Mid Morning - Late Summer : Valtivar | Siratha

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*Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* With the periodic flap of my wings and the steady flow of air over my scales, my chest ever-so-slowly tensed with anxiety.

At the time, I had just finished thinning some of the stronger monsters out of the monster wave and was now hurrying back to Valtivar. I needed to notify Lief about a lot and additionally speak with Mother on how to handle Father's situation.

But the anxiety in the back of my mind only grew. Without being near him, I felt unbearably uneasy. -Considering the monster wave has pushed everything away for now and Grace or Skuld should be with him, I shouldn't need to worry... But I can't shake the thought of a hostile god rolling up while I'm gone...-

*FWOOSH* Trying to shake the thought, I sped up even more, zipping over the horizon and zooming over the outskirts of Valtivar before coming up on the Tree of Prayer. -Alright.. let's be quick...-

*vwoom-flash* Quickly releasing my divinity and changing to my Fenririan form, I started slowing down before dipping below the canopy of the Tree of Prayer and descending toward Lief's estate. -Good.. she's here...-

She was in her office, already kneeling, before I even came into sight. "Lief," I spoke through magic as soon as I got within a few kilometers. "I need you to listen closely. The Holy Kingdom launched an attack on Siratha."

She instantly jolted in place, opening her eyes wide with shock.

"There were two fleets. The forward fleet was at the Dungeon of Colossus; they collapsed the dungeon and triggered a monster wave." Coming up to the estate, I landed on the roof and continued. "I thinned out some of the more threatening monsters, but you need to raise alert as soon as possible."

*crackle* Opening my way through the ceiling, where I sensed Mother, Krystallo, Ilios, and Hera, Lief started alerting several people throughout the estate with her aura.

"The second fleet was more north, being about a hundred kilometers south of Morva Asari. I kept them alive so you can get all the information you need from them, but they aren't weak, so be careful who you send. One ancient won't be enough." Pausing to carefully lower myself into the room, I tried to wrap things up for now. "Currently, one of their dragons is under oath and keeping everything under control, but it's been a bit over an hour and a half since then, so proceed expecting a fight. As for other things, make sure the area around the Dungeon of Colossus remains off-limits and get ready to schedule a full-scale prayer within the year... Use my name however you need."

Finally pulling my magic away from Lief, she immediately jumped up and darted out of her office.

Trusting she would have no issues, I quickly turned my attention back to Mother, Krystallo, and Hera, but while Krystallo was nothing but excited to see me, Mother and Hera wore dark expressions.

"Brother-"

"What happened..." Mother cut off Krystallo in an instant.

"It's a bit complicated, but the gist of it is Father started his dragon sleep." I spoke swiftly as I lowered myself inside, standing on the removed section of the ceiling. "I'll explain more while I fly. Hurry and get on."

Ilios, getting up from behind Krystallo with a stretch, was the first to move, casually trotting over and hopping up on my back, with Mother not lagging much behind him.

However, while Krystallo also trotted toward me after getting a bit nervous, I quickly shook my head and glanced at Hera. "I apologize, but could you watch over her for a bit?"

She was quick to agree with a nod. "Have you already given Lief a rundown on the situation?"

I quickly nodded. "I explained generally what I knew, but she'll be fetching more information with interrogations soon enough."

"Hmm, I see..." She paused to think for a moment before lowering her gaze. "Then, Krystallo, how about we go help Miss Lief while they are gone? This is a good opportunity for you to start learning how Siratha is run." She spoke with a lighter tone, as if to lure her in before setting the trap. "You want to learn how your brother's country is managed, right?"

A fire instantly lit in Krystallo's eyes. "Yes!" She puffed up her chest before confidently looking back at Hera and vigorously nodding her head.

"Hoho, how enthusiastic." Giving me a glance, Hera quickly motioned over Krystallo before giving Mother and I a chance to leave.

-Perfect...- Taking the opportunity, I quickly moved us up out of the room before patching up the hole and taking to the air, starting my explanation of everything that happened before we even left from beneath the Tree of Prayer's canopy.

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I was honestly worried how it would go at that point, but thankfully, things went over smoothly.

After explaining everything, only leaving out my manipulation of his soul, Mother sounded quite relieved. According to her, his dragon sleep was actually quite overdue, and that worried her far more than I would have expected.

How exactly she knew came as a surprise as well.

It was all because of his lineage. The Whyte family was a family known for consistently having very early dragon sleeps compared to other pure dragon families, having their elder stage sleep at around 168 years old every generation without fail. It was actually one of the reasons Grandmother never objected to Mother having children with him, even though his strength was only a bit above average.

But with Father being the only one in the last eight thousand years to not have his sleep when he was around 168 years old, Mother got worried. With each year that ticked by, she started worrying more and more that his sleep would suddenly hit and be abnormally long and dangerous.

And she was actually kind of right.

Thinking about it now, I wasn't too unsure that it had something to do with his abnormally weak soul, and I was surprised Mother's intuition pointed to that being the case. Had I not intervened, even if he somehow survived his elder sleep, he would have inevitably died in his ancient sleep.

But after everything that happened, there was no point in questioning or dwelling on it. -If everything worked.. he won't have a problem reaching ancient stage anymore...- It was all just a matter of time.

"For now though, what should we do?" Glancing back at Mother as we started coming up to where the dungeon was, I found her deep in thought.

Even without seeing him, she was already coming up with a plan. "If his condition is as good as you say, we may just need to guard him and make sure he has plenty of mana."

-Ah...- "Mana actually shouldn't be an issue..."

"Huh?" Slowly looking up as the massive, smooth crater started coming into view, Mother's expression froze.

The crater was like a giant bowl containing boiling water, leaking a visible, colorful plume of mana into the air like steam.

And as you looked lower and lower, the mana only got denser. "What on earth..."

"Will you have any problems getting closer?"

"N..no..." She spoke softly while staring in a daze. "But where did all this mana come from? The dungeon core couldn't have been that big..."

"Well, it was what really knocked out Father in the first place. I accidentally created.. a lot of mana..."

Her gaze instantly turned to me. "You.. 'created' mana?"

I nodded while trying to think of how to numb it down. "Basically, if I feed the void energy, it creates mana. The issue was I did it on accident, and well..." As we passed over the center of the crater, where we could see down to the pool of liquid mana I woke up in, I spoke calmly. "I created a pretty insane amount."

"Is that.. a pool of liquid mana?" Seeing what was essentially a well made of dark mythril containing not water but mana seemed to make Mother's mind wander wildly. "Could you take me down to the edge of that pool..."

Quickly descending through denser and denser layers of mana, I kept a close eye on Mother to make sure she could handle it before finally making it to the bottom of the crater and landing on the upper edge of the pit, directly above a pool of mana so volumous I could barely wrap my head around it.

*flash* Changing to her dragon form, Mother seemed quite confident. With Ilios and my aura shielding her somewhat, the mana didn't seem to have any effect on her at all.

But that all changed when she confidently hopped off my back. *tap-VWOOM* "Hoooh..." Letting out a long breath, she held her nose high and spread her wings before finally breathing back in. *inhale* "Hoh?" As she let out her breath, her expression completely changed, her eyes losing some of their sharpness before her body relaxed. "How.. incredibly intoxicating..."

Carefully keeping my eye on her vitals, I did everything to make sure she wasn't going to get mana poisoning, but to my surprise, she was handling it well, at least if you looked past the fact that she seemed a bit drunk.

"Hooh..." Trying to steady her condition with another breath, the air around her instantly started to fog, and a layer of frost started spreading across the ground. With each breath, it looked as if the air around her got colder and colder, until finally, after close to a dozen breaths, she opened her eyes with a newfound sharpness and warmth. "Is this how you always feel?" Her eyes matched the color of the clear sky above us as she looked up the column of mana. "I feel.. so different..."

"Well, your body is trying to adapt to the sudden increase in mana supply. First, it will use that mana to strengthen your body, then it will try to make your body rely on it, just like Father's body did."

"Hooh... I see." Her steady breaths continued before she slowly hung her head again. "Then I shouldn't overdo it..." Taking one last long breath, she crawled back to me, and I dipped down to let her up on my back again.

Her scales were so cold that the breeze blowing through the crater created a thin, long white cloud behind her like a jet trail, but after coming back into my aura, it quickly started to taper off.

And that was when Mother made a suggestion out of the blue. "Why don't we.. build an estate here- no... Why don't we build a city here?"

Thinking she was still a bit tipsy from the mana, I looked back at her with a confused look, only to find her staring at me with a firm, unwavering gaze. -Is she.. serious?-

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