Chapter 135: A Fleeting Reunion
Four years had passed since the ending of the Great Severance, and the entire world of Kalpa had undergone changes that no living being could overlook.
On both the Topside and the Underside, the land had become something quieter, cleaner, and almost unnaturally beautiful.
Forests that had once been scarred by war now grew thick and vibrant.
The air itself carried a soft, constant purity that seemed to reject lasting violence.
Even through the Academy of Veils’ ongoing conquest—first of the Southern Continent and now pushing steadily into the Western Continent—not a single drop of blood ever stained the world for long.
The Domain’s purification field erased the evidence of battle almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving the soil and stone pristine once more.
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In the Underside, the transformation was even more absolute.
The vast dark oasis that had replaced the old war-scarred battlefields stretched endlessly beneath the dim light of the seven suns.
Yet for all its quiet beauty, the realm felt strangely empty of its former inhabitants.
The only beings who remained in any significant number were the Sun Kami and those who belonged to the Celestial Sun Pantheon.
Number One had spent weeks methodically clearing the rest.
Millions of Dead Sun warriors—Vampires, Ghouls, Dead Kami, and every other remnant—had fallen to his silent, precise daggers until the last of them finally fled the world entirely.
Well.... almost the last of them.
One figure from the Dead Sun remained, and it was only due to his connection to his daughter.
Beside a wide, slow-moving river whose waters ran thick and dark with the blood of dragons, General Salvatore and Liliana sat together on the smooth black stone of the bank.
Soft crimson light reflected off the surface of the river and painted both of their faces in shades of deep red.
Liliana cupped her hands and lifted a portion of the dragon blood to her lips, drinking slowly. The act was habitual, almost comforting, yet her crimson eyes remained downcast.
She already knew what her father intended.
For the last four years, the two of them had done nothing but make up for lost time. Yet even though they were together again for the first time in centuries, it felt bittersweet—someone was missing, someone neither of them could stop thinking about.
Salvatore watched her quietly for a long while; his form at this point had also been completely healed anew, much like everyone else who remained in the Underside.
"Lily.... the time has finally come," he said at last, voice low and rough. "Your mother has been missing for more than forty eras.... And I can’t bear spending another moment away knowing the war is now over."
Though he hadn’t shared much about Liliana’s mother’s situation, he knew there was far more going on than he had ever admitted.
’Those damn Humans...’ he thought, a flicker of anger flashing in his eyes.
Liliana slowly lowered her hands, a thin line of dark blood still clinging to the corner of her mouth.
She didn’t look at him immediately, her gaze fixed elsewhere as the river drifted by in its slow, heavy current, carrying with it the scent of ancient power and the quiet finality of endings.
A small, determined smile touched her lips.
"Well... I’m coming with you," she began.
"No."
The single word cut across her unfinished sentence with absolute finality. Salvatore shook his head once, the motion heavy.
"Even without mentioning the danger... you should focus on taking advantage of whatever... nonsense this fated lover of yours can offer."
A rough chuckle escaped him. "You need to make sure he doesn’t get away, right?"
It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots—after Akasha announced the war would end, it not only ceased but sparked a transformation unlike anything seen before.
And with that, there was little doubt about who had played a part in it.
A soft blush warmed Liliana’s pale cheek, yet the resolve in her crimson eyes held firm as she finally turned to face him completely.
"Then at least tell me more about Mother’s situation. If you’re going to leave me behind again, the least you can do is give me information so I can come help later."
Salvatore’s expression shifted.
The hardness softened into something heavier—agony and old sadness woven together.
He drew a slow breath before he spoke.
"Ah... fine." He said as he began.
"The first world of the Orin Star System is called Loreua. That is where both the Dead Sun and Celestial Sun Pantheons originated."
He paused, the next words clearly meaning something to him.
"But there has always been a third faction. One that held the power of a Pantheon yet could never formally establish one, because the other two had already claimed the Star System.
That faction was the first to be born on Loreua."
His eyes darkened as he continued.
"The Empire of Loria. An empire of Humans... despicable Humans."
Liliana’s eyes narrowed, the name settling in her mind like a cold weight.
"...Loria?" she wondered, "Could it be the same Loria... as Amber?"
Her adopted daughter bore the surname Loria, an orphan whose past had always been a mystery.
Salvatore continued, voice lower now.
"Long ago the Loria Empire created an oath that bound them to your mother’s Siren Clan.
When the Great Severance began, something went wrong in the chaos. She was taken by the Loria Empire long before any of us ever reached Kalpa."
Liliana stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet but edged with disbelief.
"Are you truly planning to go against an entire Empire alone?"
Salvatore smiled, the glint of an old warrior’s pride still shining in his eyes.
With a smooth, almost effortless motion, he rose to his feet.
"Your old man isn’t as weak as you think," he said with a short, rough laugh.
"But if you’re planning to be my reinforcements, you’d better become even stronger than me."
Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a small token—deep blood-red with a single crisp white line running straight through its center—and tossed it toward her.
Liliana snatched it from the air without hesitation.
"When the time comes, crush that," he told her. "It’ll bring you straight to me."
HUM!
In the next moment, a divine ring on his finger flared with soft light.
Then, a sleek starship materialized above the river of dragon blood, its hull shimmering with residual power.
Salvatore stepped onto the boarding ramp without looking back.
Liliana remained seated on the black stone bank, the blood-red token held tightly in her hand, and watched as the starship vanished into the dim light of the Underside, leaving her alone beside the slow, heavy current of the dragon-blood river.