manner as she hopped beside Solus and lightly jabbed him. But, given the difference in their statures, Kara's elbow met with the guy's knee instead of his side like she intended. The ill-aimed jab sent a sharp and stinging shock through his nervous system, coursing through him in one united wave.
"You're lucky I don't punt you for that," Solus whispered under his breath. Kara feigned ignorance, raising her arms in a sudo-confused W as a red wave of qi washed over her and gathered at her forehead. The red qi condensed, solidifying to fit around Kara's knowledge bank before its outer ayer bursted off it to reveal a pale pink metal headband with two small red LED demon horns underneath.
Feeling the weight of the headband form on her head, Kara's insectoid eyes shimmered with embarrassment while her human features remained neutral as if she wasn't sulking on the inside.
"Betrayed by one's own codex," Kara grumbled defeated as she pinched one of the Chronicle Codex's horns, punishing it despite how fruitless it was to do so.
Whilst the mothly girl aggressively pinched the codex's other horn as its arms tightened against her dome, Keuikae crouched down beside the battered guy with his face in the dirt and rolled him over onto his back. She didn't quite understand what had transpired right before her eyes when Solus defeated the xilophae. Sure, she understood on the basic level of what happened but the why of it seemed to illude her as she tended to the sole survivors of her guard.
"Father, can't you use the lumilight spell to hill them?" Sylvie asked quietly in confusion, popping her head out from over Solus' shoulder as her spirit energy body formed behind him. Recalling Kara's mention of this world being a human-dominant one, Solus gave his daughter a concerned glance before closing his eyes, hoping to hide his worry from her, as he figured it'd be fine since Kara never mentioned it being a magicless one.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"You recall what Kara mentioned about the air?" Solus whispered while booping Sylvie on the nose, causing her to giggle and boop him back.
"So, she wasn't joking about there being something in the air?" Nebula remarked from inside Solus' mind. Kara subtly side-eyed Solus, knowing Nebula was slighting her without even hearing it with her ears.
"Naturally, you big boob-eck" Kara quipped, indignantly flipping her antennae like they were hair bangs before wincing as her antennae stuck each other and cutting her off.
"What is with you and your strangeist words?" Sylvie asked cheerfully as she swished around Solus until reaching the side Kara was on. Kara silently mumbled in discontent, not willing to verbalize her retort for Sylvie when Solus and Nebula were on the same continent as her.
Meanwhile, maybe? Back in the gang's original reality, the forest that once housed Solus and Co was now tranquil and devoid of any disturbances, excluding the illuminating light swiftly weaving through its trees. Soon, the light broke free into the clearing where Solus defeated the abnormal yokai. The light gradually slowed down revealing it to be Lumios with a barely awake Kimmi-Ka sitting on one of his miruku head tendrils.
"So this is where their signatures disappeared," Lumios mentioned amusedly as he settled Kimmi-Ka beside him using his miruku before trotting forward.
(Lumios is a very tall wu-ling, miruku, and acolyte hybrid with the appearance of a twenty-two-year-old human male; he has trailing spikey woolly[like a sheep] pure white hair with two ahoges having a faint cyan glow, a glowing azure blue right eye with a yellow iris, a pure white left eye with a white iris and pitch-black sclera, radiant fair skin that's slightly anorexic, eight large and long[to his knees] grey miruku tendrils[plated tendrils sprouting from the head with mouths on the ends] with a faint cyan glow, and glowing rainbow fingertips)
(Lumios is wearing an almost entirely white form-fitting outfit that only reframes from covering his hands and above his neck, black claw-like engravings and trimming running up the sides of his arms and legs, a regal golden fur mantle with a white fur collar, and on top of the mantle's collar is a black fur scalf with flame-shaped metal dots all over it)
(Kimmi-Ka is a short-kid-sized wu-ling, miruku/kitsune and acolyte/alkorian hybrid with the appearance of a four-year-old female human child; she has long woolly hair[half snow white(left) and half blond(right)] hair all with lime hair tips, her hair is styled to look like a cluster of kitsune tails, a pure gold right eye with pink/lime gradient pupil, a glistening deep blue left eye with the right pupil being multiple concentric white stars, fair skin, nine small and long[tripple her height] blond to snow white gradient coloured fluffy fur-miruku tendril tails with lime coloured tips, glowing fingertips, and slightly curved upwards glowing ram-like horns on the sides of her head)
(Kimmi-Ka is wearing a super long fuzzy white scarf with a scale texture covered in golden and red poker dots, and a rainbow-gradient rabbit-themed onesie)
"Indeed father, I was observ- The Eye of Revelations captured the moment the strange object teleported them and I happened to notice said recording," Kimmi-Ka stated astutely, even pointing to the spot where the rainbow-coloured crystalline ring once stood and where the yokai's ash pile remained.
"Heh, it's always that side of the family that gets all the interesting encounters," Lumios remarked, his mood enlightened at his daughter's correction and feeble attempt to hide her true reason for knowing the events had even occurred.
"Well, aren't they lucky for that recording," Lumios stated, putting extra emphasis on the word recording which caused Kimmi-Ka to audibly pout. The girl's pout entertained her father once more, eliciting a rattle-like chuckle from his many miruku tendrils as the guy raised a hand and conjured red lightning-like energy from his body.
"Let us see if there's enough residual temporal energy to create a portal so we won't have to bother those E lot," Lumios added as the crackle of his lightning rang in his ear and through the quiet forest.
