No, no… no, this couldn’t be happening. Neomyra was after something that belonged to Joy Spiritking, so they’d been after sealed power this whole time, was that it?! Yet no matter how angry he may be with himself for thinking he could trust this strange spirit even slightly, he still needed to remain calm and think rationally. So think, Joyce, think… what was directly under this spot? There was no actual entrance there, so he would have to run the map in his head as swiftly and accurately as possible… he had to be quick, as Isabelle and June were awaiting his orders. He was weaker than anyone, but at the very least his leadership had always been where it needed to be… so think, Joyce… what would that spirit want… what would it…

“The tomb!” Joyce’s head snapped up aggressively while his eyes obscenely widened, the man immediately turning to his companions before thrusting a special seal into June’s chest with the heel of his palm. “Run, go! You have my blessing! Lucy, lead June to the tomb and help him as best you can. Isabelle, Luce, and Lucinda, your job is to stay with me and to protect me if necessary. As selfish as it may sound, if I die now, the seals won’t be able to maintain themselves and everything will crumble! We can’t allow an evil spirit to get its hands on Joy’s body, past or present, no matter what it takes!”

“You got it, Joyce,” June dashed off without a word of complaint, this duty having been given to him because of his speed. Isabelle may be stronger and even a rank above, but she was built for strength and wouldn’t be able to get there as swiftly. Instead, they would be on his tail to aid him as soon as possible, the power of the Aging Water spirit allowing June to be even more light on his feet as he was gone from their sights in an instant, Lucy taking his duty very seriously to lead the man to where Neomyra was sure to be.

“Damn it!” Joyce cursed as he followed, running as fast as his body could let him. Generally speaking, he and Isabelle were around the same speed normally, but Luce’s luck and buffs allowed her to make better use of her muscles than he could, which would have sped her along. But if he was right and this really was a corrupted yet powerful spirit trying to escape with Joy Spiritking’s remains, then he would be the spirit’s next target if they failed. “Agh, why did I ever trust that thing?! There were so many red flags, this is ridiculous!! I should’ve never let it inside, but even then, my family’s barriers don’t work on it…!”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Isabelle glowered into the ground, shame bubbling up in her gut at her own negligence. She always trusted her luck and she wanted to still, but at this very moment she didn’t know how she could. And with the way Luce was looking at her, one of her faithful spirits who had always been by her side, she felt even more guilty, because she knew they were trying to ask her to trust them. But she couldn’t, not at this moment. “I’m so sorry, Joyce. I should’ve been more vigilant, this is all my fault. If I’d just taken things seriously from the beginning, I could have calculated better buffs to put on us all, and maybe that evil spirit wouldn’t have gotten so far ahead….”

“Evil…” Lucinda muttered from inside the pocket of Isabelle’s hoodie, the tiny spirit sprite looking almost offended by that statement as Luce shook their head at their sister, urging her to not argue with the humans for now. She was a quiet spirit by nature regardless, so it didn’t bother her to be told to avoid confrontation, but it did leave a bad taste in her mouth. Could none of them really understand what Neomyra was, even though two of them were of Spiritking blood and the other would have an ancestor with all the answers stuffed into that little necklace of his that had been passed down through his family for generations?

“Ugh, it’s not your fault, Isabelle. I was fooled by its little pathetic charade too. I should’ve known from the start that a spirit of its caliber would never sink that low unless to fool us,” Joyce bit through gritted teeth, turning a corner as rapidly as he could as he flung himself down the steep staircase and dove for the tomb’s sealed doors. It should be a carved circle that looked to be split in half, and when he poured his spiritual essence into it as the head of the family, the two slabs would spread apart and allow him entry at his command. The talisman he’d slapped onto June would give the other man temporary entry as well, so he was sure a fight would have already broken out over Joy’s body, and was desperately hoping with his entire heart and soul that he was not too late.

Please, everyone already thought so little of him, he didn’t want to be known as the failed head of the Spiritkings who allowed his legendary ancestor’s remains to be stolen on top of everything else. He just wanted to do his job and to be acknowledged for his hard work and hardships, but why, why was that always too much to ask?! Why could he never get what he wanted even when it was so simple?! Though when he finally arrived—

“June, why have you not moved from the entrance?! What’s going on in there, what’s happened?!” he screamed his voice hoarse, rushing over to grab the side of June’s shoulder in the hopes of comforting him after he saw the look on his face. His friend looked wretched and his expression was filled with grief and horror, and upon seeing it, Joyce was certain that they had all been too late. But when he squeezed June’s shoulder and turned to look for himself to see what had his childhood friend looking so ready to burst into tears, he… he suddenly didn’t know how to come to terms with it.

Neomyra had knocked over the top of Joy Spiritking’s coffin that had been made with stone and placed with seals that would make it weigh a hundred times heavier than it should, and it lay on the ground with the stony gravel underneath cracked and splintered. Joy’s body had been perfectly preserved through the seals, his skin a full brown and his hair long and soft as it rested atop his shoulders. And now that it had been unsealed through whatever mysterious powers Neomyra held, the spirit was shaking Joy’s shoulders with grief and fear stricken in their panicked eyes.

“No, wake up! Master, wake up, wake up now, I…! I’m here, I’m here now… I finally found you,” they cried, their humanoid form hunched over Joy’s dead body as they shook him through tears. “Master, I found you… I found you, so you can wake up now, okay? You can wake up now… okay?! Okay, so… wake up, wake up! Master, this isn’t funny, this joke isn’t funny, so wake up now… please, please… I’ve been searching for you my whole life, so why won’t you…?” their voice cracked in their throat, Neomyra’s shoulders trembling with even greater force as they bent down and sobbed aggressively into the corpse’s chest, claws digging into Joy’s pristine clothing that had been preserved alongside him before it tore in their hands. “Please, please, please… just wake up Master, please… I can’t take it, I can’t take this… listen to me, listen to me, why aren’t you listening to me?!” they screamed viciously, fixing to raise a sharp, grief-stricken claw to maul Joy’s fine face, one that had rested that way for thousands of years. For… for three thousand and twenty years…

Their wrist was caught before they could strike the blow, Neomyra struggling in their sobbing fit as they tried to wrestle out of Joyce’s firm grasp, but he wasn’t having that. All of a sudden, any rational thought he might have had slipped from his mind, and his heart screamed one thing incessantly on repeat… help them. His panic was almost as much as theirs, his own grief over different things filling his face as he pulled Neomyra’s wrist and took hold of their shoulder, brushing his hand up their neck to cup their round cheek before bringing their faces close, his expression looking about ready to break at any moment.

“I know,” he choked out, his voice strained as he managed to croak out those two simple words. And upon hearing them, the spirit began to stop their struggle, Neomyra staring wildly at Joyce’s face as if they didn’t quite believe what they had heard. But the way he held them was gentle, and his firmness provided the structure of safety… and the spirituality that wafted into them from wherever they touched made them well up with even more tears, feeling themselves about ready to burst open when Joyce brushed their cheek again with a calloused thumb and spoke simply, “I know… I know, and I’m sorry.”

I know. I know, and I’m sorry. Neomyra understood their meaning immediately, as if their very intentions were connected by the strings of their souls. Because what Joyce was trying to tell them was that he understood their grief and knew it well, because he had grieved for others too. And he was sorry that they’d had to lose something so precious to them, even if that person was a human by the name of Joy Spiritking, his ancestor who had been dead for so many ages. And knowing what they meant, Neomyra’s grip tightened on Joy’s body, before they eventually let go and fell into Joyce instead. Their head bent down to hide in the crook of his neck, their claws digging at his shirt as hands instinctively brought them closer to be held. And they cried as much as they could to mourn the life of a human they could not remember, but that they knew they had loved.

But one thing had been made clear to the three humans present. Because even though it seemed his original memories had been lost, this spirit was none other than Anax Demyra. It was the only possible conclusion to be made. It was why they had endless forms, making them a shapeshifter inside the rare hybrid class that only they had ever filled. The reason they could slip through all of his barriers that were created from the life element was because they themselves were among the life element, the only spirit in the world to be among it, at that. And even though the seals concealing the tomb were made of multiple different affinities to block all and everything, Anax Demyra would have very obviously been able to pass through with ease, as this was the mighty spirit and god that had once lived here alongside Joy, their founder. They would have been recognized by all the seals within as the estate’s rightful owner, and therefore Joy’s tomb would have welcomed them with open arms as well.

It also explained why Neomyra had been searching for the deceased, legendary man to what their knowledge would have been their entire life. After all, if they were the new awakening of Anax Demyra, it was only natural that they would never have been able to rest without chasing the remnants of their bond and uncovering the fate of their closest friend and companion, their one and only soulmate. Joyce could only imagine that after a lifetime of searching for something so important to them only to find the one that once made up their entire world to be dead… it was like living a nightmare. And so he held the trembling spirit tight and let it cry as much as its heart desired, because what really mattered now was making sure Neomyra did not meet the same fate again. No matter what had caused their disappearance three thousand and twenty years ago which had led the world to presume them dead, as Joy Spiritking’s direct descendant and inheritor of his home and legacy, it would be his duty and utmost honor.