The air in the Hestia Familia's living room felt frozen, as if every oxygen molecule had just been forcibly vacuumed into a void. Time seemed to stop ticking.
The thick black cloaks had fallen to the floor, revealing the identities of the two bringers of destruction who were supposed to have been buried in Orario's bloody history books. Zald stood towering, exuding a suffocating physical dominance. Beside him, Alfia stared with a pair of gray-green heterochromatic eyes as cold as a glacier, her alabaster face betraying not a single shred of emotion amidst a room now filled with pure terror.
Amidst the tension that was only a breath away from a bloodbath, a very light and cheerful clap broke the silence.
Clap! Clap!
"Now, now! Please loosen up those tense faces of yours a bit!"
Venti hopped off the back of his chair, landing with light, soundless steps. The androgynous youth smiled broadly, narrowing his teal eyes as if he didn't feel the pooling killing intent in the room at all. He gave a slight, theatrical bow, sweeping one hand through the air.
"Nice to meet you! My name is Venti, or you gods here can call me Barbatos." Venti winked playfully. "Honestly, you all should be thanking me and giving me a warmer welcome, you know? I'm the one who brought your beloved Bell Cranel safely back home!"
Bell, sitting next to Hestia, could only break into a cold sweat. He knew full well that Venti himself was the main mastermind behind the temporal anomaly that sucked him into the past, though the white-haired youth chose to swallow that fact to prevent even greater chaos.
God Hermes remained frozen in the corner of the room, but his main focus was not on the bard god at all.
Without giving anyone room to process his introduction, Venti strolled casually toward Alfia, then lightly patted the arm of the woman whose aura could kill a monster with a mere glance.
"And let me introduce," Venti smiled meaningfully, dropping a logical bomb right in the middle of the room. "This fierce-looking woman behind me is Alfia. She is the biological aunt of your beloved hero, Bell Cranel."
The bomb exploded soundlessly.
Hedin Selland widened his eyes behind his glasses. Allen Fromel's black cat tail stiffened rigidly. Ryuu Lion's mouth hung wide open, her eyes darting back and forth between Bell and the silver-haired woman in absolute disbelief.
Aunt? The Silence, the strongest monster and bringer of destruction from Evilus... was a blood relative of the Hestia Familia's pure-hearted rookie hero?!
In the farthest, dimly lit corner, God Hermes slowly closed his eyes. His hand moved up, tipping down the brim of his fedora. The messenger god's breath trembled subtly. Among everyone in that room, only Hermes knew the secret of Bell Cranel's bloodline because Zeus, Bell's patron god, had entrusted it directly to him.
Hermes knew exactly who Bell's mother was. Meteria. And that meant Alfia was his aunt. The secret he had been guarding was now exposed in the most absurd way possible, broadcast live by a foreign god who brought the dead back to the world of the living.
While the entire room was trapped in a storm of confusion and horror, Bell Cranel instead frowned. The white-haired youth looked at the pale faces around him with genuine incomprehension.
"Excuse me..." Bell's voice finally chimed in, breaking the awkwardness. He turned to his goddess, then shifted his gaze to Ryuu and Asfi. "Why are you all looking at Aunt Alfia and Uncle Zald like you're looking at the most terrifying monsters in the world? Both of them... I mean, Aunt Alfia is indeed very fierce and her training is like hell, but she's not a bad person."
Bell's innocent words sounded like the most unfunny joke to the veterans of Orario. Alfia and Zald merely exchanged silent glances. Alfia's eyebrow twitched slightly, feeling insulted by her nephew's description, while Zald snorted softly, holding back a laugh.
Ryuu Lion swallowed hard. She stepped forward, forcing her trembling legs to support her weight. The elf's sky-blue eyes looked at Bell with deep sorrow and trauma.
"Cranel-san... do you really not know who they are?" Ryuu's voice sounded incredibly hoarse, as if her throat was clogged with sand.
Ryuu then pointed with a trembling hand at Dina, Vena, Alfia, and Zald.
"They are the architects of the darkest despair that has ever enveloped this city. The era of The Great Feud 7 years ago," Ryuu explained, every syllable heavy with bloody memories. "A massive war between Orario's faction of justice against the dark alliance, Evilus. Countless lives were lost. Blood pooled in the streets. And those four... were the top executives of Evilus. The Silence Alfia and the Gluttony Zald, the monsters who decimated our defensive lines. And those two elves there, the Dis Sisters, merciless assassin and slaughterer Elves."
Hearing Ryuu's emotional explanation, the reaction from the time-piercing group was truly unexpected.
Instead of smirking slyly or confirming the accusations, the four of them actually frowned with expressions of genuine bewilderment.
"Us? Evilus?" Alfia repeated the word with undisguised disgust, her lips curling cynically. "That noisy, dark-worshipping group with no class or aesthetics? You accuse me of joining a bunch of sewer rats?"
Zald snorted loudly, crossing his giant arms over his chest. "What kind of joke is this? Me, joining and becoming an Evilus Executive."
Behind Venti, Dina and Vena instead focused on another detail from Ryuu's story.
"Dina, did you hear that?" Vena whispered to her sister, the corners of her lips pulling into an amused smirk. "Dis Sisters. Our nickname here actually sounds pretty cool."
Dina only smiled faintly, shaking her head slowly. "Focus, Vena. That's not the point of the conversation."
Seeing the incredibly natural, bewildered reactions from these 'former Evilus' members, God Hermes opened his eyes. He stepped forward from the corner of the room, looking straight at Venti. His instincts as a messenger god were operating at maximum capacity.
"If you aren't Evilus..." Hermes began, his voice finding its calm again though still shrouded in doubt. "And if you truly died seven years ago on this land... then how can you be standing here, alive and breathing? What kind of miracle are you playing at, Barbatos?"
Venti wagged his index finger in the air while clicking his tongue softly.
"No, no, no. You've all misunderstood from the very beginning," Venti smiled widely, patting his own chest proudly. "They are not Evilus executives. They are my children. The proud core members of the Barbatos Familia."
That statement threw the whole room even further off course. Syr Flova, who had been listening intently with her sharp gray eyes, narrowed them calculatingly. Hestia held her head, starting to get a headache from digesting the situation.
"Hold on a minute!" Hedin cut in with a raised voice, no longer able to contain his logical frustration. "That makes no sense! I killed those two elves myself seven years ago! I saw their charred corpses! How could they possibly be members of your Familia?!"
Venti took a deep breath, his playful smile slowly fading, replaced by a serious expression that made the air around him feel ancient.
"Let me ask you gods gathered in this room one thing," Venti said, his voice now flowing calmly. "Have you ever heard of the concept of parallel worlds? Branching timelines?"
Those words dropped like a steel anchor in the middle of the room.
Hermes widened his eyes to their absolute limit. Syr Flova gasped, her calm facade instantly cracking with absolute shock. Hestia leaped from the sofa, pointing a trembling finger at Venti. To the immortal entities dwelling in Tenkai, the concept of parallel worlds or time manipulation was the ultimate taboo, an anomaly that only existed in ancient creation theories and was strictly forbidden by the laws of the universe.
"That's... impossible," whispered a pale Hestia. "This world only runs on a single axis. Anyone who tries to rewind or jump through it will be destroyed by a paradox!"
"Normally, yes," Venti shrugged casually. "But an anomaly occurred. An incident in the Dragon Valley tore through time, and this beloved child of yours, Bell Cranel, was sucked into it. He was thrown into a parallel world. Into a timeline where time runs fifteen years behind this era of yours."
All eyes turned back to Bell. The youth gave a stiff nod, confirming every word from the bard god.
"We are the ones who found Bell and returned him to your timeline," Venti spread his arms, showcasing the group behind him. "And in my timeline, Dina, Vena, Alfia, and Zald are purely members of my Familia. The history you know in this timeline is completely different from the history in my timeline."
That explanation finally brought down the remaining walls of logic in the adventurers' heads.
Ryuu Lion stared at the hands of Dina and Vena. They indeed had the exact same faces and voices, but the ones standing before her right now were different. They were not assassins from a dark era, but adventurers from another world with their own history.
"And now," Venti lowered his arms, flashing a friendly smile once again. "We came to bring Bell home, and we've decided to stay in this timeline temporarily until some of our business is finished. So, we look forward to working with you!"
Silence. Everyone's brain was working overtime to process the reality that had just been turned upside down.
Seeing that no one spoke up, Venti clapped his hands one more time, deliberately shifting the topic before the atmosphere became awkward again. He turned to the white-haired youth beside him.
"Well, I think that's enough of the alternative history session," Venti said. "Bell, don't you have a far more pressing matter to attend to? About your friends trapped in the dungeon."
Hearing that, Bell's expression changed instantly. The youth's hesitation and innocence evaporated completely, replaced by absolute resolve, and his eyes radiated a brightly burning determination.
"Right," Bell said firmly, standing up. He looked at Hestia, then turned to Hermes and Freya's group. "The news of the Loki Familia Expedition. Finn, Riveria, Gareth, Ais, and the others... they are trapped on the 60th Floor of the Dungeon. Their access is cut off, and their condition is unknown. We cannot just stand by and do nothing."
That topic immediately dragged everyone's focus back to the current emergency reality of Orario. Hedin snorted softly, adjusting his glasses.
"The Guild has already put together a massive rescue plan, Cranel," Hedin said coldly. "The Freya Familia and other familias are being mobilized. We will descend into the depths to breach that anomalous monster blockade."
"I'm coming too," Bell replied without the slightest hesitation.
Alfia, who had been silently observing all along, narrowed her eyes. She felt the flow of pure determination from her nephew. Even though she cared absolutely nothing for the fate of the Loki Familia and only cared about Ais in that familia, seeing Bell bravely take responsibility made the corners of her lips tug upward into a faint, barely visible smile.
However, before the discussion about the rescue logistics could proceed any further, a hoarse, heavy, and echoing laugh interrupted from the side of the room.
"Bwahahaha..."
Zald stepped forward. His metal boots struck the floor, creating a quiet yet bone-rattling thud. The massive man grinned widely, revealing a row of sharp, white teeth like a predator that had just found interesting prey.
"Saving friends trapped in a dungeon, eh? Classic," Zald said, his voice heavy and intimidating. He looked straight at Hedin, Allen, and then swept his gaze over all the Orario veterans in the room. "I heard a lot of stories from Bell about this world. About the Orariopiad festival that failed to be held due to an accident. The game of showcasing strength between Orario's Familias and the School District fell through."
Zald crossed his arms, puffing out his chest.
"It's a shame the festival had to be canceled. It sounded like a lot of fun," he continued, his eyes flashing with wild enthusiasm. "So, I have an offer. How about we play that game ourselves after you're done with the rescue mission for those Loki kids?"
Allen Fromel narrowed his eyes sharply, his spear trembling slightly in his hand due to the aura pressure beginning to seep from Zald's body. "What kind of game do you mean?"
Zald's smile grew even wider. "Simple. The four of us—me, Alfia, Dina, and Vena—against all of you. All the elite adventurers, the strongest Familias, and anyone in this timeline who fancies themselves a hero."
The entire room fell silent. The offer sounded incredibly arrogant, even insane. Four people against the entire elite force of present-day Orario?
However, before anyone had a chance to retort to that arrogance, Zald released the limiter on his power.
WHOOSH!
It was the pure manifestation of existential pressure. A dense gray aura exploded from Zald's body, slamming into every corner of the room like a tidal wave of a sea of steel.
The marble floor beneath Zald's feet cracked and shattered into pieces. The air inside the room turned solid, forcing anyone below Level 5 to fall to their knees while clutching their throats, suddenly deprived of breath. Welf and Mikoto were thrown to the floor. Ryuu forced herself to stab her sword into the ground to support her violently trembling body. Even Hedin and Allen, the Level 6 adventurers who stood at the pinnacle of modern Orario's strength, had to lower their stances, their faces covered in cold sweat as they withstood the absolute pressure.
This was not Level 7.
The survival instincts of those adventurers screamed an incomprehensible truth. This air-crushing pressure, this weight of existence that felt like it could swallow the world... this was the sensation of a Level 9 entity!
"We want to test," Zald's voice echoed like thunder amidst a storm, piercing their eardrums, "whether the generation in this peaceful timeline is truly worthy. Whether you are fit to carry the baton as the rightful successors to our fallen era."
From his seat, Venti merely smiled faintly, completely unfazed by Zald's brutal pressure. The bard god twirled the small lyre in his hand, his eyes watching Zald with a look of both awe and satisfaction.
Zald is truly, incredibly lucky, Venti thought with genuine admiration.
When Venti used his pure wind energy to reverse time, eroding and purifying the Behemoth's poison in the Kaios Desert, he never expected the domino effect of his actions to be this immense. Zald possessed an incredibly rare and terrifying innate skill: Deus Ambrosia.
That ability allowed Zald to devour wild beasts, humans, and even monsters, then absorb the essence of their power and turn it into permanent status boosts for himself. That was the reason why Zald was able to eat the flesh of the Behemoth—one of the Three Great Quests' Monsters that represented the apocalypse of the world.
However, in the past, that behemoth flesh carried a deadly poison that sealed his original strength, killing Zald slowly from the inside and preventing him from accessing the true power of what he ate.
When Venti slowly purged that poison bit by bit, the plug that had been holding back the flow of power within Zald shattered into pieces. The pure essence of the Behemoth that he had slowly digested finally fused completely with Deus Ambrosia.
Even though statistically on his Falna paper Zald was still recorded as a Level 7, his combat parameters, muscle density, and aura pressure had leaped far beyond the boundaries of common sense. He was a human who had swallowed a calamity, and now that calamity was fully under his control. Standing before them right now was an anomaly whose true strength could match, or perhaps even surpass, a Level 9 existence.
"So, what say you, Kids?" Zald slowly retracted his aura, allowing air to flow back into the gasping adventurers' lungs. The massive man looked at them with a bubbling challenge in his eyes. "Prove it to us. Bring your friends home from inside that labyrinth, and then face us on the real stage."
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P - Gem_Blanks
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