Hours later, Dyon was in an entirely new inn. In order to avoid being annoyed, he had moved. He doubted that the Cavositas would do anything out in the open, or else it would mean losing moral high-ground with the elves.
The truth was the despite the disappearance of the Elvin King, his power was still a looming influence. After all, 10 years was a blink of an eye to a celestial expert. And this was even more true for an elf. Assuming that he would never show up again was something many weren’t willing to risk on. So, openly killing the man he’d know as his son-in-law was not a good idea.
This was the kind of unknown the elves wanted to continue to foster. To the upper-echelons of the elves, their king had disappeared without a trace or even a word of goodbye. But, to the upper-echelons of earth and the other planets, the Elvin King was gone, but the elves were aware of why and that he’d be back. This was a subtle, but very important lie.
That said, the elves still had other celestial experts to maintain God Clan rank, including the Grand Elders and Head Sigebryht. In fact, Head Sigebryht was still known as a genius to many. And, no one forgot Uncle Acacia in all of this. He had been exposed as a peak level saint with the attack of the Daiyu on the Elvin Kingdom. It was suddenly clear to everyone that maybe his talent wasn’t too inferior to his brother.
In the end, the elves were able to make up for their lack of quality with quantity. Their status could not be ignored.
Without their king, they were among the peak God Clans. And with him? They rivaled any Royal God Clan.
After treating Eli, Dyon let him sleep. In fact, he went as far as forging a coma-inducing pill set to allow Eli to wake up once his body was healed and his fatigue was gone. After what must have been years of a poor diet and no rest, Eli needed this rest the most.
Dyon knew that if he allowed Eli to wake up now, he’d be too worried about the rest of his family to get a proper rest.
Flashing into his spatial ring, Dyon walked toward the collection of tents he had created for the demon generals and let Eli rest in his. Afterwards, he let the demon know about Eli and that they should explain things to him should he wake up without Dyon’s knowledge.
Arios had gone to see his father with Ava after the gate closed, so, he wasn’t here. But, there were thousands of other demon generals to help out. Often times, Dyon felt bad about having them stay here, but, there was really no other place for them. In addition, they seemed to enjoy spending their days in relaxation and cultivation.
Many of them had even once been trapped within a gate during its recovery time. Compared to days like that, the demon generals saw this place as a paradise.
With everything settled, Dyon left the ring to appear within the hotel room.
Looking down at Ri’s sleeping figure, he couldn’t help but feel saddened. To Ri, Eboni and Ulu were people she should have been able to beat. But, the martial world didn’t have a place for fairness. In fact, in all this time, even as Ri tossed and turned in her sleep, clearly agitated, she had never once said anything about fairness. To her, victory should have been a foregone conclusion.
At first, Dyon blamed himself. He didn’t expect words as simple as ‘Sacharro’s don’t lose’ to have such a profound effect on Ri. But, he had to check himself after that.
He had a huge effect on Ri’s life, yes. But, not enough to cause a fundamental change to her personality.
Ri was a person who had started raising an army as barely a teenager with the goal of taking over the Elvin Kingdom in her father’s stead. She was a person that spent her entire life forcing herself down a path of wills that was never her forte. She was a person that loved array alchemy and studied it just for her fascination, despite having weak soul talent.
Ri was competitive to her very core. She did things because she wanted to and followed through with them to the end. Her hate of losing may have had something to do with Dyon, but it was definitely not the entire reason.
Alexandria Acacia. She had goals of her own. A purpose she wanted to achieve. Whether that be being worthy of standing by Dyon’s side, or finding her parents, each was important to her and each required her to win. Then win again. And then win yet again.
In a lot of ways, Ri was still that little girl who lost her parents. Still that little girl that lost her best friend. Still that little girl who was training day and night to rebuild the things she had lost.
And now, Dyon was yet another thing she wanted to hold onto to. No matter what Dyon said or did, Ri still felt like she had to earn his love. It was just that this loss had caused all of these emotions to surface.
But, even thinking of all of this, nothing hit Dyon as much as when he heard Ri said something that made him tremble. Something that made him think back to his trials with the old man…
“I’m happy you have big sister Madeleine. I’m truly happy this time.” Ri mumbled in her sleep, an uncomfortable sweat coating her delicate features. “I can’t be jealous anymore. I’m too useless to be jealous.”
All of this time, Dyon had been trying to ignore the facts.
Ri was someone who had spent much of her life being made fun of for her looks. Then, when she fell for someone, she found out that this same man who looked past the way she looked, had a fiancée who was a matchless beauty.
To make things worse, Dyon hadn’t met Ri with Madeleine by his side. He had met Ri after having been separated from Madeleine for more than a year. No matter how competitive or confident Ri was, how could she help but not think she was only a temporary replacement? How could someone who had to deal with people constantly disappearing from her life not worry that the first man she had ever loved leaving too?
With all of these feelings mounting and the meeting with Madeleine looming, Ri was trying her best to hide how she truly felt from Dyon, struggling to be the woman Dyon couldn’t find flaw in. And then, things instantly got worse…
Dyon had gone and disappeared, falling into a crack permeating with death qi and seemingly dying. Despite his words of promise before those events, how could Ri put stock into his survival? Yet another person, gone.
Ri wasn’t willing to believe it or think about it, so she buried those feeling, throwing herself into the battle until a ray of hope came in the form of Dyon’s spatial ring.
But then, Dyon didn’t show up for months. Ri didn’t know how he was fairing, if he was safe, or what he was doing. She was completely cut off and in a constantly troubling emotional state as she fought for endless days in a row.
In the end, Dyon came back, but even then, it was like a dream to her. She didn’t even fully realize Dyon was really back until she woke up in the hotel room.
However, even when she was finally back in Dyon’s arm, it was time for her to pretend again. Pretend as though she hadn’t been bothered by the past few months. Pretend as though these new shifts in her body weren’t confusing and scaring to her. Pretend as though she wasn’t scared about meeting Madeleine.
The truth was she didn’t know how she felt. She had known Dyon had a fiancée from the very beginning and had already promised herself to him. She had decided right from the moment she gave her virginity to Dyon, that even if she had to spend the rest of her life in a jealous state, it was worth it if she could be with this man. But, that didn’t stop her from feeling the fear that was building up.
How would she feel about having to share Dyon with someone else? How would she feel seeing Dyon worry over someone else like he did her? How would she feel when Dyon looked at Madeleine in a way that, up until now, had been reserved for her? She just didn’t know.
So, when all of these feelings mounted, and she finally wanted to take out some frustration, everything had come crashing down. She had lost. She felt useless. And worse yet? Even till now she thought she had forever lost her ability to birth Dyon’s child.
‘Why would he want me now?’ Ri didn’t know how many times she had thought this. But, it ran through her mind again and again.
“Ri?” Dyon say on the edge of the bed, lightly gripping Ri’s small hand. This wasn’t something he could help her with, but what he could do was be here for her.
“Mm.” Ri rolled, opening her eyes to find Dyon looking at her with a gaze filled with concern.
Dyon wanted to say that he would never leave Ri. That he loved her as much as he loved Madeleine and that he couldn’t live without either of them. But, words just weren’t enough.
Ri might have heard that her parents loved her millions of times, and yet hadn’t they left as well? To Ri, that was what people did… As long as they had enough reason to, they would leave. Even if they had no intention to now, they might still do it later.
Seeing Dyon’s concern, Ri’s eye watered as she looked down at her belly. “I’m sorry.” She whispered softly.
“Ri, stop that. I only need some time to undo it. Soon, you’ll be my health little feu glace, okay?” Dyon gently wiped the tears from Ri’s cheek, “Then, we can train together. We still have weeks until the tournament. You have all of this built up cultivation you haven’t tapped into yet. How could you not have improved after months of fighting, right?”
Ri nodded slowly. Despite her cultivation not having progressed in months, after that much time fighting, she was bound to be ready for quite a few consecutive breakthroughs. A beast could cultivate by almost solely eating a sleeping, right now, that was exactly what Ri needed. Much like muscle training where strength only grew after muscles tore and rebuilt themselves, Ri’s cultivation had been theoretically ‘torn’, but, she had yet to rebuild it.
Sliding to the top of the bed, Dyon dressed-down before helping Ri into something more comfortable.
Ri was quiet and frail. It was clear the seal was still not allowing her to gather her strength and she needed Dyon’s help to do something as simple as changing her clothes. Although Dyon was trying to help, the fact she needed it for something so easy only made Ri even more frustrated with herself.
Despite seeing Ri’s flawless naked body in front of him, Dyon couldn’t think about anything other than how he could fix this as his eyes flashed with gold to cover Ri in a comfortable set of sweats.
“Nope.” Dyon shook his head, causing Ri to struggle to give him a look of confusion. “You’re my woman. I’m not allowing this. Come here, I’m telling you a story.”
Ri’s heart warmed at Dyon’s words even as she felt like a feather in the wind being swung up to Dyon’s lap.
“This story from the human world is exactly what you need right now…” Dyon said faintly.
Dyon held Ri tightly against himself. He was so large, and she seemed so small, that he nearly engulfed her as he rested his chin on her head.
Ri felt safe in Dyon’s arms, especially when she felt his hand rest on her belly protectively, streaming in his aurora and celestial will as he began to speak.
“Can you imagine what it would feel like, to love someone with your everything. To have your whole world be their smile. And yet having their smile never be the one you once knew?
How would you feel if the eyes I look at you with, suddenly became the very same eyes I looked at everyone with? If the gaze I gave you was as nonchalant as the gaze I gave to any other stranger?
What if I no longer called you my little feu glace, not because I didn’t want to, but simply because I forgot?”
Ri listened quietly, trying to understand the meaning behind Dyon’s words.
“To me, and you, that hopefully feels like a distant dream. Something that would never happen,” Dyon slid his chin down from the top or Ri’s head to rest his cheek against hers, silently enjoying the sound of her breathing slowly calming as he streamed more celestial will into her.
“But, sometimes people aren’t so lucky.
In the human world, there’s a story of a woman who was once diagnosed with acute amnesia. Because of this, she could never again form new memories that lasted through a night of sleep. She was forever stuck, having lost the last few years of her life, while never being able to forge a new life for herself.” Dyon tightened his grip on Ri’s small figure as though he too was scared she’d disappear.
“However, maybe the truly sad part, is that the part of her memory that she lost included the love of her life.
She would walk around her house, seeing pictures of a man she thought of as nothing more than a stranger. His voice was new to her. His smile was foreign. Even his jokes no longer made her laugh the same way.
The emptiness in her life hadn’t just affected her.
The man she had once loved had to watch her no longer look at him with the same eyes. No longer smile at him the same way. He had to watch any progress he made be completely washed away with a single night of rest.”
Ri trembled. That sounded absolutely horrible. Not only would this man never again feel like warmth of the woman he loved, he had to live knowing that she’d forever feel empty… As though something was missing that she’d never be able to replace.
“Eventually, the woman one day reached a breaking point. She could no longer stand being in a house with a stranger, so, she made him leave. Casting him out of her life entirely. And the worst part? The next day, she didn’t remember what she had done. She went on not knowing what she was missing.”
Dyon sighed.
“However, what the woman didn’t know, was that the man visited her everyday.
Despite having the past few years of her memory erased, the woman remembered her childhood and teenage years very well. And in that period of her life, she loved going to a café that was nearby.
So, everyday, without fail, she left to go to this café. Sometimes it was in the morning. Sometimes it was in the afternoon. And sometimes it was in the evening. But, without fail, everyday, she would go.
And everyday, the man she used to love would go to that café and wait.
Without the pressure of him being her husband looming over her, the woman was a lot more relaxed. Without knowing it, this woman spoke with this man everyday. And everyday, she would fall in love with him again.
The man proved everyday, again and again, that he was perfect for her. And every night, she would fall asleep thinking of him, hoping that she would remember who he was tomorrow. But, without fail, she would forget him every morning.”
Dyon’s cheeks twitched as he felt a stream of tears from Ri. His heart was saddened, but he had to continue with the story.
“This was how they spent the rest of their lives. The woman never recovered from her disease. She never woke up remembering the man that had loved her with his everything. And yet, because of this disease, she died not even ten years later, leaving the man alone to live the rest of his life.
On the man’s death bed, he wrote into his will to publish a book, and in that book, he wrote about what he had said the day he vowed to spend his life with this woman.
On the day of their wedding, before her family and friends, and before his own as well, he had sworn to remind her why she loved him each and everyday till death do them part.
And when he wrote about what he was most proud of in his life, it was the fact that he had kept that promise to her very last breath.”
“You idiot.” Ri wiped tears from her eyes, hitting Dyon’s thigh with her small fist.
“I want you to know Ri. I can’t prove it to you now. But, to your last breath. Even if you don’t know that I’m here. I will be.
My loyalty to you will never be something you have to worry about. How much I love you is never something you have to worry about.
Even if I have to deal with you kicking me out of our house. Even if I have to deal with sitting in a café for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of your smile. Even if I have to make you fall in love with me again everyday for the rest of your life. I’ll do it.”
Dyon’s hand made a final movement of Ri’s belly pulling out a dense blackness and crushing it in his hand before turning Ri around to face him.
“This is my promise to you.”