Chapter 282: What Happened?
With that woman gone, the wills and that massive pair of eyes also withdrew and disappeared.
Even though they were angry about losing the ring, there was nothing they could do. They would take it back later, when a better opportunity came.
With their departure, the sky returned to normal, the flow of time started again, and everything went back to the way it had been.
Daniel, feeling a headache, slowly opened his eyes and rubbed them a little.
"Huh? Where did my wounds go?" He was confused when he noticed there wasn’t a single injury left on his body.
"Daniel?" Hearing a familiar voice calling him, he froze in shock. Without hesitation, he turned around and saw his mother and two sisters.
"Mom?" Without caring about what had happened, he embraced Liana. She also hugged her son tightly, even though her mind was still muddled.
"Do you know how worried I was about you, son?"
"Mom, do you know how worried I was about you? I kept searching for you, but it was like nothing, no trace at all." Daniel sighed.
"Are you okay? That bastard didn’t do anything to you, right?"
"No... since he captured us, we were in that cage, waiting for him to catch you too... you have no idea how worried I was." Liana let out a sigh of relief.
"Huh? Mom? Daniel...?" Alice also woke up from all the noise, and as soon as she saw her brother, she didn’t hesitate and threw herself into his arms.
"I missed you so much! Even if this is a dream, it still feels so good."
Daniel and Liana exchanged glances and both burst out laughing. Daniel flicked his sister on the forehead, but Alice didn’t care and stayed in his arms.
Tiana was the last to wake up. When she saw that everyone was fine and Daniel was there, she jumped into their embrace too, and the four of them shared a family hug.
He checked all of their bodies to make sure there were no problems with them. After their minds stabilized a little, they all stood up and looked around.
"What exactly happened here?" Alice asked in awe and confusion. They had been unconscious the whole time and didn’t know what had occurred.
However, Daniel ignored her and started looking for Kaelos. Unfortunately, no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find that bastard.
"What the hell happened while I was unconscious?" He felt dizzy and his headache worsened.
The battle was clearly over, and Kaelos was nowhere to be seen. Did he miraculously let them go? Or did he die or run away for some unknown reason?
But each of those possibilities felt more unlikely than the last. Him letting them go? Practically impossible.
Dead or fled... but who could have possibly defeated him? Daniel doubted anyone in their entire country could do it.
To his surprise, he suddenly sensed auras approaching from afar.
"Mr. Schnitez?" All of those auras belonged to National Rank Awakened of their country.
"Thank god you’re still alive, kid." Schnitez let out a sigh of relief when he saw Daniel was alive.
He then looked at the three women and greeted them. The three, though still confused, respectfully returned the greeting, shocked by who this man was.
After all, Schnitez Everlight was one of the most famous figures in their country.
"What happened to Kaelos?" Daniel looked at the old man and asked.
"We don’t know either... for a moment, everything went black, and then boom... when we opened our eyes, Kaelos was just gone." Schnitez shook his head and said.
"So no one knows what happened to him." He sighed. With things like this, they could never be sure if the threat was truly gone.
"It’s possible the Guardian Council interfered. If that’s the case, that lunatic must be imprisoned by now." Silas suddenly spoke up.
"Could be. In fact, that’s the only real possibility right now. Better contact the council and confirm with them," Schnitez said as he looked at him.
"No problem. But Logan is dead. What should we do about him?"
"Ah... is there anything we can even do? File for a National Security meeting with the highest government body, and call in every National Rank. We’ll discuss it there."
Silas nodded, and before leaving, he gave Daniel a quick scan.
Once he left, the other National Ranks also said their goodbyes. After a quick glance at Daniel, they left as well.
"Guess you’re about to get famous, kid," Schnitez remarked, noticing the looks they had given Daniel.
"Ah, what can I say?" Daniel chuckled.
"Even though they intervened this time, it wasn’t to protect you. If they feel you could become a massive threat and disrupt the country’s balance of power, they won’t hesitate to assassinate you."
Daniel stared at Schnitez with an empty expression, but the old man just laughed.
"Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen. Still, I can only hold back those old geezers. As for the younger ones, well... those are your own problem."
Daniel nodded. As long as Rank S people didn’t come after him, he wouldn’t have any major issues.
After that, the five of them headed toward the guild. There wasn’t much of a guild left, but Schnitez opened a private dimension and brought Lana and the rest of the guild members out from within it.
Once they emerged, everyone let out sighs of relief and began thanking God for the end of this battle. Some even started kissing the ground.
Lana came over and checked on them. Daniel and his family were completely fine, but Schnitez was heavily injured. A huge portion of his arsenal of items had been destroyed, and even his soul and essence were damaged.
In short, his strength had been drastically reduced, and it would take time for him to recover.
"What do we do now?" Lana sighed as she looked at the ruined guild building.
"Rebuilding this will only take a day. Get help from the mages. As for the rest of the city, the government will handle that."
"Understood."
"Your little sister’s seclusion hasn’t ended yet?"
"No, Grandpa."
"Strange." Schnitez was a bit curious about what exactly that kid was doing in there.
"Anyway, find a good home for our friend here and his family. After the meeting, I’ll be going into seclusion myself for a while. Don’t worry, though, your father should be returning soon."
Lana nodded, feeling a little sad, but there was nothing to be done. Unfortunately, all the guild responsibilities would fall on her for now.
After that, emergency helicopters arrived along with lower-ranked Awakened sent by the Federation and other guilds to assist.
They began sweeping the area to assess casualties and damage. All members of the Everlight Moon Guild were transferred to the hospital.
Although Daniel and his family refused at first, Lana forced them to go as well just to be safe. In the end, they had no choice and headed to the hospital.
However, while inside the ambulance, Daniel found a piece of paper in his pocket... more specifically, a letter.
He looked at it with slight confusion, unable to remember having something like this in his pocket.
So where did this letter come from?