Another day is born in Argerim. And just like in every other city where Lucien's troops have been, everyone in Petra already knows how amazing the Handsome Devil is.
Wasting no time, he and the girls help Daisy move all her lab equipment to storage treasures. Lucien can't help but think that she'd be much more comfortable moving her lab directly to the huge room he'd set up in the Purple World home.
Heike also prepares his bags to travel with them as he cannot accept losing Daisy. Then after a few hours, they leave the city and the eastern continent.
Just the quick journey to the life crystal mine is already torturous for Heike. Despite traveling on a troops s.h.i.+p, all the women around him look at him with hostile expressions. The girls are very loyal to Lucien and hate him for not being friendly with their Master.
But everything gets worse when Heike meets Eve, and especially Pride, who likes to release her aura only to see him almost p.i.s.sing himself in fear.
Daisy immediately starts preparing potions with the crystals Sophia and the other girls got, and on the next day, half of Lucien's troops are helping to mine without taking any risks.
The days go by, and while everyone takes turns to mine the huge amount of life crystals down to the ocean floor, Lucien also spends part of his time in the purple world with his wives.
After a week in the normal world, Lucien spent even more time with several hours in the purple world. He not only had love sessions with all the girls together, but he also had alone sessions with all of them.
Not just s.e.x, but he also helped girls train their abilities and skills. With Amelia, Lucien mainly trained their teleport ability and sword skills, while with Donna, he trained with various types of weapons and helped her a lot to improve her control over soul weapons.
He tried to help Sophia improve her bow skills so she could use her soul weapon, the magic bow, better. But all she wanted to do was relax in his arms along with Sloth, after long s.e.x sessions, of course.
By the end of that week, the improvement all his wives had was tremendous, something so extraordinary that the Sins got again impressed.
Due to the difference in power levels between Lucien and most of his wives and the fact that his demonic energy is getting better and better, all the girls who were in the middle Mortal Realm went straight to Its late stages.
Oya was the first to reach the ninth layer of the Mortal Realm, followed by Ca.s.sidy, Angela, and surprising Ghalenna, which was due to her receiving more demonic energy from Eve and Pride.
Then other girls like Ghilanna, Astrid, Olivia, Scarlett also reached the ninth layer, followed by more and more girls. Only those with less interest in combat like Kara, Aria, and Madelyn remain in the eighth layer.
Little Ko is also exceptional for having reached the sixth layer just playing with Lucien and receiving his pets. He also helped her train with swords, just as he and Eve did in his childhood.
And in training sessions in the normal world, Ko had as a training partner Estela, the daughter of the woman Lucien accepted into his troops. Ko and Estela are best friends, like sisters, and because of that, Lucien gave her mother, Raquel, special treatment, similar to what he gave Lorelai before she became his wife.
Lucien also advanced one layer, reaching the Earth Realm's third layer, while Sophia reached the sixth layer and Amelia the fifth.
Just by having his tattoo and pa.s.sing a pleasant time with Lucien, Donna already felt an explosive improvement in her strength and advanced a layer, reaching the fourth one.
Eve, on the other hand, managed to advance one layer with her own power. Although it took her many days to do that, reaching the second layer of the Sky Realm could take more than a decade for very talented people with vast resources and centuries for most people. So Pride congratulated her on that.
Although everyone shared Lucien and his sisters' concerns about Naomi and Claire, that week was quite nice and relaxing.
That was an excellent time, which allowed Lucien to improve his relations.h.i.+p with all his wives except Daisy. The mature vampire tried to focus as much on her alchemy as possible to ignore Heike and hold her feelings for Lucien.
In the end, not only did she not have a good time, but Heike had a terrible week. And Rose noticed that; she saw how much her mother tried not to lose patience with Heike. But it's obvious to everyone that their marriage is over, and Rose doesn't blame her mother for that.
The closer they get to the portal at the bottom of the mine, the more Rose becomes concerned about her father's health. She always tried to think that everything was fine between Heike and Daisy, but she saw how he hadn't really treated her well all those years.
Then, inevitably, that day arrived.
*BAM!* *BOOOM!*
Pieces of crystals fly everywhere due to Wrath's great war hammer. She's definitely able to mine faster than anyone, but she ends up turning most of the crystals into powder before they could be used.
Lucien flies down to the bottom of the mine. They can move freely within a hundred-meter radius around that island as Angela, Marie, and Lena keep the water out of that s.p.a.ce, creating a barrier around the mine.
"So..." He looks at the portal, a dozens-meter long arch made of a kind of greenstone, similar to the life crystals. Now, the portal looks like a lifeless rock with nearly faded lines, but it just needs to be energized with life crystals, which Lucien has many, literally thousands of them, filling various storage treasures.
Amelia makes a thoughtful expression. "How could that woman know about it? We had so much work getting all those crystals out until we got here..."
"Does it make a difference?" Eve asks. "I mean, if we can go to the Blue Star easily with this portal to find our sisters, it is good, right?"
"I guess so," Donna comments as Sophia just relaxes on her floating pillow beside Lucien.
"What do we need to do now?" He asks.
"Check the enchantments to make sure it leads to the Blue Star and power the portal again." Daisy explains.
Lucien smiles at her. "Can you, please?"
She can't help but smile back at him. "Sure."
He takes one of the storage rings full of life crystals from his pocket to give it to Daisy, but then he feels Rose arrive beside him and stir his s.h.i.+rt.
He looks at her, and she quickly explains. "Hubby… We need to talk about something."
"Is something wrong, my dear?" he asks as he caresses her face, making Daisy feel a little jealous, and Envy smiles.
Rose seems hesitant, but then she looks at her mother before making her decision. So she talks to Lucien. "Let's talk alone… you, my mom, my dad, and me."
"Alright." He nods and then gives a storage ring with the life crystals to Sophia. "Sloth, could you start?"
"Yes." Sloth materializes her body and nods.
Then Lucien hugs Rose around the waist and looks at Daisy before flapping his wings and flying to the surface of the island.
They go to a stone s.h.i.+p half a mile from the island where Heike is. He didn't want to drink one of Daisy's potions and would therefore be negatively affected by the life crystals if he stayed in the mine. Also, he doesn't like staying around Lucien's troops and wives as they seem to hate him.
As Lucien lands on the s.h.i.+p's deck, hugging Rose, Heike looks at them with an annoyed expression. Despite trying, he can't hide his disapproval of their relations.h.i.+p.
Daisy lands right next to Lucien, and Heike tries to smile at her, but her cold expression makes him feel even worse.
"Good morning, father-in-law." Lucien talks in a friendly manner, and although Heike doesn't believe in his good intentions, Rose can feel that Lucien really wants to get along with her father.
"Did something happen?" Heike asks Daisy, ignoring Lucien, which makes Rose upset.
But Lucien isn't upset and quickly explains. "We've arrived at the portal, so we might be traveling to the Blue Star soon."
"I see," Heike responds as he continues gazing at Daisy. "Do you have some time for me, my beloved wife?"
Daisy can't answer, but Rose does. "You have to stop it, Dad."
Heike looks at his daughter with a confused expression. "What does that mean?"
Rose feels her heart hurting, but she tries to be strong as Lucien strokes her back. "Can't you see that mom is upset? She's trying her best not to hurt you, but she can't take this situation anymore..."
"I don't understand what you want from me, Rose." He answers. "I'm doing my best to correct my mistakes and make your mother forgive me."
"But you're not doing a good job," Rose speaks. "All you're doing is making it harder. You shouldn't keep trying to force her to do what you want, and you shouldn't come with us on this journey either."
Heike is really desperate because Rose's support was the last link between him and Daisy. "Do you want me to give up on your mother and you? You have no right to ask me for that!"
"Who else could do it?" She asks. "I love you and her equally, and that's why I don't want to see you suffer and especially keep hurting each other."
"I… I just… I don't know what to do." Heike kneels on the floor as he feels weaker than ever.
Rose contains her sadness as she walks up to her father and hugs him. "It's alright, Dad. I'll never abandon you."
Heike also tries to contain his sadness, but his frustrations make tears fall from his eyes. "But I don't want to lose your mom too..."
Rose realizes that Heike is like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. Then she taps his head. "Don't cry, Dad; that makes you lose face more than parting with Mom."
While he just cries and grumbles, Rose continues. "Look, your marriage might not be over yet, but you're destroying all chances to get back with Mom."
"Really?" He asks.
"Yeah..." Rose isn't sure that, but she tries to calm her father down. "This journey is essential for Lucien and his sisters as it's about healing them. Mom is helping us, and that's why she doesn't have time to be sure of her feelings."
"No!" Heike shakes his head. "She's sure she wants to leave me, and I'm going to lose her forever if I don't keep trying to fix our relations.h.i.+p."
"You're wrong, Dad; you can't fix anything like that," Rose explains. "What about you giving her time? This journey could be the time you need to rethink your feelings."
"No!" He keeps denying it. He knows in his heart that Daisy doesn't feel anything for him anymore.
"Dad..." Rose starts to lose patience. "Please give Mom this time. If she misses you, it's because your marriage can be fixed."
He looks at Daisy. "What if she doesn't miss me?"
"So it's really gone..." Rose responds. "But you'll always be my father just as she is my mother. Also, you're still young and so handsome, so I'm sure you can find a new wife who deserves your love."
[A new wife?] Heike was so focused on not losing Daisy that he never thought of another woman. He still knows he will never find a woman as beautiful and powerful as she is, but he can use another woman to make Daisy jealous and come back to him.
A desperate person will look for any way to solve their problems even if it doesn't make sense.
"I would suggest a human wife this time." Lucien speaks amiably.
Daisy holds her desire to laugh while Rose nods. "Hubby is right; you should look for someone like you, Dad."
Heike looks at Daisy again. "There's no way I can go with you?"
Before Daisy responds, Rose does. "No! It's already decided, you won't come with us. That journey is going to be too dangerous, and our group only has women... they can't get comfortable around a man other than Lucien."
Heike understands that. In fact, he's still scared of Pride, Eve, and Donna. So he realizes that pursuing Daisy isn't something he can do now, unlike his plan to get a new wife to make her jealous.
"Alright, I'll wait for you to get back." He speaks as he hugs Rose. Although he is still afraid of losing her, he is grateful that his daughter still loves him, and that's he wants to be a better father from now on.
As she hugs her father, Rose smiles at Lucien and Daisy. Then they fly back to the mine while she spends some time saying goodbye to Heike.
In the air, Lucien and Daisy look at each other and smile, both looking forward to the journey ahead.