Return to the main universe went far smoother than either dragon predicted after the plague of problems surrounding them. Akevorax’s confidence came from a lack of reaction from his bloodlines, meanwhile, Adret took more solace in the fact the Nexus refused to give more things so freely.

Solace doesn’t heal bones, unfortunately.

Between each slingshot between planes, usually sub-realms, the damage to her skeleton floated about. As kind as mass fractures all across her body, to horrible resonant forces pulverising them to dust. No normal mithril tier dragon could withstand such repeated abuse, just the pain alone forced her to tears several times already, but unbridled determination and copious phoenix fire pushed the dragon through in the end. The time all that healing took also gave Akevorax time to harvest resources from a variety of sub-realms, mostly grade 2 stuff, nothing valuable.

Grade 3 materials, anything at mithril tier or below, also existed in boundless troves, always the case throughout uninhabited sub-realms which hadn’t been touched in years. The dragons’ grading system was just a little biased due to their power levels. He left those lower tier materials in the sub-realm for natives to use one day, or perhaps grow stronger by a stroke of luck. Talking about grade 1 or 0 items was pointless on its own, such things developed under such strict conditions that sub-realms with them rarely went unfound.

“It actually reminds me, I haven’t bothered to try out that crown yet,” Akevorax’s voice broke the silence between them. The months of time together already wore down so many interesting topics for them to discuss, so finding anything worthy of a conversation was rare, though it was the first time Adret even heard of a crown from him.

She immediately asked, “Why do you have one? On second thought, a literal crown or an ability manifested as one?” Her backpedal came after just a moment’s analysis.

“Literal crown, it was one of the grade 0 items I received from the clan. But since I couldn’t use it back then, I left it in storage.”

“Received items… I remember hearing about that,” she looked towards him with a sudden glare before saying, “You mean the items you extorted, surely?”

“Same thing. Anyway, not like anyone else was using most of the stuff I took. Most of them only helped humanoids as well.” A roll of his eyes ended the minor argument. Aside from the cornem tier metals, he truly hadn’t touched anything overwhelmingly important to dragons, least of all things like the crown and planar will fragment.

His mana touched the ring, still strung on a chain necklace, and once more opened a ridiculously vast space filled with mountains of items in each direction. One thing to note was that this space exceeded the original ring he picked up years ago, where just a single treasury filled it completely, a master tier wizard restored it long ago in exchange for a few handfuls of the white crystal coins. That transaction lost a portion of his wealth but was quickly replaced through a large ‘donation’ from the extinct demon elves. Having a kilometre cubed of dimensional storage made concepts like money worthless. He fondly remembered the days where he worried about paying for his party’s manuals.

It didn’t take long for him to peer throughout the whole space and find his target, that old and simple gold crown. Unlike the banded crown worn by Adret, this one used blocks of golden metal to form an interlocked ring. Its adornments only existed as engravings on the inner and outer faces, with cubic spikes protruding from the top of each block to further its appearance of a crown.

However, even as normal as it appeared, she still found something strange about it. Her eyes weren’t good enough, but her Mind excelled beyond all other senses. Why else would it be in the grade 0 vault?

Just looking at its primitive construction, she asked, “So why’d you pick this crown?”

Turning it gently with psychic force, he replied, “It felt right… No– Don’t give me that look!” He caught sight of her judgemental gaze after such a poor description. That didn’t make it wrong, but he clarified, “It reacted slightly in the presence of my aura. Anything capable of that has to be interesting.”

“Why not just put it on and try then? It has some sort of remnants within, but nothing strong enough to possess you.”

“And if I do this?” On cue, he moved Origin Force outside his body until it drifted just beside the crown. Tempted by its first meal in countless years, and without countless restrictions sealing every interaction with the world, the crown hungrily sucked in the smatter of energy provided. Unhappy by such small portions, it did the only reasonable action, throw a tantrum.

Overwhelming pressure appeared around the crown. Air thickened into a sludge, every breath like swallowing shards of glass, and an indescribable weight cladding Adret’s body to the point she could hardly move. All her muscles stiffened and to an extent thinking became hard. It was like each of her thoughts suddenly floated away every few seconds, making any sort of focus incredibly hard.

Not a single part of that affected him.

“Can’t even talk,” he disappointedly sighed. Part of him hoped that the oddity Adret noticed was a hibernating Soul or Mind, which could’ve simply told him of the crown’s exact use, but now he couldn’t depend on that. Akevorax instead asked the spirit, “What does it need?”

‘Wants more.’ A very succinct answer, and as suggested, he released all Origin Force stored within the dedicated sack. Dimension Force could wait until the crown returned to a better state.

Unfortunately, while the stock available quelled its oppression a bit, a large bubble still existed with Adret hardly capable of movement. Unable to feed the thing in one go, he threw it back into storage until the next sack became available. The spirit still needed Origin Force too and he really hoped its transformation came soon.

“That didn’t exactly go to plan… Really thought I’d be able to test it immediately.” He shrugged and briefly checked on Adret whose body now responded to action, she felt uncomfortable after a couple minutes of restraint but nothing more.

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“Why do I even try to get involved with your crap?”

She shifted several metres further away and returned to her half-conscious state building up the altar for her Mind Palace. On the other side, Akevorax either pondered over the meaning of words or checked up on the golems’ progress thus far. For the most part, he spent time compressing his heart further, by far the easiest and fastest improvement available to him. It would have been great if the runes within him completely vanished by now, but his ample use of mana since they dropped to 200,000 meant that he barely halved that figure in the past few weeks.

The 110,000 runes within him really couldn’t do much harm at least, a small benefit. As Adret healed the last of her bones once more, they once more blasted away through the endless darkness towards another sub-realm.

…

Days of healing came once again in a repeated cycle, both dragons improving at a slow but constant pace, and before long they recognised the place ahead of them. Adret reacted the most, unnerved and anxious but also too scared to say anything specific.

It was moments before the launch when she asked, “Can we go? Will it be fine?” He could count the number of times she ever behaved so timidly on a single foot since she broke the moon, not this time surprised him. He didn’t give so much of a reaction beyond nodding, anything more felt insincere, and after a slight adjustment to the launch angle, it was time to set off once more.

Travelling for so long truly revealed just how far they strayed from the main universe, with Akevorax’s figure now in the ballpark range of 3 million kilometres. And that was just in a straight line, they instead travelled from plane to plane as Adret recuperated, with each launch roughly half a million kilometres. It sounded like such an impressive distance, but even at the furthest point away they hadn’t even reached 1% of the distance to the blank space’s ‘edge’. No one really knew how that place worked though.

Another launch put them against a large realm, and he pushed her broken body inside before both descended onto flat ground. All of it grey once more.

No other place could make Adret stumble more than this lunar realm.

She still braved a venture though, her courage not fleeting in the face of emotional hardship. Weeks of journeying revealed her willpower through physical pain and trials by combat, meanwhile, withstanding his cynicism managed most of her emotions well enough… Until she debated over this for days. Tormenting herself with the prospect of regret but incredible fear which erupted from seemingly nowhere.

Unable to find what scared her in the first place. Perhaps just the anxiety from this confrontation invoked all of that…

The broken body required a few more days to heal, meaning she didn’t really have any choice now. Adret touched down on the grassy field of grey without a hint of green light anywhere nearby, the severe lack of lunar elements surprised him too. Normally at least a few trees near any grasslands glowed with faint veins, but this place was almost completely decrepit. Not to say its mana density was similarly bad, it could at least support steel and gold tiers.

Greyed flames blasted over Adret, although hints of gold still managed to shine through no matter how the dimension repressed such power. Healing worked with or without the strange colouration to clarify.

Normally she’d find a comfortable patch, or create one, before continuing work on her Mind Palace, but for now Adret stood in place, completely and utterly dazed. However, Akevorax kept his mouth shut as she tensed up and relaxed periodically. Not even checking to make sure he guessed correctly, that the planar will reached out to her after its successful escape from Alkuthuzen’s control. Or perhaps he assumed too cynically, and it spoke to her without any respectful intent but kindness. She certainly deserved it just considering how rarely dragons laid their eggs outside the main universe. Adret absolutely took a top spot in this realm when it came to potential and power at her tier.

“I will, you don’t have to worry about this child of yours,” she whispered with a smile. All things considered, Adret’s kidnapping only occurred because the planar will was controlled by another. How that even happened still left both unsure of the usefulness.

Regardless, her conversation came to an end and Adret now rested as though perfectly fine. Not even frowning from the intense pain throughout her body, of broken and shattered bones. That didn’t suddenly end the conversation though, as another unnecessarily explosive voice exploded in his head and almost left the dragon swearing. “I was distraught seeing that you truly appeared without her, but I misjudged you. Thank you for saving this child and destroying those shackles; I cannot imagine the damage he may have created with those flames.”

It very unnecessarily maximised the volume without reason, but at the same time maintained a gentleness very reminiscent of Adret prior to breaking her moon. No matter what, he made sure to only show annoyance, pain, or modest acceptance. Under no circumstances could he correct the planar will!

“I can only hope the flames didn’t cause serious damage to this realm, we had intended to only detonate his lab. I’m sure it was seen all over,” he thoughtfully spoke, the entire time careful to avoid any lies that it might poke holes through. Fortunately, it was so thankful over the situation that it’d completely pinned every ounce of blame onto Alkuthuzen. It was very possible the planar will simply couldn’t believe he did anything bad… And everyone could leave happily that way.

“A minor problem in comparison. Most of the damage was healed by the universe, but it was insulting to see so many from your world peer into my weakened state. Feel free to stay as long is necessary, you have travelled impressively far.” Its voice finally quietened and he couldn’t find the right words for a response, nodding frivolously in uncertainty.

Adret already exited her daze, and hesitantly gave a question which bugged her for weeks on end, “My mother would have come after that explosion… How did she behave?”

The planar will’s voice responded to both dragons at once, “She was sad. Resentful. Uncertain, but also firm. And hid her hope from others there. I know the decision she was given… Why she felt these ways is only known to her.” Both dragons frowned immediately, conflicted by the contradictory information. There were so many reasons someone might present those emotions after potentially losing connection with a child–

No, she was deeply entwined with space, it should be impossible for such a dragon to lose their connection in a mere few millions of kilometres. He didn’t know how it worked, but supposedly the parents of powerful magical beasts, like dragons, perpetually sensed the life of their children. It was through this that any dragon parents immediately knew of their child’s death, regardless of distance on a planet.

Surely she knew that Adret survived, which explained her hopefulness… So clearly the resent passed on to Alkuthuzen for his actions. But all of that looped back around to make the origin of this situation even clearer.

“It seems she really did send me intentionally,” Akevorax lamented the simplest answer. He tried to remain open-minded earlier, but if the planar will of this dimension couldn’t accurately gauge a psyche, it didn’t deserve to be here. There was only one thing left to do in that case, but it first required Adret to fully heal once more.

Just two more jumps now, and they’d be back in the main universe. Near the eight worlds and a conclusion.