Inside the dim room of the Hestia Familia headquarters, the black-haired goddess sat quietly, hugging her knees. Her tears had dried up two days ago, leaving only reddish trails on her pale cheeks. A tormenting emptiness continued to gnaw at her sanity ever since her most beloved Bell Cranel vanished without a trace, swallowed by a dimensional anomaly in the dead lands of the Dragon Valley.
However, amidst that suffocating silence, a warm sensation suddenly erupted from the center of her chest.
Hestia jolted violently. Her pair of blue eyes widened immensely. The warmth flowed like a gentle current of life, yet pulsed with absolute certainty, spreading from her divine core toward the invisible carving that bridged dimensions. The soul bond—the Falna that was previously severed completely, leaving an absolute void—now pulsed again as if reconnected.
"Bell... kun," Hestia murmured with a trembling voice. Tears of joy instantly spilled, wetting the back of her hands. "Bell is alive! My boy is still alive!"
The news of the Falna bond's return was like a spark amidst a pile of dry wood. The spirit of the Hestia Familia, which had been crushed, now burned brightly once again. However, Orario was currently in no normal condition whatsoever.
Following the absolute failure of the Loki Familia's expedition—where all their main executives were confirmed trapped with no way out in the depths of Floor 60—the Guild immediately implemented a high-level martial law lockdown. All the giant gates were tightly shut. Not a single adventurer was permitted to leave the walls of Orario in order to maintain the stability of the city's defenses against monster threats and prevent mass panic among the citizens.
Knowing that the only entry route for the School District's naval fleet from the north was through Melen Port, Hestia refused to stay idle. With the stubbornness that was her trademark, the goddess led all the members of her Familia: Welf Crozzo, Liliruca Arde, Yamato Mikoto, Sanjouno Haruhime, and Ryuu Lion. They ignored the patrols' warnings and chose to settle at the city's southwest gate, the closest land point connecting Orario with the port.
As it turned out, they were not alone there. The miracle of the return of Hestia's Falna bond apparently spread quickly through the ears of gods possessing high-level information networks.
On the other side of the giant gate's courtyard, Syr Flova stood in silence. The tavern waitress girl was still wearing her apron, but her gaze implied a deep, hidden urgency and possessiveness. Her presence there was escorted directly by the main pillars of the Freya Familia. Hedin Selland stood with an elegant, stiff posture, accompanied by Allen Fromel who leaned against the stone wall with a bored expression, and the four Pallum quadruplet brothers, the Gulliver Brothers, who were on full alert in silence.
Only Ottar and Hogni were absent from the lineup. The last report stated the Boaz was fighting desperately to hold off the onslaught of the giant monster Balor on Floor 49 at the request of Finn Deimne, while Hogni Ragnar went down with the expedition to protect Riveria Ljos Alf, and now the Dark Elf's fate was also uncertain in the depths of the labyrinth along with the adventurers waiting for death.
Aside from the ruling familia, God Hermes and Asfi Al Andromeda also leaned against the gate wall. The messenger god pulled the brim of his fedora hat to hide his tense expression, while Asfi stood alert, watching the cobbled street cutting through the forest.
Two agonizing days passed at an incredibly slow rhythm. Hestia rejected her children's persuasion to return to headquarters, her eyes constantly staring straight down the road to the Melen border.
And that stubborn wait was finally answered.
At the end of the path, the silhouettes of several humans slowly began to appear. Leon Vardenburg walked at the very front with firm, calm steps. Beside him, walked an androgynous-faced youth wearing turquoise-green bard clothing, casually twirling a small lyre in his hand.
Right behind them, Nina Tulle walked alongside a white-haired youth they knew all too well.
Following behind the group were four tall figures wearing thick black cloaks. The cloaks covered their entire bodies and faces, a playful instruction from Venti purely for the sake of a "surprise" he had planned.
"BELL!"
Hestia's piercing scream broke the morning silence. The goddess ran with all her might and immediately leaped, tackling the youth.
"Kami-sama!" Bell smiled widely, opening his arms and catching his goddess's body in a tight embrace, letting the warmth he had longed for flow back.
Behind Hestia, Welf and Mikoto ran to catch up with laughter of immense relief. Liliruca sobbed while gently hitting Bell's back, pouring out all her worries and scoldings about the captain's recklessness. Haruhime fell to her knees as her legs suddenly went weak from overwhelming gratitude, while Ryuu Lion merely smiled faintly, hiding her hands trembling with relief behind her green cloak. From a distance, Syr watched the interaction with a gaze flashing with possessiveness, feeling relieved to see the youth whole without lacking anything.
However, as that emotional reunion slowly warmed the atmosphere of the southwest gate, a deadly chill began to creep up from the direction of the Freya Familia.
The eyes behind Hedin Selland's glasses narrowed extremely sharply. His killer instinct as a Level 6 elite adventurer twitched violently, sending danger signals through all his body's nerves. He didn't care about Bell Cranel or his return in the slightest. Hedin's attention was locked dead entirely on two of the four cloaked figures standing silently at the very back of the group.
The way they stood on the ground, the rhythm of their breaths that almost blended together... Everything felt so familiar. Too familiar, to the point of making Hedin's stomach churn with a surge of deep-seated hatred.
Memories from the era of The Great Feud seven years ago exploded back into Hedin's head uncontrollably. A dark period where Orario's sky was covered in smoke, the streets were filled with seas of blood, screams, and absolute despair. He remembered very clearly the details of the life-and-death battle against the Evilus executives in the city center.
At that time, Hedin used all his tactical calculations to trap the White Elf in an impenetrable lightning cage, providing an absolute opening for Hogni to decapitate the girl mercilessly. At the same time, it was Hedin himself who executed the Dark Elf, burning his opponent's body with high-tier lightning magic until it was charred without a trace. The deaths of those two monsters became the bloody stepping stone for Hedin and Hogni to break their limits and evolve to Level 6.
This presence... Impossible. I sent them to hell myself, Hedin thought, the veins on his temples bulging hard to hold back his boiling anger. An existence that has been annihilated shouldn't be able to stand under the sun again.
Without giving any warning, regardless of anyone near his line of fire, Hedin raised his right hand high. A golden magic circle exploded around him in an instant, emitting lightning sparks that blinded the eyes and spread a pungent smell of ozone that stung the lungs.
"Caurus Hildr!"
As a master of the Concurrent Chanting technique, Hedin shortened his incantation to the absolute minimum. In just a matter of seconds, hundreds of lightning arrows materialized in the air. With a single swing of his hand filled with killing intent, the electrical storm spread wide and shot forward, raining down mercilessly on the two cloaked figures.
"Master Hedin! What are—!" Bell cried out in panic, trying to step forward to stop the attack, but his voice was immediately drowned out by the deafening roar of thunder.
The members of the Hestia Familia and other eyewitnesses stared in sheer horror at the sudden, highly destructive attack. However, Venti, who stood not far from the point of impact, merely crossed his arms, smiling faintly with absolutely no intention of stopping the show he had indeed been waiting for.
Right before thousands of Level 6 lightning strikes reduced their targets to ashes, the cloaked figure on the right raised her hand with a very elegant motion. There was no muttering of an incantation. There was no glowing magic circle acting as a catalyst.
The girl merely channeled her mind to activate the Anemo Calyx.
WHOOSH!
An incredibly dense hurricane dome, compressed so much it appeared turquoise-green, exploded from the ground's surface, absolutely enveloping the two cloaked figures. Thousands of Hedin's deadly lightning arrows hammered the storm dome relentlessly, creating explosion after explosion of bright white light surrounded by a blinding bluish-purple aura.
However, the laws of elements dictated otherwise. That layer of compressed wind deflected, eroded, and neutralized every electrical current with absolute perfection. The magical attack that could level a city block was swallowed by the storm vortex as if it were merely a meaningless, gentle breeze.
"What?!" Hedin gritted his teeth. He prepared to chant a much larger follow-up spell, but his opponent moved faster than his calculations.
Seeing her sister attacked suddenly, the cloaked figure on the left immediately took counteraction. She channeled pure wind energy from the Anemo Calyx to both of her feet, then leaped into the air.
Her movements completely defied the laws of gravity. The feet of the cloaked figure stepped on empty air as if there were an invisible glass floor there, performing a double jump on nothingness, then shot down diving towards Hedin with a speed that exceeded the limits of the naked eye.
Simultaneously with the dive, she activated Caelum Dominus—a deadly skill that blossomed when she struggled to break through Level 4 in the Kaios Desert. The skill forcibly and drastically increased her Agility and Dexterity stats as long as her feet didn't touch the ground, while also maximizing the accuracy of her magic attacks while airborne.
Hedin, with his honed combat instincts, realized the deadly threat diving straight at him. He was forced to cancel his incantation and draw his main weapon. With a flash of purple lightning, the Freya Familia executive drew Dizaria—an ancient double-edged rhomphaia whose blade length exceeded his own height. He swung the giant, electricity-coated sword upwards with all his might to block the slash of the compressed wind blade launched by the figure from the air.
CLANGGG!
Even though what clashed with the metal of Dizaria was only pure storm element, the sound produced from the impact was incredibly loud and heavy, like two giant steel swords smashing against each other.
Hedin was pushed back several steps until his boots carved deep into the cobbled street. His eyes widened behind his glasses. He could feel the incredibly heavy weight of the storm attack and the extraordinary precision of his opponent.
The cloaked figure didn't stop there. Continuing to dance in the air without wings, she utilized invisible wind currents as footholds to unleash a relentless barrage of pure storm slashes from blind spots that were utterly impossible to predict. Hedin was forced to spin his giant rhomphaia sporadically, parrying the endless barrage of attacks, and entering a highly disadvantageous defensive position. Using a sword that long against a highly agile close-combat aerial fighter was a major disadvantage.
"Tch!" Hedin clicked his tongue roughly. Having no room to swing, he unleashed a large-scale shockwave of electricity directly from his body, creating an area-of-effect explosion in the shape of a lightning dome to force his opponent back and maintain distance.
The strong wind resulting from the clash between lightning magic and storm element between the two of them finally yielded a dramatic result. The shockwave forcefully blew back the hoods of the black cloaks that had been hiding the identities of the two mysterious figures all along, throwing the thick fabric behind their backs.
Beneath the remnants of the slowly thinning wind protection dome, stood a White Elf with golden blonde hair and emerald green eyes, staring at all the chaos with absolute calm.
And, slowly floating down towards the surface resting on a small wind vortex beneath her feet, stood a Dark Elf with glowing silver hair and blood-red eyes, staring at Hedin with an expression of disdain.
Dina and Vena.
Hedin Selland was astounded. His entire body froze for a fraction of a second—a fatal mistake he had never made throughout his high-level career. His rational logic fell apart upon seeing Vena, who had just fiercely dueled him, and Dina, who stood tall without a single scratch.
The shadows of the past that he and Hogni had killed seven years ago were now staring at him alive, breathing with the same elegance, yet bearing an absurdly anomalous power he had never seen. Where had their long incantations gone? What was the true form of the wind that could withstand his absolute lightning without draining Mind energy?
Vena landed smoothly on the muddy ground, letting the remaining storm energy around her subside before she crossed her arms. The Dark Elf girl stared at Hedin with a highly mocking smirk.
"So, is this the extent of the abilities of a Hedin Selland in this era?" Vena's voice flowed melodiously, yet every syllable was as sharp as a sword blade stabbing straight into the solar plexus and pride of the White Elf. "Your defensive movements are very sluggish and incredibly easy to read. You are much weaker than the Hedin we knew from where we came from."
Vena's words truly became a spark in a sea of oil. Veins of anger instantly popped out on the forehead and neck of the Freya Familia executive. His pride had just been easily trampled on by existences that should have rotted in the ground.
Lightning once again sparked wildly across Hedin's entire body, creeping down to the tip of Dizaria's long blade. His aura exploded, signaling that he was truly ready to throw away all rules of rationality and destroy the entire southwest gate area to kill them for a second time.
However, before the full-scale bloody clash could continue, the horrified reactions of the other spectators broke the suffocating tension in the air.
Ryuu Lion, who had been standing frozen watching the reunion of the Hestia Familia, slowly lowered the wooden sword she was gripping. The tip of the weapon's blade pointed to the ground as the hands of the sky-blue-eyed elf now began to tremble violently.
Her memories of The Great Feud era—of the merciless mass slaughters, the brutality of Evilus, and the loss of the lives of her comrades-in-arms in the Astrea Familia—forcibly replayed in her head like a cold chain choking her neck.
"That's... Impossible," Ryuu whispered, her voice laden with the trauma of the past torn open once again, her face paling like paper.
On the other hand, God Hermes slowly lowered his feathered fedora hat. His eyes, which usually radiated playful cunning, were now wide open, losing all their gleam. Beside him, Asfi Al Andromeda immediately took a fighting stance reflexively without realizing it. The face of the genius item maker looked tense, her hands tightly gripping high-tier explosive potions hidden within her cloak.
"Lord Hermes..." Asfi said with bated breath, her eyes unblinking, staring at the two entities standing under the morning sunlight.
"Yes, Asfi. I see it with my own two eyes," Hermes replied, his voice sounding shaky as he swallowed hard. "The White Elf and Dark Elf Sisters. The former Captain and Vice-Captain of the Alecto Familia. Two crazy, destruction-bringing female demons from the past..."
Hermes slowly shifted his gaze towards Venti, who had been merely smiling casually amidst the chaos all along as if watching a theatrical play. The messenger god's gaze then returned to alternate between the calm faces of Dina and Vena.
"The Dis Sisters..." Hermes muttered, cold sweat beginning to flow down his temples as he realized the scale of the madness of Bell's pickup party. "By the gods... Why are the core executives of Evilus here?!"
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P - Gem_Blanks
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