Chapter 401: Aftermath
23rd Layer, Rebirth Tower, City of Iron, Iron Kingdom.
An eerie silence appeared in the large hall.
Noel remained in the kneeling position and stared vacantly at the concrete floor.
No, he was looking at a silver ring.
It was the only thing that remained after their Teacher's death.
On the other hand, Jessie and Rhea stood behind him like frozen statues and hung their heads down. They were clueless about what to do next. The trio felt that they some lost two precious eyes on the same day!
Jessie and Rhea looked at their own feet and appeared angry at themselves for being too weak and naive!
After a minute of long silence, Jessie finally raised her head, stared at the ceiling with reddened eyes, and spoke.
"I want revenge." Her voice appeared eerie.
Rhea and Noel also nodded their heads in approval. But as Noel opened his mouth, the space before them started to distort and soon formed a small spatial crack.
Then, a red gem-embedded crown came out from it.
It hovered in the air for a moment and soon moved towards their direction.
Upon seeing this, Rhea and Noel got startled deeply and got ready to attack it at any moment.
"What is this?!" Noel already unsheathed his sword and pointed the sword tip at the crown.
The only one who remained calm was Jessie.
"Mr. Runeth?" She asked; her face was full of surprise and confusion.
"It seems you still remember me. I thought your Teacher had already erased your memory." The Holem's Crown spoke in a cold tone.
Meanwhile, Jessie showed a puzzled look and soon asked with a hesitant face.
"W-What happened to our Teacher, Mr. Runeth?"
"Didn't you see his burning body? He is no more, lass. You guys are on your own." The Holem's Crown lied without any hesitation.
In truth, telling these kids would do no good for Charles, and the Holem's Crown was well aware of it.
'Moreover, killing Oswald's identity is the right thing. As for telling the truth, it isn't the right time.' The Holem's Crown knew that these kids needed a push to move forward in their life.
Although Titus was dead, he might come back from the dead according to the first King's prophecy. And, Jessie would learn about his condition using the imprint in his space ring and might not think of him as a dead person.
But, Oswald's death would give them real pain.
In their minds, he was truly dead!
Without waiting for the trio to ask more questions, the Holem's Crown let out a dim red light and added.
"I know you guys want to take revenge. But what can you do? Currently, your strength is nothing in front of the Griffin Family. Although Andy Griffin is dead, there are still two people in that family with Rank-4 strength. Moreover, we aren't sure about what happened to Arch-Mage Marcus. Is he dead? Or, is he hiding in the Iron Tower?" His question shocked them.
At that moment, Noel suddenly recalled another important person and asked.
"What about Lady Edith? Where is she now? Can't she help us with the revenge?"
Upon hearing his words, Jessie's face went pale.
Due to the earlier chaos, she forgot about what happened to Edith and grew anxious.
'Wait! Mr. Runeth said that Andy Griffin was already dead. Does that mean she killed him? But where is she now?' Questions whirled in her head.
"She is also no more, lad. Although she managed to kill Andy Griffin, Arch-Mage Marcus returned to Edhen World using a strange technique and killed her on the spot." The Holem's Crown answered patiently.
"So, we are on our own, huh." Rhea exhaled loudly and muttered.
"Yes. That's why you guys should focus on improving your strength. If there is something important, you guys can come to layer-0 and look for me." The Holem's Crown added.
Meanwhile, Rhea gave the strange red crown a deep look and soon asked.
"Are you a series artifact, mister?" Her voice appeared polite.
"Indeed, I'm." The Holem's Crown paused, then moved towards the silver ring on the concrete floor and picked it up using telekinesis skill.
Then, the artifact moved upward and soon disappeared from there!
A moment later, it reappeared in the layer-0, moved towards one of the cloning pods, and soon entered inside by turning itself into a steak of light.
But instead of a white-haired old man, a blonde-haired human appeared inside the cloning pod. He seemed to be around 40 to 50 years old, had amber eyes, a rough face, and looked muscular.
This clone was a replica of Runeth's original body!
During the past five years, he solved many problems related to cloning and increased a clone's lifespan to one year.
Still, he had a long way to recreate his original body.
...
At that moment, Jessie and others returned to their residence and started preparing for Daisy's and their Teacher's funeral.
As for Titus's funeral, they chose to put that on hold.
Alas, they didn't announce their Teacher's death to the masses and decided to do the funeral ceremony secretly. They knew the consequence of declaring his death to the people and invited trustworthy people for their funeral.
...
Meanwhile, a shattered soul flew above the clouds and soon entered the thermosphere. It appeared more like a humanoid fog with a crimson flame layer enveloping all over. Although many cracks appeared all over the soul form, the crimson flame held the soul together like glue!
While flying, Charles looked at the surrounding auroras and became stunned by the beauty. He then looked below from the sky and widened his foggy eyes.
A bluish planet appeared in front of his eyes. Although he wasn't sure of its exact size, he vaguely suspected that this Edhen must be ten times bigger than Earth.
As he was about to take a closer look at Edhen World, he suddenly noticed that the crimson flame suddenly accelerated its speed!
Before long, he found himself leaving the planet's thermosphere and soon reached the exosphere. Although he didn't see any artificial satellites, he saw some metallic black pillars here and there.
Each pillar appeared to be around 100 to 300 meters tall, emitted strange radiations, and seemed to be monitoring the outer surface of Edhen Planet.
Charles also noticed some strange force-field was blocking the physical objects from entering or leaving. He saw many a few small asteroids crashed into the barrier and soon disintegrated into minute particles.
'Is this built by the lawful gods?' He thought to himself.
If he wasn't in his soul form, he might not be able to leave this planet at all!
'It seems there are many mysteries around this planet.' He thought to himself.
As he further moved away from Edhen, he also saw broken asteroid debris, the Red Moons, and got amazed by the beauty of outer space.