On the cliff Nytri was painting on, it's almost night with the sun beyond the horizon. The cool sea breeze blows to the land with the coconut trees shaking, the beasts return to their den and the nocturnal rise up. Space ripples on the cliff then forms a whirlpool with gold color shining across the sea. A figure appears in the whirlpool and it settles down, Nytri has returned from the land of the dead.
"Whew" Nytri looks around her, "What a trip." She stretches herself before looking around her, "Huh? Where's Is-" A figure tackles Nytri and puts her down in a tight hug. Nytri looks down and sees Isa hugging her with tears streaming down her face. Nytri smiles warmly, "Isa, what's wrong?"
Isa sniffles, "I…I….thought…I'd never see you again." She hugs Nytri more.
Nytri chuckles and rubs Isa's back, "There's no need to worry, I'm alright." Isa's hair had changed from blond to black, her hair is blond when she's in Casual Mode and not using EP.
A male voice speaks behind Nytri, "Alright huh?" Nytri fills a chill and she looks back, "He~y everyone, what's going on?" she forces a smile.
"'What's going on?' she says." The owner takes a step forward, "What's going on is, everyone is worried sick about you." The owner is a male Azurian with blond hair and yellow fangs of height 2.4 meters.
"Why would you be worried sick?" Nytri speaks, "Also Kira, why are you fuming and your hair standing like that?" Nytri points at his hair, "Did someone bully you again? I told you to stand your ground when those outsiders talk trash to you. Break a skull if you have to."
"No, I wasn't bul-" He shakes his head, "That's beside the point. You can't just vanish like that and return like nothing happened!" more figures start to arrive as he speaks, "We went all over looking for you, across the realms and even grandma and the clan are worried!"
"Sheesh," Nytri speaks getting up, "I wasn't in danger or anything." She squints her mouth.
Kira's mouth twitches with a vein popping, he speaks with a gust of wind like a tornado blowing at Nytri. "THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT." Nytri was almost sent flying and he continues speaking then teary, "You don't just leave like that." Kira starts shedding tears, "You can't." He hugs his knees and tears stream down his face, Isa also bawls her eyes out.
Nytri comforts the 2, "It's alright, it's alright. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere." She rubs Kira's hair and pats Isa's back for them to calm down. Nytri feels a gust of wind blow behind her, she looks back and sees all Azuria glaring at her. Nytri gulps and chuckles nervously, they each lay their issue on her.
......
The moon is high with a clear sky, the cliff which was normally lonely now has over 3,000 people on it. Nytri is at the top of the cliff with a pale face, she's been nagged for 6 hours straight and the last person just finished venting.
Nytri's thoughts, "Who knew being a mother was this hard? Having all your kids nag you..." Paxius is sitting across Nytri and he's already nagged her well enough, he looks refres-relieved. Paxius looks at Nytri, "So?"
Nytri looks at him, "So?" she tilts her head.
Paxius facepalms, "You act like we didn't experience a trauma just now. Anyway, where were you?"
"The land of the dead." Nytri speaks. All 3,000 people turn to her in shock, "YOU DIED?!" a huge gust of wind blows Nytri off the cliff but luckily Nytri teleports back. Kael rises to his feet in rage, "Tch, FIND THE BASTARD THAT HURT MUM!" All the Azurians get ready for war. Isa speaks out, "NOTHING HURT MUM! She was just following the thing that took the souls." They look at Isa then at Nytri waiting.
"No I didn't die!" Nytri speaks and they sigh, Nytri squints her mouth, "Hmph, I moved there to find the being that appeared. Also, don't tell me you guys' intend on rampaging again?" Nytri is stern towards them. The Pure Azurians calm down on their knees looking down as if being nagged, the impure Azurians laugh nervously and the Xenos are trying to hide the skills and spells they already activated.
Now Nytri is nagging them, "Don't go around causing trouble for everybody. Especially you 4-day sleepers, I don't want to hear another ghost town on the continent." 4 Azurians look at Nytri in exasperation.
Nytri glances over all of them in thought, then she shakes her head and speak. "I didn't die but I went to the land of the dead."
…..Silence...
"That explains a lot." Paxius speaks, "If we couldn't find you across the realms then you probably weren't in existence."
Nytri's eyes opens wide, "Waow, you guys are taking this pretty well." They glance at Nytri with a frustrated look. Paxius speaks, "It's you after all. Look away from you for a moment and the unexpected happens like it's a normal thing."
Lira inches to closer to Nytri, "So….what happened?" Nytri explained everything to them and the Xenos actually confirmed the presence of such beings outside the earth. This put Azuria in a tense mood and they tried to figure out what to do. Kael suggested they wait for now and see what happens and Nytri agreed to it. They all disperse back to their duties leaving Nytri, Paxius and Ivan on the cliff.
Paxius walks to Nytri, "We have a situation."
Nytri looks at Paxius with curiosity, "It's unlike you to have something beyond you. What's up?"
Paxius brings 4 letters to Nytri, "These are declarations of war from 6 kingdoms and," He brings out another paper, "This is a marriage proposal from Mirthendom." He brings out 8 other letters, "These are also marriage proposals."
Nytri shakes her head, "Why did you separate Mirthendom?"
"Because you met the prince," Paxius speaks, "I thought you'd look into this at least should you try to explore that part of life." Ivan raises a brow looking at Paxius.
Nytri yawns, "I'm not interested. Besides, the level difference is too high, I could kill him by accident in a lot of situations."
"What about the wars?" Ivan speaks, "This is clearly a waste of time."
"Indeed it is," Nytri speaks then looks at Paxius, "Do you know why they declared war?"
Paxius sighs, "Because of greed." Nytri tilts her head and Paxius continues, "Because of our wares, they think we have treasures and are too weak to protect ourselves. When I tried forging alliances with other nations, they took it as me seeking help."
Ivan thinks over it then shakes his head, he facepalms. "That's the stupidest thing that can happen! If we have treasures then obviously, we've got weapons. How did they not know this?"
Nytri scoffs, "It's humans, they probably eat greed for breakfast."
"And dwarves and beast race." Paxius speaks. "Even the elves want a piece of us."
"Elves?" Ivan asks in surprise, "What could we have that they'd go to war with us?"
"Better fertilizer," Paxius speaks, "The plants we grow are 10 times better than theirs so they want our method or treasure."
"Whatever, it's just farming practices," Nytri speaks, "I'm sure they don't even water their plants and leave it to nature." Ivan nods and Nytri continues, "So, what is the beast race?"
Ivan stretches his hand and a beast man appears before them like a hologram, "This is a beast man, they're animals who think they're humans."
"I thought they were the beastkin." Nytri speaks.
Ivan makes another hologram appear, "The beast kin are human with animal traits like ears, tails, teeth, scales on parts of their bodies and others. The beast men are literally 4 legged animals walking on 2 legs. Apparently, they're both considered human."
Paxius is confused, "Huh? The beast man is a literal animal, what could possess them to accept this?"
Ivan sighs, "Some champion took some as wives and people just accepted it. Even the beast gods and human gods had a thing."
Nytri holds her head, "Yeah, let's not talk about humans and beasts. I still find it hard they're considered human, I'll let some of my clones capture each race and differentiate them on the foundational level….Looks like my clones got unsummoned when I left."
"See why we were worried sick?" Ivan speaks. Nytri summons the 30 clones and they vanish as soon as they appear.
Nytri breathes heavily, "What is this? It took half of my EP to summon them? Summoning all my clones doesn't even take 200EP but now I lost half?"
"We're trying to figure that out." Ivan speaks, "A simple fireball can cost us like 10,000 EP so it's a major issue."
"Please do," Nytri speaks, "If we have to fight in a situation like this, we'll be heavily disadvantaged."
Paxius speaks, "I think that only affects those above level 200. For me and the others, we don't face anything like this." Ivan nods then Paxius speaks, "About the war, how should I handle it? Do I give them out stuff and ask for peace?"
Nytri waves her hand, "No no no no, wipe out everyone they send to fight us. Sowing Fear will deter them from ever pissing us off. At least that will cause the people to rethink the leaders they have."
"Alright," Paxius speaks, "I'll give them a suitable reply." He turns around and stretches his hand, space warps before him and teleportal opens before him.
"Wait," Nytri speaks, "Don't teleportals need a lot of EP to make, how did you make one so easily?" Paxius shrugs and points at Ivan then he walks through it before it closes behind him.
Ivan scratches his head with a wry smile, "We actually experimented with it to make teleportation easy. We use the Nexusphere as a Hook Point for the travels."
"How come I'm just learning this?" Nytri asks.
"You just focus on communication in the Nexusphere," Ivan speaks, "We thought of ways to weaponize it." Nytri is confused then Ivan sends the information to Nytri thorugh the Nexusphere, "Well, see you later! And don't go disappearing like that again." Ivan teleports from there. A screen appears before Nytri's eyes and she reads it.
Nytri waves her hands with a smile then goes through the information, "Wait, people can enter the Nexusphere with their real bodies?!" Nytri's eyes open wide, "It's a World of the Conscious, how do you send a body there?!" she reads more of the information, "Oh, the body can't fully enter the world but it can stay between the gap of Conscience and Reality...I have no idea what this is."
Nytri puts the screen aside, she activates Winged Mode and flies back to the Golden Emporium. She arrives in her room and falls on her bed, despite falling on it Kitt sleeping on the bed still didn't notice her.
[AU: INFO
- Kira: Full name Kirachma, pacifist so people tend to think he's weak. He works as an emissary because Paxius thought his nature will make people think Azuria is harmless.
- Day sleepers: Some Azurians sleep in the day and run around at night. The 4 specialize in terrifying people who misspeak about Azurians behind their backs and do worse to those who actually scheme against Azurians. 50 years later, they mess around with kingdoms for fun and got grounded by Paxius who played the age factor card.
END]