12 Bonds

As the receding blue and orange colours of the sky battled the forming blackness of the incoming nightfall, a beautiful colour array was cast across the surface of their small manor. A strand of this light, seeped through a small opening in the living chamber and created a light of no significant display. But, this light enchanted Ethera, who was draining the last drop of her portion of the Nine Nebula Nectar. Similar to being in a trance, she stood still and continued to watch it with transfixed eyes.

A moment later, after regaining her awareness, Ethera turned towards the direction of her parents who were standing by the opened door of the living chamber, watching her with amusement.

"A reverie?"

Asked her father, who was smiling while raising an eye brow.

"Probably an awakening of her consciousness."

Answered Amarodia, feigning a surprise as she glanced at her husband before slowly asking.

"Another jar of the nectar to celebrate?"

"Huh?"

Exclaimed Hargoven in despair, only to be met with a hearty laughter from his wife. Hargoven released a long suffering sigh as he shook his head to Amarodia's continuous laughter as she warmly held his hand. Ethera who was now smiling after moment of laughter, ran to her parents and held them tightly in an embrace. She continued to hold them while they gently patted her on the shoulders.

After some long seconds, she raised her head to look at her parents. Observing the wide and easy smile on her parents' faces, Ethera's mind was full of gratitude to them for her life.

Their colossal roles in her current existential state, couldn't be emphasized enough by her. Despite her disappointment destined path, they were still, eternally, joyful that she was existing in their lives as their daughter.

Glancing at her father, she recollected the words of her mother in regards to her brave father. She had been listening to her mother talked about the sacrifices her father had made. The many battles his father had fought just to have a child, despite having a shattered core. How he had lost his legs which could well have been his life, while searching for the blood phoenix crystal required by the sovereign alchemist. Twice, he could have lost his life as he was trying to gather some of the items, not to mention the family fortune he had spent on other items too.

Exceptional sacrifices he had made for her.

Shifting her focus to her mother, she couldn't help but wondered the extent of the sacrifices she had made in this life. Her mother! An Overworlder, who, despite not having any means of soul transformation, had left the crypt of the Overworld for the chaos of the Underworld, Ethera could only imagine appreciatively, her mother's sacrifices.

Her father had been singing the praise of her mother to her since the day she was born. About the pills her mother had taken before she was finally conceived, which were enough to turn the Underworld into an alchemist's dungeon. More so, these pills had made a large toll on her, yet, she had never once complained about it all.

This was even minor in comparison, to the large amount of life-essence she had been expending from her body regularly to infuse into her foetus when she was pregnant.

Her very life essence.

As an Overworlder with basically light energy, it would have required only a small-to-average amount of life-essence if she was in the Overworld. But in the Underworld that was made up of majorly dark chaos energy, she had used a large amount of her life essence to regulate her foetus. As a young deity, Ethera wasn't sure about the consequences of this, but she knew an average Overworlder would have permanently damaged her life-force. Yet, somehow, her mother had survived all these without damaging her life-force.

As she was thinking about this, her mind suddenly recalled the words of the astral dream entity.

"But, what of your mother?"

Could there really be more to her mother? She knew that her father's shattered core, was as a result of a great battle involving her mother which had resulted in her coming to the Underworld. But, she didn't know enough about who her mother was in the Overworld. Her parents hadn't told her much about this incident.

Could there be more to the dreams and that unknown entity?

"Ahem."

The sound from her parents, brought Ethera out of her deep thoughts prompting her to stare at them. The pride on their faces as they returned her stare, was a source of joy and inspiration for her. It was a sign of complete confidence and trust they had in her. Now that she had undergone her awakening rite and became a true deity, big responsibility lay on her shoulders. Nonetheless, this would be a massive task.

First of which was to try and justify the pride they had in her, provided she didn't die young.

Secondly, to be strong enough to survive in this world of chaos. This was almost impossible, especially, since she had a cursed path. For her to be stronger, she would have to advance by harnessing the essence of both the light and dark energy. Whereas, the light energy was simply impossible to harness in the Underworld without the light-energy essence crystals.

Though, they could continue to rely on being a member of the Shadow-Fire clan, their position as the ruling clan might not last for long. Her second uncle, lord Deggorath, had been engaging in different battles of the recent, due to the number of challenges that were coming his way. Despite being extremely powerful, an opposing deity might one day find one or more pure-graded divine treasures to be used against him. The result of which could remove the Shadow-Flame clan from where they were now on the Tartarus ladder and might put them in a deadly situation in Tartarus.

Her grandparents and many of her clan, were evidences of the danger of not being in a safe position in any realm of the Underworld. Who, with their many years under the pangs of extreme difficulties, had lost their lives. Since they could find themselves in the same situations again, she had to be prepared. Although, she couldn't think of any way to achieve this. But, she could try to train herself at the least.

Leaving her parents who were walking towards the front of their manor, Ethera made her way to her room. She sat in a lotus position and began to free her mind from the recollection of the recent events. After meditating for several minutes, she moved to cultivation.

As Shadow-Fire clan, they had the Shadow Flame technique. Not the best technique, but it was manageable for a true Underworld path. For her twin realms path, this was going to be an impossible technique. Now that she was a true deity, if she continued to cultivate like this, she might never even advance a phase, talk-less of a level. Since she wasn't in the Overworld, she would be needing the light core-essence crystals if she truly wanted to advance and become stronger. As of now, this was certainly impossible.

After cultivating for a time, she sighed and stood up. Remembering her parents words not to let anger ever clouded her mind, she calmed her mind and walked towards the direction of the training centre. Using the general cloud-steps, she arrived at their training ground and shot, high, into the air. Swirling the wooden glaive given to her by her father over her head, she descended and slammed the flattened edge on the ground.

Seeing the resulting cloud of aek[dust], Ethera smiled gently as the seals on the training ground came alive.