Rongo Moana watched her daughter shed blood during training in the Dungeon she had brought her in.

Lilo, however, had stopped struggling against the Level 45 Golems and now cut them down one by one. There were dozens present, but even though the projectiles from the Steel Golems occasionally managed to graze her and make her bleed, Lilo, fully enveloped in Tempest Water, moved like a wild beast. Gone was her refined style, now it had become aggressive and unhinged.

The man looked with a hand over his own sword.

Rongo had not been selected to be a Chosen in his time because, unlike Lilo, his Primary Mana Channel had ‘only’ been Level Eight. Even though that meant he was among the strongest nobles, it wasn’t enough to cross in the realm of Chosens, where only true monsters resided.

However, he had a technique that he had learned from the one person he had ever loved in his entire life—a technique that had made him the uncontested Patriarch of the Moana Family and, most importantly, allowed him to be as strong as an Elder. Perhaps, stronger.

Now, he had passed the technique unto his daughter, one of two he had.

He sighed as he saw Lilo’s Mana starting to sputter, straining under the pressure of the technique. But he knew she still had some fight in her, so he waited to see if her character had been as tempered as her body in the past nine months.

Lilo stumbled, but she swung the sword and split in two two Steel Golems that were about to reduce her to mulch, destroying their core.

One more, darling, Rongo thought.

Thankfully, Lilo managed to kill another Steel Golem before completely collapsing to the ground. At that point, he moved so fast it would have looked like he had teleported to an unsuspecting person.

He scooped up his daughter and, barely drawing his sword, reduced into fine powder all the monsters around him.

He stepped into a cave in the Dimensional Dungeon where the Steel Golems wouldn’t have been able to reach and laid his uncoscious daughter down beside their makeshift camp.

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Rongo had been training Lilo non-stop, pushing her beyond what even the envious members of their family would have considered reasonable or necessary.

But the truth was that Rongo hadn’t been doing this for them. No, not at all.

He had been doing it because he knew what was about to come.

Yalena had told him what would happen if she didn’t achieve her goal. Following her timeline, it was only a matter of time before the Deep’s real monsters would emerge.

He looked at his daughter, brushing a lock of hair from her sweaty cheeks. Rongo knew that, in the great scope of things, this was useless. He had brought Lilo here because, perhaps, with her great talent, she could have reached a level that, under his strict supervision, might have increased her future chances of survival in case he himself couldn’t complete his mission.

However, he knew very well that, in reality, if things went south, there would be no hope for Lilo—for anyone.

Yalena had told only one person the full truth—he had sworn on ancient spells to aide her, to make sure that her masterplan would come to fruition.

He had taken up the technique she had taught him, mastered it, become more powerful than he had ever had any right to be. But even now, even with all this power at his hand, he felt useless. He felt like he would have still needed her guidance, her genius, in order to go forward. She had left specific instructions that would have covered any case. She had left them to him because she had known that Maui’s mind was lost and that Iakopo had been shattered by what had happened in Placid City.

So, Yalena had trusted him because of his unending adoration for her and, most importantly, because he had been ready to swear on everything, including his life, to help her.

Now, that made him, unlike what people thought, the strongest Swordman in the Four Seas, rivaling even Kaimana.

How I wish you were still here, he thought, like he had thought for the past twenty years.

He dreamt of her very often, so often that at times he left Tempest City, telling his wife and family he needed to train, when, in reality, he just wanted to be left alone with his thoughts.

The oath he had sworn all those years ago, something he had yet to resent or regret, charged him with a great duty. But, most importantly, the image of the woman he had loved so dearly left in him a love that could never be quenched.

If I die, Rongo, Yalena had said, you must show Talia the key. She has to understand it for herself. But please, find a way to show her before the monsters come to the surface.