Chapter 723: Feast
Chapter 723: Feast
The pocket world had never known a feast like this one.
The Regalons had built a life across three layers of a merciless world, and now they had a home in the upper layer to celebrate it in, and they did not hold back. Long tables ran the length of the pocket realm beneath the vast canopy of the Virion Iridant Tree, and every one of them groaned under the weight of Ainen’s cooking. The smell of it drifted across the whole realm, warm and endless, and no one who sat down went hungry for long.
It was not a quiet celebration. The family had spent too long climbing to be quiet now. Laughter rolled from table to table, old fighters told older stories, and the young ones ran between the fires while their elders pretended not to watch them fondly. After everything, after slavery and scattering and a trial that had tried its best to break them, they had earned the right to simply be happy for a night, and they took it.
John Wicked had come to celebrate with them, and he had not come alone.
His Monster Sovereigns spread across the pocket realm in their true and terrible glory, and the sight of them turned even a Regalon feast into something out of legend. Rexion coiled his galaxy-scaled length along one edge of the realm, slow and unbothered, the light bending politely around him. Pymon perched above the tables like a storm given the shape of an eagle, golden lightning trailing from his wings. Alfred, the black wolf, sat small and watchful near John’s feet, crimson eyes catching every movement, and Chronavael stepped through the crowd on hooves that left soft ripples of time in the air behind them.
The other six moved through the realm at their own strange paces, and the Regalons had stopped trying to make sense of them and simply enjoyed the impossibility of it. Terravax drifted overhead carrying its forests and waterfalls, and a few of the younger Regalons had climbed onto its back to explore. Very, the masked whale, hung in the air near the tree, and where it passed it left a trail of blooming aquatic life that the children chased with delighted shrieks.
It was, Almond thought, watching all of it from the head of the longest table, the strangest and finest party he had ever seen.
The notice came in the middle of the feast, and it silenced the whole realm for a moment.
It reached every Regalon at once, the way the important ones always did, glowing quiet in the corner of their vision.
[Ananta Regalon Kingdom has ascended to the Upper Layer.]
[Leaderboard rank updated. Previous rank: 1,739th. Current rank: 378th.]
For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Then the realm erupted louder than it had all night.
They had climbed more than a thousand places in a single ascension. The kingdom that had scraped into the ten thousand by tearing down others in the bottom plane, that had sat at 1,739th only days ago, now stood at 378th among all ten thousand kingdoms of the Realm of Kings and Puppets.
"Three hundred and seventy-eighth," Lily said, and there was wonder under her usual calm as she read it again. "We are in the top four hundred, Almond. Out of ten thousand."
"We are," Almond agreed quietly, and let himself feel the weight of it. He thought of the bottom plane, of the slaves and the castoffs and the nine castles, and of how far a family could climb when it climbed together. "And still climbing."
Across the table, Big D lifted a cup, his old face creased into a rare and satisfied grin. "To 378th," he rasped. "But we may not stay at that for long."
The whole family laughed and drank to that.
The feast ran deep into the strange upper-layer night, and slowly, as the celebration wound down, the tables emptied and the fires burned low. The young ones were carried off to sleep, the old fighters drifted into quieter corners, and the Sovereigns settled into their vast and patient rest across the realm.
It was then that John found Almond and Rudra sitting together near the trunk of the Virion Iridant Tree, and he lowered himself down beside them with two cups and the easy manner of a man who had waited all night for this exact conversation.
"You did it," John said, handing them each a cup. "The whole family, up to the main stage. I am proud of you. I mean that." He looked out over the quieting realm, at the Sovereigns and the sleeping Regalons and the tree spreading its iridescent canopy over all of it. "But now the real work starts, and I am not going to let you enjoy the good feeling too long, because the upper layer does not care how far you have come. It only cares how strong you are."
"We are stronger than we have ever been," Rudra said. It was not a boast. It was simply true.
"You are," John agreed. "And it is not enough. Not up here." He took a slow sip. "You have entered the main stage now. The kingdoms above you are not middle-plane forces playing at war. They are climbers who have spent everything getting to where they are, and every one of them is armed to the teeth. If you want to keep rising, if you want to reach the top six one day, you have to arm yourselves properly too."
"And to arm ourselves properly," Almond said, following the shape of it, "we have to fight more."
"You have to fight more." John smiled, though there was steel under it. "There is no shortcut in this place. Power up here is bought with risk, and the price only goes up the higher you climb. So the question is not whether you fight. It is what you are willing to walk into."
Almond was quiet for a moment. Then he set down his cup.
"There is something you should see," he said. "The four of us, Lily and Ainen too, we each received a new Hell-Mode Quest after the ascension. Personal ones, but they are all the same."
He brought the notice up and let the two of them read it.