The girls had closed their eyes for a moment, scared that they would get sick again, even though they knew that when I teleported them, it wouldn’t be like when we used the teleportation circle.

Regardless, they opened their eyes and were once again gobsmacked by the building we were now in front of.

Just like before they were awed, but not because of the vast and varied expanse, but because if the size and detail of the architecture, which I’ve never really given a look until now.

The Royal Palace which was much more overbearing because it was many times bigger, but it was also very bare bones when it came to detail. At least on the exterior, which seeing what happened last time I was there, makes sense. It’s built for durability rather than appearance.

And having to repair something intricate would be quite annoying.

Speaking of intricate, that was exactly what the Sect was, extravagantly intricate. There wasn’t a millimetre of wasted space along the walls of this place.

Every part of the wall either hard an intricate and ornate carving that had been carefully crafted by the best of the best architects, or equally ornate and spectacular stain glass windows that sparkled in the sunlight.

There were inscribed pillars in equal distances along the entire wall, which itself was made out of a slightly darker coloured sand brick of some kind. Compared to the standard building material that most of the buildings in the kingdom are primarily constructed out of.

And it didn’t look this way because it was wet either. No, this was just how it looked naturally.

Which wasn’t a bad thing mind you, in fact, it gave it a distinct look to it, which could be argued to be a far mor beneficial thing for it, since it is meant to represent Sect as a whole. But it didn’t display that they were superior to anyone else, rather, it gave the feeling of contentment.

At some point though, the Custodians did usher us to get moving since although we weren’t in the way per se, we were still causing a bit of a nuisance by just standing there and staring.

"Come on, let’s go and meet with the top fangs of the Sect." I ushered them inside, and they followed as we made our way up the ramp to the entrance.

The inside was just a gorgeous as the outside, with sculptures embedded into the wall representing key figures in the Sect’s history, as well as tapestry that showed equally important moments for the Sect and how it came to be what it is today.

I didn’t really get to pay much attention last time because there was a truly urgent matter to deal with, which prevented me from getting a good look at things.

That wasn’t to say this wasn’t also urgent either, but this was more or a checkup rather than some incredibly big matter that needed deliberating.

Again, this is important, but it didn’t need immediate attention like the matter with the Cult and how we were going to deal with it. But with the time fuckery, making sure all of that was still in motion was important.

Hence, why we were here. The fact that we also get to be free of the Duchess’ forces is just a nice bonus on top of all of this. Really, that incident was more of a catalyst to make the current events happen sooner, that was all.

The Custodians led us down several different paths and we saw many more amazing works of art even in things as simple as arches and doors, the former having depictions of serpentine climbing them and the latter having many pretty shapes, patterns and symbols on them.

Soon though we were brought into a huge communal area which was currently in the middle of a sermon that was being performed by none other than Krytaraa, the Empyric Coil herself.

We didn’t want to disturb her during her sermon, so we just silently slide ourselves off to the side at the back of the room to wait until she finished.

In the meantime, I would get to experience what a sermon was like and what was involved in it.

It was mostly a lot of praying to the Goddess and reading from some sacred scripture. I have a feeling that I’m going to have to get rid of said scripture, or at the very least heavily rewrite it at some point. So, I stopped listening and just waited for the sermon to be over.

And thankfully, after only a few minutes it was over and Krytaraa finished off this sermon, the acolytes that were listening filtered back out the way we came, giving us a glance on their way out, wondering who we were, when we arrived and why we were here.

Aside from the curious glances though, they didn’t bother us much, not with the Custodians nearby. Once they were all gone though, we were led over to the Empyric Coil, who had stayed were she was after spotting us after the sermon ended.

She slithered out from behind her podium which held the scripture she had been reading from and bowed to me.

"Greetings uh... Uhh..." She started to sweat profusely as she couldn’t recall my name. She clearly recalled that she had met me and had spoken, but for some reason, my name escaped her. And she didn’t ask for my name either since that would be seen as rude to her.

I decided to just give it back to her. "Traytora."

"Y-Yes of course, how could I forget?" She affirmed to herself mockingly.

"Time fuckery, that’s how." I responded, even though she wasn’t actually asking. I just figured it would be better to get this out of the way now rather than later.

"Eh? What? What do you mean by that?" Krytaraa stammered as she looked up at me, trying to wrap her head around what I just said.

"It’s best if I explain it when everyone else has gathered together so we can work around it. For now though, I’d like to introduce you to a few people."

She nodded and returned to a straight posture, "Very well then, I’ll call everyone for an emergency meeting. I assume these three are the one’s you want to introduce to me?"

"That they are, these two are my friends, Ashtraz and Astryza. And this is Shirayaa. They’ll also be joining us since they’ve also been afflicted by this time warping." I pointed to each as I told her who was who.

They then came forth and gave a proper and more in-depth introduction for themselves.

The first was Ash, who had the most confidence out of the three, seeing as she came forward first. "Uh, greetings your eminence, I-I’m Ashtraz. I used to be the creation of a curse, but now I’m my own person thanks to Traytora. I owe her a lot for that." Though it seems her confidence is all it’s cracked up to be.

Then Asty came and bowed deeply to Krytaraa as a sign of respect and worship, "H-Hello your e-eminence, m-my-"

"Please don’t bow to her." I cut her off before she could get anywhere as I couldn’t stand the way she was bowing to Krytaraa.

It’s just offsetting seeing her do that. If she bows to her then she would technically have to bow to me too since Krytaraa has to because of my Lineage. I would be okay with her bowing to Trayzara because she’s the ruler of the nation.

But because she’s bowing to Krytaraa, someone who worships the Goddess Astraa, someone that I am now deeply connected to in a fair few ways, it just feels weird, especially if she considers me her big sister.

"You don’t bow to me, so you should have no reason to bow to her. Not as deeply as this. I know she’s a highly respected and important figure, but I rank above her technically. If you bow to her but not me, that’s just weird."

"O-Oh, okay." Asty responded somewhat dismayed.

I sighed and tried to explain myself further. "Look, there’s nothing with bowing to someone to greet them, but when I see you bow so deeply to her, and so reverently too, it just grosses me out because you don’t and shouldn’t ever bow to me or anyone in this Sect for that matter. You’re my sister, you always will be, but you have to take what I just said into account also. Okay?"

"Okay..." She was still a little sad, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I tried my best.

After that though, she restarted her introduction.

"H-Hello, I’m Astryza, and Traytora is my big sister. I love her very much for all she’s done for me. I also owe her a lot."

The whole time Krytaraa had been merely observing us interact and giving a simple nod to Ash and Asty. She was even silent during the little talk I had with Asty.

Finally though, it was Shirayaa’s turn to introduce herself.