Dyon pulled Ri into his arms, ignoring the pain. The cool touch of her armor was actually quite soothing in and of itself.
"Imagine ignoring pain just to be a pervert." Ri giggled teasingly.
Dyon grinned. "I can't ignore the needs of my little feu glace just because of a little pain, can I? Or else that umbrella guy wins. I can't let that happen."
"Pft, at least let me take off my armor," she said pushing herself up. "Tell me more."
Dyon rolled in the bed trying to use the endless pillows to comfort himself in Ri's absence. "From the memories, I could tell that there's something very important he's keeping them in the dark about. Actually, I don't even think he's trying to keep it all that secret, he just enjoys looking down on his subordinates."
"You mean he's given them all the tools to figure it out and he's laughing about the fact they can't?"
Dyon nodded. "What's clear is that there's something different about the gate around this time. In fact, it might not be solely this gate.
"This may sound a bit convoluted and contrived but think this through with me a bit."
Ri smiled, climbing into the bed beside Dyon.
"The key towers must all be connected somehow. After all, the main thing we know about them is the fact when all of them are controlled by a singular universe, you can change its fundamental laws."
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Yes. Now that you mention it, they must have a way of communicating with each and unlocking something for that to be possible."
"Mm." Dyon continued. "At the same time, each key tower seems to have its own unique set of laws that it abides by."
"Also true. Lotus Tower has odd patterns, but, we've gotten used to it over time from what I understand. When I asked Akash about why we stick to specific gates, she said the other towers were different and not worth the excessive danger necessary to learn about them."
Dyon nodded, he had thought as much before as well. "From what I see, the Phantus' pride was used against them to get them to voluntarily take such a dangerous mission. After Madeleine completely embarrassed them, they felt he need for revenge and redemption. But, I think there was also a second reason they were used. And it likely has to do with their earth will affinity."
Ri's eyes widened. "Are you saying that Earth Tower isn't just named after our planet?"
"It's likely that Earth Tower was named in reference to its laws, which then led to the name of our planet."
"Why do you say that?"
"That was just an interesting connection I thought of. I have no idea if it's true." Dyon chuckled to himself. "However, what is true is the fact that Liska's memories noted the idea that the guy she calls Alidor chose the Phantus for this attack because of their will specialties."
A sudden realization hit Ri. "That… Someone who would have an innate aurora must be extremely intelligent. But, choosing the Phantus would look like a clear lapse in judgement to anyone. Afterall, the only reason we suspected something was going on behind the scenes was because of their massive scaled elephants. Had they attacked without those scaled beasts, there wouldn't have been much to speculate about at all."
"Exactly. The choice of using the Phantus was two-fold. One, the might of the scaled elephants forced everyone back here. And second, it was to learn more about the Tower. And the only reason they would feel a need to learn more about a tower with such a stable environment—"
"Would be if it was part of the Ancient Game…"
Dyon laughed. "I think he's too used to no one being able to see through him honestly. It's likely he thinks this went way over our heads."
Ri smiled, snuggling into Dyon's chest. "But what are we going to do about it?"
Dyon grinned. "We win the game of course."
A serious look crossed Ri's features before she spoke. "What exactly are these Ancient Games, Dyon?"
Dyon sighed. "I don't know… All I'm sure of is the fact that they seem to protect something larger than we can fathom a lot of the time.
"The tome from the Elvin Kingdom, the technique of its first page is something I still can't grasp. And I've spent hours meditating on it.
"Then there's the second page, that now holds the dao of alchemy etchings. I can't make heads or tails of that either.
"That's not to even mention the fact it had the ability to cleanse the demon generals and True Empaths.
"And yet, they were both protected by an overly complex Ancient Game that we could only get through with what essentially amounted to an ex dao formation level puppet."
The more Ri thought about what Dyon said, the more she realized how right he was. If it wasn't for the puppet, they would have died. And, other than the puppet itself, even the True Empath was such an enigmatic existence that it, in and of itself, was already a cheat.
"So, you think this gate is protecting something of that level too? And that every gate is?"
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"What I think is that someone – anyone, who has the ability to tunnel a hole between two universes, stabilize it, and have it still live on to this day, is an existence we can't fathom. And I also think that those existences aren't singular in nature."
Ri thought for a bit. "There are 10,000 universes left if we take Elwing's word at face value. Even if we assume every universe has only 5 gates like ours, you're saying there are 50,000 legacies of such a ridiculous level?"
"Probably not. I just think that if we put together the clues about how many secrets this universe holds, maybe we lucked into those legacies. I'm not saying other universes won't have legacies within theirs, but I doubt it'll be of the level of ours."
Ri's brows furrowed, there wasn't much she didn't agree with Dyon on, but she couldn't understand his words just now. "What do you mean?"
"Elwing's legend isn't the first we've heard of the oddities of this universe.
"There's the fact people don't seem to like that I'm from the mortal realm. There's the fact that, according to my master's memories, the Earth expanded millions of time from its original size. And there's the weirdness surrounding the destruction of the Celestial Deer Sect and their connection with the Daiyu clan.
"Then compile that with the legend of the phoenixes, their wars, and Amethyst?... Something big happened in this universe. Something bigger than people are willing to talk about."
"Are you saying the legacy here is Amethyst's?"
"No. The gates were here long before her. This someone is much more powerful than even Amethyst."
"Then what do you want to do?"
Dyon grinned. "Well first, I want to make love to my little feu glace."
Ri rolled her eyes. "Be serious, pervert."
Dyon winced as Ri poked his torso to remind his how much power she held over him right now. But much to her exasperation, Dyon didn't back down. "And then, after I do that, I'll go show that Alidor bastard that I know damn well his goal is the Epistemic Tower."