Yin-Yang Pendant

"Ah!" Deon suddenly sat up and blinked, startling the worried medics and captains around him.

"Commander, how are you feeling?" A healer he recognised, a female soldier called Deadre, greeted him first. The other 3 shaman healers continued to use spirits on him for the following few minutes, until Deon pushed them away and insisted he was fine.

"Commander, you should-"

"Enough!" Deon interrupted Captain Dan, who, in a strange turn of events, ended up becoming his own direct subordinate.

Before anyone could say anything, Deon first asked:

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Around half an hour, not too long, but-"

"We can't waste time, I need to begin training immediately."

"Commander, I apologise if I am speaking out of line, but now is not the time for training!" Captain Dan frowned.

Deon waved his hand dismissively.

"Just go do your job and accept that I know what I'm doing." Deon spoke coldly and before long, all of the captains and vice captains turned to leave.

"Remi." He called out before she could leave along with the others.

"Ah, Deon, you-

"Any updates?"

She shook her head slowly and sighed.

"I only know that General Li said he might be delayed. Lieutenant Shi went out to find General Senlin, but…"

"Delayed?" Deon frowned. "This could mean that your uncle has supporters in the military. It's unlikely that they will start attacking us proactively, but they might join the fray if this situation ends up dragging on for a few days…"

"I thought you said it would end quickly?" She couldn't help but ask.

"I stick by that. If my primary plan works as intended, this matter will be over by sunrise tomorrow. However…"

"However, even if we win this time, there could likely be a second time unless we manage to kill my uncle in this first battle." Remi bit her lip.

"Mm, that is the case." Deon nodded, then glanced at Remi and raised an eyebrow. "Are you prepared to fight and potentially help to kill your own uncle? If not, then I suggest you leave."

"Wh- I, I, I'm the prodigal princess of the Kingdom of Restari, there is no challenge that I am unable to face! He may be my uncle, but he has betrayed my royal father, committed treason against the kingdom, he has even gone so low as to make use of this war with the Fan Kingdom to further his own selfish agenda!"

'Yeah, his plan is actually pretty good…' Deon praised this man secretly.

"Fine then Remi, I won't question your capability anymore. Just please explain to me…even if he succeeds in taking over the kingdom, why does your uncle believe that he will be able to maintain this rule after your father returns from his secluded training?"

This was the main point that puzzled Deon. He had dropped this matter previously since there were more urgent matters to attend to, but now, he wanted answers.

Remi bit her lip and showed a hesitant look, a look that showed her uncertainty in whether or not she should reveal this matter.

"I only ask this because the more I know, the better we can prepare. The higher our chances of success, the less of my men will die." Deon said with a sincere expression.

Remi's eyes widened and she suddenly felt ashamed for being so narrow minded. Still, thinking about this matter made her feel really depressed.

"My royal father has been stuck at the peak stage of 2-Star for 25 years now…he made the choice to enter a historical room located below the royal palace. When you enter this room and lock the door behind you, the door will only unlock if you successfully break through to a higher stage or rank. Otherwise, the only other way for the door to open, is if the person inside…dies. My uncle is counting on my father's failure…"

Deon was slightly startled, not expecting there to be such an extreme training method practiced by the royal family in this mortal nation!

He didn't think it was stupid, because he understood the reasoning entirely.

In absolute seclusion, with no possible way to leave aside from ascending your rank or stage, you would quickly become fully and wholeheartedly engrossed in training. No external matters could possibly distract you, and the pressure of being forced to either succeed or die would certainly strengthen your focus.

Anyway, this meant that they shouldn't count on Remi's father stepping in to save the day. Thinking this, Deon thought of another possibility.

"Are there any other people in your family that would side with you and can suppress your uncle?"

Remi hesitated for a moment, making Deon's eyes light up.

"There is one person…great grandfather. Only, he isn't reliable at all."

"How so?"

"Whilst great grandfather dotes on me whenever he sees me, he just shows up for a couple of days, then vanishes to god knows where for anywhere between a week and 3 years."

"How long has it been since you last saw him?" Deon asked this, but he could already guess the answer.

"…3 years. This is the longest he has been away."

"Interesting…" Deon rubbed his chin. "And he never gave you anything, no method to contact him or let him know that you're in trouble?"

"No." Remi shook her head, but then paused. Her hand moved up to her chest and she grabbed hold of something, then after pondering, she held it up for Deon to see.

"The only present he ever gave me was this, but it's just a necklace, it's clearly not a spirit or something useful."

"Do you mind if I…?"

"Eh?" Remi blinked. She was confused, but she didn't mind.

But in her opinion, it was just a necklace, what could it possibly do?

After taking off her necklace, she gently placed it in Deon's hand, as if worried it would break if she was too rough. From this, it was obvious that she valued this present, likely because she was fond of her great grandfather.

Deon examined the necklace carefully. The chain wasn't actually a chain, but a thin piece of rope. However, he could feel that it was shockingly durable. Even after gradually increasing his strength, until he was trying to pull it apart with his full strength, it didn't so much as fray by a single thread!

"Hey, careful, what are you-!" Remi went forwards to grab it, so Deon laughed and quickly stopped pulling it.

"Relax, this string is tough…shockingly tough in fact, it's no ordinary material. Hmm, then what about this…" He moved his gaze towards the decoration hanging at the end of the necklace. It was a small yin-yang symbol. When held at a certain angle in the light, it seemed to reflect a faint red gleam.

"Yin-yang, extreme materials, and that gleam…hmm."

"Yin-yang?" Remi asked doubtfully. "What's that?"

Her confusion reminded Deon that this was the first time he was seeing a yin-yang symbol on the spirit continent. The fact that this symbol from earth could be found here gave rise to a few questions in his mind.

'Perhaps the yin-yang symbol has some relevance in this world and Blood God placed it on earth amongst humanity for whatever reason…'

Realising that Remi was still staring at him questioningly, Deon explained briefly.

"This white and black symbol is called the yin-yang symbol. See, it sort of looks like two fish, one black and one white, swimming round in circles, both opposites, but also two parts of the same whole. It's supposed to represent duality, like white and black, life and death, that sort of thing."

"Wah- I never knew that, amazing!" Remi's eyes shone and she seemed to forget about their current predicament for the moment.

Deon too…really, he should have been training his body right now, but this pendant had caught his attention.

These simple mortal nation folk were completely unaware of the existence of treasures such as Deon's spatial ring, which is why Deon thought that Remi might have overlooked this necklace.

Or maybe it was just an ordinary necklace. Either way, there was only one way to find out. He had hoped to find some clues before activating a potential unknown treasure, but since he found nothing, he would just have to take the risk.

He didn't have high expectations, but slowly poured in his origin energy. When Remi saw this, she was confused and had no idea what he was doing. Origin energy was for using spirits, right? Why was he pushing his origin energy around the necklace…?

However, in the next moment, Remi received the greatest shock of her life.

Deon realised that this was no ordinary necklace moments before her, when his origin energy began getting dragged into the necklace by an unknown force. At first, it was nothing much and just piqued his curiosity, but the rate of absorption gradually sped up.

It got to the point that Deon was actually feeling alarmed, his origin energy was rapidly depleting. He had bound the 'suffering for time' spirit within his soul space, so his slots were fully occupied. This meant that any depletion of his origin energy would not recover naturally, because his rate of recovery was currently almost exactly equal to the rate of expenditure.

As his origin energy depleted further and further, a grey vortex appeared around the yin-yang pendant.

Finally, Remi realised that something was going on.

When his origin energy depleted to one half, Deon sighed and retracted his origin energy.

Or at least, he tried to retract his energy. To his shock, he found that his energy was being sucked out of him, even he had no way to stop it!

"Remi, this thing is drawing out my origin energy and I can't stop it, take these spirits." Deon didn't hesitate to remove 2 spirits. He took out the eagle eye spirit and the vampire bat ear spirit, passing them along to her as he spoke.

"O-oh, ok - wait, what the hell is going on?! This, this, is this a spirit?!" She cried out, pointing at the yin-yang symbol, which was now rotating slowly as it released a faint light.

Deon quickly realised that if too many people saw this, it would be difficult to explain and might even start a stir amongst some local greedy 2-Star shamans if rumours spread out. He quickly grabbed Remi's wrist and dashed towards his command tent, pulling her in before finally relaxing.