The sound of silverware striking plates echoed through the beautiful dining hall.
While the cool and refreshing night breeze slipped in through the open windows, spreading the delicious scent of this feast everywhere.
Leona stared at the table before her and all this food she had been deprived of in the previous months.
But more important than that were the two people around her.
Her small family of two people... the most important thing in Leona’s life.
On her right was a woman in her forties with blue hair and beautiful blue eyes.
They looked very alike, as if she had inherited all of her mother’s features and become a younger version of her.
On the left was a man the same age as her mother, with black hair and brown eyes, along with a light beard on his face that gave him a stern appearance from the outside.
Leona’s father raised the fork to his mouth as he swallowed a piece of roasted meat.
"I still cannot believe that you met people from the past there."
Lira, Leona’s mother, spread her voice through the dining hall.
Leona smiled with some tension at that question.
"Umm... well, it was not anything big."
"How could it not be something big? Tell me what happened after that... what was that ancient city like..."
Leona felt embarrassed by her mother’s questions, especially since the matter had not been pleasant to bring up here in their first gathering.
Her smile wavered with some tension as she tried to find a suitable answer.
’I do not think talking about that is a good idea.’
Suddenly, before Leona could answer, her father intervened and saved her.
"Stop bothering Leona, dear. Perhaps talking about it does not make her comfortable."
Lira sighed as she calmed herself.
"Sorry, I was too curious."
Even so, she looked at Leona with a smile warmer than sunlight itself.
"Now there is no need to be afraid, you have already returned home... and you do not have to tell us anything if it is not comfortable for you, my dear."
After that, the conversations continued to flow between them.
She told them about some of the things they had experienced there, and avoided other things.
And during this, her father listened to every word she spoke.
Then slowly, a wonderful smile slipped onto Leona’s face as she looked at her parents before her.
Her family... her blood... and her home.
And everything.
Unlike the others, Leona did not possess great ambition.
She did not have some grand goal nor a desire for revenge against something.
She did not need to stop a catastrophe from descending upon the Empire or prove herself.
Yes, there were some hopes placed on her.
But it was not really anything important.
Even her parents had never pressured her to become something great.
So for Leona, her life was the happiest of all.
And now here she was, sitting at the long table with her family after crossing half a planet to finally return to this place.
At this moment, there was only one word to describe how she felt.
Happy.
...
After having dinner with her parents, Leona left to wander through her home that she had not seen for some time.
She walked through the corridors of the small palace while exchanging smiles and greetings with the servants, whom she had not seen for some time.
’How much I missed home.’
Soon she found herself reaching the back garden of the palace and walking between rows of carefully trimmed plants before stopping in the middle of the path.
She raised her head while staring at the beautiful moon lighting this night... a full one, not mere debris floating beneath the stars.
She took a deep breath before releasing a long sigh, as if casting away all the exhaustion and pressure that had piled upon her.
"It is wonderful to be back... I wonder how the others are doing now."
She muttered as she remembered the others.
She lowered her head, and her long blue hair swayed with the refreshing night breeze while the faint rustling of leaves slipped into her ears.
Her eyes were drawn to the garden around her, a familiar garden where she had spent most of her life wandering and enjoying herself.
But it seemed it had changed a little now.
Nothing important.
Just some blue flowers tightly closed.
Their beautiful petals clung to each other as if they did not wish to bloom anytime soon.
Or they lacked something to do so.
Leona approached one of them as she extended her hand with a small smile on her face.
Her fingers touched the smooth surface of its closed petals as she gently caressed it.
"Perhaps they did not water it enough."
She muttered.
The place around her was empty, so her voice was the only thing in the quiet of the night.
"I wonder how beautiful it will look when it blooms..."
Suddenly Leona felt something change while a familiar feeling rose inside her.
’Again.’
With that thought, her eyes widened as she watched the flower in her hand tremble.
As if it were afraid.
Quickly, its closed petals shrank and withered while losing that beautiful blue color, becoming nothing but a dry plant in Leona’s hand.
Her eyes widened as she quickly turned her head to look around.
Around her, the same thing was happening to all those blue flowers.
Dozens of them withered in an instant and fell, losing their lives without any chance to bloom.
At the same time, cracks spread through the world as it shattered while a strange feeling took control of Leona.
’Wh... what is this?’
With that strange and familiar sensation, the world around her changed, and she felt the place where she stood change.
Her heart sank while a strange yet familiar smell seeped into Leona’s nose.
At the same time, uncontrollable nausea rose through her chest.
Around her, thick fog drowned the world... red fog.
Red like something specific.
’What is this strange place?’
Leona, who had been standing in her home garden just after eating dinner with her parents, could not understand what was happening here.
And although her mind did not understand what was happening around her, her body felt it.
From beneath her feet to the middle of her waist, Leona felt that she was submerged in a sticky liquid.
Sticky and thick, seeping between her fingers and toes, making it unbearable.
She lowered her head while the red liquid reflected in her wide-open eyes.
Her heart sank further and the air left her lungs while the realization of what this liquid was slipped into her consciousness.
Blood.
A lot... a lot of it.
So much that her mind stopped working completely.
And the unbearable nausea rose more and more inside her.
With every breath, the salty taste of that bloody fog slipped into her mouth and left its mark on her tongue.
’This... this is not a vision.’
She clenched her jaw tightly as she tried to think rationally and remain calm.
In the next moment, a loud scream tore through the world.
A scream louder than anything she had heard in her life.
It sounded like glass being scraped... irritating and painful.
Without her will, she raised her head while the blood fog moved and faded from before her, allowing her to see a little farther.
There, very far away from her, the silhouette of towering mountains rose toward the sky.
And from the sky itself, something large fell... very large.
Even though it was far away, she could only see parts covered in what seemed like shining white feathers.
In the next moment, the enormous body reached the ground while the world shook beneath her feet, and waves of blood formed because of it.
She closed her eyes as she felt the liquid strike her face and dye her hair.
But that sensation vanished in the next moment when she opened her eyes again.
Unlike before, she had become closer to the fallen thing, seeing that beautiful white feather... or at least it had been.
Now it was dyed bright red like everything here.
Even those mountains became clearer.
Which were not mountains to begin with.
But corpses.
Millions.
No.
Billions, and far more than that.
Piled upon each other in every size and type... every shape a human could imagine... and even humans.
Her teeth clattered hard together, and an unbearable feeling drowned her.
A feeling that made her want to tear her heart from its place and stop it forever.
It was fear.
Fear purer than anything in existence.
But it was not because of the endless sea of blood... nor the mountains of corpses rising to the sky itself.
Nor even this strange corpse lying before her.
But from something smaller than all of that.
There above that deformed corpse was the silhouette of something.
No matter how much Leona stared, she could not truly see what it was.
But one thing was certain to her.
’This is madness.’
Whether it was the monster that controlled Asfaria... or the Fallen Star Shard itself, both of them were monsters at the highest levels of power.
But compared to this.
They were nothing.