Rex and Adhara talked a little bit longer.
Mostly, she was curious as to how the Spirit Realm looked compared to the Mortal Realm.
She asked with such excitent, only to realize that it wasn’t any better than their realm.
As a matter of fact, their realm is in a lot better condition than the Spirit Realm, which was swallowed whole by the Black Rift. But even so, she was excited to hear all about it; excitent etched clearly in her eyes.
It had been far too long since they last spoke so openly—so freely like this.
No pressure or hidden anings.
Just a conversation between two people who liked each other’s company.
"People in both realms are fighting for survival, huh... Ours are threatened by the rising races and the order beasts, while the spirits struggled against voidal monsters," Adhara shook her head—as she fixed her position against Rex’s chest. "No peace anywhere."
Rex scoffed lightly, "There will be soon."
"I know," Adhara smiled pleasantly. "I’m sure throughout the two realms, you alone can create peace."
"You don’t sound convinced at all,"
"You must be imagining things,"
"It’s ti for you to go now," Rex rubbed her shoulder as he sat up again. "I still have to et with the others. Since you don’t want to tell what’s going on, I’ll ask the others. Evelyn might not spill anything, but I reckoned Gistella would."
"Hah, go ahead and try. Nobody will tell you anything about that," Adhara stood up again.
She swept her hair back with a light flick and strode toward the jar, only stopping once she reached it.
There, she turned to face Rex, arms crossed over her chest in a cool, self-assured stance.
Even though she wanted to stay a bit longer, now is not the ti, as Rex only has a little bit of free ti, and she was also in the middle of sothing. Besides—she would be selfish if she took up more ti than this.
Adhara was already happy that she was the first to et Rex.
"In that case, I’ll see you in a bit...?"
"Yes. If everything went well, we’ll et again very soon."
It would be a few days for Rex, but that would be nothing for Adhara.
Perhaps he might even be able to return to the Mortal Realm to see Adhara returning from whatever training she was doing against the Lesser Order Beast. Regardless, with only his thoughts, he evaporated Adhara back into smoke and allowed the jar to suck her in.
Once she was gone, she focused on Evelyn.
"Oh...? She’s close with Gistella," Rex muttered, sensing that the two of them were close.
Adhara was slightly further away, while these two were practically side by side.
Instead of singling one out, he called for them both.
A mont is all he has, so calling them both at the sa ti is a good idea.
Rex waited for a second as he sent a telepathic ssage to them, asking whether they were available to et at this mont. He would not be so reckless as to call their minds into this space out of nowhere, fearing that they might be in the middle of sothing.
He waited for a minute, but there was no answer.
For whatever reason, those two weren’t available to et.
"I’m sure they were doing sothing together, sothing big, and I can only hope—it’s not sothing too dangerous for them to handle," Rex sighed through his mouth, slightly worried. He wanted to protect them, but there are tis when he couldn’t.
Unfortunately, this is one of those tis.
"Most of our enemies were handled, but the world is now... different," Rex gazed at the space ahead.
If Evelyn and Gistella had accepted, they would’ve been standing there by now.
But it seed they were in the middle of sothing.
Just as he was about to call for Kyran instead, smoke surprisingly ca out from the jar.
Rex was expecting the two of them, but only one person was manifesting.
It was Gistella.
But before he could speak, another person materialized—Evelyn.
Both of them accepted and ca.
Exactly like how Adhara appeared earlier, the two looked left and right in confusion.
Both of them recognized Rex’s voice echoing inside their minds earlier, but to where they were brought was sothing entirely mysterious to them. It was their first ti eting like this, since normally, their connections would suffice.
A mont ago.
"Evelyn," Gistella entered the carriage and closed the door behind her. "Did you hear him too...?"
"Yes, I hear him," Evelyn nodded; her forehead creased into a slight frown. "He’s calling us."
"What should we do? What if he were coming back right now?" Gistella looked outside at the army and then back to Evelyn. "Iris said he will be back in at most the fourth day, and this is the fourth day. If he ca back right now, our plan to surprise him will fail!"
"Relax," Evelyn leaned back. "It’s not like we didn’t make good progress against the Scarlet Banes Kingdom in rely a few days. He’ll still be surprised at this."
"Even so... I want to finish this before he cos back..." Gistella looked down dejectedly.
"I understand..." Evelyn leaned forward and held Gistella’s hands, assuring her. "I also wanted us to finish this first, and we still can. We don’t know why he called us. Maybe he’s going to tell us that he’s going to stay there longer. Either way, you have to et with him, or he’ll be suspicious."
"I hope we still have ti. Just a little bit more..."
"Yes, let’s hope so. Now, go."
"Okay, I’ll be going first."
Gistella accepted the invitation, allowing her mind to be pulled away by the tugging invisible force.
As soon as her mind drifted away, her body slowly limped as if she were falling asleep.
On the other hand, Evelyn looked out to assess the situation and then leaned back in her seat again.
"I think we still have a mont to spare," She muttered and nodded. "I’d better et with him, too. I don’t think Gistella could give a convincing lie to him if he asked about ."
Just like Gistella, Evelyn allowed her mind to be pulled.
She felt her consciousness dragged into the void—and before she fully registered what was happening, her eyes snapped open. She now stood in a vast, colorless expanse. It was empty. No sound, no air, only a grey space stripped of everything but silence.
But even before she manifested fully, she could already feel a presence.
A dominating presence that she could never mistake.
Rex.
For a mont there, Evelyn unconsciously held her breath instinctively.
Once her form solidified and her vision sharpened to focus, she spotted a lone figure across the greyish expanse—half-hidden behind drifting smoke. Only one thing was clear through the haze—a pair of red glowing eyes that were fixated on her and Gistella.
Its gaze cuts through the gloom with a predatory calmness.
The Silverstar Pack parted with Rex for only a few days.
Barely any ti to do anything.
But the pair of red eyes that were staring at them right now was different, foreign.
Like this was their first ti eting Rex.
’He got stronger again, a lot stronger...’ Evelyn thought inside, and despite her uneasiness, she took a step forward anyway. "You have changed, Rex. I can tell from a glance that you’ve changed. How long have you been there?"
Evelyn could feel it.
Her luna side was trembling with an odd sensation that Rex was now a different man.
Naturally—she couldn’t help but wonder how long Rex had been in the Spirit Realm for him to change so much. ’Despite what we’ve been through that felt like a lifeti, we’ve only known each other for a good year. If he stayed too long in the Spirit Realm...’
Just the thought of it made Evelyn clench her fists.
No matter where Rex was, he was certainly not far away from bloodshed and death.
She was worried that Rex had bonded with soone wrong, extre—soone who made him worse.
"M-Master...? Is that really you?" Gistella asked hesitantly.
Even though the presence was familiar, the way Rex was looking at them right now is worrying.
Gistella even unconsciously calls him more formally rather than using his na directly.
"What’s wrong?" Rex’s voice rolled through the space like a low thunder—more growl than speech. "It has only been a few days for you, so why do you look so pale? Why are you being... nervous?"
"Co out then," Evelyn said firmly. "If you don’t want us on edge, stop hiding in there."
"Is it because you feel like you don’t know anymore?" Rex pressed, his tone dropping into a darker one, far darker as he completely ignored Evelyn’s words. "You severed your link to your Alpha... and thought everything would be fine? I never taught you to do that."
Gistella turned toward Evelyn.
It was Evelyn’s idea for them to conquer the Scarlet Banes Kingdom before Rex’s return, and she agreed to help since she liked the sound of pleasing Rex. But she doesn’t sign up to make him angry like this, not at all.
Just recalling the tis Rex punished her made her shiver.
Now, all she could do was ask Evelyn what they should do right now because frankly, she was really on the verge of spilling everything to avoid making Rex angrier than he already was. It’s better to have the surprise plan fail than to be punished.
On the other hand, Evelyn’s eyes narrowed.
She could tell what Gistella was thinking, and she wasn’t surprised.
Even though she expected Rex would not like what she did, she never thought it would be to this extent.
"I thought it’d help you focus in the Spirit Realm, so you can return sooner."
"Oh... I am focused. But still, there needs to be a punishnt."
"Punishnt? Isn’t that going too far/"
"Are you... defying ?"
Almost instantly after he said that, the temperature around them dropped as his eyes glowed brighter.
Even the space around them began to shake lightly, a sign that she had yet made another mistake.
Evelyn sensed no aura from Rex—no anger, and even no killing intent, but his voice alone hit her with crushing weight. The sa went with Gistella. With nothing touching them, both still felt their throats becoming dry and their strength drained as if his words alone were enough to smother them.
It was more of their deep instincts as Werewolves of the Silverstar Pack.
Rex has the absolute say, and upsetting him made them instinctively shudder at the consequences.
Swoosh!
Evelyn’s eyes widened.
All she did was blink, but when she opened her eyes again, Rex was already towering before her.
He was so fast that she couldn’t even react at all.
"Seems like you’re going to be the first one to get the punishnt, Luna..." Rex’s baritone voice seeped into her ears—forcing her to swallow harshly. "Do not think this punishnt is going to be light. Close your eyes..."
Evelyn wanted to refute, to say that this was unfair.
But she knew it better than anyone not to do that when Rex was at the height of his emotions.
If she wanted to complain, she ought to do it after she received the punishnt, when Rex was calr.
Refuting him now would only make things worse.
So, she closed her eyes.
On the side, Gistella also closed hers, fearing to watch what Rex would do.
Both of them waited with their eyes closed for Rex to do his punishnt, but it never ca.
Instead, she felt sothing rubbing her head.
Evelyn opened her eyes again and saw that Rex was rubbing her lustrous red hair with a smile on his face.
She was expecting to be hit, or even bitten, but Rex was rubbing her head instead.
"What’s the aning of this?" She asked.
"aning? I’m only joking," Rex chuckled, pleased that he managed to catch Evelyn off guard. "It has been so ti since I’ve seen you scared. Am I really that scary? I thought by now, you’d get used to seeing ."
"What...?" Evelyn blinked, and her eyelids dropped halfway in disbelief. "Do you have to do it like this?"
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