Everybody follows me out of the castle and we soon arrive at the top where the green hills and sunny weather shone. My children haven't been out of the castle much so they were excited, even including Hades.
The eyes of my children practically sparkled at the beautiful spectacle presented to us. Hades tried to keep his composure as much as possible, while Freya and Luna both ran around laughing and bumping into each other.
This was something I could've never seen in my past life so I decided to enjoy this sight as much as possible.
"Damn, I might cry," I mutter holding back tears.
"Mom, why are you crying?" Hades asks who was right next to me.
"Because you all are so cute!" I say hugging Hades which Freya and Luna see so they slip into my hug as well.
After a few minutes of hugging my children tightly, Hades manages to slip out so I retreat as well.
"Alright, now let's get down to business,"
"Okay!" Freya says, jumping up and down in excitement.
She already knows the basics of skills so all I had to do was teach the unique property of Zeus's Nimbus. This skill is one of my easier starting forbidden magics but making progress and trying to control it better is extremely hard.
Controlling this such as creating 2 or more lightning bolts, or maybe manipulating the lightning into your weapon, or maybe even creating a weapon out of the lightning is extremely hard. But for now, all she had to learn was how to do the simple one-strike lightning bolt.
It took her a much shorter time to get the hang of this since all she had to do was activate the skill, raise her hand into the air, once the nimbus fully expanded only then can you imagine a lightning bolt striking down.
BAM
A massive lightning bolt struck the ground a few meters away from us. Freya jumped up and down in excitement but that was quickly interrupted when another wave of bandits appeared over the horizon.
tsk
"I keep forgetting to question Ava…"
My children also saw them but they didn't flinch in the slightest. They just looked down on the massive muscular, skinny knife users, and the women who were in the very back as archers.
"Don't worry mommy! I can protect you!" Luna shouts as she readies [Forbidden Magic: Medusa].
I laugh to myself quietly as Luna and Freya step in front of me, ready to protect me with their newly learned skills. Hades on the other hand had a bored expression, it seemed he knew I could kill all these bandits in an instant… if I wanted to.
My children are still here and I don't want them to see blood and gore yet, so let's have them go back.
"Hades take your sisters back to the castle," I say coldly.
"Mom, can I take on some of them?" Hades asks.
"Don't make me repeat myself…"
Hades pauses for a second before giving in.
"Fine… Luna. Freya. Let's go back, mom should be able to handle this," Hades says.
"No, mom is missing an arm and leg, there's no way she can protect herself like that," Luna says.
Hades didn't want to stall our fight any longer so he just picked up Luna and Freya with ease and walked back to the castle. He was even able to withstand the flurry of kicks and punches that his sisters sent at his face.
As soon as they disappeared, I called Yin over here with [Grand Mind Magic]. In just a few seconds as the bandits approached closer, she arrived right beside me with Ava right next to her.
"Seems you already knew what I wanted. Yin kill them, Ava come here,"
"Yes, master," Yin says, before taking a few steps forward with shadows wrapping around her.
Before Ava could even kneel in front of me, Yin arrived with the heads of all present bandits. In the distance, their bodies fell lifelessly and then sunk into shadows, blood and all.
Ava flinched slightly when Yin returned, shadows unwrapping the present known as Yin.
"Ava, tell me where all the bases are and if there are any more leaders,"
"T-there are 2 more leaders that were under me. Also if you want me too I can take you to all the bases-"
Ava was cut off by Yin slamming a piece of leather in front of her. Drawn on it was a map of the entire kingdom. I didn't even know Yin had it but I guess she needed a way to mark what she had finished and not finished.
She then hands her a scalpel-shaped rock for writing on the piece of leather.
"Mark all the places and where the leaders are. If you give us false info, you'll get punished so don't even think of going against me,"
"I-I would never think of going against my master!" Ava shouts.
"Good girl, now write it down… Once you're done, bring Ava back to where you're training," I say, turning to Yin.
"Yes, master," Both Ava and Yin say synchronously.
…
I was currently having dinner with my family when Yin appeared in the shadows of the throne room. Since we still hadn't finished dinner yet, I only waited until we finished and my children had left. My wives were ready to take a bath but before we left the throne room I called out to Yin.
"Come out,"
"Master, these are the 2 leaders that were one rank below Ava," Yin says, rising out of the shadows.
She presented me with 2 black cocoons and as I stepped forward, they unraveled showing a fire-harpy man and werewolf women. Both were still awake and tried to struggle against Yin's shadows which were binding their limbs and mouth.
"Do you know what they specialize in?"
"Ava said they only specialize in leadership. None of them have any good or unique skills. Would you like me to kill them? You don't need to dirty your hands on this trash," Yin asks.
"Go ahead," I respond.
The shadows slit their throat but before they could sink into the shadows, Aika stops her.
"I-Is there anything you need Miss Aika?" Yin stutters, slightly surprised.
"Let me have the corpses for a second," Aika responds without even batting an eye at Yin.
Yin tilted her head down in sadness when Aika didn't even look at her.
She probably thinks that Aika doesn't like her but it's more like she's too concentrated on what was in front of her.
Aika crouches down next to the corpses that were just unwrapped by shadows. Blood was still leaking from their throats as both of Aika's eyes glowed a slight turquoise color.
"Age," Aika mutters.
Both corpses start to shake and blood squirts everywhere as skeletons start to claw their way out of the corpses below. Once both skeletons had finished climbing out of their vessels, black runes started to appear on their bones once they kneeled on one knee towards Aika.
"Pretty good," Aika says, clearly proud of herself.
"Why'd you use that word?" I ask Aika.
It was the same word that the Bear Queen used. The same word still sent shivers down my spine but I don't know how she uses the same word. Maybe it was told to her by the death stone?
"It just felt the most natural. I opened my mouth and the first word that came out was 'age.' There's also 'Reassemble' and 'Fuse,'" Aika says.
"Pretty cool… so what are you going to do with them?"
"Probably get them to farm XP for me. If your blood minions can get XP for you, it should work for these guys as well… are you using blood minions to farm XP by the way?" Aika asks, gesturing for the skeletons to go hunting.
"I could but I hate the idea of leveling without getting fighting experience. When I used them while I was out, I was just using them for some extra XP while I still fought monsters,"
"That's a waste, aren't you desperate to get your limbs back? Shouldn't they come back with evolution?"
"Yeah but by the time I get to level 100, Yggdrasil would've already grown by then and I could retrieve Ichimei,"
"How do you know Ichimei is going to fix it?"
"Can we go to the bath now? Maids! Clean up the blood," Kumo shouts.
We all don't refute and continue our conversation to the bath.
…
"So you're confident that Ichimei will heal back your limbs? 100%?" Aika asks once again as she helps wash my back.
"Y-yeah,"
"That doesn't sound confident enough," Homura says.
"Alright fine! I'll order my blood minions to search for potential threats in my kingdom and they'll get rid of them. Of course, it will only be things like thieves and not bandits,"
"Whatever you say," Aika responds.
It was silent for a bit until Kumo created another conversation.
"... Why did you hold Ava in our dungeon when you could've just sent her to a public dungeon?" Kumo asks.
"Even though her subordinates didn't seem faithful, there might be some that would go to great lengths for her such as breaking her out of the public dungeon. I was going to send her to the prison that is currently being made since I want to make the security there, immaculate. Untouchable,"
My wives all laughed and we continued to soak in the relaxing hot bath.