Chapter 1317: Revolving Doors and The Supernaturals

The three Elves attracted most of the curiosity.

And the Flower Elf adored it more than Tham anyone else.

Her hair were now a deep dark-green and had regained its beautiful vitality, the silver flowers resting within it no longer possessing the dead appearance captivity had given them, and her playful nature emerged quickly once she realized nobody here intended to put her back beneath chains.

Questions fascinated her almost as much as she fascinated everyone else.

She learned quickly.

Too quickly, according to several people who unfortunately introduced her to Maddie.

The two liked one another almost immediately; that alone should probably have been reported to someone responsible. Unfortunately, most responsible people within Infinity Chaos had already surrendered. Maddie introduced her to phones, modern entertainment and several human habits that became significantly more ridiculous once an ancient Elf began asking why they existed. The Flower Elf once watched Maddie take several photographs of herself before choosing one.

"You discarded the others."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I didn’t like them."

The Elf looked at the images again: "They are the same."

"They are absolutely not the same."

The Flower Elf looked at Maddie.

Then at Sierra.

Sierra wisely hid her smile: "I think humans might have better eyesight than Elves now."

Maddie gasped as if personally wounded.

The Flower Elf laughed; from that point onward, Maddie decided she had created a monster.

The truth was more considerably as; she had found a friend.

The Origin Elf was quieter.

She spent much of her time with Sierra and Maya, finding something comfortable in Sierra’s company while becoming increasingly unable to decide what exactly Maya was.

At first, it was the woman’s boundless knowledge about things beyond earth and even the Origin Elf didn’t know.

Maya knew things... strange and old things really.

The Origin Elf would mention some Elven custom, places or fragment from an age humans should barely have understood, only for Maya to casually respond with a detail that made those woodland-blue eyes sharpen. The first few times, the Origin Elf assumed Maya had learned from someone extraordinarily knowledgeable but eventually that explanation became increasingly difficult to defend.

"Where did you learn that?" she asked once.

Maya tilted her head. "The trees were different then."

The Origin Elf stared.

Sierra slowly lowered her cup.

Maya smiled as though she had provided a perfectly acceptable answer.

The Origin Elf eventually attempted to look deeper.

That gave her something even stranger.

Maya could hide from her; not merely conceal cultivation and her very essence.

Her entire presence could become something the Origin Elf failed to properly grasp, despite the ancient purity of her own senses. She could sit beside Maya, look directly at her and know that something impossibly vast remained beyond her perception without possessing the slightest idea where that vastness began.

The discovery disturbed her considerably more than Maya’s strange knowledge.

Maya remained gentle, soft-spoken and occasionally confusing enough to make normal conversation request divine assistance. And somehow the Origin Elf could not see through her; after several attempts, she stopped trying.

Ancient beings tended to survive longer once they learned that every mystery did not desperately require an answer.

Seraphine and the female Demon received nearly as much attention.

The household had an impressive number of questions concerning Vampires and Demons, many of which rapidly revealed how much humanity had apparently invented while those races were busy doing entirely different things.

Patricia eventually explained garlic to Seraphine.

She stared at them. "Garlic?"

"Yes."

"You believed garlic repelled Vampires."

There was a very uncomfortable silence.

"Some humans did."

Seraphine looked around the room as though expecting someone to announce this was just a joke but nobody did.

Her expression became faintly offended on behalf of her entire race.

The female Demon found this hilarious until several human myths about Demons were explained to her.

Her laughter stopped.

Seraphine’s returned immediately.

Modern life was strange to both women in different ways. Phones were useful once they stopped seeming like tiny glowing artifacts with suspiciously poor spiritual defenses. Television became entertaining after they understood that the people inside were not trapped there. Food delivery remained one of humanity’s more convincing accomplishments, dates, endless number of games and much a person could do in a day if they decided to have fun.

The female Demon considered elevators brilliant but Seraphine considered them unnecessary.

Both became strangely fascinated by how humans could possess an entire room full of food and still decide there was nothing to eat.

Yet what surprised them most was not technology.

It was the household.

They had expected uneasiness, perhaps suspicion when Sienna first brought them.

Instead, they were welcomed into conversations, taught things whenever they asked and pulled into the strange rhythm that had developed around Phei’s family. Nobody treated them as prisoners despite the marks they carried on their souls.

Technically, both belonged to Phei.

The fact remained inside their souls.

Yet neither of all of them felt anything resembling the slavery they had known before and expected to be treated like; it was so different from the world they’d been grown in, became powerful before they fell in the hands of their previous captors.

Cassiopeia made that contrast even more bewildering.

When the subject eventually arose, she proudly declared that becoming Phei’s slave was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Seraphine and Demon looked at her.

Cassiopeia smiled proudly, apparently expecting congratulations.

The female Demon leaned closer to Seraphine: "Is she serious?"

"Completely," Seraphine murmured.

Cassiopeia heard both of them: "You’re going to understand eventually."

Neither woman found that reassuring.

The greatest injustice inside Infinity Chaos, however, belonged to Cherry, Rhea, Sharon, Halsey and Savannah.

At least if one listened to them.

The Dragonkin and the male Moon Elf had been kidnapped:

And Brian, Landon and David were responsible.

Every morning, the three men somehow vanished with both newcomers, and every night they returned looking tired enough that their women became increasingly certain something suspicious was happening.

The official explanation never changed:

Training.

Apparently an entire day could disappear beneath that single word.

Rhea eventually cornered Brian when he returned one night looking as though his muscles had entered formal negotiations with death.

"Where do you go for the entire fours days now love ?"

"Training with the boys and the new dudes."

Rhea stared at him. "Doing what?"

Brian seemed genuinely confused by the question: "Training."

Rhea’s eyes narrowed.

Brian looked toward Landon for assistance.

Landon discovered the ceiling and David suddenly needed water.

The Dragonkin had already learned enough about human relationships to quietly leave before being dragged into the interrogation. The Moon Elf followed him with the tranquil smile of a man who had discovered that ancient wisdom sometimes meant walking away before someone’s girlfriend decided you were part of the crime.

The funniest thing was that Brian, Landon and David were telling the truth.

Maddie and Sierra knew but neither explained.

Some truths were too entertaining to rescue people with.

The Undead Queen, meanwhile, almost never participated in the chaos of the penthouse.

She spent most of her time with Consort.

After she appeared the next day they had simply begun spending more time together, and soon their days developed a rhythm that would have looked deeply concerning to anyone with normal standards for friendship.

They talked, wandered together and occasionally they laughed.

Then someone would suggest training.

The Undead Queen possessed five World Transcendent undead but Consort defeated them.

The first time, the Queen was impressed. The next, she changed the way her five strongest undead attacked, adjusting their formation and timing after everything she had watched Consort dismantle.

Consort defeated them again.

Before long, the Undead Queen had developed a strange enthusiasm for discovering exactly how many different ways her five strongest undead could lose to the hot Head Maid in a short Kimono, and Consort seemed equally entertained by the exercise. For women at their level, perhaps this counted as perfectly reasonable bonding.

Ordinary friends shared meals and stories but World Transcendent women apparently tried to tear apart one another’s armies before dinner, then laughed about it afterward.

Infinity Chaos accepted this with surprising ease. Then again, this was Phei’s household. The definition of normal had been wounded beyond recovery months ago.

And so, despite Phei’s absence, life continued almost seamlessly. The freed prisoners slowly learned what freedom felt like, new friendships formed, and the girls adopted ancient beings with frightening efficiency. Brian, Landon and David continued their suspiciously legitimate training, Melissa returned to cultivating, while Sienna continued suffering the indignity of watching people trust Melissa’s reassurance faster than hers.

Hayashi and Ashworth kept searching for Althea despite Maya already telling them they would fail, and for a little while, Infinity Chaos almost managed to feel peaceful.

Elsewhere, things were moving in a considerably darker direction.

The Maxtons and Heavenchilds received the news not long after.

A certain family was preparing to step onto Hell’s Paradise Island.

Neither the Heavenchilds nor the Maxtons needed Cassiopeia to explain what that arrival meant the way Melissa had told her to want their Doom was coming.

They already knew what was!