Chapter 59
The low growl in his voice made Sylene pause.
She was his mother, she knew him better than anyone alive, perhaps she sensed the enormity of what had changed, because she trembled slightly, asked nothing, patted his back, and said only, softly, "Alright."
"Soren, can Mother beg one thing of you?"
He startled. "If Mother needs anything, say it plainly, never use the word beg!"
"Alright, alright, alright." She touched his cheek, gaze soft.
"Don’t kill him."
Him? Vorian? Soren couldn’t parse it.
"What is Mother’s reason for sparing him?"
"If you trust Mother, then one day you’ll understand on your own, at your strength, killing him is easy, but he still has a use far more important than his death."
Soren held the Strategy Encyclopedia, conqueror of all things, and even so he could not fathom what one day you’ll understand meant.
"I can agree, but he goes into the Black Water Dungeon."
"He experiences every ounce of the pain Mother suffered, not one measure discounted."
"Alright, everything else, we do as Soren says," Sylene said happily.
Vorian uttered not a word, he had no idea what use he still served, but whatever it was, he had survived...
Riiip, boom!
Just as Soren prepared to carry Sylene back toward Black Dragon Mountain, the horizon tore open.
Some Great Emperor was cutting a spatial pathway.
A second later it snapped complete, the rift yawning wide, and a slender figure came hurtling out like a madwoman.
Victoria.
Her eyes raked the ruins, the instant they locked onto Soren, she dropped like a falling star.
She dove, pulled up dead in front of him, and glared with pure resentment, sulking in silence.
"Attacking the Great Emperor Palace!"
"Why didn’t you call me for something this big?"
"I had to hear it from my own spies’ transmissions."
"Do you know I couldn’t tear space straight here from the Great Immortal Palace? I had to travel into the Endless Demonic Domain the ordinary way before I could even open a pathway!"
"What if something had happened to you and I arrived too late?"
"Bastard Soren, did you make me worry on purpose?"
"Or is it that our relationship isn’t public yet, so you found it inconvenient to bring me?"
"Hm? Why aren’t you saying anything?"
"Scolded speechless, are you!?"
Her voice was cold as deep ice and searing as open flame all at once.
The wind pressed her dress against her, her aura hung between wicked and celestial, hers was a suffocating, breath-stealing beauty, a gem without duplicate under heaven.
Her arrival struck every living soul in the Great Emperor Palace dumb.
Most stunned of all was Vorian, his ears pricked, eyes flew wide, and his gray, lifeless face actually lit with a jolt of spirit.
Victoria and Soren? That kind of relationship? Just not yet public?
The boy played the coward for hundreds of years, when did he meet the Fairy Great Demon Emperor of the Violet Jade Immortal Domain!? Not one whisper ever reached me!
Under the eyes of the crowd, Soren reached out and drew Victoria into his arms, he felt her earlobes flare hot on contact. "So you care about me this much?"
Of course she cared! Her heart had long since settled on him! But this scoundrel knew that perfectly well, and still turned the question on her in front of all these people.
If she just nodded without putting up any fight, where would her face go...
Victoria harrumphed. "Bastard Soren, you still owe me a hundred million spiritual stones, I came... I came for the spiritual stones."
"For the spiritual stones? You value spiritual stones above me? I’m deeply disappointed..." His voice dropped low, dark eyes dimming to match.
"No, no, that’s not it! I came for you! I was lying, believe me!" Terrified he was genuinely hurt, Victoria tripped over herself explaining.
"Your words don’t match your heart, this condition is very serious."
"Come back to Black Dragon Mountain with me tonight."
"I’ll give you a treatment."
Her heart went thud-thud-thud, a drum at full march.
"What nonsense are you spouting? I am not going to Black Dragon Mountain with you."
His other hand rose and gently lifted her delicate chin, he looked at her with absolute dominance. "That is not up to you."
"Today, even if I have to snatch you, I’m snatching you home."
The words startled Victoria badly enough to drain her face of color, her expression flickered between shyness and panic, and the will to argue left her.
She shot him a resentful glare, and buried inside the resentment was a thread of pleading, an eagerness to please.
"I’ll go with you, then. With this many people watching, why are you being so fierce with me?"
The instant she finished, Soren felt the shift, on the Strategy Encyclopedia, Absolute Loyalty blazed alight.
At this tier, his place in Victoria’s heart outweighed everything else, her reputation, her dignity, the entire Violet Jade Immortal Domain.
That was the theoretical picture. Victoria was an Upper-Tier Demon Emperor, her actual behavior might drift a little from the theory, but not by much.
Sylene had watched the entire exchange, mind still reeling at the scale of her son’s transformation.
That boy used to duck his head around strangers, too shy and scared to squeeze out a word in half a day, and now he can actually handle a girl this breathtaking?
The change was drastic enough to worry her, she didn’t know what he had endured to become this, perhaps it was the old story of the fool touched by enlightenment, soaring straight into the sky?
Whatever the truth, as a mother, she was satisfied.
"So this is the Great Demon Emperor they call the Alluring Fairy of the Violet Jade Immortal Domain."
"Exactly as the rumors say, powerful, and beautiful."
Sylene appraised Victoria with a rare smile, but she had been locked away far too long, and Victoria genuinely didn’t recognize her.
At important functions, Vorian had only ever paraded the First Matriarch, and Victoria had zero interest in how many wives those Great Demon Emperors collected, this was their first meeting.
"And this is..." Watching Soren choose to bring along a woman she didn’t know rather than her, Victoria felt a prickle of jealousy, and hid it so as not to embarrass him.