[Soul injuries are very tricky to heal. Don't expect to heal easily like you would do with your body.] Gray explained. [I would normally advise you not to rush, but the tower event is coming up and you would definitely need your power back to have any chance of succeeding.]

  Keilan sighed. "How am I supposed to heal faster, then? I can feel myself healing, but I don't think it's fast enough to see me fully healed within the next five years or so... I think," he finished.

  [I could ask Merak to call in an Ascendant Soul wielder to help hasten your healing, but the tricky thing with that is you wouldn't know if they slipped something within your soul during the procedure.]

  He said the next within Damien's mind.

  [Also, you have a Fragment within you. I don't think it'd be a good idea to have a stranger sifting through your soul.]

  On that, Damien fully agreed. He didn't know much about the Air Fragment within Keilan and how it would interest a Soul wielder, but both brothers had grown up amongst wolves and spiders. If you couldn't use something, trade it for something else that you needed.

  [I wouldn't worry much, though,] Gray said, smiling. [Solutions can come from strange places.]

  Just then, Vanis burst into the room, looking all ragged and tattered. His clothes looked to have gone through multiple levels of damage, with little cuts marring his formerly smooth skin.

  The man paused as the occupants of the room, as one, turned to look at him, and with his burnt hair, which looked like it'd been struck by thunder. He nodded toward them.

  "Hello, Vanis," Damien greeted, returning the nod. "I didn't know we were playing with lightning today."

  The other man returned Damien's smile with a bland stare. "Very funny, Damien. Very funny."

  Damien stifled a chuckle. "But it's true, though. Why do you look like you've just come out of a giant storm?"

  "Probably because I have," he said, and when he saw their confused looks, he explained. "I was challenged to a duel today by House Xylene, which wielders majorly dabble in the storm essence. I won the duel, of course, but the scion of House Xylene is a terror with his techniques."

  Damien nodded. "So, why were you challenged to a duel? I don't remember you offending anyone."

  "Deale, Second son of Lord Gext Xylene, Sovereign of the house, was among the casualties killed at the prison escape. His family blames me for his death and requests compensation."

  "So a duel is the way to go?" Keilan asked, skeptically.

  "Would you rather our two sovereigns go at it?" The Verille scion raised an eyebrow. "Lord Gext is a Divine King while Granny is an Ascendant. I don't need to tell you how a battle like that would go."

  "You have a point," Keilan acceded, "but I still don't understand why a duel is the way to settle it."

  "Because it is a martial nation," Damien said, "This is Lese, a coalition of different people and cultures. Not all of them would be open to settling matters in a non violent manner."

  Damien paused, surprised he knew the answer. So he continued.

  "Combat is a language understood by all species, and I reckon that with the different powers comprised of the alliance, it is also the only accepted means of diplomacy."

  "Damien is correct," Vanis said. "During the birth of Lese, disputes were settled by the heads of houses, and the results of this saw worlds die and trillions sent to the Abyssal Dragon. So grandmother, alongside the heads of the other high houses, called a meeting to discuss a change, with the solution being that disputes can only be settled by Spirit lords and Kings, and even then, there's a certain threshold a spirit king would reach where they wouldn't be allowed to duel anylonger. Do you understand, now?"

  Damien nodded and Keilan shrugged beside him.

  "So, what brings you here?" Damien asked.

  "Oh," the man blinked. "Forgive me, I totally forgot."

  He pulled out a slab of meat, dripping pink-yellow flesh and golden blood on the floor. Damien didn't bother, it would disappear in a second.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "This is for you," he said to Keilan. "I remember you were injured and thought of a way to help. Soul injuries aren't easy to heal, you know. Anyways, I took advantage of the duel, and instead of compensating the Xylene house with a gift of their choice, as the winner, I requested a gift of mine. Lord Gext is Old and has traveled places, it wasn't far-fetched to assume he had something lying around in his vaults that could hasten soul growth."

  Both Damien and Keilan were speechless as they watched the item in Vanis's hand. Gray, on the other hand, whistled calmly to a tune as he returned to playing around with Pinkie. And a glance at the little gray figurine told Damien that this had not been completely unexpected.

  "Umm, I don't, I don't know what to say," Keilan began, for the first time in a long while, visibly unsettled. He looked up at Vanis and Damien frowned as a flash of guilt passed through his face. Keilan hid it so well it wouldn't have been recognizable, but Damien knew his brother to the core. He knew that look.

  "Don't say anything," Vanis nodded down at the dripping meat in his hands, and then nodded at Keilan. "I owe you both a life debt that can never be repaid. The least I can do is help hasten your healing."

  Hesitantly, Keilan reached out and took the gift from Vanis.

  "I assume I'll have to consume like a normal meat?"

  "Yes," Vanis nodded. "It doesn't require any complex preparation. Just cook it like you would any other meat and you're set. You could even consume it as it is. Raw."

  Keilan made a face, but nodded.

  "Thank you," he said, and was about to continue when something descended on the room.

  Damien froze as a feeling of dread swept over him. The air tinged a faint crimson and the atmosphere grew hot, heat brimming just out of range, as a powerful aura swept in, descending with the strength and unpredictability of a natural disaster.

  Damien didn't feel the pressure, but Keilan sure did. His brother choked, crashing down onto his knees as a powerful weight landed on them, bringing with it the weight of a mountain.

  Familiar.

  Damien slowly calmed his beating heart, forcing the feeling of fear down despite wanting nothing more than to flee. He pressed a palm on the shoulder of the kneeling Keilan as he glared.

  "Vanis, can you tell your warder to stop this? Keilan is hurting."

  The Verille lord grimaced, and sending an apologetic look Keilan's way, he growled. "Nalon."

  As fast as the aura came, it vanished, and from behind Vanis, appearing seemingly from his shadow, a great wolf stalked out into the light.

  Damien's breath hitched as he beheld the great creature. The wolf easily rose to a height of nine feet, and more than twice that in length. Its fur was a paint of deep onyx black, with equally deep jagged lines of crimson running from the far end of its eyes down to the neck.

  The creature's eyes were a deep crimson, with visible lightning flashing within, like the inside of a storm.

  It bared its great maw to reveal two rows of great white fangs, each twice as long as Damien's fingers.

  Damien didn't remember stepping back. He also didn't remember Keilan being behind him, but he was glad for it.

  "What. Is. That?" He managed to choke out while he kept his eyes trained on the great black beast staring down at them hungrily.

  "You know him by his human form," Vanis said as he stepped to the side of the great beast and then put his hand on its fur, ruffling it playfully. "This is Nalon."

  Damien was speechless. He could only watch, struck numb, as his eyes shifted from the small form of Vanis and the great beast that was Nalon. In his mind, he tried to picture how the humanly small form of Nalon could grow to be this huge, but he just couldn't do it.

  "Nalon?" Keilan said, voice subdued. "Your warder is a beastkin?"

  "I wouldn't describe him like that, but essentially, yes," Vanis answered while Nalon growled at them threateningly. "This is Nalon's true form, the great Star Wolf."

  "Star wolf?"

  "Yes. Nalon is a descendant of a nomadic species of wolves who wander from system to system."

  "How come I haven't heard of this?" Damien asked.

  [Because Star wolves are pretty rare, unlike the normally earth-bound ones. They're also one of the rare monster species that become sapient pretty early in their lives,] Gray said as he slowly drifted closer, with Pinkie trailing in tow.

  Vanis glanced at the grey construct, eyes flashing toward Pinkie, and then coming back to rest on Damien.

  "What your minder says is true," he confirmed. "Now, while I'd love to regale you both about the exploits of Nalon here, I have a duel to get back to."

  "You do?"

  "What? Did you think the duel with House Xylene was the last of it?" He chuckled. "They aren't the only ones after compensation. All the others who suffered casualties are also hungering for a piece of Verrille."

  "Wait. How's this your fault?" Damien asked. "The capture by the Aveanii can't have been your fault, right? So why are they after you like it was?"

  It didn't make sense. Vanis, with the help of Gray, had been the one responsible for their release from Aveanii captivity. Their escape wasn't something Damien would have called smooth. If anything, it was far from it. The losses had been those who'd been too weak to withstand the barrage of the Divine Kings, as well as unfortunate enough to have fallen victim to a sadistic Spirit King. None of those was Vanis's fault. If anything, they should have been thanking the Verille lord.

  Damien knew next to nothing about Lese politics, but even he knew that those houses would lose face should news start flying around about the ways their scions had died.

  Vanis was silent for a while, an Indescribable expression on his face as he regarded Damien. And then he sighed.

  "Because partly, it was my fault. I led the expedition to that dead world, and although those people followed me out of their own free will, without any persuasion on my part, they were still my responsibility."

  Damien blinked, not at all expecting what had just been said. He frowned.

  "Wait, you went there on your own? I assumed you had been waylaid somewhere else and then brought to that planet."

  "No," Vanis shook his head, expression for once, sad. "That planet... Was once a living and thriving home to billions of people. Until it wasn't."

  "What happened?" Damien asked after a brief moment of Silence.

  "The Aveanii did."