The treetops of Mythlorien finally opened up, revealing the Silent Star Garden in its full mystical glory.
The Silver Lotus group froze all at once, their feet sinking into the soft moss that seemed to glow with its own light.
Before them, the Astralis Requiem tree headquarters rose like a monument of living ivory, its roots winding across the ground and forming little alcoves full of flowers they hadn’t seen anywhere else in the forest they’d just spent so long trekking through.
Sara, whose Rare Race senses were running into overload, let a gasp escape her lips. "This is... impossible. The Mana density in these flowers... I feel like I’m breathing in the perfume of energy itself." She reached out a trembling hand to touch a petal shifting color between sky blue and silver, feeling nature’s vibration in perfect harmony.
Pip, who was flying a bit ahead of the group, puffed out his tiny chest with pride radiating from his new serrated wings. "Do you like the decorations? Pip’s sister, Elle, is the one who takes care of everything around here. She says the flowers need affection and a bit of gossip to shine like this, but secretly she uses a lot of magic to keep the flowers so beautiful and bright like this!"
Before Devon or Skye could reply, a light blue blur shot out of one of the tree’s upper openings.
It was Elle. The little fairy flew with a desperate urgency, her wings flapping so fast they produced a high pitched buzz of anxiety. She dove straight toward Pip, completely ignoring the group of armed Players accompanying him.
"Pip! You’re back! Oh Miriath, Pip, Elle was worried sick!" Elle exclaimed, her voice choked with relief.
She began orbiting her brother in frantic circles, her hands touching his shoulders and head to check for injuries. "This was Pip’s first mission alone! Why did Pip take so long? Halon said Pip would be safe, but Elle couldn’t stop thinking about all the dangerous monsters Pip might run into along the way!"
Pip stayed hovering in place, a mischievous, proud smile that he tried, unsuccessfully, to keep under control.
He waited patiently while Lohan’s clone, still wrapped around his torso, gently detached. The blue gelatin condensed into a small sphere that rolled to the side, letting Elle carry out a full inspection of her brother’s body.
Elle finished checking Pip’s arms and legs, sighing in relief at not finding a single scratch. "Thank the Light, Pip is all in one piece... wait." She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening as she stepped back a few inches to look at Pip more closely. "Pip... what happened to Pip? Pip’s wings... they weren’t like this! And Pip looks... bigger? Stronger?"
Elle’s shock was so great that she started stammering, her hands flying to her mouth as she took in the imposing figure her brother had become.
The Pip who’d left on the mission had been a fairy slightly stronger than the other fairies, a bit more muscular and imposing, but still with very childlike, chubbier features, whereas the Pip who’d just returned was a Spirit Vanguard Fairy, radiating a powerful aura and an intense physical strength Elle had never seen in anyone from Petal Village!
"Hahaha! Pip said Pip would become a warrior, Elle!" Pip let out a big laugh, satisfied at seeing his sister in such a state of shock. He gripped Elle’s hand firmly, feeling his new muscle density. "Come on, Elle! Pip has so many stories to tell! Pip fought people in armor and smashed stone crabs! Halon gave Pip the power of the stars!"
Without waiting for a reply from his stammering sister, Pip flew off excitedly toward the upper levels of the tree, dragging a still dazed Elle behind him.
However, as he passed by the guild’s main entrance, where Halon’s main body rested on a comfortable wooden pedestal, Pip stopped for a split second.
He landed in front of the blue Slime, straightened his posture, and gave a flawless military salute, his tiny hand at the top of his head.
"Mission accomplished, Master Halon! The star friends were delivered safely!" Pip announced, sounding like an adorable little soldier.
Lohan vibrated his membrane, feeling a deep satisfaction toward this little fairy boy. "You did a great job, Pip. To be honest, I couldn’t have picked a better guide. Now go rest, and try not to scare Elle too much with your war stories."
Pip smiled, gave another quick salute, and shot off into the headquarters with his sister.
With the fairies gone, silence fell over the Silent Star Garden once more. Lohan then shifted the focus of his perception sensors to the Silver Lotus group, who remained frozen a few meters away.
Skye, Devon, and Sara stared at the small blue sphere, about thirty four centimeters in diameter, still much bigger than the clone they’d seen earlier, but also much smaller than the size they’d imagined for a name as imposing as Halon, in shock.
Back at the Lower Zone hangar, they’d seen human Lohan, tall and imposing, on the way here, they’d seen Pip clad in the clone. But seeing Halon’s actual body, legendary, or in his case, though they didn’t know it yet, Mythic, that shock hit intensely differently.
Sara was the first to take a step back, her face going pale.
As a Rare Base Player with high magical perception, she wasn’t just seeing a cute Slime like the other ordinary members of the group.
What she felt was the oppressive, massive energy overflowing from that small body, which to her senses, was like an intense torch of energetic light, a mass of power so dense it seemed to distort the air around the pedestal!
"Vonde... are you feeling this?" Sara whispered, her voice loaded with a respect bordering on fear. "His energy... it’s too rich. I’ve never seen anything like this in Elysium..."
Devon swallowed hard, adjusting his staff as he too felt what was startling Sara. "Tbh, Sara... I knew he was strong, but seeing it up close... it’s a whole different thing... this is insane."
Skye kept her gaze fixed on Lohan’s core, her hands resting on the hilts of her silver swords.
Her hair had already begun to glow as her nose twitched at the intense olfactory load she was picking up from him.
If on the day they’d met in the alley she’d caught a wide variety of scents coming off Lohan in his human form, now standing in front of the small Slime, who was already far more powerful than back then, she had to actively try to suppress those sensations, to keep from getting lost in so many different scents.
It was shocking to her, the sheer variety of different scents he gave off, as if that small structure truly held the accumulated existence of dozens, or maybe hundreds, of powerful different creatures!