Realm Wars

Ryu groaned, and he opened his eyes. It was blurred for seconds before he regained his vision. He jumped on his feet and shifted his head left, and right but Tethyt and Yuu were gone like all that happened was just a dream.

Ryu went still for a few minutes. Assisting his situation, making sure that he was not dreaming, and when nothing happened, he scratched his head. 

"Was it all a dream?" Ryu wondered. It definitely felt like it. 

He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see if there was something on his back. But unless he had a mirror with him, it was impossible to get a good view of his backside.

Cecily!

Cecily suddenly entered Ryu's mind, and he almost hit himself that he forgot about the battle with the Ancient Hydra. 

Quickly, he gathered his bearing and was about to sprint to the exit when something caught his eyes.

Not far from him, in the spacious room he was in with nothing but stoned walls and hard ground, at the center of the room hovered something like a piece of paper on top of a small pedestal.

Ryu blinked and crept near the pedestal to get a better view. To his astonishment, a map was floating on a pedestal. Well, at least what was left of it. It was a piece of a map. It glowed in faint blue and was the only thing illuminating the whole place.

Ryu took it without thought and studied its contents. The map stopped glowing, and darkness soon followed, but since Ryu had night vision, he didn't have a problem seeing in the dark.

It was a piece of an old map that was torn on every side. In Ryu's hands, it felt like it would crumble to dust at any moment, but it gave off a feeling that not even fire could burn it.

"What's this?" Ryu didn't understand the weird drawings and symbols on the map since most of it was torn.

"Ryu!"

Startled, Ryu looked over his shoulder and was surprised when Ferris appeared out of nowhere and jumped on him. They fell on the ground with Ferris straddling his torso.

Her dilated eyes were burning crimson as she licked his face with her tongue.

"I'm glad you're okay!" Ferris bellowed in glee.

Ryu turned to stone for a moment before he looked Ferris in the eyes. 

Realizing what she had done, Ferris quickly rose to her feet, folded her arms, and pouted into the ceiling. "W-where have you gone off to at a time like this?!"

Ryu blinked multiple times. His cheek was burning from where Ferris licked it. Rubbing the tingling sensation away, Ryu went to his feet, and his attention was stolen with the appearance of Cecily and the others.

"Ryu! I thought the Hydra ate you! So this is where you are!" Fifi hovered at Ryu in all smiles. She wanted to embrace him but was afraid that she would shock him instead. Such is the life of a thunder spirit.

Kai went over at Ryu and grabbed his shoulder. "I-I'm glad that you're at least okay."

Ryu leaned back when Kai's haggard face zoomed on him. What happened to him that he looked like all energy was drained from his face?

Lucian and the others circled on Ryu, but it was Cecily who confronted him.

"Where have you been, and what have you been doing?"

Ryu couldn't speak for a moment. The anger in Cecily's eyes told him that he was in trouble.

"I. . ."

"Now. Now. I think it's a happy occasion that Ryu is alive."

All eyes went to the Owner with his two bodyguards, and the atmosphere turned tense.

The Owner's groups stopped just meters from Lucian's group and inquired with a smile as creepy as the squinting of his eyes. "Now tell us Ryu. .. what have you found in this cave?"

".. ."

".. ."

Whoosh!

A cold breeze came in between the two groups as no one dared to move an inch.

Ryu looked at Cecily. "I don't know what happened. When I came too, I found this."

Ryu gave Cecily the map he was holding. Lucian and the others looked over the map and, like Ryu, found nothing special with it.

Cecily wanted to smack Ryu for wondering on his own and for leaving his master. But her anger dispersed when he gave her the item and to no one else. Not even to Ferris.

"Don't joke with me!"

Everyone held their gasp when the Owner's voice rang sharp and clear. His face was now twisting in an ugly way.

"Hand over the Jewel! I know you have it!" The Owner demanded with open palms. He had sacrificed so much to get this far. Even his precious Chronus Scrolls that he painstakingly acquired throughout the years.

He was not about to go home empty-handed.

Lucian stepped forward and faced the Owner. "There is no Jewel here, and Ryu wouldn't lie to his master."

Veins popped on the Owners warping face, showing his actual age. "Don't joke with me. We have searched every crevice and corner of this cave, and this is the only room that the Jewel might be in."

"If you want, we'll search again," Lucian bargained, but the Owner just snapped his head into the ceiling.

Then the Owner inhaled and exhaled before he faced Lucian's group with a disturbing smile. "That won't be necessary. We're almost out of time, and the Hydra could move at any moment. Ryu was ahead of us for an hour. Surely he found something here."

Ryu glowered and growled, but Kai stopped him with a squeeze of his shoulder.

The Owner hid his hideous warping face over his fan. "How about this. .. ," he said, resisting the burst of his furry. 

With a snap of the Owner's hand, a glowing parchment of paper appeared before everyone. Its page was full of words like they were carved out from the paper and on the end of the letters was Cecily's name signed in blood.

It was the Seal of Promise Cecily made with the Owner.

"Give me all the items that halfbreed acquired in this cave and consider this Seal of Promise fulfilled."