With the disappearance of the Daiyu family and Jade, the square now held an eerie quiet. It seemed the only sounds that could be heard were Dyon’s wheezing breaths and ragged coughing.
Ri sat on her knees, propping Dyon up as they sat on a floating blue array. There was a tinge of worry in her eyes as she felt Dyon erratic heartbeat. It looked as though he had lost half his body weight, a mere shell of his former self.
Ri sighed. “You overdrew on your soul… without energy cultivation to help rejuvenate you, it’s hard to sustain yourself after drawn out battles… you’re such an idiot,” she muttered.
Yet, despite her words, she lay Dyon’s head against her chest, slowly circulating an ice purity will to help alleviate his pain.
What Ri had said was true. Unlike with energy cultivating, the soul and the body couldn’t easily draw on outside sources to replenish themselves. If you depleted your essence energy, you could simply take out an energy stone to replenish yourself.
However, when your soul or body was fatigued… only time would help unless you had very special medicines. In fact, even if you had those medicines, time would be your best option. This was exactly why there were three martial paths… each supplemented the next.
Dyon chuckled bitterly, his voice hoarse. “Maybe you’re right… I need some sleep. But, not yet.”
The members of the Eostre family trembled. Everyone knew the truth. How could a family who knew the secrets of everyone else, keep secrets amongst themselves? When Dyon said he’d find out who was involved, that was already lenient in and of itself.
But, just as they were shaking in despair, Dyon said something that made many look at him as something other than an impulsive genius boy.
“Grand Elder Deryth… Sigebryht family head Sinaht… The members of the Eostre family should be punished. Those that need to be killed, must be killed. However, I’m sure you can tell how a family that has an inability to keep secrets from each other would find it troublesome to rebel…”
The elders nodded in agreement. Even if someone of the Eostre family wanted to defect, once they had true intentions of doing so, wouldn’t all those around them immediately know?
Dyon sighed… this was where things got complicated. This was because the Eostre weren’t perfect empaths. That means that the degree to which they could see through things depended on how powerful their singularity had manifested within them.
This was exactly why Jade’s genius was a curse… a moon that wanted to reflect too much of the sunlight… she was so close to what a True Empath would be without being naturally so, that she not only deluded herself into believing she actually was, but her mind slipped as though she was one.
The reason for this was simple… a True Empath occurred naturally in nature. Because of that, they had failsafes of their own to combat the loss of their minds. Although this mental degradation was still inevitable along the stream of time without help from outside resources like celestial will or the stone tome, it was still better guarded against… it was much like how an animal could age normally while clones had drastically shorter lifespans.
Jade was exactly that… a false representation, a fake. And as such, she degraded much quicker.
That being said, the main point was that because the Eostre family had varying degrees of insight, many of the weaker ones could hardly be judged for being wary of the stronger ones… especially when the stronger one had a daughter who was the closest thing to a True Empath since King Acacia… before the existence of Little Lyla was known that is…
As such, the course of action became clear. Wyn Eostre was put to death, forced to kneel before the tomb of Ms. Everdeen for the rest of his days.
Along with him went many high ranked elders.
Any given major family had thousands upon thousands of members. Even though the Elvin population was small in comparison to the humans of the martial world, that didn’t stop their population from being within the hundreds of thousands.
And then, there was the problem of the Sigebryht family. In regards to them, it was best to choose to forgive.
Not only was Sinaht the most talented among the older generation with the king gone, he had only been forced in a corner to act as he did because of the Eostre family. Without the king disappearing, the Elvin Kingdom would have never been in turmoil, and Sinaht would have continued to be a pillar.
In addition, they really did nothing wrong in the end… They weren’t responsible for any deaths and they hadn’t made any attempts to be responsible for any such things.
The only real problem left was the Norville family and their act of stealing orphans. However, when Dyon looked into this, although he was thoroughly disturbed, he couldn’t argue with their logic.
He still shivered at the look in Mithrandir’s mother’s eyes when she told him she hadn’t tasted human in a while. Maybe if it wasn’t for Ri’s glare, his demon essence would have gotten the better of him.
It turned out that the Norville family took in orphans to raise them for the desire path. However, aside from teaching them the techniques, the real choice was left up to the children when they became of age. After all, Mithrandir was a prime example of how you could become stronger in such a path yet remain a virgin.
Although Dyon didn’t like the idea of essentially grooming kids to become prey to their own desires, from the perspective of the Norville family, they were sharing something wonderful with the world. Also, weren’t they simply taking orphans off of the streets at the end of the day?
It was both disturbing and somehow also refreshing that the Norville family had such a simple wish. It was almost as though all they wanted was for people to release their inhibitions. But, to Dyon, they just looked like a swinger couple… a really attractive swinger couple… but a swinger couple nonetheless.
In the end, Dyon stood in front of Ms. Everdeen’s crystalline coffin with Ri holding him up. He felt as though he was fading, but he wanted to see this last sight before he rested…
They were in the Eostre family holy land. Dyon silently wondered if this was what Ms. Everdeen would have wanted…
To her, the major families were a next tier of existence she could never reach. And yet, here she was heading the tombs of one of them.
Taking a look at the dead Eostre family traitors that lay before her, Dyon nodded in satisfaction.
“There’s only one person left…” he said softly, “I’ll have her kneel before you just like all the rest. Rest in peace Ms. Everdeen and have a good chat with my mother, I’m sure she’d love you.”
Ri watched silently as Dyon’s eyes reddened. He was struggling to keep them open, but it was clear his strength was almost completely gone.
Finally, he completely collapsed into Ri.
Spinning an array to life, Ri rested Dyon’s head on her lap. Her beautiful eyes glimmered with a faint sadness but unconcealed happiness. It felt like, for the first time in a long time, she had someone to truly rely on. And yet, that was a bitter sweet feeling.
Stroking Dyon’s hair, Ri planted a gentle kiss onto Dyon’s forehead. “Rest well…”
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