Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 185: Promotion? (Madam's PoV)

"I've gotta admit, this guy is pulling no stops," Loraz sighed, sitting down on a tree stump while Syie rushed about to cover his wounds with makeshift bandages.

'Should I tell him about the supplies that kid brought?' Madam thought, squinting her eyes a little. She then looked away, past the massive crowd of humans at the front of the forest and all the way to where Peter, as usual, was doing something weird.

Without a doubt, though, whatever he was doing… worked.

'This much, he can't deny,' she thought, giving her husband a long stare before shaking her head and looking to her right, to the hill where the actual crux of her argument with Loraz laid down on the ground and rained hellfire on the human reinforcements.

"…" Loraz put on a grumpy face before looking away. Yet, the sense of momentary grief of a parent was soon replaced by the calm, composed front of a leader.

"It feels weird to even think about it," Loraz spoke, turning his eyes down to the ground as he sighed. He then pressed his lips together and snuck a quick glance over at the hill. "The last time I saw her, she was but a little cub…"

The divine leader's face sank, and the look in his eyes softened. Yet, as he turned his eyes over to the human camp where the battle still raged on…

Loraz's face sunk even further, the sense of deep nostalgia replaced by disgust and contempt.

'He isn't…'

Madam's face tensed up.

"Don't forget your end of the deal," she suddenly barked in a hushed voice. "You were a small man when you proposed it, so don't pose as a big man now."

Syie froze, her delicate hands clutching at the thin strand of the bandage that she was halfway through wrapping around Loraz's wounded arm.

Even with all his power, he didn't leave the battle scott-free.

'From what I saw, he went through quite the hell,' Madam's thoughts filled with a weird, long-forgotten emotion.

But even this mere hint of memory was enough to start the fire up in her throat.

The revolting sense of disgust that came with the day it all went down.

The usual calm, composed aura of the mature fox suddenly turned still, covering an entire area with a deep, bone-freezing chill.

"You have no right to judge her, just like you don't have the right to judge that kid," Madam spat out, holding her breath to stifle the rising well of emotions in her heart.

"I…"

The aura in the air suddenly… pinged.

It was an extremely weird feeling, even for the celestial and divine beings for whom aura was a second nature. A sense as indispensable and natural as their hearing, smell, or sight.

And for but a fraction of a second, everyone around the hill felt it. The stifling feeling of weight suddenly dropping down on their shoulders, crushing everything and everyone into no more but dust…

Only to vanish the very moment it appeared. An illusion that left no mark on reality or causality. At most, it could be a simple distraction…

If not for what this sensation meant.

'Fay!'

Madam jumped, rushing up the hill's slope before she could even form a single thought. Loraz reacted as quickly in spite of his wounds… but he lagged just two steps behind. That's why, when Madam reached the top of the hill, for one, extremely tense second…

She stood on the hill alone, with just her daughter shining with the constant tickling of her aura. Aura so dense, it rapidly expanded outwards to the world, pushing away at the natural background aura and surrounding the girl with a sparkly sense of inherent dignity.

"STOP IT!" Screaming her lungs out, Madam leaped forth. Three steps, two steps…

Due to the end of the deal she had with Loraz, Madam swore to forever forget her true power.

But in this single instant, holding nothing back, she unleashed all of her swiftness and attunement with both the world's and divine aura…

All.. Just a fraction of a second too late.

Right as Loraz's eyes reached the point where he could see what was going on… Fay's eyes were covered with a strange darkness. And then, her fingertips found what she was reaching out for.

'Fay!' Madam's soul screamed, too panicked to utilize aura in a more active way… Or maybe she already knew it; knew that she would be too late.

The moment the corners of Fay's mouth twitched, her figure turned all blurry before condensing into a streak of light. Then, she dashed across the distance that kept the far end of the human camp where the battle raged from the hill where she just stood at.

"GO!" Madam screamed out, instantly bolting forward.

But there was no hiding it anymore.

Her one and only mission, the reason why she so willingly gave up on everything she had… Was now over.

'With that one ping, everyone's eyes will turn on her,' Madam gritted her teeth while rushing over to the human camp with all her ungodly speed. She reached the line of the trees in a single leap, covered the open space with two more leaps…

Still, Madam ended up too late yet again.

Right as the mature fox stepped foot on what had to be some sort of a street in the camp, she saw the dance of lighting and shadow consume the innumerable lives right before her eyes.

And in the middle of it all, right in the middle of a solidifying soul image…

'Still… what the hell?!'

Now, everyone's eyes would be on Fay. Someone born to the two young heirs to the two warring clans. The fruit of the great diplomatic adventure of their forefathers who finally brought some semblance of peace to the forest.

And now, what made Madam feel even worse…

Fay was in the middle of something impossible.

"What?" Loraz uttered a small, breathless moan as he dropped by Madam's side. His eyes, zeroed in on the raging storm of divine aura that pressured the natural aura of the world so much, it established a zone where nothing but Fay's authority persisted.

"How could she…" Loraz uttered three short words before losing his voice over the shock. Then, his eyes shoot towards Madam. "Did she…"

"No," Madam replied while similarly frozen in place, unable to do anything but look down at an event that had no right to occur. And anomaly that went against everything the upper echelons of the forest folk knew and believed in.

Right now, Fay is undergoing a process of promotion.

An even in the life of the strong that they all equally feared and desired.

But if there was anything certain on this frolick of their creator's nature, a strangely ceremonial process that outright went against the established laws of the world…

If there was anything certain about the ceremony of promotion, it was that only ascended could ever go through it.

Those who reached the rank of supreme without the promotion would be forever barred from completing it. But there has never been a single instance of a regular celestial or divine going through a promotion!

'Wait a second…' Madam suddenly tensed up even further. She then went with her thoughts back to when they were silently climbing up the hill to set up the first stage of Peter's strange yet effective plan.

Then, her face twisted in an ugly grimace.

"She didn't show any signs of ascending," she then corrected her statement. "But maybe…" Madam raised her eyes at the storm of the divine energy converging all at the center of Fay's soul image, where the storm of her beautiful and long, platinum hair…

'Wait, thinking about it, where is the kid?' Madam suddenly thought, puzzled…

Before she noticed the one, extremely fine detail of the divine aura ahead.

There was the usual chill of the fox lineage. The echo of lightning inherited from the banshee blood. But Fay's divine aura… was richer, far more colorful than that.

It was as if… as if the darkness that rapidly mixed in with the usual colors of Fay's aura made them so much deeper, more vibrant…

And that coupled with a semi-regular way a portion of Fay's soul image warped as if something was moving underneath…

'So that's it…' Madam suddenly breathed out a deep sigh. And with the sudden realization mixing with her long-forgotten emotions…

She saw Loraz taking a step toward Fay's ceremonial zone.