Chapter 530 Treasures that complement each other (part 2)
Daimon was too tired to fight with the crazy girl right now, that discharge of mana from the door forced him to use Core Synchrony and Sanctuary as well, and even after that he was left with only around 15% of his mana reserves.
That is almost two times the mana reserves that a really talented middle stage Archmage would have, sure it doesn't sound that amazing when there are Stellar ranks around, but when you put into account the fact that Daimon's mana is among the highest quality ones, and that it was used up in a matter of seconds, things change.
If an average true middle stage Archmage would have used all that mana in such short period of time, in a single go, fainting would have been the best result, while damage to its mana circuits would be a much more realistic result, meaning that the challenge to open the door was supposed to be taken by people above the middle stage of the Arch rank.
And that makes sense, since to be given the title of Shaman, one has to be a half Stellar rank, only then the previous Shaman would retire and pass down the title to its heir, while he becomes its adviser.
'That bastard was really cunning, after that door judged I have the Black Armored Shark's lineage and was accompanied by someone with the Light Palace's matriarch lineage with darkness affinity, it tried to kill me, if it had been another member of the young generation with the Black Armored Shark's lineage, he would have melted', he thought.
Daimon was able to brute-force his way through the process, the Black Cube wasn't the inheritance left by the hero, in fact it seems that no one was supposed to obtain it, besides Karla.
As the whole line of losers from Abaris's family, failing to claim property of it, suggested, amusingly enough, even if Adam did manage to get a wind of that place and under the assumption that he could trick the crazy girl and the help of a light affinity person that was completely unrelated to Jasmine's lineage, he would have still been unable to obtain the core of the Black Fortress, because he lacked the Black Armored Shark's lineage.
'I truly stole Adam's best opportunity when it came to a mission related to the hero', thought Daimon.
Leaving that aside and with Abaris too busy looking through the debris as well as preventing Skyfire from dying, the recently renamed "Demon Fortress" slowly but surely gained speed as it flew towards the Flying Citadel.
And after around ten minutes, which is actually a lot considering the Flying Citadel can fly at the same speed as a Maximum Stellar rank, but is understandable considering the Demon Fortress was recently created, so the arrays are too basic for it to operate at an optimum rhythm, especially because Daimon had to redirect most of the energy to manifest the cannons.
But they finally arrived at the meeting point where the Flying Citadel was waiting for them, and Daimon turned to see the crazy girl, who unwillingly let go of him.
He then took out his communication device and sent a couple of messages that were answered immediately, making him nod as he talked to Rita who was resting in his shadow.
"Rita, can you do the honors?", asked Daimon to which the undead head maid created a portal in front of Daimon.
"Let's go", he said to Sarah before jumping into the portal, the crazy girl naturally followed him.
…
The next second Daimon and Sarah found themselves on the air, falling towards the citadel, Sarah placed her hand on his shoulder and they then blinked all the way to the ground, Daimon could ignore spatial restrictions to a certain extent, but it wasn't necessary since he was whitelisted by Aurora.
They landed at the border of the Flying Citadel, where there was a welcoming committee waiting for them.
Needless to say, but Aurora and the others were in awe at the huge mass of land that was now floating, blocking the sun from shinning upon the Flying Citadel, and that is saying a lot, since the Flying Citadel is equal in a size to a big city, with space for around three million people as of current.
In comparison, though the recently formed Demon Fortress, is more than three times bigger than the Flying Citadel, in terms of living space, Daimon literally only took the main castles that belonged to the Light Palace as well as the one from the Black Fortress.
Because he had to use a lot of the territory he could select, to take the crystal mines all the way from their cores, so he had to give up on all the other structures, as they also were counted as territory, curiously enough the people in those structures weren't taken into account.
And still they were under the rule of the owner of the territory, in this case Daimon, allowing him to communicate with Underwood and the other patriarchs, limit all the other people from the sects and then imprisoning certain specific people that were present within his territory.
Which led to the current scene of different shadow portals appearing next to Daimon, from which long lines of people could be seen waiting to cross to the other side.
"I know we have a lot of catch up to do, but there are some things to take of first", said Daimon, which returned Aurora back to reality.
"Don't worry about that, the newly appointed deacons will take care of guiding everyone to their respective living areas", she said as she pointed at two women who Daimon recognized, they were none other than the remaining elders from the Angelfish clan, Marlene's foster mother, Miriam and the rebellious looking Laura, who were now wearing badges with the emblem of the Light Palace on their arms.
Aurora then looked at the portals and frowned, but seeing Daimon gazing at her, she only beckoned at Underwood and the other patriarchs who started ordering the other people to cross the portals.
It didn't take long for everyone to cross, only then Daimon snapped his fingers and two black metal cubes of around three meters tall and two meters height, passed through another portal which Rita opened.
With that done, Daimon wished it and the Demon Fortress was sent to the inventory.
"Everything is still in the castle, we can check it out later after returning to the Mermen Sea, for now it would be better if we take what we need before leaving the Elemental Sea" said Daimon, referring to the people from the three sects under the management of the Light Palace.
Aurora nodded and with a mental command, the Flying Citadel started moving towards the Bamboo Forest sect, which was the closest one.
And with that, the road was free for a nice conversation, at least for the time being, while Miriam and Laura as well as the patriarch where accommodating the people, Aurora guided the group which included Jeanne, Emily and Reyne to the main residence of the Citadel.
Daimon could feel the sharp gazes of the Risha sisters as well as Aisha all the way to the residence, but he thickened his skin and ignored them.
The moment they entered the residence and closed the door, Aurora turned to see Daimon with an expression that meant she had a lot of questions to make, but first thing first.
"What happened after you three were dragged in by the array in the cave?", she asked.
"Well, to answer that I must first have to ask you to show me that diary that your "ancestor" supposedly left behind", said Daimon as he took off his mask and sat down on a couch, he was dead tired after all, Aisha, the sisters and the crazy girl took seat at his side, Jasmine wanted to do the same, but she instead offered a seat to her "mothers" and Reyne.
Aurora frowned, as she turned to see Jasmine only to see her smiling at her.
"I guess there is no point in doubting now, here", said Aurora as she handed Daimon an old worn-out book, which Daimon opened on the spot and leafed through it, while his eyes glowed in a dim purple light.
It didn't take him too much to read everything that was written there, mostly because there wasn't that much to begin with, basically it talked about the years of courtship between the hero and the first Matriarch of the Light Palace.
Besides that, it actually mentioned the Black Armored Shark's lineage, but just the superficial stuff about it, like the vertical yellow line that appeared in those who had enough concentration of it, and it emphasized to trust in the ones who had it.
Which ended up being beneficial for Daimon in the end, or that was the case until now, because Daimon knew what was Aurora's reaction going to be in a moment, he closed the book and then returned it to her.
"Okay, after reading through it I can tell you that everything there is a lie", he casually said, which of course made Aurora frown but before she could say anything Daimon continued with his explanation.
"The place we were sent to was a planet called Kerrol, there we met someone that accompanied the hero of the Mermen Sea while he was alive, and that same person was the one that kidnapped Jasmine to use her as a "reward" for Adam, or at leas that would have been the case, if she didn't have her own plans…".
Daimon then proceeded to explain about Karla, without revealing that she was the Administrator of the hero's system, he instead mentioned that she was his closest ally, and in a sense he was right.
The different parts of the story caught the attention of the different girls, starting from Aisha who was interested in the Ghoul race, to Cassy who couldn't help but smile when she heard that Adam was dead.
And now it was time for the first hard to swallow truth, that Daimon had discovered, since the good news were going to be a bit shocking for Aurora, he started with the bad ones.
"Based on the previous, someone altered the history of the Light Palace, through the Black Fortress, there are no records of the first matriarchs right, coincidentally the records from Sarah's family branch start when they were demoted to a secondary branch of the Black Fortress, but previous to that they also lack their records, that is too much to be just a coincidence".
Aurora gazed at Bell who nodded surprised that Daimon knew about that, but she then saw her daughter smiling at her and she understood Sarah must have mentioned it to him.
"Then was it Abaris's family the ones that messed with our family, and they also left this diary?", asked Aurora, to which Daimon shook her head, he had skipped all the part about the hero having the Black Armored Shark's lineage previously, just like he didn't mention Freya's second host, nor her friend who was the other first Matriarch, until now.
"They were the ones that worked within, but the one who instigated them was probably the hero on the beginning and then someone else influenced them, but couldn't do nothing as they lacked the… Black Armored Shark's lineage", he said.
"Wait, so then, wouldn't that make you suspicious?", asked Aurora to which Daimon shrugged.
"What I obtained was originally prepared for Adam, I believe I have already explained that he wasn't an average person, that is part of the reason, anyway, though the hero was dead, there have been other forces strong enough to alter Neptune's history from the shadows, like the Nethereals, speaking of which the hero's previous companion had similar powers to them", said Daimon to then add.
"As a proof of the previous, you saw the Demon Fortress I just obtained right, well, the core of the Fortress was sealing the core of the Flying Citadel, show it to Jasmine, Sarah".
The crazy girl nodded and then took out the white floating orb and tried to hand it to Jasmine, just to see a spark being produced at the slightest touch, and the orb then avoiding Jasmine.
"You can use the Flying Citadel because this coreless version, was constructed by one of the two people that can be considered the first Matriarch of the Light Palace, the second one to be more accurate, and yet Jasmine who inherited her direct lineage can't form a link between the its core and her, because it was altered by the hero".
Aurora gritted her teeth in response, Abaris's family supposedly descended from the hero, due to the people from the two sects marrying between themselves, Sarah was actually Jasmine's distant cousin by blood, being related to a sister from one of the previous Matriarchs, who married someone from Abaris's family.
Not to mention, that their fathers, Byron and Reed were supposedly cousins, also from Abaris's family, though that was probably a lie since they were Nethereals.
Aurora remained silent for a moment processing everything, her husband turned out to be not only a petty short-tempered guy, but a real enemy, which explained why he didn't hesitate to declare war, he probably knew that Daimon might have discovered something, if he had a similar diary from one of his ancestors like her.
Of course, he has had her differences with Abaris, but she married him too, so this was a conflictive moment for her, luckily that is why Daimon kept the last shocking new for the end.
"That's not all, when we were in Kerrol, we found some allies that helped me find Jasmine faster, they are Jeanne and her daughter Reyne as well as Emily, Jeanne's friend".
Aurora turned to see those three and bowed her head at them to then say.
"Thanks for helping saving my granddaughter, she is my last…" before she could finish her sentence, Daimon interrupted her.
"Jeanne and Emily are the result of Jessica being separated using a special ability, by the companion of the first Matriarch, who is now contracted to me, she'll wake up soon and you'll be able to confirm it with her, because they don't have Jessica's memories".
As expected, Aurora froze on the spot, but she didn't believe Daimon, but then she realized that for some reason, ever since Reyne arrived she felt quite positive towards her, while she didn't know her at all.
Aurora actually stood up and approached them to observe those three from head to toe, with small tears forming at the corner of her eyes, when she heard Daimon saying.
"There is a chance they recover Jessica's memories, if they spend some time in the places where she hanged out, and did things she often did, I swear upon my life that what I said is the truth", concluded Daimon.
Aurora observed Jeanne and Emily and she found no similarities between them and Jessica, but Reyne on the other hand did have some resemblance, she wiped her tears and then smiled.
"I... will choose to believe it for now, in any case they are welcomed to stay with us, since they helped little Jas", said Aurora with a bright smile.
Daimon nodded at her, she naturally had her doubts but she followed her heart this time, after all it was better to believe that her daughter was alive in another place, since her corpse was never found.
As for the split thing, there are too many strange things in the world of magic, that it is not unthinkable for it to happen.
Aurora took a moment to then sharply gaze at Daimon.
"I didn't see Sid among the ones that entered through those portals, was he… killed?", she asked referring to the light affinity knight that served under her at the same level as Sylvie, just to see Daimon casually pointing at one of the two black cubes that followed him all the way here.
"Well, you remember the conditions I told you were needed for someone to obtain the core of the Fortress, right?", asked Daimon.
"Light mana from someone that is completely unrelated to the lineage of the Light Palace…", mumbled Aurora.
"Yeah and have a look at this communication device I found on him", said Daimon as he handed her the ring of that guy.
"But wait, I also happened to capture one of his disciples for interrogation, so we'll get the confirmation we need, I can show you the heart of my Fortress, there were some interesting light battle aura traces", he said.
"Abaris!", said Aurora as she gritted her teeth to then change her focus to Jeanne and the others.
"You three look tired… let me show around and take you to a room", she said.
"Mm, thanks", answered Jeanne.
Seeing Aurora leaving, Daimon chuckled, those were enough strong emotions for her for a day, but that didn't mean the others were the same.
Especially the crazy girl who was really enthusiastic to tell her mother, that her curse was completely cured, but that wasn't all.
Now that Daimon was the owner of the Fortress, he could tell… where the core of the Flying Citadel was supposed to be, and this time they should be able to access it, as long as a certain condition is met.
"Let's go to the lake one more time", he said, making Jasmine nod.
"I don't have a swimsuit but I can enter naked though~", added the crazy girl, which made her mother sigh.
"Sometimes I believe you are going to cause my death instead of this curse", she said with a defeated voice.
Daimon nodded, completely understanding Bell, he then waved his hand and a giant pile of treasures, materials and other resources appeared on the floor of the living room.
"Here, feel free to take what you need from there, we'll return in a moment", he said, if his supposition was right, only Sarah and Jasmine could be present to open the entrance to that place.
He was going to be fine since the core of the Flying Citadel was altered to recognize the Black Armored Shark's lineage.
'You surely got close to those two, darling', jokingly said Aisha through the mental connection, making Evangeline and Narasha laugh.
'Ahem, I of course brought something back for you and the others mom', said Daimon, which made Aisha giggle.
'Oh, I can't wait to see~', she said as she looked through the pile of treasures, to wait for Daimon and those two's return.
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