Nostalgia

ARTHUR POV

As soon as my eyes opened, Regis wished me good morning. 'good morning princess, hope you had a good sleep, by the way you pissed yourself again, pffffffft' I cut off his access to aether.

'Sorry sir'

I noticed I didn't have my Asuran body, but as soon as I was brought back the Aether immediately started to rebuild my Asuran body again. The peculiar thing is that Regis told me I am now 100% asura instead of mostly asura, which I have mixed feelings of. My parents were taking me to doctors left and right because of my extremely pale skin, but they couldn't find anything out. Being a baby with an Aether core was much more comfortable than being a normal baby, because during the day I could actually control my toilet urges using Aether to flex my muscles. As far as I could tell, I hadn't lost any strength, and I was just as capable of taking down a scythe as before, except for the fact that I wasn't used to being 70 cm tall.

At about the time when I first awakened my core, I asked my parents if we could go to Xyrus. If everything went correctly, the bandits should be there. We met up with the twin horns, where Adam didn't want to fight me unlike before, and got ambushed by bandits as planned. I made some extra precautions to make sure no one dies, which consisted of secretly imbuing everyone with a tiny bit of my Aether, to heal their injuries should any happen. I was confident that if I saw anyone being overwhelmed I could Godstep in and kill the bandit without being seen, but I was still a little on edge. I fell off the mountain, and Sylvia called out to me. As I made my way to her hideout, she seemed to notice I was completely unharmed after falling 20m to my death. I just said that it was luck, but I was 90% sure she knew what was up. As soon as I came in, I was met with Sylvia disguising herself as a Scythe. How nostalgic, but this time I will not let her die. I didn't want her to find out I have an aether core just yet, so I imbued her with aether when she was sleeping hoping that her wound would close. To my absolute horror, the wound only festered more and more.

I contemplated on what to do, and eventually I decided to tell her outright.

"Sylvia, what do I have to do in order to heal you? Please, I know that wound is lethal!"

"Do not worry yourself my child, I am known for being very resili-"

"No Sylvia! You know as much as me that the wound is fatal and will only get worse if you open the portal! Let me help you! I can control Aether, I have an aether core, if you tell me what to do I will do it! Just please don't kill yourself for my sake!"

"Alright, I will tell you the truth. Agrona Vritra, the king of alacrya made that wound while I was trying to escape. That wound is kept open by mysterious magic, that not even the king of Etheopus could dispell. I am sorry child. You seem to know a lot, so I'm sure you know about my daughter. Here, take her and wrap her in this feather. I will now proceed to open the portal."

"Wait. I can kill the scythe that will come to hunt you! The truth is.. I have already killed him. I found a space in the Relictombs where a very old Djinn resided, and she transported me back in time with all my powers. I'm sorry for not telling you this sooner."

"Haha, my child. That is quite an interesting story, but you are underestimating the difficulty of fighting in a body you are not used to. When I first manifested my draconic form, I wasn't used to it, and it took me months to acclimatize. I cannot allow you to do that, I am sorry."

I tried to say something, but the words got stuck in my throat. She was right. I doubt that in this body I could fight a retainer, let alone a scythe. I couldn't save Sylvia.

As I felt Sylvia turning draconic, I hid behind her as to limit Cadell's vision of me to make sure he doesn't see me. Suddenly, time stopped.

"I wonder what happens if I give you my beast will, when you have such an unusual core. Let's try it."

As Sylvia dug her snout in my core, her runes made a bright pulse, immediately after which they started to dim.

"The portal is opened, go!" Beckoned Sylvia

I ran into the portal, and my last words to Sylvia were "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, grandma"

I landed on the grass in the Elenor forest, and knew what I had to do.