Law of Space and Time

Right as the two of them were looking down at the city that was once their home, a beam of red light suddenly shot out of the rubble of the royal palace, flying directly toward Erwin. The beam of light was flying too fast to be traced by the naked eye, and before everyone knew it, it was already about to strike Erwin. It was too late for anyone to intercept the beam of light, so everyone could only look on with bated breath, thinking that Erwin was being attacked. However, Erwin himself remained quite calm and collected, standing on the spot in a composed manner.

To everyone's surprise, the beam of light drew to a halt right in front of Erwin.

Upon closer inspection, everyone discovered that there was a book encompassed within the light.

Erwin wanted to reach out to grab it, but Onean got there before him. She reached out with her hand, and the book fell obediently onto her palm. In any case, Erwin was using both of his arms to carry Onean, so he really didn't have any spare hands to grab the book himself.

However, as soon as Onean's hand came into contact with the book's sheepskin cover, her brows furrowed slightly, and a pained look flashed through her eyes. She hurriedly drew upon her magic power to burst through the magic trap that had been laid onto the book's cover, and as a result, all of the red light around the book finally dissipated.

Even though all of this had happened in the blink of an eye, the magic trap on the book had proven to be quite difficult for Onean to deal with given her severely depleted magic power.

Erwin quickly averted his gaze to the side, pretending as if he couldn't see anything.

"'The Origins of Arcane Spells'?" Onean took a glance at Erwin out of the corners of her eyes. "Why is that red-haired witch giving you something like this?"

With Onean's powers, she was naturally able to easily discern who had cast the magic trap onto the book.

It was most likely the case that the magic trap would only fail to activate if Erwin received the book in person.

"This book belonged to me to begin with," Erwin explained.

"Oh, I see," Onean said with a nod as she turned to Erwin with a skeptical look in her eyes. "So what is the purpose behind this act of returning the book to you? Is she saying that she wants a clean break?"

"Er, perhaps..." Erwin replied with a slightly awkward expression.

Onean's expression instantly darkened upon hearing this, and she pinched his chest before giving it a vicious twist. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you think I didn't see you two making out in the courtyard?"

Erwin had to grit his teeth to stop himself from crying out with pain, and Onean was displaying no intention of letting him off the hook. Despite this, Erwin still held tightly onto Onean as he could sense that she didn't want to be released yet.

He turned to her with a wry smile on his face and said, "I thought you were too busy dealing with Aiden to see that."

Onean gave a cold harrumph, then thrust the book straight into Erwin's chest.

Right at this moment, someone on the airship's deck yelled, "Everyone, look! What's that?"

Everyone immediately rushed over to the railing before looking down, upon which they caught sight of what appeared to be a bolt of white lightning speeding through the pitch-black night. Whatever it was, it seemed to be pursuing the airship.

"It's Georgina!" Sherry was the first one to identify who it was. "Georgina is chasing after us!"

"He's waving at us! What does he want?" Lanyon asked with a perplexed expression.

"It looks like he wants to get onto the airship. Should we wait for him?" Kaiba asked as he cast an inquisitive glance toward Erwin.

Erwin cast his gaze toward Christine, and she immediately reacted, lowering the altitude of the airship slightly. However, Erwin didn't instruct her to slow down the airship to wait for Georgina as firstly, he was very confident in the speed of Georgina's unicorn steed, and secondly, he was worried that Aiden would catch up to them if they were to slow down.

Georgina was racing along with his luggage on his back, and upon seeing the airship's altitude being lowered, he knew that his friends had spotted him. Thus, he urged Momo to run even faster, and the unicorn steed immediately heeded his call, putting on an explosive burst of acceleration.

Finally, Momo was able to arrive under the airship at the northern city gate.

With just a few elegant strides, Momo was able to leap over the staircase of the city wall up ahead.

In the next instant, everyone let loose an involuntary cry of amazement as Momo continued to build on its momentum after leaping over the staircase before flying up from the city wall in a breathtaking leap of faith.

Everyone looked on with stunned expressions as Momo sped through the air like a streak of white light in the night.

After executing a beautiful landing, Momo was able to arrive safely at the center of the airship with Georgina on its back.

Part of the credit also had to go to Christine, who had reacted very quickly, turning the airship slightly to the side in the instant that Momo leaped up into the air in order to assist its landing.

Everyone immediately gathered around Georgina and Momo to celebrate their spectacular entrance, cheering them on with joy and vigor.

Meanwhile, Erwin and Onean exchanged a slightly weary glance with one another, and faint smiles appeared on both of their faces.

...

The airship continued on toward the province of Fooz at full speed through the night.

Erwin was seated on the captain's chair in front of the steering wheel, looking off into the distance with an absentminded expression. It wasn't that he didn't want to sleep, there was simply nowhere for him to sleep.

Christine and her father occupied one of the rooms, while Onean and Gwen were staying in the other room. As a result, he had no choice but to stay with everyone else under the airship's deck. Kaiba wasn't bothered by this at all, but Erwin was developing a splitting headache from the sound of all of the thunderous snoring around him, so he could only come up to the deck for some fresh air.

There was no longer a home that he could return to, nor any end in sight to the journey ahead. With that in mind, he couldn't help but heave a forlorn sigh.

Right at this moment, Onean also emerged from the room at the back of the airship.

"Are you struggling to get to sleep as well?" Erwin asked.

"The atmosphere in the room is way too glum with two depressed women staying together," Onean replied with a wry smile.

"Is Gwen also unable to get to sleep?"

Onean nodded in response. "I suppose anyone would be lost and dazed in her position."

Erwin also nodded in response. The three of them had all lost their fathers during the battle on the Marrod Plain, so they were able to empathize with one another.

"What are your plans for the future?" Onean asked as she turned to look at Erwin.

"I'm planning to go to the north after dropping Gwen and Kaiba off at Fooz."

"The north? Where are you going in the north?" Onean asked with a curious expression.

"I've never been there before, so I don't know exactly where I'm going. However, I'll definitely have to at least get to the other side of the Terarody Mountain Ranges."

"Why have you suddenly decided to go to the north?" Onean asked.

"Right before my father sent me away from the battlefield, he told me that my mother is actually still alive," Erwin replied. "He told me that she was in the north, but he didn't tell me exactly where in the north I could find her. I've never been to the north before, and it feels like it would be next to impossible to track down a certain person in a completely unfamiliar place, but what choice do I have?"

"Perhaps he also doesn't know where your mother is," Onean said.

"That's the conclusion that I arrived at as well," Erwin sighed, then asked, "What about you, Your Highness? What are your plans going forward from this point? How are you going to go about resurrecting your kingdom?"

"Stop calling me Your Highness. There's no glory in being the princess of a fallen kingdom," Onean said with a self-deprecating smile, then turned to look at Erwin as she continued, "I recall that you promised to bring me along with you on your journey."

Onean was referring to the promise that she had coaxed out of Erwin in the royal palace, but at the time, Erwin had only promised to take her to the front lines in Burmen, and he certainly didn't think that the promise would extend beyond that point.

"Doesn't this still count?" Erwin asked. "I'm bringing you along with me right as we speak, am I not? It's not like I've abandoned you or anything."

"How are you not abandoning me? You're about to travel to the north on your own, aren't you?" Onean complained with a displeased expression.

Erwin looked at her silence for a moment, following which he asked with an amused smile, "Why do I feel like you seem a lot more relaxed now that Sarus has fallen? It almost seems like a load has been taken off your shoulders."

"What am I supposed to do then? Mope around like you?" Onean jibed.

"I suppose you're right. Didn't that madman from earlier say that the Cameron Family is going to rule over the entire continent in the future? Looks like you'll definitely be making a resurgence before too long," Erwin said with an amused smile.

"That man was Master Donson. Throughout the years, Father has always been a devout believer of his divination."

"What did he say about the war?"

"Prior to the commencement of the war, he told Father that he had seen a brilliant omen through his divination."

"Is that why you wanted to kill him?"

"I didn't want to kill him, he just so happened to be in the royal palace," Onean replied in an indifferent voice. "All I wanted at the time was to destroy the royal palace."

Erwin nodded in response. There was still a hint of lingering fear and awe in his heart as he thought back to that almighty golden dragon.

"I was worried that Lazaar would be uncomfortable living in the royal palace, so I decided to demolish it for him so that he could build one from scratch for himself," Onean said in a cold voice.

Erwin could tell that this subject was getting Onean into a foul mood, so he quickly changed the topic. "This is the first time I've heard about His Majesty being a devout believer of divination."

"Perhaps one would inevitably begin to develop a reliance on things like fate and destiny once they reach a certain position," Onean explained in her father's stead.

"Now that I think about it, His Majesty hadn't gone into battle for over 20 years prior to the battle in Burmen, why did he suddenly decide to go to the front lines in person? Is it solely because he wanted to oppose the army of the Skycourt Kingdom? In that case, wouldn't it have been better to leave everything to Lazaar? Was he worried that Lazaar's reputation would only continue to grow if he drove back the Skycourt Kingdom's invasion on his own? Surely he didn't have a rush of blood to the head just because of something a fortune-teller said."

"I think the main reason he decided to go was because he wanted to deal with the Lazaar Family. As you've seen, Lazaar's children are all quite formidable and comparable to me in power. I think Father made the decision because he wanted to sweep away these obstacles that would've inevitably stood in my way once I inherited the throne," Onean sighed in a forlorn manner. "Also, there's actually a reason why Father hadn't gone into battle for so many years."

"Oh? What's that?" Erwin was still quite interested to hear about King Cameron, even though he was already no longer of this world.

"20 years ago, my father was out leading an army in battle. During that time, a rebellion took place in Fort Glans, where my mother had been staying. My father was unable to return in time to quell the rebellion, and my mother perished as a result. Ever since then, Father has constantly been blaming himself for my mother's death, and he became very reluctant to go to battle." Even though Onean was talking about something quite tragic, she wasn't displaying much emotion.

"I see." Despite Onean's calm demeanor, Erwin could still empathize somewhat with the pain that she had to be feeling. After all, he was also someone who had lost his mother at a very young age.

"Come to think of it, that incident had something to do with your mother," Onean suddenly said as she turned to face Erwin.

"How?" Erwin looked back at her with a surprised expression.

"My teacher didn't tell me the exact story. He only mentioned it in passing, but what he told me was that your mother had something to do with my father's inability to make it back in time to quell the rebellion. To put it more accurately, it had something to do with her time and space magic," Onean said. "That's the extent of the story that my teacher told me."

"Is that so?" Erwin mused as a befuddled look appeared on his face.

Onean nodded in response. "I don't think there's any reason Teacher would lie to me about something like this."

Erwin fell into deep thought upon hearing this. After hearing this story, Erwin finally understood why Onean had always been so interested in his time and space magic. Unfortunately for him, he knew next to nothing about his own mother. His father had virtually never spoken to him about his mother before, so he naturally hadn't heard this story involving King Cameron and his mother. With that in mind, he could only add this to the ever-growing list of questions that he was going to ask his mother once he tracked her down in the north.

"If I manage to find my mother, I'll definitely ask her about what happened back then," Erwin said. "By the way, you still haven't told me what your plans for the future are. I feel like Gwen isn't the type of person who's just going to accept her father's death and move on. Once she returns to Fooz, I'm sure she's going to raise an army to go to war against Lazaar."

"Are you suggesting that I should join her and take down Lazaar together?" Onean asked with an amused chuckle.

"Who knows? That's up to you," Erwin replied with a carefree expression. "In any case, my promise only involved getting you safely to the front lines in Burmen, and I definitely fulfilled that promise. In fact, I've even accompanied you back to Sarus, so I've already done more than what I promised. After that, I rescued you out of Sarus as well. At this point, surely I should be known as the embodiment of loyalty."

"So what you're saying is that you've already done enough for me, so you want to abandon me now, right?" Onean asked as she raised an eyebrow with an amused smile. "In that case, let me make this clear to you: I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me, and you're just going to have to deal with it."

Erwin was rather taken aback to hear this. It had been a very long time since he had seen this cheeky side of Onean, and he was momentarily at a loss for what to do.

Having been tormented for so long by the cruel events that had just unfolded, it was a testament to Onean's character and willpower that she could still joke around at a time like this.

Sarus may have already fallen, but life still had to go on for them.