Seeing Attie behave like a little kitty that wanted to get close to a human and yet was scared stiff at the same time, Baiyi was overcome with the urge to bully her. However, the moment his thoughts shifted to the War God, who had chosen to forgive him, he quickly felt guilty. Immediately afterward, he called out to her and gave her a little pat on the head in consolation.
The little gesture was more than enough to make Attie feel satisfied. She even squinted her eyes up and rubbed her head against Baiyi's palm, just like Mia usually did.
As expected from the girl chosen by the War God. She was indeed a cutie.
The greatest threat had been eliminated, and the remaining demons no longer amounted to anything. With the arrival of human reinforcements, the situation was fully stabilized at dusk. The remaining tasks left to carry out was some clean-up duties and rehabilitation operations. With Baiyin guiding Mia and Tisdale, the three of them closed up the three spatial cracks in the academy, and the rest was left for others.
Baiyi planned to go look for Laeticia, but Tisdale informed him that Laeticia had passed out the instant she unleashed that Theurgy, so she had to be carried away by the people from the Church. It seemed that he would have to wait for a bit more now.
"She's a very reliable person! Although I've only met her once, I believe that she is someone quite trustworthy," Mia said; she had quite a good opinion of Laeticia. Perhaps, this was how the two Elects cherished their own kinds.
By the time Baiyi and the three kids returned to the mansion, the sky was already quite dark, and the moment the four of them stepped through the threshold, four cries of alarm resonated in the air at once.
"My house!"
"My lawn!"
"My room!"
"My flower! My grass!"
Apparently, the mansion had been devastated by the demons. When the demons passed by the mansion earlier, they probably thought that no one lived there, so they decided to wreak havoc on it. Although the mansion did not suffer great damage, neither was it lit on fire, the walls of Attie's bedroom had crumbled, so the little bed and wardrobe were visible from outside. The lawn was not spared either; only God knew if its destruction had been perpetuated by some demons who were into grass-eating, leaving the entire lawn looking as though it had been completely gnawed on. Several potted plants that Baiyi had been carefully nurturing were also eaten. Additionally, a lot of the coin banks were trampled upon.
"My sunflower! My big whale!" Baiyi howled, cradling some fragments that were the remains of the big whale coin bank in his arms.
It was really fortunate that the house was still liveable. They were already tired from a long day of torment, so they decided to leave everything else for the next day after they had rested.
However, Attie's room was no longer habitable; so, for that reason, Mia took the initiative to invite Attie into her own room, and only a moment afterward, Attie's cry of alarm rang out from the room, "N-No! D-Don't rub there… I-It'll become strange…"
A short while later, Mia's whimper could be heard as well, "E-Eh? Don't lick there! N-No…"
"What the hell are these two little girls doing? Are they playing some sort of 'unhealthy' game?" Baiyi stood in front of Mia's door for a long while, debating with himself whether or not to enter the room. He placed his palm over the doorknob several times, but in the end, he gave up on going in.
After all, he had a train of thoughts welled up in his mind that he needed to get a handle on. Additionally, he still had a series of loot from his harvest to sort through.
"I guess I better take a look at the loot first." Baiyi went back to his lab. Since the laboratory was covered with a protective enchantment, the place was spared from the demons' invasion and remained clean and tidy. Baiyi sat in front of the experimental table and took out a few pieces of purplish-black fragments from a Storage Pouch, which he proceeded to place on the table.
These were the heart fragments of Lord Thaas, the Abyss Lord. After he was pierced by the Void Blackspear, Lord Thaas blew up, and all that was left behind were five fragments — two small fragments and three slightly bigger fragments. Baiyi suspected these fragments to be the parts of the valuable material that triggered the entire demon invasion debacle. In other words, this material was unique—the only one of its kind in the entire realm. Although there were only fragments left of it now, a powerful energy ripple still surged out of them—a ripple of Abyss Energy.
The material was definitely valuable, but it still posed a question: what exactly could it be used for? After all, Lord Thaas was the first Abyss Lord to die in history, and these heart fragments were all that remained, so no one would know exactly what it was used for; thus, the Voidwalkers first had to conduct extensive studies on it.
Well, the easiest method to get some answers right now would involve him just stuffing the fragments into the tummy of the hammerhead shark plushie, so that they could see it became the plushie's energy source. If that happened, the hammerhead shark plushie would most likely become absolutely unbeatable.
Casting the matter of the fragments aside, Baiyi proceeded to examine another huge harvest that he had earned—the 20% energy he had managed to smuggle in. This could also be considered the biggest and most direct gain that he had obtained this time. Although it was only a mere 20%, he did not even need to use half of it to annihilate Lord Thaas. Additionally, he would have no problems destroying the Isthyre Realm using only this 20% energy.
This fortuitous harvest had become his most important resource and his greatest trump card. Except he had to face off against some sort of deity or their descendants, he was now basically invincible in the reality realm.
However, would this energy be sufficient to liberate the Voidwalkers? Or destroy the barrier of the realm? These were debatable questions. Could face offs against those Gods who hold The Law in their hands be resolved through pure energy? Baiyi had no answer for that either. Nevertheless, he had not come by this energy easily, and for that reason, he needed to use it wisely and sparingly. Although he could now perpetrate whatever evils he pleased, he still could not act as wilfully as he liked.
Baiyi was certain that he would not be able to contain all of that energy into his current body, and if he tried to, the sorcerer armor set would be destroyed, and he would not be able to conceal the ensuing energy ripple. Thus, after he was sent back to the Isthyre Realm by the War God, the smuggled energy was left back in the microrealm. Under his control, it stayed quiet and remained dormant, and whenever he needed to use it, he could just draw it in, just as how Lord Thaas previously did.
In other words, his energy had now been divided into three parts. The biggest part still lay in the Void; the second part was the smuggled 20% energy that he left behind in the microrealm, and the last part was currently in his body. Still, how would someone feel if their energy was divided into three different parts? Baiyi had an answer for that: "Thank you, it's not bad! It actually feels pretty interesting!"
Naturally, Baiyi had no need to use the smuggled energy for now, but he was reluctant to let it sit idle in the microrealm, so he split a bit of his consciousness and allowed it to lead the energy closer to those smaller realms, so that it could search for a small realm that was either habitable or rich in resources. After all, there was nothing wrong for one to have their own realm. However, there were drawbacks: the search process would be slow, and the probability of success would be the same as that of winning the lottery.
The final loot was none other than the War God's Sword itself. Ever since he took it forcefully, it had only served as an ornament, but now, it had finally undergone some changes. After carefully studying the connection between the War God's Sword and himself, Baiyi was finally able to gain a little understanding. Although the sword had not recognized him as its master, he suspected that it had loosened some of its restrictions, giving him a bit of authorization to use it. As for the question of what authorization had been granted to him, he decided to give to test it out.
He gripped the hilt of the sword and used his Psychic Energy to delve deep into it, looking to examine any response generated by the sword. As he probed deeper, he touched something, and the sword immediately responded by emitting two completely different fluctuations; one was a spatial ripple and the other was a Spiritual Energy ripple.
Pondering about this discovery, Baiyi gave a little nod and quickly used his Mana to simulate the spatial ripple that the sword had just emitted, and in the next moment, he appeared in Mia's room without warning…
'Huh? What's going on?' Perplexed, Baiyi thought to himself. Unable to help himself, he swept a glance at the bed. The girls were fast asleep; the long day of various activities had completely exhausted them. However, why was Mia hugging Attie like she was a small pet? Not only that, does Attie not look too contented and comfortable? Mia had always been the one treated by like a pet by the other older sisters…'So, are you trying to say that you're now inferior to a pet, Attie?'
Shaking his head, Baiyi felt the urge to take a look at Tisdale who was next door. He simulated that gush of spatial fluctuations again, and in the next second, as he had expected, he materialized in Tisdale's room.
'What a bad sleeping habit you have! Look, your blanket has been kicked off! Aren't you even afraid of baring your tummy?' Baiyi thought to himself. When he reached to pull the blanket back up, he noticed by accident that her nightdress had already been rolled all the way up to her abdomen, exposing a little piece of black silk lace clothing at the bottom part.
'Such a young age, yet you already know how to wear such fiery clothing? Why didn't Undine teach you something better?' Baiyi grunted unhappily in his mind. Suddenly, another thought crossed his mind. 'I might as well go have a look at that silly lassie, Undine! I wonder how she's doing?'
Consequently, he stimulated that intriguing spatial ripple once more, and at the next instant, he was in front of Undine—the culprit who, apparently, had influenced Tisdale to try her choice of underwear.
As fate would have it, Undine did not even have any underwear on; she was in a luxurious bathtub, enjoying her bath...
"KYAAAAA!! A shrill ear-piercing scream suddenly reverberated throughout the entire Dole Mansion.
"I'm sorry for intruding!" Baiyi apologized calmly. Then, quickly shifting his thoughts to his lab, he activated the War God's Sword!
'There's no response?'
'What's going on? Were a few distractions caused by looking at that smooth, supple skin enough to make the spatial ripple simulation go wrong? Impossible! I-I'm not that kind of person!' Baiyi thought with incredulity.
However, at the same time, a basin, a barrel, and a toothbrush—which had been by Undine's side—were now sailing through the air towards him. They crashed into him with a crisp Wham! Bam! Boom!
"YOU LEWD THIEF!!! Stinky rogue! And here I thought that you're a respected master!" Undine bellowed.
Without saying a word, Baiyi gave the sword another go. He simulated the sword's spatial ripple, but there was still no response. Then, it dawned on him that he may not have made any mistakes, after all, but it was the War God's sword that did not activate...
It was better to investigate the cause of the conundrum later, but right now, escape was his top priority—before the Dole family's guards rushed in and seized him.
"I'm sorry Miss Undine! Something has gone awfully wrong with my magic experiment!" Exclaiming out loud, Baiyi smashed through the bathroom door and disappeared into the night in a flash.
After a short while, Undine, who had already put on her bathrobe, walked to the butler who was organizing a group to pursue and said, "No need to give chase. It was that Hope!"
"Which hope?" The butler asked, quite confused.
"Which hope do you think?!" Undine was blue in the face from embarrassment. "It's that freaking Master who you all have been praising so highly! He said that the reason he appeared here was because of a magic experiment malfunction!"
She glared in the direction that Baiyi ran off, and her cheeks puffed with anger. Somehow, although she did not know why, she found herself nursing the misconception that Master Hope's silhouette resembled that stinky rogue's!