Chapter 117
Demoted to a lesser beast race, then discarded without a backward glance.
So the Sky Sparrow Tribe dreamed of using the Kun-Heaven Nether Sea to close that bloodline gap.
That was the only road back to everything they’d lost.
A million years nursing that dream, and now Soren had walked in and put it in danger.
"Pick it up," Soren said, flat.
"Y-yes, right away."
"My hands slipped." Arcturus nodded with an apologetic smile, fighting to keep them still, still working the problem. How do I answer?
He turned it end over end and settled on honesty, his reasoning was simple enough.
Soren asking for the coordinates meant there was a good chance he had a lead on the Kun-Heaven Nether Pearl.
The Sky Sparrow Tribe had never turned up a single scrap of intelligence on the pearl’s location.
If Soren really held it, then within days they might actually lay eyes on the legendary Kun-Heaven Nether Sea.
And if he could win Soren’s trust, maybe the tribe gets a share.
"Demon Ancestor, you may not be aware..."
"...but within our Sky Sparrow lineage, everyone entrusted with this secret carries a specialized restriction."
"The moment I say the words, I die on the spot."
The honesty, and the fact that his first sentence confirmed the lineage did hold the coordinates, moved the corner of Soren’s mouth by a fraction.
A flick of his finger sent a wisp of soul power into Arcturus’s forehead.
Arcturus had no time to react, once he understood what happened, he didn’t dare ask either.
He was frightened, and he couldn’t guess what Soren meant to do, but the soul power caused no discomfort, which suggested he wasn’t about to die.
It moved smoothly through his internal pathways and locked onto the restriction.
A restriction was a specialized formation and nothing more, with the Strategy Encyclopedia guiding him, Soren used the reverse dismantling method Celeste had invented.
A few seconds and the restriction was picked apart and dead.
He withdrew his soul power with a flick and accepted the fresh cup of tea Arcturus held out, still expressionless.
"The Demon Ancestor is a divine being with heavenly abilities!" Arcturus wiped cold sweat off his forehead and cheeks, back bowed the whole time, he was profoundly glad he hadn’t tried to lie.
This Demon Ancestor is unfathomable, I can’t see through him at all.
A few seconds to neutralize an ancestral restriction handed down over millennia, could any other Ancestor Realm expert have done that?
Ancestors were formidable, sure, but most ancestral restrictions had counter-dismantling built in, standard formation-breaking didn’t touch them, and forcing one open only set off the lethal parts.
Soren had no interest in the flattery. "You can speak now."
"Yes, right away." Arcturus smiled bitterly and laid out everything about the coordinates without leaving anything out.
They were sealed inside an ancient stele, he could take Soren to it now.
Before they left, Arcturus called over a human servant girl he’d bought with spirit stones, wrapped his voice in spiritual energy and murmured something in her ear.
She nodded and trotted off. Soren didn’t care what the instruction was. Arcturus had used a transmission, but nothing about it was furtive.
"Demon Ancestor, this way please." Arcturus walked a few paces ahead with his back bent, guiding him.
Whenever Soren caught up, he hurried forward and got back into the same posture.
He led him all the way down into the vaults beneath the Imperial Palace.
The reason he’d stripped off every scrap of temper a beast should own, and all the dignity of an Upper-Tier Beast Emperor, was that he understood one thing better than anyone here.
His own fate, and the fate of the Sky Sparrow Beast Tribe, was about to change entirely because of this man.
Near the end of the corridor, Arcturus risked a question. "Demon Ancestor, have you... found a lead on the Nether Pearl?"
Soren gave a light "Mn."
Arcturus’s face lit up with open ecstasy. he got several times more attentive after that, reminding Soren the corridor walls were damp and might carry dust, urging him not to soil his robes.
Spotting cobwebs strung across a bend ahead, he sprinted forward and swept the path clean with his own sleeves.
Then he stepped aside and waited for Soren to pass.
"Demon Ancestor, watch your step, there’s standing water here."
"Hehehe, nobody’s been down in ages, only the elders and I know about this place, so we’ve let the cleaning slide, please don’t take offense."
"Oh! Mind your head, Demon Ancestor, the ceiling drops here!"
Watching all this bowing and scraping, Soren wasn’t put off, he found it funny, he knew what Arcturus was after.
Trust and goodwill, and a share of whatever came out of the Kun-Heaven Nether Sea.
Back in the main hall, when Arcturus handed him tea, Soren’s fingertips had brushed the man’s wrist.
So he already had the encyclopedia data, Arcturus’s relationship tier read Obedient and Submissive.
It sat there instead of Strangers Meeting by Chance purely because Soren’s strength terrified him too much to disobey.
Soren needed capable hands at this stage.
As long as Arcturus had no treachery in him, winning him over wouldn’t be hard, and Soren fully intended to keep him.
The strategy logs were refreshingly plain.
Entering the Kun-Heaven Nether Sea and lifting the tribal bloodline was the Sky Sparrow Tribe’s core obsession.
It was Arcturus’s own obsession too, let him take part in the endeavor start to finish, or simply elevate the bloodline tier of Arcturus and the tribe, either strategy worked on its own, both at once would speed things up considerably.
"Demon Ancestor, I am willing to lead the entire Sky Sparrow Tribe in swearing absolute fealty to you!"
"We will serve as your hounds and horses!"
"We will give everything we have, our lives included!"
Pretty enough words, with outsiders Soren never cared what came out of their mouths, he looked at the tier on the Strategy Encyclopedia.
That was the only honest number.
Arcturus had lit Obedient and Submissive, and it was a very long way from Following to the Death.
Deep Affection and Righteousness still stood between him and Absolute Loyalty.
Put someone stronger than Soren in front of this man right now and he’d bend like grass in wind.
Still, winning people took a process. Not everyone escalated at Celeste’s insane pace.
"You have a considerate heart," Soren said.