Caspian stood across from Darius in the Northwood estates training field. He no longer had the carefree life is good attitude he once had. Darius looked at Caspian observing his stance from head to toe, watching his movements closely. His face had a long scar reaching from the top of his right eyebrow down his nose and chin. It almost made him look intimidating. Caspian started chanting, "I call upon the spirit of fire! Chain my enemies to the depths and burn them up. Let your chains manifest, Fire Chain!"

Caspian cast a 3rd Circle spell at Darius while drawing his sword, and holding it in a defensive posture. Darius took a step forward saying one word, "Wall." An earth wall covered in layers of flowing wind burst out of the ground at a speed barely perceptible to the eye. The flaming chains wrapped around the wall and tried to break it, but Darius had already run around Caspian's blind spot.

As if expecting Darius to come behind him, Caspian quickly turned around while swinging his sword. Darius ducked easily avoiding the sword before sharp brown rocks covered his right hand. He punched Caspian in the chest with a right-handed uppercut, launching him through the air until he landed ungracefully on his rear.

Darius slowly walked to Caspian as he scrambled back to his feet. "Your feet are too far apart, and your arms need to be closer. You leave too much room for me to get a strike in."

Caspian let out a breath before saying, "Damn, at least my armor isn't dented this time."

"Casper... you strike like you're trying to swat a fly... You aren't a sword master hold the hilt with two hands. Make shorter thrusts. Take more controlled actions. If you overextend your blade, it'll be way too easy to land a blow."

Caspian scratched his head with a goofy expression. It seemed like maybe the old Caspian hadn't completely gone away after all. "Haha! I never thought a five-year-old would be lecturing me on swordplay! Can't you let me feel like a grown-up at least once in a while?"

Darius smiled, "No."

"Awwww. You're a monster!"

Darius conjured up a small vortex and helped Caspian get to his feet before getting in position to spar once more. They stared at each other with ice-cold eyes as they started circulating mana throughout their bodies. Caspian gripped his sword, "Oh spirit of earth..."

Rhea rushed into the training field screaming, "Lord Darien! H-He's... He's awake!"

Both Darius and Caspian looked at Rhea in surprise. Darius reacted instantly, running at a speed neither Caspian nor Rhea could keep track of. He rushed up the stairs and through the open door of his father's bedroom.

His mother held on to his father while weeping. Tears of happiness, he figured. Darius didn't hesitate. He dove straight for his father's chest before instantly stopping his momentum; right as he was about to tackle him. He hugged his father tightly before weakly saying, "Dad."

There was a confused small child in the room lying on her father's chest. Her mother started crying when baba woke up, and her brother came into the room crying also. Why did baba make her mom and brother cry?

She looked at the man that was causing all of the crying in the room. He looked like a bad guy, she thought. It was bad to make her family cry. The little girl raised her fist and smacked Darien in the head, "Bad baba! Bad!"

He looked at her confused, but it didn't take long for him to come to a certain realization. His mind had taken its time to fully wake up, but he was slowly putting two and two together as he looked at the full picture. His wife looked far skinnier than he remembered, practically skin and bone. While his son looked older. He looked like he was six maybe seven years old, but he could be older. Then there was the small child on his chest. The little thing looked no bigger than a tea kettle. Her eyes were brown, and her hair was the same ash brown as her father's. She must've been his daugter. What was her name? Why couldn't he remember?

Darien reached down with both hands and picked the little girl up, and asked, "And what might your name be little one?" His voice was more gravelly than he would have liked. It was clear that he'd been unconscious for a long long time. Years probably. Two to four, maybe five years. He let that thought sink in for a second, before instantly casting it aside. He chose to focus on what was right in front of him: his daughter, his son, and his wife.

The small girl looked at him in shock. She squirmed in his hands, trying her best to get away. Ella got scared. She thought the bad man in front of her was going to eat her or make her cry as her mother and brother did.

Her little eyes nearly poked out of her head when he gently placed her next to her mother. "It's ok little one. I'm not going to hurt you." He looked up from what he had accurately deduced was his daughter to speak to his wife, "Elaine, it looks like you've been busy while I took a break." He winked at her, but she didn't laugh. She just kissed his cheek and smiled, while tears still ran down her face.

"Son, you've gotten so big." He placed his palm on his son's head, and said, "We've got lots of catching up to do. I'm sure there's a lot of information I need to be caught up on, but let's... let's take it slow."

Darius had been busy, very busy. He'd trained without rest for two years sparring with Caspian, Linda, and Tobias whenever they came by to visit. His training eventually bore fruit. Not one month after turning four, Darius learned his first 3rd Circle spell, Earth Wall. He could have made it easier on himself to learn a fire attribute spell, but Darius decided to challenge himself.

By learning an earth spell first, his understanding of 3rd Circle magic came much easier. His mother would help him whenever he had a question, but she wouldn't spar with him until his father got better. He was disappointed, but he could understand why she made that choice. He was left with no opponents save the knights that occasionally stopped by.

The only problem was he had surpassed them a year ago, and at this point, only Tobias could put up a worthy challenge. After his reunion with his father, he went back outside and trained some more with Caspian. Caspian was too distracted by the news, and couldn't put up a decent fight, so Darius left him to train on his own.

His father was having a reunion with his family after years in a coma, and Darius was outside training. He felt guilty that his mind was occupied with training, but he had a vow to keep, and the more time he wasted, the further he got from fulfilling it.

His sister was taking his father's attention right now anyway. She had a thousand questions to ask this baba she had seen and heard so much about but had never got to interact with.

Little Ella was a curious little thing. She only barely started speaking and couldn't even form proper sentences yet. She couldn't hold her bowels, was unable to walk, was small, weak, and sickly, and Darien would absolutely kill for her. The moment his mother gave birth, his protective instincts kicked in and would trigger whenever he felt she was in danger. Which was practically never save the time she had almost fallen off the bed during the night.

He only saw his sister when they ate together or slept together. She couldn't read or understand anything he was doing, so he didn't spend a lot of time with her. He could help her more when she got a little older. She wasn't some millennia-old Archmage or some cultivator trapped in a small child's body. Know one could act like a child that well after all.

Little Ella wasn't learning magic yet. Most noble children didn't even start learning magic until they turned five, and Ella would probably be the same.

She was cute though.

Seeing her curious face as she crawled around making baby noises brought Darius and his mother no small amount of joy over the last two years.

His sister didn't even cry. Ella was a quiet baby. In a lot of ways, she was the perfect child so far. Quiet, innocent, cute, her only problem was that she was sickly.

She would get coughs and colds almost every other week, and Darius would rub her back spreading tiny threads of Qi to her heart and lungs. Melissa would give her some green goo to drink, and with a little bit of help, she'd recover quickly. Melissa thought Ella was doing far better than she could have hoped, and his mother was deeply relieved.

Darien knew her condition better than Melissa. He knew it well. He spread tiny bits of Qi in her body, getting a picture of what was going on in her body at any given time.

She was dying. Her body wasn't growing fast. Ella's chest and skull didn't have enough room to contain her organs and were crushing them. It was only a matter of time before her organs would slowly get crushed from within.

Darius took Ella's fate into his own hands. He sent Qi to her bones, muscles, blood, and organs and strengthened them. Her muscles grew, her blood flowed better, and her bones grew bigger and stronger. As long as Darius was around to help her, Ella would survive. She would grow up to be healthy, and he would do everything in his power to make sure of it.

Darius tried to do the same for his parents. During the night, he used his Qi to strengthen the bodies of both his parents. It was the reason his father was healthy and even strong when he had just woken up, but his legs... Darius couldn't fix his legs.

There might have been old friends in an old world who could have healed his father, but he lacked the knowledge to do so.

That would change. It had to.

Lucius sat on his throne with a perpetual scowl plastering his face. The war couldn't have possibly been going worse than it did now. The beast people attacked the southern border taking fortress after fortress in a matter of weeks. It wasn't until Lucius had his forces in Lome and the Dil Republic retreat and set up defensive formations that he was able to recover and push the beast people back. They had conquered a quarter of the Empire in six months, and now instead of conquering another kingdom, he had to focus on recovering his own.

"Dirty fucking animals!"

The Emperor knew better than anyone that the defending side was the losing side. Lucius bit his lip as he remembered his attempt to end the beast people's foolish attack. He tried to rectify it by personally attacking the beast people, but one of the beasts was a true monster. The beast's leader leaped into the skies ignoring Lucius' 6th Circle spell.

He took the full force of lightning with his body alone and smashed into the Emperor, sending him hurdling through the air with broken bones. The King of Beasts fell to the earth, bleeding and burned, but Lucius couldn't stay to finish him off.

A giant wolf and bird flew through the air, intending to finish him off, and he desperately scrambled to get away. The beasts felt no fear and would charge wildly regardless of the danger they were in. They would gladly die as long as they could get one swipe on him.

Watching the animals blood soaked howls as they feverishly attacked brought chills up the back of his neck. The Emperor felt fear.

He couldn't face the beast man's army any longer, and his body learned that lesson the hard way. The wrist he held his head up with suddenly started hurting. He looked down at his right hand, which still had phantom pains from time to time. It looked perfectly normal without even a scar to show for it, but the pain came without warning at the worst possible times.

"Dylan!"

Argon's Arcknight and his most valuable defender came to his side, "Yes, Lucius?"

"Bring my sister! It's time we shake things up a bit."

The Empire was under siege from five different directions, and Lucius was ready to flip the board again.