My Servant System-Chapter 1337 - 1336: Some Stirrings
Empress PoV
"Is this to become a ritual with you now, my love? Can I expect to find you here, every single day from now? Here in this spot at dusk? With the same brooding expression, the same stench of charcoal filling the air around you?"
I let out a long sigh as Igna approached me, the Dragon giving me a rather exasperated look as she moved over to my side, her words clashing with her actions as she laid her hand on top of mine, giving it a squeeze as she turned her head towards the south, 'looking' at the vast lands of our Empire with me.
"I suppose it has become a ritual of sorts, Igna. As it should be, all things considered. It's... comforting. Helps me feel like there is something I can... see. Of Fen. Of Leone."
"You aren't the only one worrying, love. Fen isn't just your lover, and Leone isn't just your daughter. So instead of cloistering yourself away atop this perch like a depressed Dragon once did, how about you go inside and find comfort with the others who miss them too?"
I glanced over at Igna, my mana sweeping over my wife's body as I took in all of her yet again, and it was that familiarity and that stern yet warm expression she wore that made me chuckle wryly as I nodded, pushing away from the balcony after having been here for well over an hour.
"That's better. Now come on inside and mingle with everyone else. Loretta is being... her usual self, unable to help it as she trades verbal jabs with the Haniel girl. I think Arc has tried to calm them down four times now, and yet they still burnt one of the curtains in their idiocy."
Her complaints about the Vampire and the Elf continuing to find faults with one another over some of the smallest things was intriguing enough, especially since I had to worry about them potentially burning down my Palace sometime soon, but it was as she tried to lead me inside that something happened.
Because... of course, the moment I begin to let my guard down, the moment I take her advice and finally give in to the temptation of being able to relax, to trust that everything should be fine... that's when things decide to not be fine.
There was a very faint but very distinguishable pulse of peculiar mana that emitted from the south, a peculiar mana that I hadn't felt in oh so many years... and it was one that I desperately never wanted to feel again.
It was one that signified something... greater, something larger than what this world was made for, and it was something that I didn't ever want to come into contact with again, at least if I could help it... and I had been helping it, somewhat.
The problem was it wasn't something I could control, and apparently it was something that had found its way into the one place that I never really wanted to head into anyways; not because I couldn't manage it, but because the chaos it represented was... off putting, so to say.
Igna tried to keep guiding me inside, but that pulse washed over me and made my skin crawl, rooting me to the spot as I stared out over the horizon, off towards the Labyrinthian and towards something I prayed would remain closed.
~~~
Jillian PoV
"Hey, what do you-! HEY! I'm speaking to you! Hey bastard!"
Rushing over towards the diminishing portal, I shouted at the figure that had just dropped a metaphorical bomb at my feet and tried to get some answers for myself, only for the featureless figure to disappear like it had never been here before.
"Mother-! I swear to everything that is holy AND unholy..! Argh!"
Slamming my fist into the trunk in front of me, I blew a large chunk out of the bark and caused the tree to creak as it slowly began to fall away from me, expressing my anger a little as I turned back towards my two companions and lovers.
"What the fuck was that?"
Neither Ayla nor the Arch Fiend could answer, which only pissed me off more as I snarled and glared back at the spot the portal had appeared, attempting to will it back into existence with spite and anger... which of course failed.
"Someone say something before I get even more irritated. What the hell was that... that thing talking about? A 'Stairway'? Some kinda world above ours? What, like the heavens? Was that a God? What the hell just happened?!"
My wife pursed her lips and stared at the spot as well, before raising her eyes to meet mine when I stormed over to her, disliking how long it took her to offer even just a modicum of a thought, which I knew were currently multiplying in her pretty head like rabbits right now.
Before I could grab her jaw and force her to speak, Ayla clicked her tongue and glanced at the frowning Arch Fiend as she said "It sounds like we aren't the only world that exists... meaning there probably is a separate world 'above' ours. Not literally, but... some kind of separate dimension that is more... just more. It's more area, more powerful, more refined, more everything."
"So what does that mean."
"Jillian, I haven't the faintest clue. I am processing it still, alright?"
This was the first time she had snapped at me, and while I would have normally hit her for the transgression this peculiarity helped joggle my mind out of its stupor, which was enough to calm me down as I spun back around and began to pace.
"A new world... the Trials are some sort of testing grounds for these... 'people' to grade us, I guess..? Like some... rite of passage? Initiation?"
Ayla's murmurs reached my ears, helping spark some more ideas in me, but for now I stared at Prumstu and gauged the Arch Fiend's reaction, which was just as shocked and genuine as ours, so...
"This is something new to the Fiends too, and that means it's very, very old. Or hidden... something that the world itself managed to hide from representations of itself..? Interesting... but also, the question becomes whether or not as want to take this test and head into this new world, right?"
That question got both of my sexy lovers to stare back at me, and I smirked as I answered my own question immediately, drawing similar smirks from them as they nodded in agreement; I cracked my knuckles and said "Yes, yes we should~! Anything to get stronger, right?! Anything at all, no matter the means, no matter the cost! Anything to be stronger than them!"
