Chapter 55
"I said, I have nothing to talk about with you!" Twin swords flashing, Soren stabbed forward.
And at that exact moment, from one of the Great Emperor Palace’s halls, several beams of demonic light shot into the sky.
Five mighty auras surged up between heaven and earth, every one of them Emperor-realm demonic might, every one an Upper-Tier Demon Emperor, not one inferior to Vorian.
It caught everyone flat-footed.
The five Upper-Tier Demon Emperors, bodies wreathed in demonic light, moved as one and lit up the void, massive formations crashed down like a collapsing sky, sealing Soren and Vorian both inside.
"Master, this is bad!" By the time Orathis saw it, it was too late, it lunged to fly in and pull Soren out, and in the next second a hammerblow of demonic energy slammed into its body, it plummeted, plowed through a swath of buildings, and lay still.
An imposing voice rolled out from one of the mysterious Demon Emperors. "We’ll deal with you later."
The five became streaks of black light and landed, one beside each of the five Emperor Palace Matriarchs.
The two on the outer edges each threw a single punch, and Vorian’s two old servants burst apart, dead before they understood what was happening.
Inside the array, Vorian stood bewildered, a number of questions on his face.
Soren came to a halt as well. "The Five Demons Heaven-Imprisoning Formation?"
"Aelyra, is this something you prepared in advance?"
"Who are they?" Vorian frowned at the Grand Matriarch beyond the formation, a faint sneer played at her mouth, and something about it sat very wrong.
Then a Demon Emperor beside her lifted her chin and stroked it three times.
Vorian’s mind reeled, blood roared up into his skull.
The Grand Matriarch, Aelyra, leaned into the Upper-Tier Demon Emperor’s arms of her own accord, laughing until she had to hold her stomach.
"Useless trash, you can’t even put down a Middle-Tier Demon Emperor."
"Forcing me to reveal my identity ahead of schedule."
"Though I truly didn’t expect the Heavenly Resentment Demonic Sword we’ve been hunting to be in the hands of your disappointing son, Soren"
"Now that we know where it is, it would be time to wrap things up even if Soren had never attacked the Palace."
"Once we take it, the mission is complete."
Vorian understood none of it, Soren narrowed his eyes, perfectly calm, trapped inside the Five Demons Heaven-Imprisoning Formation, he felt no panic at all.
If anything, matters had just become interesting.
"Aelyra, could it be that you... betrayed me?"
"No, it’s we." At her signal, the Second Matriarch, the Third, all of them waved their jade hands at Vorian in cheerful greeting.
Vorian felt clubbed across the skull, his thoughts detonated, trembling, he pointed from his five wives to the five Upper-Tier Demon Emperors he had never seen.
"You colluded long ago!?"
"Impossible!"
"Look at him, look how foolish he is" Aelyra laughed until she swayed.
"Since it’s come to this, there’s no harm telling you everything."
"Vorian, thank you for sparing no effort in raising Althea and the others."
"But"
"Althea, Duke, and the rest share not one drop of blood with you."
"Becoming Matriarchs of the Great Emperor Palace was only ever part of the mission."
Fury struck Vorian’s heart and he coughed blood that flew a full arm’s length, his lips shook violently.
Even Soren was somewhat stunned, is it really this melodramatic? Of the six Matriarchs, aside from my unfavored mother, the other five were all on a mission? And not a single son or daughter is actually Vorian’s?
The trashy novels I wrote in my past life wouldn’t dare go this far!
If the Grand Matriarch hadn’t confessed it herself, he’d have struggled to believe it on the spot.
Vorian collapsed outright, his world caved in, he had never dreamed the five people who shared his bed would betray him, or that they were one faction working in concert.
"Before you five married me, you pretended to be strangers, you knew each other all along!"
"Nonsense, the five of us are the same batch from the Heavenly Demon Alliance, burdened with the mission of finding the relics of the Demon Ancestor Nythera."
Heavenly Demon Alliance? Never heard of it... Soren frowned.
Whatever it was, its foundations clearly ran deep, if he remembered right, Aelyra had become Grand Matriarch more than five hundred years ago, she had hidden at Vorian’s side for centuries.
"With the Heavenly Resentment Demonic Sword in hand, we can accept the Demonic Rite of the Heavenly Demon Alliance and earn the qualification to enter an Immemorial Ruin."
"The Ruin opens once every hundred thousand years, it’s the chance at advancement we’ve dreamed of."
"The Great Emperor Palace was merely our foothold for the search."
"And you"
"You were nothing more than our assistant in locating the Demonic Sword."
"Oh, right, right"
"There’s one more very cruel reality I must tell you, very seriously."
Aelyra nestled against the chest of the Demon Emperor beside her, and the other Matriarchs did the same. "Demonic women who join the Heavenly Demon Alliance must bear sons and daughters for the Alliance’s Demon Emperors."
"Specialists then select the descendants with the highest cultivation value for special training."
"So, do you understand now?"
Vorian felt five bolts of lightning go through him at once, a chill driving straight into his heart, he coughed another mouthful of blood, his whole body sagging like a withered log.
Aelyra beamed on. "Althea, Duke, and the others knew nothing, of course, but we tested them long ago in secret, every one meets the Alliance’s conditions for cultivation."
"Next, we’ll trade them back out of Soren’s hands and bring them to the Heavenly Demon Alliance to continue their training."
"Vorian, you’re of no use anymore."
Soren couldn’t hold it in any longer, he didn’t even know whether to pity the man.
He had thought the old cowardly Soren being cuckolded was already a monumental insult, he never expected this, Vorian had been cuckolded five times over, by his entire harem.
Mind-blowing, absolutely mind-blowing.
Of six Matriarchs, the only one who genuinely loved him, Vorian had thrown into the Black Water Dungeon, his only biological son, he had disowned.
Search the whole Exalted Continent, no, search the entire Azure Spirit World, and you would not find a second scapegoat of this magnitude.