The Game Before the Fall

Chapter 75: Declaration (Part 1)

Chapter 75: Declaration

Aria Friend:

"What do you mean we can't bring him here?" I glared at Vanter annoyed. "Ardy's travelled between Areithia and our world already. Surely, he can do it again or at least we can go there to help him. He's going to try fight that Wyvern King without us!" It had been a week since we met my brother in Areithia Online and since then, though we had been making waves creating content for the new update, my brother remained where we couldn't reach him. With each day my anxiety grew knowing he wouldn't be sitting still.

Vanter sighed, frustrated as I was, "It's complicated. You have the gift of mana, you understand how complicated this can get. There's a reason Endi and I can't leave Earth. When we travelled here, it was on the full notion that there was no going back till the Merge. We're bound to Earth."

Endi nodded speaking calmly beside her brother, "I want to see Ardent more than anyone else. He's with our child from another universe. It sucks that all I can do is see her from your screenshots. But I understand.... To be here, Vanter and I bound our souls to this plane. That's why he couldn't enter the Violet Oath's headquarters all those months ago. To get here our way, Ardent would need to do the same, and you know that won't work."

I grit my teeth. It was more than just messy. If my brother was a normal person, it wouldn't be too bad, but he was travelling with Ria who was from another universe and he himself was loosely attached to any given plane of existence. If anything, he was more attracted to the Void. If we forced it, he might end up somewhere else entirely.

"But Endi...," I looked at her concerned. While her condition hadn't degraded, it wasn't looking good either.

"I'll live," she smiled. "I have to live. If I died before I could see Ria in person, I'd come back as a vengeful spirit."

Vanter laughed but spoke seriously, "Please don't joke about that."

"Sorry," she poked his arm. "Let's just go over what we can do. For the Merge to work, we need public opinion of Areithia to be as high as possible."

I folded my arms and leaned back into the couch I sat alone in, "Xavier has already pushed through the discount to the VBH. He's done what we asked, and the company is barely making profits, but the effect has been good on our end. On the business end not so much. He trusts us because we saved Maggie. I feel guilty knowing when the Merge happens Virtual Reality goods are going to crash."

Vanter emphasised with me, "We'll make up for his loses through contracts with Areithia. We won't let his company take that big of a hit. On our end the ISPA met with some of the Architects. The meeting went well, though it was definitely strained at times."

Endi smirked, "Yeah, we were already pushing them a bit and now they've just realised how big Areithia really is. How is Erin going?"

I smiled, looking to our room where Erin was currently streaming, "She reached the top 5 streamers in the world after doing that collab with Zen. Dads hired more staff from the Violet Oath to organise all our businesses, at this point he joked he was running a full production company."

"So, everything is looking good," Vanter nodded. "At this point, we'll be able to smoothly Merge Areithia and Earth by the end of the year. More than a year sooner than before."

"That's still a while away," Endi huffed. "Can't we bring it around sooner?" It was only late January. I couldn't fault her wanting it earlier. Since we had met Ardy, she'd been huffing and sighing a lot from withdrawal.