Chapter 1257: The Order Welcomes A Worthy Master! (1)
Chapter 1257: The Order Welcomes A Worthy Master! (1)
In order to not give away the directive Skullius commanded them by constantly following Elita as a group, the Unlimited Stars had decided that Yuyui, the most unsuspicious of them, should take Elita on a tour of the Empyrean Bosom. If anything happened, she could notify the others in a heartbeat. Thus, for the last hour or so, Yuyui had been showing Elita the numerous, odd sights in the place. And now...
"Bubbles?" Elita asked, but her eyes remained on the thing ahead of her.
"Yes. That's his name. Cute, isn't it?" Yuyui said with a big smile. Of course, because of the bright luminance of [Just Light] blasting from her face, it was hard to tell.
She too was gazing at the thing in front of them, but her emotions were significantly more tender than Elita's.
The former Paladin Champion didn't know what Yuyui was referring to: the name she had given the thing, or the thing itself. Neither was cute.
Before them was a large creature, certainly humanoid by some capacity. It was able to sit as a human would on the terraces forming on the walls of the great pit, after all. Elita and Yuyui were standing on the edge of this pit, watching the creature feed.
It had thick, lustreless reddish-black scales all over its naked body. Large, webbed wings around which orbs of blue flame revolved, grew from its back, flapping ever so often. Seven modest, white-hot horns grew over its bald, scaled head, flickers of white fire shooting between them.
The creature was feeding on a large piece of well-cooked steak in a rather uncouth manner. One would have thought it hadn't eaten in years.
Yuyui frowned as the creature only continued to produce vulgar sounds in its feeding.
"Bubbles! I taught you better than that! Where're the utensils I got you? They were specially made, you know?" she rebuked.
At once, the creature, Bubbles, turned its head to reveal a pair of yellow eyes with flaming slit-like pupils.
Yuyui scowled.
From Bubbles' eyes, two beams of searing, orange-pink flame blasted out, hurtling towards Yuyui with a thrum!
Elita was alarmed. She hadn't expected Bubbles to react so violently to - as Yuyui had called herself moments before his 'mother'.
An eye with dark sclera and an icy blue iris appeared on Yuyui's forehead. As soon as the incoming beams were reflected in the eye, they fizzled out as though drowned in moisture.
"Bubbles!" Yuyui hissed while stamping her foot on the ground. "How rude! We have a guest!"
Bubbles must have sensed something Elita couldn't from Yuyui, because he suddenly cowered, frightened, but still continued feeding messily.
"I'm sorry about that," Yuyui said to the former Paladin Champion. "He's grumpy because I didn't take along him when I accompanied Master to fight his other self. He's also probably not very happy with his living quarters."
"...I see," Elita said with a sigh. At this rate, she was going to have to buy that Yuyui really was Bubbles' mother.
Yuyui had explained that Bubbles had come one of three eggs that her Master had stolen from a certain cluster he had conquered months ago. One of those eggs had also become the Apostle Araeyn.
"Is this really that bad of a place to live though? Should I move him?" Yuyui turned to Elita and asked with concern.
Elita struggled for a moment. Even if she couldn't see Yuyui's expression, she could feel her frown.
"I wouldn't say that. It actually looks delightful. But perhaps that's not what... Bubbles, wants," she said.
She was being honest.
She had thought differently about this when Yuyui took her to a small, shabby, thatched building that looked as though it would collapse yesterday. However, her opinion could only have changed once she found an expansive room within this shabby building. It held great, neat bales of fluffy straw, suspended, silver basins of fresh water, and a pit that produced a different kind of meal every hour.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Everyone had been suspicious about the purpose of this thatched building, given its properties, but Skullius never explained. He turned the building into a pen for the mounts and familiars that his subordinates had managed to subjugate from the hundreds of Clusters he had drawn into the Empyrean Bosom.
Oddly, there were layers to this place. Bubbles' own, large room was two floors down.
Yuyui gave it some deep thought.
"Spoiled brat," she muttered. Elita smiled sheepishly.
At that moment, there was a flapping noise - wings beating against the air - and a large, red stork landed on the fluffy straw.
Timmit no longer looked like a common, oversized bird at a glance. Patches of silver and blue steel sat over the branches of his wings, his neck, torso and legs. Powerful energies could be sensed in them. The Stark Constellation crackled mildly on his forehead.
The stork saw Yuyui and rolled his eyes.
"Timmit!" Yuyui cried jubilantly and rushed towards the stork. Timmit took a step back but then realised that he couldn't stop what was about to happen.
Yuyui gave him a passionate hug.
Elita was lost for words. The especially passionless look in Timmit's eyes as Yuyui shook him affectionately made her wonder, for the umpteenth time, just what the deal was with
everyone here was.
"Did you miss me?" Yuyui said, her eyes staring first at Timmit's long neck and then his passionless eyes.
"Were you somewhere other than the Mirror Box?" Timmit asked, raising a brow.
Yuyui laughed this off as a joke, but unbeknownst to her... the stork was being serious. He hadn't noticed her departure at all.
"What are you doing here?" Yuyui asked him.
"Oh, how I begged her to send someone else for this," Timmit mumbled secretly before answering, "Kintar sent a few scouts to Aigas to check if the situation has worsened some time ago. They've just arrived. She wants them to report with everyone present."
"Oh, alright. Let's go," Yuyui said. She then turned and hurried to Bubbles who didn't see her coming, and yanked him by the wing. "You're coming along! Get over yourself, brat!"
Elita chuckled. Timmit looked as though he would throw up.
But then...
...!!!
Something made all four of them turn their heads northward, even though they couldn't see
past the walls.
Something in the distance had demanded their attention.
Every living thing in the Bosom found itself entranced by an entity it couldn't see.
And everything that couldn't be considered living also careened. The treasures in the Warmoth's Vault could not resist either. The greatest of treasures among them groaned
pleasantly.