Chapter 102
Caspar turned to stone, not a twitch out of him.
Celeste, have you lost your mind? What kind of shameless nonsense is coming out of your mouth?
Lysara pursed her lips, visibly unhappy, Celeste caught it instantly.
She turned toward Lysara with her eyes squeezed into a smile, wearing the posture of somebody who’d already won.
Celeste could tell, Lysara liked Soren.
She could also tell the two of them were nowhere near as close as actual lovers.
Lysara huffed coldly and said nothing, she waited until Celeste looked away, then sent Soren a private transmission.
"Why did Master become Dao companions with a woman you’ve known a few days?"
"Lysara wouldn’t dare ask for anything extravagant, I simply don’t understand."
"And as for what she said about giving birth to a son or a daughter..."
"...I can do that too..."
Soren said nothing, he gave her a look and left her to work it out herself.
Lysara dropped the impractical thought and lowered her head. "Lysara has made this same low-level error again and again, forgetting her own place, I beg Master to punish me."
"I’ll let it go this time, there won’t be a second."
Her tier hadn’t climbed from Absolute Loyalty to Following to the Death yet, so keeping her under pressure still had a purpose.
That last tier was clearly the hardest of all, shock and suppression had stopped producing results, he’d have to wait for something to resonate.
"No, Master absolutely must not let it go!" Lysara insisted.
"Today Lysara dared to entertain fantasies, tomorrow I might dare to dream of becoming Master’s Dao Companion, or of monopolizing Master, so I beg Master to crush the tendency in the cradle."
Soren felt like today’s Lysara was off, something about her behavior was strange, and he couldn’t put a finger on what.
"I said I’m sparing you this time."
Lysara pursed her crimson lips. "Since when did Master become so merciful? Aren’t you afraid Lysara will commit a worse error next time?"
Now he was sure, she was behaving bizarrely.
He shot her a look, that single glance dumped a berserk, crushing pressure over her.
Lysara made a muffled sound, her knees went.
She hit the ground on one of them, unable to lift her head under the weight.
Soren controlled the coercion down to the inch, keeping it off Celeste and Caspar entirely.
Their whole exchange had been telepathic, so nobody else knew a word of it.
Which left Celeste and Caspar completely baffled by the sudden show of force.
They stared at Lysara kneeling in the dirt, eyes twitching, with no idea what she’d done to earn it.
Blood holes burst open across her body, and web-like tears ripped through her skin.
That was Ancestor Realm coercion, and it was one-tenth of what Soren had, keep going and she’d have come apart, or gone up as fine red mist.
A Lower-Tier Human Emperor was nothing before a Lower-Tier Demon Ancestor.
An Ancestor didn’t even need to raise a hand, a tenth of the pressure would take an Emperor’s life.
The point was a warning, so Soren stopped well short.
The Extreme Yin Holy Body was extraordinary, sure, but its recovery time scaled with how bad the damage was.
Her divine soul wouldn’t perish and her Dao body wouldn’t scatter, and she’d heal eventually as long as the soul held, eventually could be a very long time, what would Soren get out of that?
He’d already run the numbers, pushing her further through fear wasn’t going to move the needle, he needed an emotional resonance, and that would come when it came.
Soren pulled the pressure back and Lysara sagged onto the ground.
That feeling, a mountain grinding down on her spine, was not something anyone forgot.
"Thank you, Master." She gathered herself, fought through the numbness, got up slowly, and took her place behind him without a word.
She did look down at the torn, bleeding wounds across herself, and her expression was hard to read.
The tip of her tongue touched the corner of her mouth.
A faint arc lifted there, gone before anyone caught it, not the kind of thing an ordinary man notices.
Soren took Lysara and Celeste out of the Moonveil Human Domain and went straight back to Black Dragon Mountain.
Celeste greeted every single person she came across with enormous enthusiasm, like she’d been suffocating in that mountain village for far too long, her greetings ran a bit peculiar, though.
She always opened by introducing her intimate relationship with Soren.
Then she’d add that she was destined to be the first woman to bear him a son or daughter, and that she’d be producing the highest count of descendants by a wide margin.
Terrified of what else might come out of her, Soren cut her loose to wander on her own and went with Lysara to check on the others.
Orathis came bounding over to flatter him, got a few words into it, misspoke, and took a boot that launched him across the grounds.
The dragon crashed into the ancient forest outside the clan, legs twitching, eyes rolled back.
Bruce had broken through to Lower-Tier Demon Emperor on the Nirvana Pill Ethel refined, he got his thanks out first, then reported on what Ethel had been doing.
She’d gone with Arnold to the Violet Jade Immortal Domain’s Commerce guild, traded for every medicinal herb they needed, and finished refining the specialized elixir for Jared.
That done, the two left in a hurry, saying they had to get the Alchemy Pavilion set up as fast as possible.
They were headed for a location Guild Leader Elvis of the Violet Jade commerce guild had told them about.
By his account, a secluded tribe of pure-blooded Spirit race lived in that little-known region.
A Spirit tribe with a serious gift for alchemy.
Recruit them to Black Dragon Mountain and the Alchemy Pavilion could be stood up in the shortest time possible, vaulting it straight to being the largest alchemy faction on the entire Exalted Continent.
Soren went quiet, thinking.
Arnold and Ethel having a clear objective was good.
Two Upper-Tier Venerable Realm powerhouses walking into the territory of a reclusive pure-blooded Spirit tribe to recruit them was another matter, bit impulsive, wasn’t it?
Getting the Alchemy Pavilion running fast was desirable, rushing it invited complications.
Forget it, Arnold wasn’t reckless, and Soren had faith in how the old man handled things.