Chapter 2473: Excuse me?

Romulus wiped the sweat off his brow and did his best to appear as inconspicuous as possible. He used to think he was the strongest Dao Lord in the universe, but that beautiful lady up on stage could probably kill him with one hand. It seemed he really needed to go meet with Lex and the Innkeeper as soon as possible lest he accidentally commit some faux pas.

Eclipse did not care that everyone was watching them. In fact, this tender moment between them would not last long anyway. The whole point of summoning everyone here, of fulfilling her oath to them, was to show them the return of Lunareth.

Why else had so many races accepted such a sacrifice, if not to save Lunareth? Even if that sacrifice ultimately resulted in the destruction of their race, they were willing to make it for the whole reason their races had been saved was due to Lunareth to begin with.

"This place feels foreign. I don’t recognize the laws," said Lunareth finally, his gaze shifting from Eclipse to the various figures watching from within the fog. His gaze seemed to pause on Romulus for a moment before continuing.

"It’s because you have traveled through time. A lot of time," explained Eclipse patiently. "I have prepared a place for you to acclimate to the state of the universe. It’s called the Primordial Garden - it should be quite familiar to you. Your Dao, your understanding of laws, your application of power, getting used to your new body, all of it will take a lot of time as well."

Lunareth did not immediately respond, taking in everything as he looked around once again, this time taking in the faces of all those watching. He noticed which races were present, and got an idea of what might have happened.

Currently Lunareth was incredibly weak, with his Dao barely existing at all, which is why his thoughts weren’t running as fast as Dao Lords normally did.

"What about-"

Before Lunareth could continue asking, Eclipse put a finger to her lips.

"Some things can no longer be mentioned casually. Wait till we’re in the Garden, I’ll tell you everything. But to answer your question briefly, yes, we won the war at great cost. Many people died along the way... many more were corrupted."

Lunareth sighed as he heard the answer, his most important concern addressed. He feared that he had been rescued because the war had gone terribly wrong, and that his help was needed.

With that concern finally gone, and with Lunareth no longer concerned about the larger affairs of the universe, he finally turned his focus solely on Eclipse.

"You should have moved on," he said softly. "You must have suffered so much for this."

Eclipse smirked, as if she was anticipating Lunareth’s reaction to what she was about to say.

"I tried. I got married eight times - twice to the same guy. Didn’t work out."

Lunareth, who had been looking at Eclipse with such care, suddenly widened his eyes in shock, causing Eclipse to burst out in laughter. Even Lex could not help but grin, though of course he dared not laugh at the future Mr. Eclipse. It was at that moment Lex realized that he didn’t even know if Eclipse had a last name, not that it mattered.

"But no matter what I did, I couldn’t forget you," said Eclipse as she took a single step back and took a look at Lunareth in whole. "Don’t rest your laurels just yet. Just because we won the war back then doesn’t mean that the problems have been solved. There’s a whole lot left for you to do as well.

"To say nothing of anything else, we still need to deal with the repercussions of bringing you back from time, not to mention to ensure that no one else can mess with time. The list of things I have for you to do is very large - don’t think you can get out of doing work by being cute."

Lunareth smiled and could not help but laugh. His adaptability was quite strong. Mere moments ago - at least for him - he had been betrayed for reasons he did not understand. He had been stabbed in the back, and effectively killed.

Yet how could he dwell on that when he could see hints of what Eclipse had been through to rescue him. At the time he was supposed to have been killed, Eclipse was quite weak. She was nowhere near being one of the strongest, so he could only imagine everything she had been through to achieve what she had done.

Even the pain of being betrayed was overshadowed by the feeling of understanding what she had done for him.

"Ah little lass, to think, after all this time, you have not changed," Lunareth could not help but say, and then froze. No, wait, that wasn’t right. Compared to him, compared to the life he had lived, she was not so little anymore.

Before he could dwell on that, Eclipse turned her gaze towards the fog.

"Be serious, Lunareth. We have things to do. The figures you see before you are the descendants of those who have sacrificed much for your return. It is not I alone who have brought you back."

Lunareth’s expression turned solemn. He was having trouble wielding his power, but he could see hints about any of the races he saw. For example, the humans no longer seemed as glorious as they once were, and that Qilin didn’t seem right either.

"There will be time to address them all later," Eclipse said before Lunareth could even consider saying something to them. "For now, we have things we need to do. We are on the clock."

In truth, one of the reasons Eclipse did not want Lunareth to speak was because he knew secrets, but he did not yet understand they were secrets. Not everything could be revealed so casually. Even she, while gossiping, knew when to draw the lines.

Lunareth nodded, though he still wanted to express his gratitude.

"Thank you, all, for what you have done. I will not forget it," he said as he committed each face to memory, and found that there was no real consequence of doing so. How strange.

Eclipse was about to dismiss the fog, for there were genuinely a lot of very important things that they still needed to do, and needed to do urgently. She was interrupted, however, in a very unexpected manner.

"Excuse me," yelled out Lex as he waved his hand in the air. "Before you send us away, could I talk to you for a moment?"

Cassandra did her best to keep herself from facepalming, and David looked at Lex as if he was very impressed. Romulus, meanwhile, decided in that instant that he was going to latch on to Lex and the Innkeeper no matter what.