The Astral World was a place only a few were capable of describing. If one was asked to do so in only two words, they would definitely be — Dangerous and Endless.
Technically, the Astral realm was the place of residence for creatures bestowed with divinities and spirit creatures. Divided into fifteen districts, fourteen of them belonging to the fourteen divine beasts and the last one being a sealed place no one could step foot in.
What most mortals did not know was that the situation wasn’t as simple as that.
Those fifteen districts were just the known or rather explored parts of the Astral world. Further in, a large stretch that few dared to explore existed.
People called it—The Abyss.
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[Abyss, in an unknown dimension]
The sky was filled with smoke and fire while the ground was littered with corpses of insectoid beings wearing armors.
Screams of pain and cries of despair were the only noise in the air. A large number of those insectoid-like beings, clearly civilians, tried to escape by boarding what looked like flying ships.
Listening to the screams with a smile on her face, a woman clearly different from the others could be seen strolling in the direction of those ships while humming a song happily, her pace unhurried.
She was a woman with a diminutive height and a cute face, giving her the allure of a mischievous child, clearly in contrast with the carnage she had just committed.
While most of her body was human-like, her legs and forearms were covered in grey fur, her feet were lion paws. She also had a pair of feline ears with grey ends and a long tail.
While she was strolling around, some guards who were assuring the escape of the civilians, tried to stop her. But no matter how much they attacked her, no attack managed to leave a scratch on her.
The only result was their death as she moved with feline grace and killed each and every last one of them.
Finally, just as she was about to destroy the ships that had already begun to ascend, she stopped short and looked at the glowing ring on her finger.
A frown marred her face as she looked unwillingly at her fleeing prey, but in the end, she sighed–
“Open.”
–And entered the red portal that appeared near her.
----
Walking out of the red portal, the small lioness frowned as she looked at the three people that welcomed her before promptly ignoring the two males in the group.
“Funf, How is your situation?”
“I already told you that my name is Leaena.”
“And I already told you that if you wish to free your mother from her seal then you will cooperate with us wholeheartedly.”
A savage glow flashed in Leaena as she looked at the calm and collected Nihil. She could see it in her eyes, that woman, Nihil, was daring her to fight back.
The tension continued to grow before Leaena finally relented under the pressure. She knew that she needed the Wings of Freedom to fulfill her goal.
Sighing, she explained, “I found my true name and my path. If everything is alright I should be able to barely create an Avatar soon.”
Even though she was quite depressed because of the previous face-off, she did not dwell on her defeat much. A hunter did not always hunt prey weaker than it.
“*Whistle* I guess we will soon have another king with us.”
The one who rudely whistled was a dwarf with a gun on his hips.
Laeana, or rather, Funf, showed an expression of disgust, “Don’t butt in, midget.”
Acht did not show any signs of being offended, but rather let out a grin as he muttered, “I wanted to say that I had found someone related to you, but since this is how you react, then forget it.”
Funf snorted derisively, “I have thousands of blood-related siblings. Why should I care about one more or one less?”
Acht did not seem disappointed as he showed a meaningful smile, “Even if that girl is a royal chimera?”
This time, he had all her attention, as she rushed to grip his throat,
“Is it another constellation!? Speak!”
Even though his neck was caught by someone who could easily kill him, he showed no sign of fear and rather grinned even more,
“Beg me.”
“You…!!”
Watching them act like this, Nihil showed no particular expression. The Wings of Freedom was not a gathering of friends
It was a criminal organization composed of people who joined for their own selfish desires. Nihil clearly understood this, but she did not mind.
As long as the overall goal was the same, the rest did not matter.
In the end, it was the last one out of the three that finally spoke.
Feeling the grips thighten around his neck, Acht cried out inwardly, but wasn’t worried. He was just putting a strong front. If he was alone with Funf in the wild, he would already be kneeling and begging for forgiveness. But here, he knew he had nothing to fear. As he thought,
“Enough!”
The two immediately stopped their quarrel at the harsh voice of the second man, Drei, as though they were children being reprimanded by an adult.
Anyone watching this scene would be dumbfounded. Be it on the mortal realm or the Astral one, the reputation of the Wings of Freedom was quite horrifying.
“Acht will give you all the information at a later date. Now though, I called you because you are already on the cusp of becoming a King rank and you are the most suitable to protect me. Eins and Vier are busy. As for Zwei?"
He did not finish his sentence but everyone understood that he refused to put his safety in the hand of Zwei despite how powerful she was.
Which wasn't that surprising. Even though Funf was quite unstable, she could still control herself for the overall direction.
But Zwei was the very definition of chaos and anarchy. You could never really know what she would do.
Even so, there was something she did not understand,
“Protect you?”
Funf inspected him with a weird expression.
While it hurt her pride to admit it. She knew how powerful Drei was. If the two of them encountered a situation where Drei could do nothing, then she wouldn’t even be a good cannon fodder.
Drei’s expression distorted a little as he showed a grimace before he spat out one name,
“Lilith.”
He then proceeded to explain the deterioration of his soul. At this rate, if he did nothing, his soul would slowly weaken over time before crumbling completely.
If she had shown an angry expression before, now, her eyes were positively filled with blood lust.
After all, in her mind, Lustburg was the cause of the seal on Echidna.
But even with all that, what she could never forget was how her brother, a member of the constellation like her, was bisected by Lilith with a single swing of her sword.
Even now, that attack stayed searing in her mind—So beautiful but deadly.
Nihil ignored her expression and continued,
“We need to heal his soul and since he can’t control his puppets long-distance currently, he needs someone by his side and that person will be you."
After taking a deep breath and calming down, Funf asked,
"Even if you are wounded. You should still be able to crush anyone below the king rank easily. Why do you need my help?"
"Our main target this time is Anubis' daughter."
Silence fell between them. They could see Funf tilt her head in confusion for a few seconds.
Once understanding dawned upon her, she widened her eyes and took a few staggering steps back while hissing,
"ARE YOU CRAZY!?"
Her eyes were filled with horror as she watched left and right, as if expecting an attack to land on her at any moment.
While Acht was bewildered at how the usual feisty woman was acting like a scared cat.
Neither Nihil nor Drei were surprised at her reaction. Few could understand the horror of the Anubis better than them.
As for Funf, her mother, Echidna, had some dealing with Anubis over the years and as such she understood just how much of an absurd existence that being was.
"I am leaving."
Immediately, Funf turned back as if she was about to run. She did not want anything to do with such a mission. In fact, she was ready to flee in the Abyss for a few decades to avoid the heat.
"From the report I received, the Prince of Lustburg is currently acting with her."
While it was impossible to enter the divine territory of Gabriel without getting caught. It wasn't impossible to put people that could act as a source of information.
Those people weren't even devout of the Crimson lady. Just random people that sold information without knowing to whom they were doing so.
Funf stopped short.
"We cannot use the sword to destroy the seal since we have no control over it. But if we get the prince it shouldn't be impossible."
To complete their main goal, they did not need to use the sword itself. But if it was for destroying the seal, then someone able to wield it was necessary.
In all the dimensions, the only one who could so currently was Sol.
Funf understood this. Beating her lips at the obvious manipulation, she nevertheless turned around without hesitation.
"What is the plan?"
The weight she put on her life was worthless when compared to the loyalty she had for her mother.
"What is the objective? Let me say it clearly. If it's killing her, then I am out of here. I will find another way to unseal my mother."
She wished nothing more than to save her mother. But doing so by becoming mortal enemy of the Necromancer King was too crazy and impossible.
Drei shook his head,"Don’t worry about that. Even though only the two of us will be acting, this is a big operation. Sechs is currently activating most of our spies and believers. Once everything is ready, we will act."
Nihil nodded, "We have two goals. The first one is obviously to heal Drei's soul. Anubis's daughter should be more than enough for that. As for the second one…"
She took a pause, "It will be the advent of another great dimensional war."
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Recap:
Nihil=0: Leader of WoF.
Eins=1:??
Zwei=2: Mother of Shunten Douji
Drei=3: One of the darwin's siblings executed 700 years ago.
Vier=4:??
Funf=5: Leaena, one of the royal children of Echidna. Leo constellation.
Sechs=6:??
Sieben=7:??
Acht=8: A dwarf with guns.
Neun=9: A wolf woman. Previous teacher and bodyguard of Setsuna.
Zehn=10: Vampire lady (currently imprisoned by the witches)
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