Chapter 113
Master must have lost his damn mind, he actually wants to try picking up my sister? That violent maniac can kill an Upper-Tier Demon Ancestor with one punch, are there really men suicidal enough to hit on her?
I wonder if Master will regret his whole life the moment he lays eyes on her.
Gasp!
Orathis clamped both hands around his throat again, an invisible grip closing on it.
Damn it, it’s back! Sis! I was joking, Sis! You’re the gentlest, most wonderful woman in the entire world!
Nearby, Celeste leaned against a pillar with her arms folded, brows drawn tight.
First Lysara’s bizarre reaction, now the dragon having a seizure by himself, her face went solemn.
Why do I feel like everyone around Soren is weirder than the last?
It’s revolting, apart from me there isn’t a normal person here, sigh. I wonder when he’ll be back.
I really want to give him a son.
Soren and Bruce had left Black Dragon Mountain and were running for the Great Desolate Beast Domain, tearing the void and crossing through spatial rifts.
Over a dozen domains lay between them and their destination, for a Lower-Tier Demon Ancestor, cross-domain teleportation cost nothing.
The boundary barriers Upper-Tier Emperor Realm experts had raised over their territories offered no resistance to an Ancestor.
Every domain he crossed, he left panic in his wake.
The masters of the Imperial Palaces got it worst.
The moment they felt Ancestor Realm coercion settle over their land, saying they sank into their thrones and couldn’t get up would not be an exaggeration.
Soren never lingered, so their hearts eventually climbed back down out of their throats, none of them could work out why.
What was the point of those brief descents over their lands?
A dozen or so Imperial Palace masters sat on pins and needles, guessing frantically, emergency domain conferences were called on the spot.
Almost every one landed on the same conclusion, Soren was sending a hint.
They’d all heard what happened to the Endless Demonic Domain and the Moonveil Human Domain.
His ambitions were common knowledge across the continent by now, getting swallowed was a question of when.
That day was the most agonizing stretch of deliberation those Imperial Palace masters had ever endured.
Every one of them paced their grand halls with a grim face.
Waiting wasn’t an option, the hint was too obvious.
Keep resisting and they’d end up cannon fodder like Neal.
Between an Ancestor and an Emperor lay the distance from sky to dirt.
Who was tired enough of living to test that?
In one domain, a white-haired old domain master pointed a shaking finger at the commanders around him.
"Quick! Send riders to Black Dragon Mountain!"
"Tell them our domain submits voluntarily!"
"We pledge absolute loyalty to Demon Ancestor Soren!"
The commander looked terrified and cupped his hands. "We can’t get through, Great Emperor, there’s a bizarre soundwave formation around Black Dragon Mountain, outsiders like us can’t set foot inside."
Then what do we do?
Another elder spoke up. "Great Emperor, I’ve heard that after Demon Ancestor Soren conquered the Endless Demonic Domain, he handed the whole territory over to the Fairy Great Demon Emperor of the Violet Jade Immortal Domain."
"And rumors have been drifting into our Cold Stone Demonic Domain lately..."
"...that the Fairy Great Demon Emperor holds a second identity, Grand Mistress of Black Dragon Mountain."
"Since we can’t enter Black Dragon Mountain, why not try our luck at the Endless Demonic Domain?"
"If we’re lucky enough to get an audience with her, we’ve made formal contact with Black Dragon Mountain."
"Good! Good! Excellent plan!" the old domain master said.
"Don’t be stingy! Bring out our finest tributes and treasures, show the Fairy Great Demon Emperor every respect."
"Understood, Great Emperor!"
They couldn’t meet Soren, they could meet his woman.
Get on the Fairy Great Demon Emperor’s good side and the rest follows.
It was an ordeal they had to walk into, rumor said Soren was ruthless and tyrannical, those who submitted prospered and those who resisted died.
Voluntary surrender was the only road out, otherwise they could sit and wait for him to take their land and put everyone to the sword.
Had Soren stayed at the Emperor Realm, that dozen or so domain masters might have found the nerve to fight him to the end.
Emperors among Emperors, after all, every one of them a proud hegemon in his own right.
Why take orders from Soren? Settle it in a fight and be done with it.
But he wasn’t a Demon Emperor anymore, he was a Demon Ancestor.
A Demon Ancestor could overturn the sky and swallow the earth, and nothing could be done about it.
Whatever courage they’d been holding onto went out of them.
Besides, bending the knee didn’t look like it carried many downsides right now.
For the various Great Emperors it meant stepping down from first in their domain to second.
If they moved early, got familiar with the leadership before the crowd, made themselves the very first batch to surrender, who knew? They might be valued, they might be handed real responsibility.
Soren had only ever been going to the Great Desolate Beast Domain.
He was passing through those other territories, nothing more, the dozen or so Imperial Palace masters had done all the imagining themselves.
They weren’t his target at all, but whenever he surfaced in a domain, he didn’t bother pulling his Ancestor Realm coercion back in.
Them being frightened out of their wits was well within expectations.
The Great Desolate Beast Domain.
The Beast Domain held a rich spread of beast tribes, and the strongest was the Sky Sparrow Tribe.
They ruled the place, headed by an Upper-Tier Beast Emperor, their own tribe and every other beast tribe took orders from them.
Of the four major races, Human, Demon, Spirit, and Beast, the Beast race was the odd one out.
They were the Spirit race turned inside out.
Ordinary beasts wore their beast forms, which was their primitive state.
Only at the Emperor Realm could they take human shape.
And when a beast went human, it compressed all the bloodline power and energy of that enormous original body into a frame the size of a man.
Which multiplied the explosive force of the body many times over.
Beast race bodies were the strongest of the four races, and human form didn’t cost them that.