The moon was showering the land beneath with its sparkling blue light. The millions of stars generously provided their light, partnering with the moon. Under the two natural light sources, the forest remained in silence. Except for the songs of night crickets and the rustling of flora, there was no sound to be heard. In the scorched area of the forest, Michael and Gaya were standing on opposite sides. They spoke no words for a few minutes. Their eyes were locked onto each other. Either of them had so many things to say to the other. However, no words came out of their mouths, at least from Gaya's mouth.
Her eyes watered with a mix of joy and worry. She was afraid of how he might act. After all, she disappeared leaving a simple letter. Michael noticed her Core Strengthening stage level 2 cultivation. Granted he expected her to become stronger but at the moment, he couldn't care less about cultivation levels. He was glad and elated to see her back in one piece.
"Snakey" Michael smiled, breaking the silence between them.
"Human" Gaya just dashed at him as fast as she could, dropping the satchel with Vedora in it on the ground. She came running to him before leaping at him like a tiger. She wrapped her legs around his waist and hugged him with all her might. He returned the favor as he hugged her as tight as he could. Both of them embraced each other without any intention to let the other go. They both missed the warmth of the other. Deep down both of them yearned for the other one's touch. All of their senses were having a blast. They took in each other's smell, touch, warmth, and embrace to the fullest. Gaya frantically began to shower him with kisses. The stubble beard did not stop her from landing passionate kisses on his cheeks. She cupped his face and kept kissing him without uttering a word.
Vedora crawled out of the satchel to see Michael and Gaya locked into passionate kissing. Soon she changed her target from cheeks to his lips. Her kiss was fueled with passion and wild heated love. He could not hold back as he ran his fingers through her hair to grab her by the head. He pulled her closer, flaming the fire of their love. They savored each second of the kiss. Nothing bothered them for long minutes. They forgot about their worries and enjoyed the moment. Gaya pulled Michael towards her with both her hands and legs that wrapped around his waist.
While the lovers were enjoying the passionate moment of tenderness, Nightmare's vertically slit pupils became rounded, noticing Vedora in the distance. Immediately Nightmare shrunk himself to the size of a puppy before running towards the three-headed Hydra to welcome them back home. For Nightmare, Cain and Sarba were the little brothers as Ayag was a bratty little sister. He loved them dearly and they too loved Nightmare.
"Ayag, Cain, Sarba" Nightmare reached Vedora in a few blinks of an eye.
"Hey brother" Sarba greeted Nightmare with a wide grin,
"Come here you big lizard" Ayag seemed more excited than Sarba. She was bouncing. When he got closer, Both Sarba and Ayag coiled around Nightmare's neck. They licked him and so did Nightmare. As usual, Cain remained expressionless yet he too gave a gentle headbutt as a gesture of his love towards Nightmare.
"I missed you three so much" Nightmare gently lifted them off the ground.
"We too. You won't believe the shit we've seen inside the Fire Realm" Ayag said excitedly.
"Fire Realm?" Nightmare was surprised,
"We will talk about that later. After we reach dark forest" Cain felt bad for breaking up their reunion but the appearance of Jacobe and the reapers made him go home as fast as he could before they received any more surprises.
"We aren't going anywhere until those two get tired" Ayag chuckled at Cain,
As though Gaya and Michael heard them, they finally ended their kissing. Their heads moved a few inches away from the other. Looking directly into Gaya's eyes, Michael spoke.
"Next time you pull a stunt like this, I will chase you down and kick your snakey ass"
"Aww, my human is worried about me" She giggled. The tears of joy couldn't be stopped from rolling out of her eyes. She then gently kissed him on the forehead. Finally, after several minutes of clinging onto him, she let go of her legs to land on her feet on the ground.
"I'm worried about them, not you" Michael pinched her cheeks with an intention to make her pout. It had been so long since he messed with her. Felt good to play with her after a long time.
"You are still a jerk" in return, she pinched his nose frowning.
Whoosh!
As Gaya was pinching his nose, Nightmare dashed at her. He was too fast as even Gaya noticed him after he came colliding with her.
"Stupid Naga" Nightmare brushed his warm head onto her cheeks. He embraced her with his feathery wings.
"I missed ripping off your ugly clothes," Nightmare said, continuing to rub his head on her face.
"I missed kicking your scaly butt every single day" Gaya brushed his head gently with a smile on her face. Nightmare opened his feathery wings to embrace Ghost and Gaya together. Vedora felt cozy between the three of them.
"Sorry to break our reunion guys but we should hurry back home" Cain drew their attention to him. He really hated to break the group hug but he liked to be safe rather than sorry. Removing himself from the hug, Michael looked around at the dead bodies of the reapers as well as the charcoaled body of Jacobe for a moment. The dead bodies of the reapers were beyond recognizable. They were deep into the forest and if he was correct, their bodies would decompose before even anyone could find them.
"Let's go," Michael said. There was no point in searching Jacobe's body because the space ring as well as the armor was melted by the dragon's breath. Nightmare could have gone easy on Jacobe. The dragon was too mad and Michael couldn't blame him. Even he was losing his control and rational thought because of what Jacobe tried to do.
With Vedora in his hands, Nightmare flapped his wings while Gaya and Michael took off from the ground creating a shock wave due to their speed.
"We should fly instead of teleporting" Sarba raised his concern in the mid-air,
"Yeah, I for one would love to listen to everything that happened since we left"
Michael and Gaya nodded agreeing with Ayag and Sarba. It didn't seem like a bad idea to fly rather than teleport. If something happened, Michael could always teleport back to a dark forest. Else, flying under the beautiful starry sky seemed to be the best place to tell each other everything that happened.
*******************************
"My Lord" Eventually when they returned to the dark forest, Azazel greeted Michael as usual with a deep bow.
"My Lady, you are back!" Azazel's eyes sparkled in joy when he saw Gaya and Vedora. His ethereal face lit up,
"Before you start celebrating my return, leave us the room" Gaya's face was serious just like her voice.
"Yes, yes, of course, my lady" Azazel could tell the reason for her concern must be Dark Lord's recent problem.
After Azazel left the room, Gaya sat on the edge of the bed while Michael sat beside her. Nightmare and Vedora took Michael's working chair in front of his workbench where there were blueprints, various metal parts, and tools lying around.
"So we are fucked in so many ways" she looked at him with a worried face. However, Michael just smiled. No matter how worried she was, seeing him smile always reassured her. It gave her an immense amount of courage. She missed this feeling when she was in Fire Realm.
"Noah knowing your identity is not a biggie"
"What do you mean not a biggie? You just told us Noah is the disciple of Andreas who happens to be the Supreme Guardian and very very very powerful" Ayag asked,
Michael told her everything that happened from what happened inside the captain's cabin of the Silent Reaper to his invitation to Mazeroth to the appearance of the third persona. At the moment, she was equally worried about both Ghost and her mother.
"Noah is a self-righteous guy. He feels indebted to me for saving his family. Guy like him hate to be indebted. By keeping your secret, he feels he has settled his debt, and trust me, he will keep his word. After all, he's the next Supreme Guardian" Michael calmly explained. They couldn't understand him completely but his words somewhat made sense to them, especially to Cain who also thought like Michael.
"The problem is the tiger attacked you"
"Was a problem" Nightmare growled after hearing Michael,
"If he could find her identity, then we have to assume, more trackers like him can too"
"Killing Xanali and her mother will solve the problem," Cain coldly said. He wasn't too happy about being held hostage by someone. He felt disgusted, not at Jacobe but with himself for being too weak.
"I agree with blacky here. Let's go kill those bitches" Ayag snickered.
"I hate to admit it but it seems to be the quick and the right way" Finally Sarba raised his opinion. Both Nightmare and Gaya were stunned. It was extremely rare for the three heads to agree on something.
As much as she loved to see them agree on something without biting each other, she couldn't agree on killing Xanali and her stepmother. Especially after her mother warned her about Xanali's mother.
"If I only had 200,000 badass points" Michael sighed inside. If he had the amount, the system would have placed a rune on Gaya's body preventing anyone from tracking her down. According to the system, no one could track her down using any methods after placing the rune on her. However, Michael did not have 200,000 badass points. He lacked 40,000 points.
"System, can you create a teleportation scroll to teleport Gaya with me to Mazeroth?"
[Of Course the system can. For 100,00 badass points, the system can create an invitation just like the one you received for Gaya]