"I'll only give you half a year."
Cassius smirked. "You underestimate me, my dear," he said. "I won't even need that long to deal with someone like the Chamberlain Duke. I guarantee you that I'll personally put an end to his insignificant existence."
"Yeah, whatever," Yuna said with a pout and a small blush. "Big words coming from a bad guy."
Cassius chuckled before vanishing from his spot. He patted the 12th Princess on the head, enjoying her cute reaction for a moment before disappearing just as she swatted at him.
Reappearing beside the puzzled Opal, he patted her head as well. "Keep an eye on that troublesome sister of yours, will you?" he voice transmitted directly to her mind. "I don't want her doing anything stupid. And I believe I can trust you to make sure that doesn't happen, right?"
Flustered, Opal bobbed her head. She averted her misty gaze away from the piercingly playful glare focused on her in passing.
"Cassius, you…!" Yuna said in a low growl, still very much embarrassed about how he touched her.
A hearty laugh faded into the background as Cassius left the room and the mansion.
Following his departure, the flush-faced Opal looked at her sister and pulled on her dress. She seemed to want to say something but was unable to. In the end, she resorted to using sign language, though she did so in a very bashful manner.
"Hmm?" Yuna's eyes and brain worked together to decipher what her little sister was saying. However, the more she understood, the more her crimson-colored blush darkened.
By the conclusion of Opal's sign language session, Yuna's expression became a mixture of frustration, anger, and embarrassment. She genuinely couldn't believe what her sister had just said.
"T… That's not at all what's going on!" Yuna suddenly exclaimed, steam rising from her ears. "Me and that jerk!? In that kind of relationship!?? H-He wishes!"
Opal tilted her head in confusion, appearing as cute as a button.
'Yun, Yun and big brother Cass are not dating…? Then…'
Her stomach churned as butterflies made themselves at home. Her cherry-red cheeks did well to match her bashfully jittery demeanor. And while lost in her own wistful delusions, her elder sister ceaselessly rambled on about how such an illicit notion between her and Cassius was impossible.
Yet, with her eyes deliriously spiraling and her hands waving all around, Yuna's appeal became less and less convincing…
— Meanwhile, at a location thousands of miles away, a blissfully oblivious man materialized —
"To be back here," Cassius said as he surveyed his surroundings. "I knew I'd eventually return, but I hadn't thought it would happen so soon."
The Boundless Gorge—a crack in the charred ground that became progressively wider the farther east one looked. The exact limits of the Gorge were unknown, for it cut through the Endless Dark Fog and stretched beyond the explored edges of the Mistalore Defense Nation.
It was highly possible that the Boundless Gorge extended into other Defense Nations, but none could confirm the veracity of that speculation. After all, in the Nightmarescape, the Mistalore Defense Nation was still in the process of expanding its territories. They had not purified enough of the Endless Dark Fog to reach the bounds of other Defense Nations.
However, this did not mean they weren't aware of the existence of other Defense Nations. The Defense Nations were, in the end, extensions of their Land of Beginnings counterparts. And since each Kingdom in the Azure Archipelago had some modicum of knowledge of the other Kingdoms, they naturally knew that they had set up Defense Nations as well.
But since the first teleportation into the Nightmarescape brought you to a random part of the Nightmarescape, everyone was essentially in the dark. Furthermore, as far as the Mistalore King was aware, not a single Kingdom had yet to encounter another in the Nightmarescape.
This was a testament to the utterly enormous size of the darkness-shrouded dimension, its limits undoubtedly verging on limitless.
Yet, there were some natural phenomena in each Defense Nation that told people that as long as they kept exploring the Dark Fog, eventually they would meet other Defense Nations. They might even encounter mysterious natives of the dimension—ones that certainly belonged as part of the unexplainable and highly intelligent.
It was for these reasons that all the Defense Nations never stopped purifying and uncovering more of what lay beyond the Endless Dark Fog.
One of those very motivational phenomena that kept those of the Mistalore Defense Nation exploring—the Boundless Gorge—a long and wide crevice in the ground. At first, it appeared naturally formed, but if one observed closely, they'd notice what seemed to be the scratches left by an extremely powerful sword intent. This sword intent became more prominent the farther one progressed into the Gorge, eventually even taking a physical shape and attacking those daring enough to venture past the 100,000-meter mark.
Weirder yet, however, was how this insanely grandiose sword was formed in the first place.
Another inexplicable question was why Nightmares ranging from Rank 1 to Rank 4 perpetually spawned in the Boundless Gorge and viciously swarmed whoever entered. Such an enormous number of Nightmares appearing underground made no sense.
It wasn't like the Nightmares walked into the Boundless Gorge and waited for any foolish humans to enter. The Nightmares were born there—bred there—and grew stronger in that terrifying place.
It was almost like… Almost like the Nightmares were protecting something… and were willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure that they didn't fail…
"That makes 100,000 meters," Cassius said while casually lobbing off the heads of dozens of Early Rank 4 Nightmares. "I got bored of waiting around in my new fancy manor, which was why I decided to re-enter the Boundless Gorge a day ago, but… but I had expected more of a challenge…"
He was just as bored fighting city-sized monsters as he was lazing around in his manor waiting for the Fort Commander or East Fortress Master to dispatch him somewhere. Both were incredibly boring, leaving no room for any good quality character development to be built.
What was life without Character Development? - Idle Evolution System