Book 5: Chapter 1: Awake (1)

Dyon awoke groggily. He didn’t feel very refreshed at all, in fact, he felt like someone who had overslept, yet somehow still wanted more rest.

With his habits, it was rare that he woke up feeling like this. Even when he was in a coma for 4 months, he had woken up feeling like he had just had a good night’s rest.

Blinking his eyes to adjust to surroundings, he noticed that he was in a dark room he was unfamiliar with.

The bed he lay on was three times his height in width, and almost five times that in length. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say this was the largest bed he had ever been on, but it was even more comfortable than it was large, and that was saying something.

Dyon was disappointed to see that none of his wives were here. He had expected to wake up to at least Clara, or maybe his little siblings, but it seemed they were off doing other things.

With one swift motion, Dyon tried to leap off of the bed. But, the moment his feet landed on the ground, he stumbled, nearly collapsing to the floor.

‘Huh…’ A wave of weakness overcame Dyon as his eyes threatened to close.

Dyon looked down at himself. It didn’t make sense for a person with a saint stage body to feel this weak. Not to mention the fact he stumbled? When had that ever happened to him even when he didn’t have cultivation?

It was clear that his body still had strength, or else he wouldn’t have been able to leap off the bed like he did. But, it was also clear that using that strength depleted him far faster than it should.

Dyon’s first thought that this was the result of sealing away his energy and soul cultivation, but that didn’t make sense. Even if they were sealed, as a mortal, Dyon hadn’t had any cultivation whatsoever and he never felt this fatigued.

‘Damn…’ Dyon held onto his head, trying to stop the world from spinning around him.

He vaguely noticed the fact he was wearing what looked like baggy white hospital pants, but the comfort exceeded that kind of material, so he didn’t think too much of it.

After gingerly stabilizing himself, Dyon walked toward the door, not bothering to find a shirt.

‘What the hell…’ The door knob of the large oak doors slowly turned under Dyon’s effort, but that was the problem, it was taking too much energy.

Dyon leaned backward, gritting his teeth as he pulled with everything he had. The door creaked open, but threatened to close immediately afterward. Dyon could only leap through the crack with his remaining strength, causing him to fall pitifully into the hallway, hitting his knees and palms hard against the marbled ground.

Coughing resounded through the large hallway. Dyon’s chest heaved painfully as though he had just ran a marathon without pause.

He truly couldn’t remember ever feeling so weak in his life.

Minutes passed by before Dyon’s fit of coughing finally died down. Unable to get up for the moment, he looked side to side, trying to figure out just where he was.

If Dyon had been with Madeleine when she had her first confrontation with her former master, he would have immediately recognized this place as the very same hall she stood in. In other words, this was the Belmont Palace.

The floors were filled with intricate patterns of alternating marble, but the truly spectacular piece of architecture were the windows that reached tens of meters from the ground to the very peak of the curved ceiling, allowing the perfect viewership of the elegant gardens and ponds outside.

However, because Dyon hadn’t went with Madeleine, this view meant next to nothing to him other than being pretty to look at. It told him nothing about where he was, which was slightly disappointing. Couple that with the fact that no one had heard him coughing for minutes on end, and he found this place quite odd. What was going on?

Out of habit, Dyon tried to check the technological devices he had for the date, but he could only freeze, not bothering to turn them on. Because of the all of the events that happened so quickly, it had only just now truly sunk in for Dyon that his world was gone. How could he use their technology to check when there was no longer keeping track of that sort of thing?

Dyon stared at the marbled ground, trying to steady his heart beat before he grit his teeth and stood. What was done was done. He had to move forward. The first order of business? Finding people.

**

In a large hall that looked prepped for an exquisite banquet, numerous familiar figures sat. However, there was seemingly nothing festive about the event.

It was the early evening when King Belmont scheduled this dinner. It was meant to raise morale after the events that had been occurring recently. However, it seemed like none of that was working.

He felt like he was a failure of a king, so he was trying too hard to overcompensate.

King Acacia was trying to pretend as though he wasn’t bothered by the fact his wife was permanently stuck in her beast form.

The Belmont family as a whole was trying to recover from the loss of a prince, something that had understandably made Queen Acacia lose much of her elegance.

The Pakals and Elves had lost too many in their war, despite many of their representatives appearing in an attempt to give face to the Belmonts as the Royal God Clan still in power, it was clear that their hearts were elsewhere.

Surprisingly, the Jafari and their subordinate clans were here as well, seemingly having replaced Planet Naiad as the allies of Planet Earth. However, they too were heavy spirited due to the young King being in a coma.

And yet, every pained expression here in this quiet feast seemingly still somehow revolved around one young man… Or it was quiet, until grunts of anger and agitation filled the space as someone struggled to open the large banquet hall doors.