Bro, I'm not an Undead!

"Wha…" The words failed Fortus. The attendants behind him were equally stumped.

Only they (along with Subossais' sentry) among everyone present could fathom what it meant for someone to casually grab a hold of a Vacuum Fiend.

Maybe… just maybe, they had taken Skullius too lightly. Despite knowing the Hybrid was an anomaly, Fortus had been rather confused about why the Warlord Subossais – no doubt instructed so by the top brass – would have Skullius share the Sanguine Suite with the unusual but esteemed guests already inhabiting it.

Was this the reason?

Finally, Fortus found the breath to speak, but Skullius vanished along with the Vacuum Fiend.

"Where…where did he take it?" asked Fortus, frowning. The lack of answers caused an itch somewhere within his forehead.

None of the Stars, Troops, and Void Users deigned to answer. Weaver and Araeyn donned triumphant smiles. Only they knew that their master had finally found a way to access his War Body while hidden within the secretive expanse of the Bosom; a triumph indeed.

As Fortus and the other attendants mellowed out of their shock, the fireworks continued up above, with Vacuum Fiends falling left and right in disgusting droves. The more their numbers depleted, the more violent the flying vessels and Generals blasting them all to hell became. It was a massacre the likes of which the mortals and even Uyuniya had never seen.

'This isn't even their full military might, is it?' Elita thought, shuddering a little. 'And they don't even seem to be trying that hard.'

But despite it all, the Vacuum Fiends continued, greedily and voraciously flying towards the sun. Some of them were sneaky and witty. They dove into their hidden spaces to appear as close to the sun as they could, but somehow, they never did succeed. The sun was heavily fortified in a way that none could see from this distance – at least the Stars, Troops, Apostles, and Void Users couldn't.

'It only makes sense.' Uyuniya thought back to how Gylliard had extricated them from the ambush by the Abyssal Fiend, a creature that he admitted was nigh impossible to kill – something far stronger than the Vacuum Fiend.

The Grand General was still able to push the dark creature back somewhat comfortably. So how then could he – and the Aspire to Divine – fail to defend a sun in his stronghold with an advanced militia full of logic-defying powerhouses?

Still, the Void User was curious. She crept closer to Fortus. Communicating via sentiment – intention – was not so difficult to learn for a Divine like her, but her manner of 'speech' was still rather clunky. Yet even so…

"Have any of these Fiends ever managed to reach the sun?" she asked the steward.

The man looked down at her. It took him a moment to answer; as his mind was still occupied with thoughts about the Hybrid.

"Not once."

The response didn't persuade Uyuniya to keep conversing further; if not for the fact that Fortus didn't look to be in the mood to entertain questions at that moment, then it was definitely the fact that his response – his intention conveyed via the soul – literally felt like a gut punch to her.

'Message received.'

Twenty minutes rapidly flew by, with the numbers of the Fiends thinning by almost forty percent. The violent show never got old to watch for all except Uyuniya, who, like Fortus, had fallen back into contemplation about Skullius.

'He didn't seem all too fazed. Sharing this residence with something like that…' she thought, replaying the way Skullius had responded to her inquiry about the child Deity.

Uyuniya thought of it as both a good and bad thing. Naturally, Skullius wouldn't spoil his exact thoughts out in the open, but she hoped he was also reserved about this matter because he knew something they didn't.

And there was a lot of that recently.

'Ever since that battle…'

Skullius had changed significantly.

And perhaps to emphasize that fact exactly as Uyuniya felt it… Skullius reappeared among them.

…!

Fortus flared with Amras, as did the attendants and Subossais' sentry. It was just for a moment, their bloodlust spiking, triggering their instinct to defend themselves.

…And then it all died down, leaving them sober and just a little embarrassed.

The Hybrid (and indeed, the Hybrid Warmoth) stood before them, lonely but flaring with the residuals of some immense power Fortus had not sensed from him before – not from this body. These residuals rapidly thinned and vanished, however, leaving only… solemnity.

Now it was the Stars, Troops, Void Users, and Apostles' turn to be shocked.

"Master...?" Yuyui rushed over to Skullius, bewildered and concerned.

Everyone could see it. Somehow, Skullius looked…sad.

He must have come to himself when Yuyui patted his leg. In an instant, his face broke, and he smiled.

"Ah, right. That took longer than I imagined it would," he said and reassured Yuyui with a light thunk on the head. She winced.

Turning to a suspicious Fortus, and the sentry, who looked very much on guard, he said:

"You said something about the Living Parlor having unimaginable pleasures, right? Care to show us?"

Fortus hesitated only for a few seconds, burying the long list of questions he had and reminding himself of his duties.

"Indeed. How about a luxurious wash?" he said.

"Sounds good. Lead the way."

And so Fortus did.

On the way back into the Suite, the Stars and Void Users paid particular attention to Skullius, bleeding concern with their eyes, but Skullius merely pushed them forward while he lagged slightly behind.

He cast a wary glance at the sentry before indulging for a moment. His eyes flashed black, and his senses were divided many times across a great distance. It took all of Skullius' strength of will to not relinquish control of his own body.

'Damn it. Not even a million of them left and still nothing,' he thought, sighing.

He barely registered anything meaningful. In one instance, he was plastered against a barrier restricting him from moving any further. He saw an armoured figure leering at him from a station inside a citadel. The intent was clear as words.

You idiots never learn, huh?

…And then he was blasted to ashes.

Skullius massaged his temple, coming back to himself. 'That was… uncalled for.'

A moment later, he and the others were all filtering into the Living Parlor. Fortus had been gracious enough to ask if they could come in. Apparently, he couldn't enter otherwise. The Living Parlor was as he had said before: loyal only to its inhabitants.

"You've had ample time to get acquainted with your Parlor, I presume – every room, every crevice. However, let me show you something niche you might not have realized," said Fortus as he gestured beyond the lounge. Everyone followed after him towards the nest of bedrooms the Troops had explored earlier.

"Anything particularly interesting you guys discovered about this place?" Skullius asked his subordinates.

Yuyui eagerly responded first. "It's ticklish!"

"Is that so?"

"It adjusts the size of all facilities within it based on the largest and perhaps also the most powerful person in the room," said Grim.

"Oh."

"It also… eats," said Gerriey, uncomfortably. "It's basically a living organism. It changes according to what you feed it, though it doesn't seem like we need to trouble ourselves with that at all if we don't want to."

"…Interesting."

That was interesting indeed.

"How inquisitive. I apologise," said Fortus, "I didn't think you would find all that out in such a short span. Well, all for the better. That makes my demonstration easier."

They'd reached the end of a corridor with pretty doors on both ends marking the different bedrooms. Fortus produced – likely from a hidden spatial storage – a bowl of steaming water.

"Living Parlors do adapt to what you feed them, as you said. But they also have natural…calibrations, let's say – functions already embedded within them. Luxuries. To trigger those – and I only do this because I'm considered an outsider – you need only feed the Parlor something simple and related to the calibrations."

Fortus poured the hot water in the bowl on the floor, and as the first drop hit the tiling, the floor rippled, pushing away the walls and creating room – much more room – for something rather relaxing.

A great hot spring.

Fortus turned to the intrigued guests.

"Now, I assume all of you have predictable orientations?"

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