The Veilguard, together with their new member, were returning to their main building.
"Now that I think about it, we don't have any room for you," said Kael, talking to Lily next to him. The building of the Veilguard wasn't really big; it only had a few rooms that were already occupied.
"Wait, you have rooms in the building too? Not just the meeting room?" she asked, confused. Kael looked at her even more confused.
"In the Tideflares building, there was only the meeting room…" whispered Darian into Kael's ear, who finally understood.
"Well, by the way, you don't need to worry. I'm still going to live with Naluri," said Lily, reassuring everyone.
While talking together, the group finally reached the building. "C'mon, let's go inside," said Kael while opening the door. Lily remained outside, looking at the majesty of the building.
"How big were the houses in Yalemba?" asked Allocen, looking at how amazed the girl had been just now, and especially before while walking in the town.
"As far as I can remember, the biggest in the city was Naluri's house… for the rest, they weren't as big as the ones we have here," answered Darian. With that, the group finally entered the main room, where Alerya was sitting.
"Oh, you're here, guys," she said. It felt like she was sure that they would arrive with someone new. She looked for a moment at Lily; her eyes met with the ones of Alerya, and she immediately realized who she was.
She had seen her before, and the others had told her about her while walking to the building. She was both the princess of this town and the leader of the Veilguard. After Lily realized it, she immediately bowed down.
"Hello, Princess," said Lily, being extremely tensed. She thought that if she wanted to be accepted into the Veilguard, the leader first had to accept her, so she was feeling anxious about this.
But the princess's reaction surprised Lily; in fact, she laughed softly at the sight of the girl bowing down. Lily, hearing that, slowly moved her head up, confused. "If they brought you here, that means you want to join our team, right?"
Before Lily could answer, Alerya spoke again, "And I know that the others behind you know the rules and how the test to enter the Veilguard is done, and I'm sure that if they brought you directly, that means you can fight properly, right?"
Alerya understood that she was an Alterid too, and waited for someone else to answer. Liro took a step forward. "She has been really helpful in a fight against one of the nine Black Defenders. We're sure she will be really helpful."
Alerya, hearing what Liro was saying, took a step forward and got closer to Lily, who, seeing her coming closer, stopped bowing and returned to her normal position. "We Veilguards don't greet each other like that," she said. Saying that, Lily understood that Alerya had taken her in.
With sparkles in her eyes, she nodded. "Alright!" she said happily. Alerya smiled proudly at the sight of that.
"C'mon, now let's sit down. I want to hear more about Yalemba and what happened. Especially because of what was happening, I didn't have the chance to hear the full story…" Alerya returned to her usual seat, while the others all sat down on the sofa, Liro, Darian, and Lily on the one on the left, while Vane and Kael were sitting on the right sofa. Allocen remained behind the sofa of Darian and the others.
"Hasn't he woken up yet?" asked Allocen while pointing to the creature in Darian's arms. Snowy had yet to wake up; he was currently still sleeping.
"Sadly, no… I feel like he used too much power this time…" said Darian, looking at the creature. First, he felt a bit of sadness in his body, then he shook his head and the sad expression over his face slowly disappeared. "I'm sure he will wake up," he said with a serious tone.
"And let's not forget that you two fought head-on against a Black Defender too," added Liro.
"Was this one new? Before going out of the room to call the Seven Sages, I'm sure I heard you talking about a new enemy," asked Alerya, wondering what they were talking about while she was away.
"Exactly…" said Darian while searching inside his bag. While moving his hand inside of it, Allocen behind him could see everything inside, and he found something that caught his curiosity. "Hey, what is that feather?" he said, not changing his expression.
"What?" asked Darian, confused, then realized what he was talking about. "Oh, this one, right," he said, grabbing the feather from his backpack and showing it to everyone.
"What's that?" asked Kael, confused. "I'm sure there weren't any animals who had this type of feather in Yalemba," he said.
"You remember the tower, right? Or did it fall before you arrived?" asked Darian.
"We could see it from the distance… and we saw the exact moment it fell," said Kael while looking down and feeling a bit sorry that he wasn't able to arrive in time.
"One day, the four of us went to explore that tower…" now the one who spoke was Lily.
"We found this feather inside that tower. We were surprised to find something like this there," she added.
"I'm sure it isn't from a Krukin… then what is it?" asked Alerya, confused. Darian shook his head.
"We asked ourselves the same question, but we weren't able to come up with a proper solution… I'll ask Rusty to analyze it whenever we have time," said Darian while putting the feather back again in his backpack and taking out the diary.
"Meeting this other Black Defender means that we have currently seen eight of them," said Darian. As he said the number eight, everyone started to wonder where the last one was.
"Are we really sure that there are nine of them?" asked Vane.
"Bianca told us that they are called the 9 Black Defenders. Why would there be only eight?" answered Liro. But even someone like him was wondering about the existence of this ninth Black Defender.
"Maybe it's that one creature you told me? Kyujin?" proposed Alerya, but the others immediately excluded that idea. "They called that creature their mother; I doubt it," said Darian while opening the page in the diary in which he wrote about Poisudonom.
"By the way, now I'll describe to you this enemy that we found."
'Poisudonom: This Krukin is one of the 9 Black Defenders. He was exactly 9 feet tall, and the strongest part of his body was the tail. Tauren told me that he even found some difficulty in blocking that. This creature looked like a muscular fish; in fact, his jaw resembled the one of a shark with two big teeth peeking from there. All over his back, there were multiple spines that were able to pierce someone without any problem, and we're sure that they could kill any creature. It seems like this creature lives in water; in fact, he even said to the others that he would keep exploring the ocean after this attack in Yalemba. Its most dangerous attack is when he starts to roll on the ground; stopping him becomes extremely hard, and once the spikes start to dig into your skin… it's over.'
With that, Darian finished reading what he wrote about Poisudonom. "Mhmm, this creature was dangerous. How were you able to fight against it head-on, Darian?" asked Alerya, wondering about Darian's strength.
"Yeah, I wondered that too. I didn't remember you being this strong," said Liro. He wanted to ask it during the travel too, but Darian never stopped speaking about his past, so he never found the chance of doing it.
"Well…" Darian stopped speaking for a moment and then looked at Snowy next to him. He did not want to tell the others about the fact that a projection of two of Snowy's tails appeared right on his body. "Let's just say that he helped me a lot," he said while petting the small creature.
"Still, I don't get one thing… if the Krukins can't survive in the desert… how the hell were they able to attack the city?" asked Alerya, confused.
"Let's say that all around Yalemba wasn't desert, but more ground with plants, and second, they had someone helping them," said Darian.
"Someone helping them?" asked Alerya, even more confused now.
"A member of the Tideflares betrayed the whole city, and with his power, he made sure that the Krukins wouldn't have any problem entering the city," said Lily.
"It's the one with the portals!?" shouted Alerya.
"There was him too, but it wasn't the one we're talking about," said Lily, turning towards Darian, knowing that he wrote about him in his diary too.
'Archilochus: This is his name used on the Black Planet; in Yalemba, he was known as Archie. He used to fish a lot, but we're sure that he only did that to give information to the Krukins while no one was looking at him. He had medium-long purple hair and wasn't really tall. His power lets him create a sort of purple water; it feels like he can create clouds that will create a purple rain. While his power seems simple, there is another problem: first, he can change the temperature of the water falling, and he can make it more dense. But this isn't enough to describe his power; once his body is fully immersed in his water, his body will change and it will look like that of a dragon entirely made of water. He doesn't have any limitation with this power, and as long as he doesn't collect all the water around, which is attracted to his body, he is unstoppable.'
"I fought against him, Princess… he was definitely one of the strongest we ever fought." After Darian finished speaking, Kael spoke too.
"Would your power be able to cut it, Princess?" asked Vane. Alerya thought about it for a moment before answering.
"Cutting the water with my power isn't a problem, but if, as you said, his regeneration was immediate, and as long as there is water around he will keep surviving, I think he can resist my power," she said. "But still, he won't be able to damage me either…" she whispered.
As the group kept speaking together, the city became darker as the sun had already set. After some hours, someone knocked at the door. The others remained with a confused expression as they weren't used to having visitors, but Alerya wasn't. She simply walked towards the door and opened it. The moment the door was open, Naluri entered the room.
"Naluri!" shouted Lily while rushing to her. "Sorry to ruin the fun, everyone, but I came to pick her up," said Naluri.
"How did you know where to find us?" asked Darian, confused. "I told her before where we were located."
Earlier, while the group was walking in the city and Jarko guided the people from Yalemba to their houses, once Naluri had seen Alerya, she recognized her; she was sure that she had seen her with the others before.
Talking with her, she understood that she was the leader of the Veilguard, and Alerya invited Naluri to come with her, but Naluri said that she didn't have to worry about it; she would arrive later to retrieve Lily.
"C'mon, Lily, we should go to our new home," said Naluri. Lily nodded and waved at the others.
"Tomorrow you will find us there," said Alerya. Naluri and Lily waved one last moment at the others before they headed towards their new house.
"So, Lily? Do you want to join the Veilguard?" asked Naluri of Lily, who had a proud expression before answering, "Eheh, I already have."
"But what are you going to do? Are you thinking about joining the Veilguard too?" asked Lily. Naluri thought a bit before answering, "I don't think I will. I prefer to chill a bit without risking anymore. The last fight we had was really tiring for me; I don't think I might be able to do another fight like that again."
With that, Naluri and Lily finally arrived at their house. "I'm sure you'll like this new home, Lily…" said Naluri before opening the door. Lily was extremely curious to see what new house they would have, and even if it was currently dark, she felt she could like it.
"It's smaller, yeah… but as long as you'll be there waiting for me, I guess every place can be called home," said Lily to Naluri, who, hearing that, felt her heart beating with much joy.