Now that it was decided they will be entering the chamber, the only thing that was left was to define who will be staying behind to protect the fort, Orson had to go since he was the king, Leister also wanted to go since this was a historical moment and Eret also needed to enter since he was the gatekeeper.
Sylas agreed to stay behind since he was still recovering and Milia decided to make him company, on the other hand, Kana refused to be left aside, she gave her mother a pleading gaze.
“I also want to go mom; I don’t want to feel defenseless ever again”.
After all the situation that happened with Robert, Kana woke up to the cruel reality of the world, previously she never put too much effort into cultivating which made her be in the early stage of the earth origin realm at twelve years old, something decent but she was still behind what Alice achieved at her age.
So now after experiencing all that, she decided to become strong, she has already asked her mother to start training her.
Sylas laughed seeing his daughter doubting.
“I remember a certain lass, who used to be quite reckless even when she was younger than little Kana, so take her with you”, he then turned to see Aster and he spoke in a serious voice.
“Kid, I can trust that you will take care of them, right?”.
Aster nodded, he walked until Sarina and Kana were right next him, of course Alice was also as close as possible to him.
“Of course, leave them to me”.
Orson had a weird expression on his face, he noticed that Sarina was acting a bit different than before… lately she was livelier than ever, but this was not the time to think on that, he gave Eret the order to open the doors to the hidden chamber.
The gatekeeper did a gesture with his hands and a cubic section of rock with six different grooves rose from the ground, Eret placed the symbols of authority of the members of the royal court and the king into their respective grooves, spirit formations suddenly appeared on the ground and all the presents disappeared from the room.
For Kana it was as if everything blacked out for a moment, when the lights she immediately inspected her surroundings, at her left side it was her mother smiling at her, on the other side Alice was holding Aster’s arm, while Aster had a mocking expression on his face.
If you were to look at the scene from afar, you would find it familiar… they were inside a dimensional tunnel, the difference was that this time Aster immediately used the paragon body to prevent them from being separated.
The whole space that surrounded Alice, Sarina and Kana was now being covered by golden light, as they floated in the erratic space, debris and other things kept clashing against it, but they simply dissolved into thin dust.
Now that her daughter finally recovered her senses, Sarina let out a sigh of relief, it was normal for her to faint since she hasn’t reached the star formation realm, luckily the space protected by the paragon body was completely hermetic which allowed her to not suffer any harm from the chaos that ran rampant in the dimensional tunnel.
Leaving aside Aster and Alice, Sylas and Sarina were the one with the highest current battle prowess, Sylas was a veteran from thousands of battles so when the spirit formations in the ground activated, he immediately created a barrier using his spirit energy to cover Orson, Milia and Leister.
On the other hand, Aster who has already gone through something similar reacted faster than Sarina, so this time he properly used the paragon body as soon as he noticed something was wrong.
Sarina smiled.
“How did you know that the gatekeeper was planning something?”.
While looking at the surrounding void, Aster smirked.
“Where would I put my face if I were to fall for the same trick again, since that old man focused his attention in you and Kana, I thought something was weird, he is a half-step mortal transcending realm cultivator and since you have already visited the royal castle, I’m sure he has seen you before… so why would he pay more attention to you instead of Alice or me?”.
Alice laughed.
“My brother is quite sensitive when it comes to certain “gazes”, hahaha”.
Kana was admiring the strangely fascinating sight of the dimensional tunnel which was illuminated by the golden light from the paragon body, although they were adrift in trip that would take them to who knows where, there was not even a trace of uncertainty in the atmosphere, as if they were continuing with the little picnic they were having near the river before.
“Big brother is amazing, I didn’t know you could protect big sister Alice, mom and me at the same time!!!”, she exclaimed.
Aster patted her head.
“Do you feel better now? travelling through space without being in the star formation realm, puts on a lot of tension in the both mind and body”.
Kana smiled.
“I was a bit dizzy, but now I feel okay”.
Since they were being protected by the paragon body, there was nothing to worry, so they just sat down and waited until, after a couple of minutes they reached the end of the tunnel, Sarina prepared herself, besides Aster, she was the only one that could fly so she was in charge in case they were thrown out in the sky.
Fortunately, this time things were different, the properly appeared in the ground, and it was easy to know that they were in a secret realm because there was no sun in the sky, instead of that there were spirit formations floating here and there.
They appeared in a road that guided them to the entrance of what looked like a giant vault, Sylas, Orson, Milia and Leister were already there, but there was no sign of the gatekeeper.
Aster walked towards the vault, followed by the girls, Sylas went to his encounter and they looked at each other for a couple of seconds, once they confirmed that none of them was an impostor, they spoke about how the reached this place.
Orson had an exasperated expression on his face, this day he has experienced to many emotional blows, his cousin turned out to be a traitor, his ancestors weren’t the upright people that he was taught… and now even the gatekeeper seemed to have ulterior moves.
Sylas looked a bit tired.
“Even if I used my spirit energy to cover us, we were separated in the way and only encountered each other after leaving the dimensional tunnel, how was it for you kid?”.
Kana was all smiles.
“I felt a bit dizzy but, Big brother used his golden armor to protect us so we stayed together ♥”.
The door of the vault suddenly opened and Eret came out of it, of course after what happened a moment ago everyone had their guards up against him, this time the gatekeeper did focus his attention on Aster.
“Kid from the outside world, what the hell are you… that spirit formation should be enough to restrain a void manipulation cultivator so how come you weren’t affected by it, even though you are but a mere star formation realm?”.
Aster smiled.
“Tell me what would happen if you throw a handful of feathers at a handful of metal?”.
The gatekeeper nodded.
“Nothing”.
Aster laughed.
“Exactly, they might both be a handful, but feathers won’t affect metal”.
The gatekeeper shook his head.
“Kid from which Conqueror you descend from? Did that usurper told you how to reach this place?”.
Sylas wasn’t following the conversation, so he interrupted the gatekeeper.
“Void manifestation, what is that? Eret I always knew you were a creepy bastard but this is a whole new level even from you”.
Aster explained.
“He isn’t the gatekeeper, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that there was no gatekeeper from the very beginning, void manifestation is the name of a cultivation realm, which as you might already guess it allows you to travel through space, but none of that matters right now… we have the person we were looking for in front of ourselves”.
He stopped for a moment before adding.
“Or am I wrong… first king of Luonto?”.
Eret smiled, his current appearance blurred and after a moment his eyes weren’t blind anymore, his clothes changed to the ones a scholar use, but the most important change was that instead of a material body his image was a bit translucid.
“Kids nowadays are quite scary, whatever since the cat is out of the bag already, I might as well present myself, I’m Aurelian Luonto the first king of Prasil”.
Orson nearly choked, the gatekeeper turned out to be the one they were looking for, since the beginning of the Millefiore lineage.
Sylas was also in awe, he has been picking up a fight with the first ancestor of the whole Luonto continent!!!