Chapter 142
She’d wait for a better moment.
"Strange," she said, changing tack.
"Why didn’t it kill you?"
Trever shook his head. "I don’t know."
She twitched her lip. "Your skeleton was preserved whole, so how did you die?"
Trever drew in a slow breath, his dark-gold eyes narrowed and that chiseled face went cold.
"Not long after the creature vanished."
"The leaders of three other major Spirit tribes ambushed me, that traitor of a vassal Patriarch had brought them into the ruin quietly."
"They found me alone, so they hung the slaughter of my own tribe around my neck."
"Which made killing me the righteous act."
"My Nine-Headed Serpent Spirit Tribe stood at the top of the Spirit race, every tribe below us wanted that seat, and any number of Ancestors would have killed for the fame of beating me."
"Ganging up to murder a man was beneath all of them."
"Wiping out me and my tribe was worth it anyway."
"If that vassal tribe hadn’t sold us, none of it happens."
"Maggots, a swarm of them."
"And they had the nerve to eat our blood essence and bones and evolve themselves into the Eight-Headed White-Scaled Serpent Tribe."
"Master, give me leave to tear the blood essence out of every last one of them."
The Eight-Headed White-Scaled Serpent Tribe was a genuine hazard.
Not because any individual was peerless, because as long as they existed they would never sit still.
Otherwise they’d never have built a forbidden array and spent a million years draining a continent.
"As you like," Soren said.
"You have seven days."
Trever clasped his hands and bowed. "More than enough, thank you, Master."
Soren turned and walked toward the exit, his voice came back over his shoulder.
"In seven days, find me at Black Dragon Mountain."
"Yes, Master!"
Soren stepped off the plain with Cecilia beside him.
She pulled in a deep breath of clean air and stretched like a lazy cat, which did nothing to hide the line from her waist to her hips.
Then something in her eyes went dim, the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain, about to become a dead stretch of ground with nothing living on it, and the tribesmen of the Eight-Headed White-Scaled Serpent race, they were not going to die gracefully.
Whatever, what was it to her?
She hadn’t killed them.
Cecilia looked at Soren.
"Are you taking me back to Black Dragon Mountain?"
"Just follow me."
Soren had already handed everything to do with the Kun-Heaven Nether Sea to Bruce.
With Arcturus along, a genuine Upper-Tier Beast Emperor, there shouldn’t be trouble worth the name.
He wasn’t in a rush to get back to Black Dragon Mountain, he took Cecilia and went to the Endless Demonic Domain instead, he’d made Victoria a promise.
The moment his business was done, she came first.
She was the first woman he’d taken since arriving in this world, loyal, capable, and put together on a scale that made the rest of the description unnecessary.
As an Ancestor Realm powerhouse.
Soren’s capacity in every field a man could be measured in ran high.
There wasn’t an hour when he didn’t miss her, put simply, he was never going to leave her out in the cold.
At this particular moment, Victoria had a headache the size of a domain, she was buried in work, more and more faction leaders had come to swear fealty, since none could get into Black Dragon Mountain, they came here and looked for her.
Everyone in the region knew the arrangement, she was Soren’s woman.
The Grand Mistress of Black Dragon Mountain.
So her days were an unbroken procession of Demon Emperors, Spirit Emperors, Human Emperors, and Beast Emperors.
As of today.
The number of domains applying to come under Black Dragon Mountain’s banner had gone from a dozen to more than two hundred in a matter of days.
She’d used her authority as Grand Mistress and called Celeste in to share the load.
Celeste’s cultivation wasn’t high, she hadn’t reached the Emperor Realm yet.
But she’d read mountains of ancient texts since she was small, and her mind produced usable ideas at exactly the moments they were needed.
With Celeste beside her, the receptions and paperwork had become survivable.
Early this morning.
When word came that Soren, that entirely hands-off sovereign of a husband, had come looking for her.
Her mood came up like a light going on.
The joy lasted a few seconds, then she stopped being able to smile.
Why is there another woman standing next to him?
An Upper-Tier Demon Emperor she’d never seen before.
Something started pressing on Victoria that she couldn’t name.
Among the women around Soren, her strength had always been highest, every time, without exception.
That fact was the thing she rested on, it meant she was the one who could help him most.
Cecilia turning up put a crack in it.
Soren went through administrative matters with her, they talked at length.
Eventually it came round to how Victoria had been preparing her breakthrough to the Ancestor Realm and kept getting pushed back by the workload.
Soren said he felt responsible, and promised he’d help her break through personally, as soon as could be arranged.
On the outside, Victoria’s face gave nothing away.
Inside, she was blooming.
The work, heavy as it was, draining as it was, she did willingly, she only wished she could carry more of what he carried.
If Cecilia hadn’t been standing right there, the Grand Mistress bearing would have gone out the window.
Victoria understood the line between public and private.
In front of outsiders, the authority of the Grand Mistress had to be built and held, behind a closed door.
However clingy and soft she got with him, who was ever going to know?
She threw an impatient look at the sky beyond the palace window.
Why is the sun still up there? Set, now.
Victoria tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear, and the whole gesture belonged in a painting.
The placid exterior was doing a great deal of work.
"Hus~band!"
From outside the hall.
Celeste came through the doors like something had been let out of a cage, she launched off the floor.