There were many things that everyone needed to consider and decide on, so after Grigori dismissed them for the evening and took both Whale Tribes aside to treat them, everyone thought they wouldn't be able to sleep that night – they were wrong. The moment their heads touched their pillows, the weary exhaustion of the day and everything they had seen and felt fell upon them and mercifully Sleep embraced them in her grasp.
A pleasant morning bell tolled through the Annual Palace, stirring them back into consciousness the next morning. Some frowned as they couldn't recall what happened to them the night before when they'd put their heads down. TBOAH!Litana swore she'd only closed her eyes for a moment and it confused her immensely that she didn't recall falling asleep. She was not alone, there were others both from her timeline as well as from the TCF!World that felt the same. That's why as soon as breakfast was over they all piled eagerly into the Palantír Hall, hoping to question the goddess.
"Ahh, good morning children." Grigori blinked and smiled softly when the horde of residents from the TCF!World and TBOAH!World came barging into her Palantír Hall. However whatever questions they wanted to throw at her, froze on their tongues at the sight of the stranger standing beside her. Noticing their perplexed and wary gazes, she chuckled lightly and shook her head.
"I suppose this is your first time meeting him. This is Naur, my First Apostle."
The towering six-foot tall drakon-kin looked unlike anything any of them had ever seen before, and Grigori seemed even more dainty and delicate beside him. He had draconic horns adorning the crown of his head, a serpent-like tail with sharp spikes that swayed idly behind him and a pair of large gargoyle wings. His scales were deep burnt orange in colour, and his eyes were sparkling yellow, like liquid gold. He was as terrifying to look at as he was enchanting.
Naur inclined his head to them mutely and then promptly returned his attention to Grigori as if he had no interest in receiving their reciprocating greeting. Kim Rok Soo and Cale shared a look before ushering everyone toward their seats when Grigori beckoned them to do so. It took a moment for everyone to settle down, but it was enough time for Grigori to finish her quiet conversation with Naur and then after he bowed to her and disappeared in a swirling mist of orange and red flames, Grigori turned to her guests and greeted them all happily.
"You all were terribly exhausted last night, but it seems that everyone is very well rested and your healing is progressing at a much smoother pace than before. I'm also happy to see that both the Whale Tribe members and Crown Prince Valentino are joining us. Since your soul dissonance has been entirely healed, your TBOAH!World Counterparts have been reconnected with you so in case anyone else is wondering where their TBOAH!World counterparts disappeared that should put your mind at ease." Grigori patiently answered the questions they had about blacking out as soon as they went to bed last night calmly and after about another hour or so, everyone was willingly appeased. She clasped her hands behind her back, appearing serene and picturesquely ethereal and innocent.
"We'll be reviewing the records of someone the people of both timelines admire and look up to. Someone who has an overwhelming talent for handling mana. Archmage, Ruler of Mana, Rosalyn of the Red Flame!" Grigori announces. Her theatrics are childish, but her eyes glow with happiness and delight when she sees the flattered expressions on both TCF!Rosalyn and TBOAH!Rosalyn's faces. Cale happily sits back and nods when Raon enthusiastically speaks up.
"Hooray! It's Smart Rosalyn's turn!"
Grigori kindly gives everyone a moment to gossip in excitement amongst themselves before she raises her hand to regain their attention.
"As I'm sure you're all aware, there are many records pertaining to Tower Master Rosalyn, and for obvious time constraints and because I'm using this method to actually heal you, I will not be showing you every scene, but you're welcome to talk and discuss them amongst yourselves afterwards as the others have done."
TCF!Valentino nods calmly while docilely tracing the rim of his flute of champagne with his fingertips. TCF!Litana looked toward the Caro Kingdom Crown Prince curiously, but he either didn't notice or didn't know what to say to her because he made no sign of acknowledging her gaze.
TCF!Lock and TBOAH!Lock shared a look and then TBOAH!Lock raised his hand to ask why he and TCF!Lock were still separated.
"Well, I'm maintaining you both as separate individuals because I don't want your Hyung and Noona to be lonely, once you're all healed I'll merge and completely repair the fractures." She explains and then returns her gaze to sweep over the occupants in the room. "Does anyone else have anymore questions?" She asks and then takes the time to answer the questions that come from TBOAH!Basen and TCF!Violan, there are also questions from TBOAH!Jopis and TBOAH!Gashan and once all further questions were dealt with, she smiled ethereally.
"In that case... let's begin." She announced and then promptly made her way over to her lounger and took her seat before nodding toward the Palantír.
<Chapter 369: Night Has Arrived (2)>
There were people landing on the ground full of white pebbles. A person wearing a mage's robe was in the front with a group of people wearing Arm's battle uniforms behind them.
"One mage and more Cats."
Eruhaben started to frown. There were around thirty Cats.
"Oh, I should probably mention this before we proceed. These records will be introducing you all to another delusional lunatic, please refrain from losing your tempers and destroying my Palantír Hall... and... Hmm... I should also say that this is a battle that did not occur in the TBOAH!World, so it's something I personally think you would all be quite interested in seeing."
"Ho?" Kim Rok Soo gasped quietly. He turned to look at Cale. "You were quite busy!"
"It's all for my slacker life!" Cale muttered and relaxed between him and TCF!Alberu.
Kim Rok Soo returned his gaze to the Palantír – he'd been wondering why he couldn't recognize the setting of this battle – but now he understood why. Cale had probably gone right into Arm's turf to blow shit up for the sake of his so-called 'slacker life', Kim Rok Soo sighed softly and smiled appreciatively toward Cale.
A gust of wind blew by. The approximately fifty Cats all dispersed at once. They lightly kicked off the ground and moved to surround the castle walls.
"Shit! Cale, it looks like we need to leave as well!" Eruhaben urgently shouted after seeing the Cats move and Choi Han looked ready to run out at any moment. It was the same with the Molan duo.
Mercenary King Bud Illis started to frown as he shouted. "Crazy! Magic bombs?!"
For everyone to hear the concern in the Ancient Golden Dragon's voice, it was pretty obvious how serious the situation was.
"Excuse me, Goddess-nim, are you sure you put on the right record?" TBOAH!Choi Han asked in concern. The expression on his counterpart's face upon the Palantír was enough to tell even him that the threat they were facing was not one they had anticipated – so that could only mean one thing, they must have been ambushed.
The approximately fifty Cats all had magic bombs in their hands. The one leading them was the mage who was with the Cats. It was expected that everyone would look worried. Thirty people at once. This mage had teleported that many people at once.
"...He's human."
Eruhaben scrunched his eyebrows after seeing this mage who was a highest-grade mage, no, slightly stronger than a highest-grade mage.
'This is getting complicated.'
This mage was stronger than Rosalyn and probably would be as strong as Mary if he was a necromancer. Having such a mage as an enemy was a big headache.
TBOAH!Rosalyn flinched at this surprising announcement, TBOAH!Mary tilted her head and appraised the Arm mage upon the Palantír with an appraising eye and then nodded slowly. She could also assess the situation and judge for herself despite having not met as many people as TCF!Mary had. There was one thing though, TBOAH!Mary felt something was strange with this mage, but she couldn't tell what it was about him that made her feel that way. The Ancient Dragon was right, this mage would be as strong as her if he were necromancer, but something about the blue colour of his mana made her feel odd and uneasy, TBOAH!Mary could not understand the feeling and therefore began to frown and pay closer attention to what was happening on the Palantír.
In addition, the White Star was not even here yet.
At this added announcement, a new complication filled the hearts of the TBOAH!World audience with dread. They looked around, trying to figure out who on the screen was not among the TCF!World guests – whoever was missing was obviously the ones they had lost during this battle – however everyone being shown on the Palantír was also accounted for among the TCF!World people. The guests from the TBOAH!World gulped and stared at Cale before returning their gazes to the Palantír.
"In such a situation... they couldn't have... I mean... that should be impossible, right?" TBOAH!Harol choked and began to tremble beside TBOAH!Toonka who was oddly quiet after witnessing the calamity that was Cale Henituse as he toyed around with Arm.
The mage made eye contact with Eruhaben at that moment. The mage started to smile as he asked.
"What is it? Are human mages not allowed to use magic at the level of Dragons? You Dragons really are arrogant."
The smile quickly disappeared from the mages face and his mana started to gather. The bombs in the Cats' hands started to rumble as if they were responding to the mana.
"Tsk... what a cocky little bastard!" TBOAH!Eruhaben frowned in disapproval. TCF!Eruhaben sighed softly, knowing that his counterpart would probably want to whine and demand an explanation for why TCF!Eruhaben hadn't beaten this silly little mage until dust flew for his arrogance. TCF!Eruhaben muttered something about being too old to explain something so troublesome to his counterpart under his breath and then returned his gaze to the Palantír as the record went on.
"You."
"Yes. What is it you wish to say?" The Chief motioned with his chin as if he was saying hurry up and speak.
He could hear Cale's voice. "Shut your dirty trap. You're too loud."
Silence suddenly filled the area. Cale didn't care as he continued to lean on one foot and frown.
"Trash? Dirty? I may be trash—
"Oh dear... it looks like my dear dongsaeng needs to have another nice chat with everyone about this attitude of yours again..."
"Come now, Hyung... you know this is the past. There's nothing I can do about what I thought or said back then... I'm sure our gracious and glorious brilliantly blinding sun of our beautiful Roan Empire will be condoning."
"Doesn't that tongue of yours ever get tired?" TCF!Alberu grumbled and then shook his head and glanced toward TCF!Choi Han, who shrugged, as if to say that TCF!Alberu was on his own because he started it with Cale. Naur started the line again – forcing everyone to return their attention to the record.
"Trash? Dirty? I may be trash, but even I don't say things like that to children. You're the real trash. Are you out of your mind?"
On and Hong blankly looked up at Cale.
"He's right. Our human is very right." They could also hear Raon quietly mumbling.
TCF!Ohn and TCF!Hong purred and climbed over TCF!Alberu's lap to get closer to Cale while TBOAH!Ohn and TBOAH!Hong continued to sit in Kim Rok Soo's lap trembling lightly and studying everything on the Palantír – they were having a really difficult and stressful time after seeing the Cat Tribe Chief's face – it brought back terrible memories for both Kittens. However a moment later, Cale's hand soothingly settled upon them and he began to pet them.
"It's alright, you don't have to watch, if you're not ready to watch!" Cale assured them, and Kim Rok Soo slowly coiled his arms around the pair, offering them sanctuary and wordlessly reassuring them that they were safe here.
Lord Sherritt was looking at Cale with an odd expression. Cale was just annoyed while the others were moving to deal with the magic bombs.
"Hahahaha." Sherritt started to laugh.
She could see the corners of her child's lips twitching as he looked at Cale. That made her think of an old memory.
The Chief nodded his head and responded back.
"Sure. I understand."
'Hmm?'
Cale looked at the Chief who was nodding his head as if he was an oddball.
'Is he a lunatic too?'
TBOAH!Glenn frowned and tilted his head curiously, wondering if the Cat Tribe Chief was the lunatic Grigori was trying to introduce to them.
"No... he's a different kind of lunatic, but not the one Grigori-nim was referring to." TCF!Glenn answered – accurately guessing the direction of his counterpart's thoughts and correcting him. TCF!Bud and TBOAH!Bud stayed quiet – in the TBOAH!World he was sure that he'd already been hunted down by White Star – but he wasn't sure if he'd already been killed or not, he couldn't guess the timeline of the TCF!World because Grigori revealed these records so haphazardly.
However, Cale could see why the Chief said that. The reason Cale, Eruhaben, and the others could not relax started to appear again.
The ground started to shake. It was much stronger than last time. Then a light started to appear. The light started to get bigger. Cale could feel it as soon as he saw the light.
'That bastard is here.'
"It's the White Star." The ancient Dragon said that as he started to float up. White gold mana started to surround him.
Everyone in the room couldn't help but shudder and again look around to find who had been sacrificed so that the group could escape that place – however the TCF!World guests were all calm and totally unaffected by the scene on the record, their expressions and behaviour hid everything – it was frustrating for their TBOAH!World counterparts who wanted to know which one of them had been left behind while the others escaped.
They were under the assumption that Cale had allowed someone to remain behind as bait while the others got away – however they dared not to ask because they were afraid of offending their much stronger counterparts and the red-haired commander at the front of the room.