Chapter 81: The D’Aubigne House

Crimson light spread across the polished black marble floor of an enormous bedroom as the Beyond Anchor opened.

The circular formation expanded between two low steps separating the sleeping area from the rest of the room, its intricate markings reflected faintly across the glossy stone beneath it.

Frey’s body gradually materialized at the center of the formation, beginning as a translucent silhouette before becoming completely solid.

The crimson lines remained visible for another few seconds before fading away, leaving him standing alone with his equipment still strapped across his body and the familiar weight of his twin curved swords at his sides.

Frey didn’t move immediately.

He simply looked around.

Calling the space a bedroom barely seemed appropriate. The room was closer in size to an expensive penthouse apartment, with enough open floor space that several ordinary living rooms could have fitted inside without making it feel crowded.

A massive bed occupied a raised section near the far wall, surrounded by dark wooden panels carved with understated geometric patterns. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched across one side of the room, overlooking the private grounds surrounding the D’Aubigné residence, while automated curtains stood partially open to allow afternoon sunlight across the marble floor.

A sitting area occupied another portion of the bedroom, complete with leather sofas, a low glass table and a wall-mounted display large enough to belong in a private cinema.

Beyond that stood shelves containing books, trophies and various objects Frey had collected over the years, while an entire section of the opposite wall opened into a walk-in wardrobe. Everything from the furniture to the lighting had clearly been chosen without any concern for cost, yet the room wasn’t arranged like a showroom.

Jackets had been left across one chair, several pairs of shoes weren’t where they were supposed to be, and a decorative bowl on the table had somehow become storage for keys, loose change and miscellaneous junk.

It was unmistakably expensive.

It was also unmistakably Frey’s.

He removed his equipment and placed the twin swords carefully on a nearby stand before noticing something else he hadn’t expected to appreciate so much.

The air.

Frey took a deep breath.

Then another.

After a week inside the Beyond, Earth’s atmosphere felt almost unnaturally clean. The Thousand Boughs had been saturated with Mana and filled with the smells of damp soil, enormous vegetation, monster blood, strange flowers and countless things he couldn’t identify.

Zenith Citadel had been better, but even there the air carried smoke, preserved monster materials, workshops, food stalls and thousands of Walkers passing through every day.

Here there was nothing except cool conditioned air and the faint scent of whatever cleaning product the household staff used.

Frey closed his eyes and filled his lungs again before releasing the breath with an appreciative groan. "I never thought I’d come home from another world and immediately fall in love with air conditioning."

His next priority was considerably more urgent.

A set of double doors led into his private bathroom, although bathroom was another word being stretched beyond reason.

The room was large enough to contain a freestanding stone bathtub, an enclosed rainfall shower, separate grooming counters, several cabinets and a long vanity without any of them making the space feel crowded.

Pale stone covered the walls and floor, broken by dark metallic fixtures and warm recessed lighting. An entire section near the windows had been designed more like a private spa than somewhere a person went simply to shower.

Frey discarded the clothing that had survived the Thousand Boughs and stepped beneath the shower.

Hot water struck his head and shoulders, and whatever enthusiasm he had possessed about doing anything else immediately disappeared. He remained beneath the water far longer than necessary, washing away dried sweat, dust and the lingering sensation that something might crawl out of nearby vegetation and attempt to eat him.

By the time he finally emerged, steam covered part of the bathroom mirror.

Frey wrapped a towel around his waist, dried his hair roughly and wiped one hand across the glass.

His reflection appeared.

The week had left traces despite the recovery available in Zenith. A few fading bruises remained along his ribs and shoulder, including several from the spar that he intended to blame entirely on someone else if his mother noticed them.

His body had also become slightly leaner, with the early physical changes produced by awakening and constant combat beginning to show beneath his skin.

What dominated his reflection, however, was the Divine Rune covering his chest.

Vritra — The World-Encircling Serpent.

The tattoo began near his left ribs, where the immense serpent’s tail emerged in overlapping black scales before winding diagonally across his abdomen. Its body grew progressively thicker as it climbed his torso, circling his right side before crossing beneath his sternum and sweeping upward across the chest.

Individual scales had been tattooed with extraordinary detail, each one edged by thin patterns resembling storm clouds and constricting rings.

Sections of the serpent disappeared behind other coils only to emerge again elsewhere, creating the impression that Vritra’s body was far longer than the space available on Frey’s torso should have permitted.

The largest coil crossed beneath both pectorals like a great chain wrapped around his chest. Above it, Vritra’s upper body rose toward Frey’s left collarbone before curving inward.

The serpent’s head occupied the center of his upper chest, directly over the sternum, broad and predatory with swept-back horns and a partially opened mouth revealing long fangs.

Its eyes were narrow slits, and faint markings around them resembled branching lightning. Behind the head was a circular pattern of interlocking coils, almost like the serpent was encircling something invisible at the center of Frey’s chest.

Before the Second Red Moon, it had simply been an elaborate tattoo.

Now Frey could feel it.

The connection remained quiet beneath his skin, but after everything that had happened during the expedition, Vritra no longer felt like ink.

Frey stared at it for several seconds before grinning at himself in the mirror. "Not bad for one week."

He dressed comfortably, slipped his silver cross earring back into his left ear and left the bedroom.

The corridor outside stretched across the upper floor of the residence, broad enough that calling it a hallway felt inadequate. Dark wood, pale stone and subtle gold accents ran throughout the interior, while enormous windows overlooked landscaped gardens beyond the house.

Paintings and sculpted pieces occupied carefully illuminated spaces along the walls, mixed with framed family photographs that prevented the mansion from feeling like a hotel.

Frey passed several closed rooms before reaching the sweeping staircase overlooking the central hall. The chandelier above it descended through multiple floors in branching strands of crystal, scattering afternoon light across the walls.

He descended without hurry, one hand sliding along the polished railing before following the sound of turning paper toward one of the family lounges.

His father was sitting beside the windows.

Laurent Valentin D’Aubigné was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late forties, although the silver beginning to appear around his temples made him look slightly older when he wasn’t smiling.

His dark hair was combed neatly backward, and a short, carefully maintained beard framed a face that Frey strongly resembled around the eyes and jaw. He wore a simple dark shirt with the sleeves folded to his forearms rather than anything formal, one leg crossed over the other while a physical newspaper rested between his hands. A porcelain cup of tea sat on the table beside him.

Laurent lowered the newspaper the moment Frey entered.

His eyebrows rose slightly before a smile appeared. "There he is. I was beginning to wonder whether you had decided the Beyond was more interesting than coming home. How did it go?"

Frey dropped onto the sofa beside him and stretched his legs forward. "It was supposed to be three days, so naturally it became a week. We found considerably more than we expected."

Laurent folded the newspaper and placed it on the table. He didn’t immediately interrogate him about money, monsters or whatever valuables he had brought back.

Instead, his eyes moved briefly across his son’s face and body, checking what he could see without making the inspection obvious. "Considering you returned under your own power and you’re smiling, I’ll assume ’considerably more’ wasn’t entirely disastrous."

Frey was about to answer when footsteps approached rapidly from the corridor.

His mother entered the lounge.

Celeste Valentin D’Aubigné possessed the kind of effortless elegance that expensive clothing couldn’t manufacture.

She was a beautiful woman in her early forties with warm brown skin, long black hair falling in loose waves down her back and sharp hazel eyes that Frey had inherited almost perfectly.

She wore a cream-colored house dress and minimal jewelry, but whatever calm dignity she normally carried vanished the instant she saw her son.

"Frey!"

He barely had time to stand before Celeste reached him and wrapped both arms around him.

Frey laughed and returned the hug, but his mother had already begun inspecting him. Her hands moved from his shoulders to his face before she stepped backward and caught his arm, immediately noticing one of the fading bruises.

Laurent watched the examination with visible amusement. "Come on, honey. He’s an Awakener now. A few bruises are probably going to become normal if he’s running around fighting monsters."

Celeste slowly turned her head.

The look she gave her husband immediately erased his amusement.

"He could become the strongest Awakener on Earth and he would still be my baby," she replied before pointing toward his tea. "Now shut it."

Laurent picked up the cup without another word and took a long drink.

Frey bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing.

Celeste returned her attention to him, touching the bruise again and demanding to know whether anything was broken, whether he had seen a healer and whether he had been eating properly.

Frey answered each question patiently, assuring her that nothing serious had happened to him and conveniently avoiding the details involving Greater-ranked monsters, a hidden Origin Treasure and the part where he had fired enough accumulated destruction into the forest to carve through multiple trees.

Eventually satisfied that her son wasn’t secretly dying, Celeste sat beside him while Laurent lowered his tea.

His father waited until the interrogation had finished before asking, "And how is Jethro? He came back with you, I assume."

Frey nodded. "He’s fine. He’s probably home already. He came through the week without anything serious."

"Good." Laurent’s expression relaxed. "That boy has been part of this family long enough that I don’t want the two of you encouraging each other into increasingly stupid decisions just because you can survive more than you could before."

Frey glanced toward him with a completely innocent expression. "I have no idea why you would think we’d do something like that."

Celeste and Laurent both stared at him.

Frey lasted perhaps two seconds before laughing.

Sitting there between his parents, with his mother still occasionally checking whether another bruise had somehow appeared and his father pretending to return to his newspaper while clearly listening to everything, Frey felt the last tension of the Thousand Boughs finally begin to leave his shoulders.

The Beyond had been incredible.

But this was home.