Liam opened his eyes and a wave of weakness hit him. He ignored it and first checked the status screen. Earth. Phew. They were really back on their home ground. He let out a sigh of relief and shook his head. The world outside or rather the worlds outside were truly dangerous. The next time he needed to prepare more before setting out.
It looked like the same thing was on everyone's mind as Rey opened his mouth. "Bro, the next time-"
"The next time?" An angry voice sounded. Everyone turned to see a fiery goddess glaring at them. To be precise, there were two women and one fox staring daggers at the group.
"Ah… sis… listen. Wait. Why am I explaining? Dude, we are coming from a damn prison. Can't you welcome us in a better way?" Rey sighed in exasperation, immediately regretting his words.
Alex raised her brows on hearing the word prison but her facial expression remained unchanged. "Shut it." She snapped at Rey and continued glaring at Liam.
Liam awkwardly laughed ruffling his hair. He was going to do some explaining when an elf crashed near them at high speed. "My Lord, you have safely arrived back home. I am relieved. Thank the heavens. I knew my Lord would come back safely. What happened? My Lord, please, you have to believe me. I had nothing to do with this."
Eldrin did not care one bit about who was staring daggers at whom. All he cared about was if Liam would believe him or not. This time he really did not have anything to do with what happened. He had no idea how he alone had arrived safely when Liam and the others mysteriously disappeared. The poor elf looked absolutely miserable as he cried out loud hoping Liam would believe him. It was as if he had declared the same thing many times when others tortured him about it. Liam looked at the elf but didn't quite absolve him just yet. He never thought that Eldrin would have sold him out like that. However, that didn't mean the elf knew nothing about it. Perhaps it 'slipped' his mind to warn him about this sort of a thing happening in the underbelly of Nymphomania.
As for what he was going to do about him… Liam's thoughts were interrupted when he felt a faint familiar pull. He knew who it was from so he allowed it. The next second the world around him darkened and he found himself standing in a weird mist-covered space. Except this was no mist.
And it was not him. Well, sort of.
It was like a part of him had been pulled into this world while his main body and perhaps a majority of his soul still resided in his body which he could feel very well.
"Am I currently in your soul space, Luna?" Liam asked.
He did not get any response back. Clearly, the other party was mad at him.
"I am sorry, Luna. Everything that happened was beyond my control. I couldn't help it. Someone placed some sort of mark on me and at that time my soul was very weak and I was not even able to detect that. I-"
[Ding. Your pet Luna has shared a new skill with you]
[Ding. Soul Space Bound]
[Ding. Allows the user to deepen the bond with their soul pet. The soul pet can now be stored in one's soul and summoned and dismissed when needed.]
[Ding. Do you wish to accept the skill? Yes/ No]
"Master, please accept." Luna's nasally voice sounded. A little fox walked over from within the mist and stood next to Liam, the beast's eyes reddened and tears continued to spill out of the little eyes.
Liam sighed. "I missed you too. But you know I was working very hard the whole time. I probably wouldn't have had any time to pay attention to you even if you were there. Trust me. You did not miss anything."
"I… Sniff. Sniff. protect you." Luna mumbled something inaudible.
Liam let out another sigh. He knew what the fox meant. Either way, there was no point in continuing to talk about what had happened. In the grand scheme of things, especially with their current lifespan, five years might as well be five seconds. He tapped on the system interface and accepted the skill. "There you go. I guess now we will never be separated again." Liam laughed. "Yes, Master!" The fox replied with her voice full of glee.
And just like that the frown turned upside down. Her mood took a complete 180 turn and now the cute little thing was happily rubbing her head against Liam's neck, perched in her favorite pose.
"By the way, how did you find this skill in the system shop? Seems like a very rare skill!" Liam checked out the skill again and wondered.
To his surprise, the little fox simply purred. "I didn't buy it anywhere. I just learned it myself."
Liam's eyes widened. "Just like you learned the teleportation skill?"
"Back then I wanted to save you badly and wanted to teleport you to someplace where there was no danger and I suddenly had new skills. Now I don't want to be away from you ever again and I have one more new skill."
"Kyuuuu…" The fox bobbed her head up and down before continuing to nuzzle up to Liam. "Alright. Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand more about your skills." Liam smiled bitterly. What else was he expecting from a celestial-grade beast like Luna? She was a monster through and through.
He then dismissed the fox into his soul space which he assumed she wanted at least for a little bit before pushing his consciousness back into the real world again.
He could still feel the little fox happily and lazily sprawled about in some sort of space within him. It wasn't his soul space directly but some sort of pocket space.
"Not bad." Liam smiled. "I guess that is one way to welcome me back."