CHAPTER 18: SEARCHING FOR REI P6

~18.6~

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“Where is everyone?”

She gestured at the purple door on the far side of the room. “They went to talk to Aliana about a theory.”

“Oh, I... wait.” She held a hand to her stomach and could still sense two extra distinct mana signatures. “Oh, thank goodness.”

Not missing a beat, Hannah also reached for her stomach to examine the unborn children. She smiled and said, “They’re just fine.” She giggled. “Your expression was so cute.”

Her face reddened as she flipped over and buried her face in a pillow.

“Still weak to compliments, I see,” Astraia commented with a wry smile. “It’s good to see you back to normal.”

“Yeah.” Kye stood up and habitually grasped at her left hip, but found nothing there. “Huh? Wait. Oh no, I-” She looked around, finally realizing who had just spoke and found Astraia standing on the other side of the bed, having just stood up as well. “Kari! I’m so sorry! I forced you to stay in weapon form all that time! I-”

Astraia held her finger up over her mouth, and Kye stopped. She walked over and pulled Kye into a hug. “It’s okay. You have nothing to apologize for. I hold nothing against you. Had I really wanted to be free, I could have done so. I stayed like that voluntarily so that-”

“No! I forced it! I...”

“It’s okay. I almost tried to stop you on several occasions, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. If you had gone much longer, I was planning to try to force you to Atlantis, though you’ve grown so powerful now that I admit it would not have been easy on my own. I was in touch with Allison and she left you alone because I was with you, but she was prepared to help me deal with you had it been necessary.”

“I... I shudder to imagine what I would have done if you and her had tried to restrain me by yourselves. It took Alfia to safely restrain me earlier. I worry that I could have hurt one or both of you.”

“You very well could have hurt me if you tried hard enough, but sweetheart...” she paused and changed her mind. “No, nevermind. It doesn’t matter since it didn’t happen.”

Kye raised an eyebrow. “You were about to say that there is no chance that I can actually harm Allison.”

Astraia smiled dryly. “No, I don’t think you could, but let’s not think about that. I apologize for saying too much.”

Kye sighed. “We’re soul-bonded. It’s not like I can’t feel what you’re thinking, anyway. Anyway, let’s go.”

Hannah and Astraia nodded and the group of three went through the door. Kye wrapped her white aether around Hannah so that she could pass the doorway. Astraia didn’t need any help since she had Radiance. On the other side, Kye was taken aback. The portal room was vibrantly colored, no longer the basic purple and black.

“What?”

She made her way outside, noting that every room on the way was colorful. What made her stop in her tracks was what she saw when she opened the door. Surrounding a colorful island were many places set aside to start a garden around the palace. The island was much larger than the last time she was there, and walkways crisscrossed the place. Along one side of the palace were several different courts for sports like basketball, tennis, and badminton. Further past the courts, there was another island connected to the main island by a beautiful stone bridge. On that island was a sports stadium built to handle baseball, football, various other sports, and even live performances for music. Several smaller buildings littered the other side of the main island. They had no labels, so one could only guess why Aliana put them there. A large training center was placed on the back side of the island, already equipped with magic to withstand moderately large bursts of mana. Even the water around the island was a normal color, rather than purple.

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But none of that caught her attention. Kye stopped dead in her tracks upon seeing what surrounded the island nearly a mile out. An enormous translucent dark purple barrier wrapped around the general vicinity, and beyond the barrier was the massive expanse of purple water. “She’s here.”

“Hmm?” Hannah asked.

“Rei is being kept in the void.”

“What? How could that be?”

Kye used illusion magic to show them an image of what she saw during Rei’s prayers.

“My goddess...”

Kye immediately flooded the entire barrier with her aether to locate everyone and remotely teleported them in front of her. She explained her theory and flew up and out of the barrier. She didn’t stop until she reached several hundred miles in the sky, much further than the atmosphere on most planets, but the Void was much different from a planet. It was a seemingly endless, flat expanse of purple ocean in all directions. Everyone followed her to the extreme height.

She released silvery white aether and formed a large core above the group. “Jouten, Kaeshi, Iltharion, Artherion, Eskalion, come forth.” The five children whom those weapon names belonged to appeared. Kye then forced everyone back a short distance that she didn’t want taking part in the spell, namely everyone aside the immortals.

“What are you doing?” Allison asked.

“The rest of you are not to contribute. The amount of aether this is going to take is very extreme. Everyone should-”

Alfia placed a hand on Kye’s wrist. “Stop.”

“Fia?”

“Do not overstress yourself or the others. I will handle it.”

Kye was hesitant, but knew Alfia was serious. “Very well. I-”

“No! It hurts. Stop! You’re hurting me, Mister Phantom! Leave me alone! Mommy!”

Alfia quickly clasped her hands together and began chanting. As she did, rainbow aether exploded outward in all directions. “I am Alpha. By my authority as daughter of The Primordial, I command the very world. I offer my mana. Illuminate all for us to see. An Alexandrian is in danger. Show us the way to her! <>!

An unfathomable amount of rainbow aether flooded outward in all directions. Alfia virtually painted the endless purple expanse with rainbow colors. She dyed the Void as far as they could see and kept going. After a few minutes, she stopped the spell, but kept the aether in place. “Aliana, this is going to be a difficult ask, but I need you to reach into this aether. I’ll guide you. Liliana, connect the three of us with telepathy.”

“Me, too,” said Kye.

““At once.””

Allowing them to see through the Eye of Providence, Alfia directed Aliana through the aether to the location she found. It was a jet black spherical barrier.

“I want you to place a more powerful barrier around the existing one. One that disrupts all existing spatial magic. I want any doors in that location to cease functioning.”

“That’s dangerous. That barrier is void magic. If I disrupt all spatial magic, it will disappear, too. The space inside the barrier is like what I’ve done to the Void Palace. It’s gravity normalized to Terra and the mana atmosphere adjusted to-”

“That’s why I said it’s a difficult ask. I need you to disrupt the existing spatial magic and replicate the effects of that barrier at the same time so that the atmosphere in that area is not affected.”

Aliana gulped. “I understand. I can do that.” She focused on preparing the spell in her mind before actually casting it. She wanted to pull off an instant cast, knowing Alfia or Kye would have a teleportation spell prepared to take them there in the same instant. As Aliana imagined the effects of the spell and mentally ran through an incantation to help visualize, Kye wrapped everyone in a thin layer of white aether and prepared an Unlimited Teleport.

“I’m ready.”

“Go!”

*****

Revision: 2024-7-5