"I'm sorry, but it's not my secret. Lith and Byt would hate if I talked about it." Zoreth wringed her hands like a baby girl scared of facing her father's disappointed gaze.
"Don't apologize. You sound like with Zin." He sighed. "If there's soone on Mogar who can understand you, that's . I'm many things, but not a hypocrite."
"Thanks, Dad!" She stopped walking, hugging the old Professor and spinning him in the air with ease. "You have no idea how much this ans to ."
'While my father just sits there and watches us struggle, even his beloved Elysia, my dad is right by my side.' Zoreth thought.
"Don't ntion it and put down. This is embarrassing. I look old enough to be your grandfather, not your child!"
"Appearances are deceiving." She chuckled.
They took a deep breath before opening the door to the children's room. They had one shot at it and had to play it right, if not even dirty.
"Daddy!" Frey ran to Vastor, the word cracking the ice on the Master's heart every ti he heard it.
"Frey, my boy. How was school today?" He lifted the child like Zoreth had done with him a few seconds back, eting a first-class pout. "I an, how was school today, son?"
The Master called all his favorite students my boy/girl making the moniker not endearing to Filia's and Frey's ears.
"It was great, Dad." The boy stopped pouting, giving Vastor a big smile and hugging him back. "Is Uncle Lith alright?"
"That's actually the reason we've co here." Zoreth cleared her throat while her gaze moved from the blue wolf on the floor to the red wolf on the bed.
Filia was brushing the red wolf's fur while four "house staff mbers" stood at the corners of the room, leaving no blind spot.
"Filia, Frey, we need your help."
"How can we help Uncle Lith?" Filia asked in confusion.
"By giving Tezka permission to leave your side and go looking for the bad guy who hurt my little brother." Zoreth replied.
Tezka was the most ancient and currently the most powerful Eldritch-Monster hybrid in the Organization. He predated the Guardians and was the only one who had not only fought them more than once but also lived to tell the tale.
He had infiltrated the previous World Tree's Fringe in the recent past, collecting the Yggdrasill wood that Bytra had used to craft Vastor's Grimbark staff. For soone with his dinsional abilities, finding the new Tree's Fringe was far from impossible.
He had escaped the World Trees' domains many tis in his long life. There was no reason to think it would be any different now.
"Can you really do it, Uncle?" Filia turned toward her red wolf.
"Yes. I… have my thods." Tezka suppressed a cruel smile but Zoreth saw it in his eyes as the Suneater reminisced his past victories.
"Are you going to help us?" The Shadow Dragon needed the kids' help because there was nothing that could move the Suneater, unless he wanted to be moved.
"Do you want to?" The wolves and the servants looked at their guests.
"Uncle Lith helped Mom and is Aunt Kami's husband. He's one of the good guys." Frey said.
"And bad guys always co back unless you stop them." Filia shuddered at the thought of Fallmug, her biological father.
"Please, Tezka." Zinya caressed the blue wolf's head.
"I'll do it." The four people and the two wolves fused into the massive body of a ten-tailed Fylgja. "But only if you put soone good to protect the children in my absence, Zogar. And I an it. Strong isn't enough. I want them nice too."
"Nelia and Kigan?" Vastor proposed.
"We have a deal." Zoreth gave Tezka Bytra's latest masterpiece to help him with his task.
After that, it took the Suneater's substitutes a matter of minutes to reach the Vastor Household and a split second for Tezka to bolt toward Jiera.
The Fylgja flew at supersonic speed while also opening Warp Gates as far as he could see, crossing dozens of kiloters per second.
'Only an idiot would look straight for the Fringe.' He thought. 'The World Tree can't move so they don't leave traces but their lapdogs are different. The Yggdrasill is obsessed with knowledge and right now, the destiny of an entire continent hangs on a thread.
'I bet that Jiera is full of Chroniclers and that each lost city has at least one of them following its every move. If I make sothing interesting happen, a Chronicler will crawl out of his hole to watch. At that point, the hunt begins.'
***
Griffon Kingdom, Nestrar Region, on top of a mana geyser a few hours later.
Derek moved his eyes from the erald construct conjured by Mother's Embrace to Ragnarök and back, waiting for a revelation.
"How co that until yesterday every small thing gave flashbacks like I suffer from world-class PTSD and now nothing happens?" He squinted at Elina's kind features yet all those warm feelings were gone. "Who are you, lady?"
The use of such a respectful word surprised Derek as much as the Voidfeather Dragon. It was spoken with curiosity and a tinge of affection instead of spite.
'Maybe there's still hope.' The Voidfeather pushed at the now crystalized barrier between the life forces, trying to let in what he had desperately tried to keep out until the day before.
The Void unwittingly helped him, Derek's need for knowledge drove him to scour the most remote corners of his mind. As the Void pulled, the Voidfeather pushed, forcing the door between the life forces slightly ajar.
"Mother." Derek fell to his knees while holding his head.
Countless mories flooded the Void's mind and none of them made sense.
Sohow, he rembered being a newborn. He could see the love in Elina's eyes as she looked at him and called him her miracle baby. Derek witnessed how a real mother took care of her son.
She fed him even when it ant going on an empty stomach herself. She defended him against bullies like a an-looking older boy and from the an words of the old woman, Nana, on the day of their first eting.
In none of those mories did she raise her hand on him. She never ignored him and if he remained silent for too long, she would check on him to make sure he was alright.
The only tis Elina scolded him it wasn't because she wanted to show him who knew better, but because the young Lith had put himself into danger and she worried about him.
"This can't be. None of that ever happened to . This must be the other guy's mories forcing their way into my brain." Yet those images didn't feel alien.
Derek felt a pleasant warmth in his chest while pondering them. If wasn't like living another person's mories. He was almost certain that he had lived those events. Every detail and every word were on the tip of his mind.
Almost.
"Lucky bastard." The Void grumbled. "Whoever the piece of shit I'm currently inhabiting is, he can't have beco an evil overlord because of his mother."
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