"THIS IS the cure that I bet you're dying to get your hands on, Aku Moonchester," Tilly said seriously, then she opened her palm where a vial of red liquid appeared. "There are 31 vials of this. Nia Moonchester has to take one for the whole month before the medicine fully worked."

Aku Moonchester smirked. "You really bought time for yourself, huh?"

"It's not the only reason why the medicine has to be taken that way," she said seriously. "Nia has been taking harmful medicine to destroy her reproductive organ since she was a child. Do you think the damage will be reversed with just one medicine. Taking one vial will heal her organs slowly but surely."

The emperor didn't comment but he glared at Nia.

He's probably pissed to hear that his beloved princess has been destroying her body since childhood.

On the other hand, Nia just sipped her tea elegantly.

"This is the "raw" version of the medicine," she continued, making Aku Moonchester turn to her again. "The medicine needs to be heated with my flame. Then, once it's "cooked," Luna will transform this into a tablet. That's the correct way of taking this medicine."

Aku Moonchester smirked bitterly at her. "Is that your way of saying that I can't touch you or that witch for the next 31 days?"

"It's not that I'm afraid of you," she said to avoid misunderstandings, then she smiled brightly at him. "I just need to keep you alive because I want you to see me succeed."

Well, that was the "shorter" version of her plan.

She needed Aku Moonchester alive because death was too light of a punishment for him. Before the emperor died, she wanted him to lose everything that he had worked hard for. She wanted him to experience the hell of losing it one by one.

"You've become more arrogant, Lady Nystrom."

"Well, I have the ability to back it up," she said with a shrug. "And just so you know, I'm no longer the Supreme that you know."

"I can see that clearly," Aku Moonchester said with a smirk, then he turned to Kiho with a big smile. "You've also changed, Kiho. In the past, it was so easy for me to make you abandon your family. You even killed the Supreme for me back then. Thank you for that, brother."

Nia Moonchester let out a soft laugh.

Kiho, on the other hand, released a bloodlust enough for average Mana-users to pass out because of suffocation. Her husband tried to attack Aku Moonchester but she stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"It's true, Kiho," she reminded him. She knew that it was harsh but they couldn't lose their cool for something that they really did in the past. "It wasn't just you. Soleil Rosenberg was also fool enough to choose you over her clan. We can't deny that fact. But it's exactly the reason why we are who we are today." She smiled at him. "We won't make the same mistake, hon."

That seemed to calm him down. "Thank you, honey."

"What a shame," Aku Moonchester said in a disappointed voice. "It used to work in the past."

"It will never happen again," Kiho told the emperor. "You can never control me like you did in the past, Aku Moonchester."

The emperor just smirked at that.

"Let's stop talking now," the princess said in an impatient tone as she put the teacup down on the table. Then, the princess turned to her. "Let's begin the binding vow, Lady Nystrom."

"Yep," Tilly said, then she extended her hand to Nia. "I'm ready."

Nia Moonchester put her hand on top of hers. "Aku, do it."

"Do it right," Kiho warned the emperor. "If you do something funny, I'll kill you."

"You should know by now that I won't do anything stupid that would put Nia to danger," Aku Moonchester said, then he pulled out a dagger from the inside pocket of his suit. Without blinking, he callously pierced the dagger through her and Nia's hands as if it was a skewer. None of them flinched since the pain was already expected. "Now, say your vows, ladies."

***

"THAT'S my Brother Julian," Winter said as he threw a snowball at Solenn. But as expected, the little brat princess managed to avoid it easily. At least, she finally got off Julian. "Tsk," he complained. "You're still as fast as usual."

"I'm not that fast," Solenn said in her usual mocking tone. "You're just a slowpoke, Winter."

He just rolled her eyes at her, then he offered his hand to Julian. "Are you okay, Big Brother?"

"I'm okay," Julian said with a smile, then he accepted his hand and let him pull him up. "Thank you for your help, Winter."

"Nah, I should be sorry that the feral princess attacked you in my stead."

"Excuse me?" Solenn complained as expected. "Who's feral, huh?"

"Welcome to the f*cking North, Lord Winter," Jameson, who appeared behind the little princess, greeted them. The Keeper had layers of clothes on but he was still shivering in cold. Well, it couldn't be helped. "I'm f*cking glad that you made it here safely."

"Watch your language, Crawford," Roarke snarled at Jameson. "There are kids with us."

"F*cking where, Sinclair?" Jameson snarled back. "They are just f*cking trapped in children's bodies, but their souls are f*cking old."

Well, that was true.

"Stop fighting," Luna scolded the Keepers who both shut their mouth right away. "Lady Solenn, I know that I shouldn't ask the obvious but I still have to confirm it. Have you found our allies here in the North?"

"Of course," Solenn said haughtily, then she whistled using her fingers. "Come out, everyone."

A thick, white, and cold smoke enveloped then for a few seconds.

And then, Winter felt a collective warmth of different people around them. Most of them were Fire Mages. But the strongest Mana he felt didn't belong to their clan.

"Welcome, Lord Winter," a huge man with golden hair knelt and bowed to him. Based on his aura, he could tell that he was the Golden Tiger. He knew that the Golden Tiger was loyal to his mother, but he didn't expect him to bow down to him. "I am Ainsworth, the Golden Tiger and a loyal follower of the Supreme Fire Mage."

When Winter blinked, three more men kneeled before him.

"I'm Asher Forrester, the former saint," he said lazily. "I'm honored to meet the Moon Serpent in this lifetime."

Ah, right.

He almost forgot that he was the Moon Serpent. It couldn't be helped because he didn't have the memories of his life as a "god." Maybe it was because he wasn't a human back then.

"It's an honor to meet our lord's son," the one wearing the old uniform of the Black Serpent Knights said. "I'm Blake, Lord Winter. I'm Lord Nystrom's right-hand man."

Yes, he remembered him.

"Lord Winter, I'm Mikhail Denver," the other man with an orangey hair said. He remembered him as the former captain of the Red Phoenix Knights. They met when he was still a baby. "I'm the master of the Fire Mages of the tower."

"Thank you for all the greetings but I just want to make one thing clear: I'm not the only son of my parents," Winter said, then he put an arm around Julian's shoulders and pulled him closer to him. His brother looked at him with a surprise look. He just smirked before he faced everyone. "This is Julian, my older brother," he declared. "He's the oldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Oakes so you better give your proper greetings to him, too."

***

TILLY started to discreetly release her Mana when Aku started to pull out the dagger from being pierced through her and Nia's hands. If the dagger was pulled out, the binding vow would automatically be finished.

But they were far from over yet.

Before the emperor noticed what she was doing, she finally released enough Mana to stop time in the room.

Kiho and Aku Moonchester immediately froze on the spot.

"So this is the trick that you used before," Nia said in an amused tone. "I'm surprised that you can stop time, Lady Nystrom."

"Rather than stopping time, I think it would be more appropriate to say that the heat coming from my Mana made time go slow in this room," she explained, then she changed the topic. She didn't have the intention of revealing her secret to an enemy. "Anyway, I can usually use this technique for five minutes. But since Aku Moonchester and Kiho are both strong, I can't last that long. So we better make this quick, Nia Moonchester."

They exchanged the vows that they agreed to in front of Aku Moonchester. And that vow was to have a ceasefire until they get to the Great Fire Tree.

But she promised Nia another term, and it was the sole reason why the princess agreed to have a binding vow with her in the first place. They both knew that Aku Moonchester wouldn't allow that to happen so they decided to do the final vow behind the emperor's back.

"I, the Supreme Fire Mage who cursed Nia Moonchester in the past, swear that I will burn her connection to Aku Moonchester using the Red Phoenix's flame," she said seriously.

"I, Nia Moonchester, swear that I will not betray the Supreme Fire Mage," Nia said with the same seriousness as she was.

She was satisfied with that.

"Aren't you going to make fun of me?" the princess asked her. "You're good at that."

"Make fun of you for what?"

"For my petty wish," she said bitterly. "Don't you find it funny that I allowed myself to fall from grace just to return to the world that I fell in love with? I'm sure that compared to your noble duty to your clan, mine will appear trivial."

She fell silent for a while.

To be honest, she didn't want to give pep talk to an enemy. But since Nia Moonchester made her job easier by agreeing to do a binding vow with her, she decided to talk to her without her usual sarcasm.

"The things people find important is different from one another," Tilly began in a solemn tone. "Your desire to go back to the world that you loved might not seem worth it to me. But if it's important to you, then I don't have the right to criticize you. And do you want me to be honest about how I see you?"

"Go ahead."

"I think you're like a psychopath," she said bluntly. "Psychopaths don't have conscience. The violent ones even kill people just for the heck of it. Nia Moonchester, you don't have any moral qualms. You're just pretending to have one because you know that you can't function properly in the modern world if people find out that you're crazy."

Nia Moonchester looked shocked by her words. And then, she laughed a little too loudly. It was different from her usual mocking laugh. "You're right," she agreed while shaking her head. "I think I'm really a psychopath."

She was about to say something when all of a sudden, the spell that she put in the room was broken. That meant the time finally started to move properly again. Just like she expected, her spell didn't last five minutes.

I'm not as good as Brother Wixx when it comes to stopping time.

Anyway, her thoughts were cut-off when Aku Moonchester finally pulled the dagger out from being pierced through her and Nia's hands.

The blood dripping from the blade created a puddle. And then, thanks to the magic of the binding vow, the puddle of blood began to take the form of a rose. A few more seconds later, it was crystallized beautifully.

It was the sign that the binding vow as a success. If one of the parties involved in that would break the oath, the crystallized rose would be shattered into pieces– along with the betrayer. The stronger the people who took the vow were, the stronger the spell was.

"Something is wrong," Aku Moonchester said while glaring at her. "What did you do, Lady Nystrom?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tilly lied while giving her bleeding hand to her husband.

Kiho gently took her bleeding hand. Then, when he put his hand on top of hers, he washed the blood using his water Mana. But that wasn't the only thing that his water did for her. His Mana actually healed her wound.

"Amazing," she said, ignoring the emperor's wrath. "Thank you, Kiho."

Her husband just smiled and kissed the back of her now fully-healed hand.

To be honest, a wound like that could easily be healed by her regeneration ability. But it was still so sweet of Kiho to use the power that he detested just for her.

"Don't ignore me," Aku Moonchester snarled. "You did something, didn't you?"

Nia Moonchester, who was busy wiping the blood off her hand, ignored her brother, too.

That seemed to irritate the emperor even more. He released his bloodlust that was directed at Tilly. His anger also seemed to shake the ground.

She knew that Aku Moonchester wouldn't and couldn't kill her. But she didn't like being threatened this way. She was supposed to release her bloodlust that would nullify the emperor's. But all of a sudden, the room turned hot. As in really hot.

"Honey, is this your doing?" Kiho asked while wiping the beads of sweat on his forehead. "I feel like the ice Mana inside my body would melt."

Yes, that was how hot the room was.

Even the Moonchester twins were suddenly covered in sweat.

"I didn't do this," she said. "But this Mana…"

"Yes, it's mine."

Her eyes widened in shock not just because she heard her brother's voice.

And it wasn't just her. Even Kiho and Nia Moonchester looked so shocked.

Don't ask me about Aku Moonchester.

"So, my precious little sister," Wixx, the Red Phoenix himself, asked her in a cheerful voice. "When will you divorce that little Black Serpent?"

Kiho, who would usually get snarky about such comments, didn't seem affected. In fact, he had to cover his mouth and pretend to cough just to hide his laughter. But of course, her husband failed to hide how amused he was.

Tilly, on the other hand, had to bite her lower lip to stop herself from laughing.

Well, the sight of Wixx standing on top of Aku Moonchester's head (with his huge flaming red wings and all), was really funny. Especially if one saw how humiliated Aku Moonchester looked. Nia Moonchester couldn't even look at him properly.

That's how you make a grand entrance, I suppose.

***

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