Chapter 268: One Week

After that battle where eight Transcendents from the enemy's side fell from our hands, one week soon passed.

Due to the feeling of uncertainty that I got from how easy it was to deal with them, I consulted Sofiel, Fleur and Arland to give their opinion as to what we will. In the end, we decided to cautiously thread the following days.

Fleur still cares a lot about her race while Sofiel was almost like me. For her, I'm way above the Church or her race so anything that I will decide to do, she will follow through it. Because of that, I somehow reprimanded her to at least also think for what will be good for herself. To which she countered with the words 'Being by darling's side is what I think is good for me. I got to live again for the purpose of being by your side.'

With those words, I gave up reprimanding her and instead, used that way of thinking to let her manage them excellently. She sounded heartless when it comes to her race but that's also what I am doing. If it doesn't concern any of them, I might turn a blind eye to it.

Preventing the assimilation of the Mortal Words was also in line of that so… that's that.

Also, apart from the reduced scouting done by their Mortal Ranks, the Transcendents of their side seemingly became silent. As in, they never went out for a week. Even the wave of Dark Energy which probably indicated the descent of a new Transcendent only happened twice.

But with the Portal's whereabouts still unknown, we couldn't really risk leaving the territories where there's a defensive formation put up.

The World's Will who I thought of waiting for news only appeared once during the week that had passed. Her incarnation was battered and almost about to fade. When I asked her what happened, she told us that it was the result of her running into their trap where it drained most of the Energy contained within her Incarnation.

Because of that, she halted her search for the Portal to replenish the Energy of the Incarnation after giving us a map with the possible location of the Portal as well as the location where she was trapped by them.

During the week, I got news from both World of Meta and World of Barbarians. Through what I gathered from the girls, I sent my Energy Incarnation to the World of Meta first.

In there, Nysia along with the trio of Heroes and the two veteran Transcendents has started their battle against the Dark World denizens. The Portal was truly located at the Moon itself however because of the 3 years where they leech off the three factions' resources, the Moon of that World became a strong Fortress. Thankfully, every Transcendent who descended in that World was still in the level of Rank 1 Transcendent and none of them could best Nysia nor the three Heroes.

The Anzeans who entered into an alliance with them before I left have been split into two factions. The ones who wanted to heal their dying World and the ones who wanted to settle down in the World of Meta. The ones who wanted to heal it were led by the current Civilization Leader while the ones who wanted to settle down were led by the Transcendent who expressed concern towards Dannae's mother.

At first it was resolved peacefully when the Healing Faction decided to go back to their dying planet to replenish their mothership's Energy however when they came back, they started attacking the weaker part of the three factions' territories along with the Darkgens.

When Nysia and the other leaders of the now United Alliance , thanks to the inclusion of the former Empire under Old Man Liam, heard about it, they all looked for Elise to demand an explanation from the Anzeans of the Settler Faction who remained.

Since my Support Incarnation only lasts a day, I only got to know of the situation through the 10-minute call I had with Nysia on the following day.

The Healing Faction was bought by the words of the Dark World which talked about healing their dying world and restoring it back to normal. To convince them, the descended Transcendents of the Dark World went with them to the Anzeans' World and with their combined Energy Control, they stabilized the Source Energy that's apparently going haywire and was producing various natural disasters due to the catastrophe that befell it.

Though Nysia told Elise to tell the Anzeans the information I gave her about the true nature of the Dark World as an Invasive World, it will still take days before a resolution comes up.

Leaving it at that, I also told Nysia that my return to the World of Meta might be a little delayed.

She pouted and expressed a little dissatisfaction at first but in the end, she reached an understanding of the situation here.

Now that another week passed by here in this world, the cooldown for the Support Recall already ended. With the Portal Skill given by the World's Will of World of Meta in place, I can now go back and forth from here to there and vice versa by having Hikari use the Support Recall once again or I can ask that silver-haired World's Will for the same Portal Skill.

Still during the week that had passed, after the cooldown for the Support Incarnation ended, I sent it to another Hero's Otherworld to check what's happening there. It was due to Yuko, Zerina and the other Party Members arriving at the World of Barbarians that I opted not to send the Incarnation there at first.

Like with us, The World gave the Transcendents, Yuko and Zerina a Portal Skill and with the help of the Principal who went there after they closed the Portal, Noelle, Caila and Reinys also went with them.

Noelle was supposedly about to be given the Pope position for their World's Church but she declined it to continue journeying with the Party.

Caila who already had her own branch of their Knight's Order also gave up the position to her subordinate just to come with Yuko and the others.

Reinys who got a closure when she herself saw through the death of her beloved corrupted brother declined her father's appointment of her as the Kingdom's successor. She wanted to get away from that World and also to still join Yuko in her endeavor.

Also, Yuko told me how that princess wanted to surpass me. Among the three of the Party Members, she's the one closest to reaching the threshold.

Most likely, I somehow managed to influence her in that battle during Yuko's Transcendence. The change of me being the weakling who could only follow and run around the battlefield back then to someone who helped them survive that despite being just an Incarnation ignited her fighting spirit.

In the World of Barbarians, as the four Companions of mine met each other, they instantly became close as sisters. Since I can't call them simultaneously, they could only hear about each other from me before.

However upon knowing that Yuko and Zerina are already a Transcendent, Erin became somewhat frustrated. Avelin and her still haven't reached the threshold to become a Transcendent during that time.

Now, after a week, I already saw the familiar asterisk next to their name from the system's interface.

In the world where I sent the Support Incarnation, the Hero there wasn't really a Hero. Well, it's like he's also a soldier like what happened with the trio at the World of Meta. Also, when the Portal widened and the Dark World Transcendents descended, the reclusive Transcendents of that world appeared to save them.

So during my one day there, I only helped him advance in his Mortal Pathway while learning about the current situation of that world. However, one day wasn't enough to pull him up to the threshold.

Still my one day wasn't wasted there. It made me think that the situation in the Heroes' Otherworlds isn't all that grave. But it's fair to say that some worlds, especially those not included in 30 Otherworlds the class was being sent into, a World might fall under the Dark World or whoever's invading it.

The situation on the Earth was still somewhat stable thanks to the EDA and the idle Heroes but the World as we knew it had already undergone a change.

The matter of Abilities also known as 'superpowers', dubbed by the media, is already a trend. However, all the clips they captured were either from a Hero or a member of the Dark Cult which was effectively being used to trace those Portal Breaches used by cultists as a base of operations.

The cooldown for the Support Incarnation is about to end again so I'm determining whether I will send it to watch Avelin and Erin's attempt at Transcendence or send it to another Otherworld to see what's happening there as well as get more information.

Before I could decide which, Sofiel's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Darling, they're here."

Upon hearing that, I stood up and looked out of the window of the Pontiff's Room as a smile crept upon my lips.

"Is that them?"

Fleur also stood up and looked at the newcomers.

"Yes."

I answered her before taking both of them to fly out to see the newcomers.

Outside the Aves' Concealment and Defensive Formation, a few figures could be seen floating there.

Though out of character, I couldn't help but get excited seeing the visage of the familiar somewhat revealing shrine-maiden outfit and the figure of the girl in the emerald-green dress.

"Yumiko, Jayna."

I called out their names as soon as I went out of the formation. And upon seeing me, their faces lit up as they both flew straight to my arms.