He had never even seen his son. His wife was all alone raising their child, he couldn't imagine the weight on her shoulders. What about his elder sister? Was she doing okay? And what about Dyon? He wanted to be there, to help the Mortal Alliance become the Mortal Empire, to be a silent backbone that propped them up even if he didn't have any true strength of his own, but this was all taken away on the whims of others

"Eli, you should try this." A familiar black robed young man pushed out a dish of exotic fruits. "The Unblemished One helped these grow personally, you'll love them."

The group sat in the castle's inner garden. Those with similar or overlapping abilities to Eli seemed to frequent this place, but Eli was the first with an actual Botanist ability. The others had proxy abilities like energy manipulation that could help certain plants, but not all of them.

Of course, The Unblemished One seemed to be an exception. While the abilities of the others were limited in various fashions, hers seemed without limit.

Eli looked at the plate of fruits before averting his gaze.

The black robed young man looked toward the red robed one that was also quite familiar, but it seemed even he didn't have a solution.

It was the duty of those who brought in new Heaven's Children to assimilate them into their society. But, obviously, some tasks were far harder than others.

Eli hadn't spoken a word in more than 3 years, nor had he eaten. Of course, the Heavens wouldn't allow him to starve to death, but he remained staunch in his silent protest.

"Eli." The red robed young man cleared his throat to start a speech he had probably given a million times already. "This is a paradise. No one will ever hurt you here unless you yourself want to be hurt. Don't you think you're making yourself more miserable than you need to be? The life of a Heaven's Child is fundamentally different.

"Let's say I'm willing to concede the fact that your family doesn't want to use you, and loves you unconditionally. So what?"

The red robed young man's words turned harsh. "In a million years, they'll turn to dust and you'll be alone. The earlier you separate yourself from them, the better. At least that way you can hold a fanciful ideal of what raising a family must have been like.

"Get used to ignoring the outside world, because it'll whip by, and before you know it, people you once called friend and family will be nothing but dead bones rotting in the ground."

Eli's sandy blond hair shifted slightly under the garden's cool breeze as his pair of dull brown eyes met the red robed young man's.

The red robed young man was shocked by their lifelessness and couldn't even react before Eli stood and disappeared into the distance.

To Eli, these words didn't matter. If he had known he was a Heaven's Child before he married Delia, it would be one thing. He would have turned tail and ran as far away as he could Only that way could he spare both his feelings and the feelings of the love of his life.

However, Eli hadn't known back then. To make matters worse, he didn't know until Delia was already pregnant. If he ran now, simply because he knew he would end up with an inevitable, everlasting pain Wouldn't he be too much of a coward? It was alright if he was weak, but he refused to be such a pathetic man.

"Look what you did Aslan." The black robed young man slapped the back of Aslan's hand. "It took us 3 months to pull him out of his room the last time you gave that morbid speech, who knows how long it'll be until we succeed again. He might never come out if he knows he'll hear your bullshit every time."

Just when the red robed Aslan was about to quip back, he suddenly froze.

The black robed young man, Caspian, frowned when he noticed this change. "Did you sense something?"

No one understood Aslan's ability better than Caspian, other than Aslan himself, of course. It was called Absolute Sensory Control. Despite not having any cultivation, Caspian was able to blanket an entire universe with his sense with absolute ease, a feat even Dyon couldn't accomplish. In fact, not only could he see through any barrier, he could hide from every form of detection as well. This was the meaning of absolute sensory control.

Dyon had miscalculated. In truth, it wasn't entirely his fault.

He was aware from the beginning that all Heaven's Children had heaven defying abilities, but there was no way for him to know all of their abilities ahead of time.

'Dyon, I've been detected!' Little Yang quickly sent a message to Dyon, realizing he had been seen through for the first time in his life.

Dyon's expression didn't change. The moment he heard this, without a shred of hesitation, he launched himself forward, leaping over the castle's moat and smashing their gates apart.

"Eli!" Dyon's roar shook the white castle. "I've come to take you home."

This wasn't how Dyon wanted to do things. If it was up to him, he would have silently entered and exited without leaving a single imprint of his arrival. However, some things didn't work out the way you wanted no matter how diligently you plan. Not only had his plan to infiltrate silently gone up in smoke, it likely was also impossible to leave without using the Relay Station.

Dyon knew that the moment Little Yang was detected, these matters had gone south. If Little Yang couldn't escape being seen through, that meant that Dyon himself had no chance. Since he'd only be prolonging the inevitable, he might as well go all out.

Whether he would be able to save Eli now or not It would all be up to luck