Chapter 95
The tower held the Heaven Demon Ancestor and the Earth Demon Ancestor again, nobody else.
They turned to the other matter.
The Heaven Demon Ancestor waved a hand and a multi-colored map unrolled in the air.
The two stood with hands behind their backs, studying it, dense ranges, rivers, terrain.
Above all that, stars arranged to answer the ground below.
One red dot pulsed on the map.
The second their eyes landed on it, the gloom of losing the Blood Demon Ancestor fell off both of them.
They looked half feverish.
"Finding it cost us an obscene amount of time."
"That seal has stood for nearly two hundred thousand years."
"Something’s sealed under it, an Ancestor Realm expert."
"Our operatives have gathered what they could, and their assessment is..."
"...an Upper-Tier Spirit Ancestor."
Upper-Tier, to these two, that height was something you looked up at and dreamed about.
Both were only Middle-Tier Demon Ancestors.
And an Upper-Tier Spirit Ancestor lay under that barrier, you could work out the value yourself.
Originally the only targets had been demon race ruins and treasures, blood essence, Ancestor bones, demonic weapons left behind by the fallen.
Feed the relics into the sacrificial furnace and the energy piles up toward waking the Ancient Evil God tribe, Spirit race artifacts had never been on the list.
This seal was the exception.
They had no choice but to treat it as highest priority.
The Upper-Tier Spirit Ancestor under it was alive, gathering strength, waiting for the day the seal cracked.
The barrier had been laid by an Upper-Tier Ancestor Realm powerhouse, brutally solid, touch it carelessly and you were gone in the same breath.
But two hundred thousand years was two hundred thousand years.
The seal had loosened, its suppression wasn’t absolute anymore.
Apply the right disruption from outside and it should crack.
Their goal was plain enough, break the seal, use special methods to bring that Upper-Tier Spirit Ancestor to heel, and drag the Heavenly Demon Alliance’s strength onto a whole new level.
The plan to wake the Ancient Evil God tribe was closing on its final stage.
And the Immemorial Ruins were about to open.
If the Alliance could pull top-tier demon treasures from the Ruins and feed them into the sacrificial furnace, the awakening could happen outright.
Half a year until the ruins opened, they’d stay open for two years after that.
Two and a half years, with nothing allowed to go wrong.
No stray variables, and no surprises, which made raising the Alliance’s combat power a step they couldn’t skip.
Both understood perfectly that an Upper-Tier Ancestor Realm expert wouldn’t be led around by the nose, but the thing under the seal was confirmed as a Spirit Ancestor.
So they’d borrow Soren’s own trick, the one he’d pulled on Orathis.
Hit it before it recovered its peak strength, force a blood contract through, two Middle-Tier Demon Ancestors binding it together.
And make the thing kneel.
A blood contract laid by one person could be fought off.
Two people casting it together left no room to fight.
The thing worked on the soul itself.
The Upper-Tier Spirit Ancestor could be unwilling a thousand times over, ten thousand times over, and still end up leashed, still end up part of their strength.
To be sure of it, the two had prepared more than a way to crack the seal.
There was a forbidden pill too, one that would drag the Spirit Ancestor’s power down for a while.
Soren and Lysara cut across the Moonveil Human Domain at full speed.
Caspar trailed behind, sealed inside a sphere of demonic energy.
When it clicked that Soren was heading for the mountain village where he’d spent more than half his life, Caspar went cold all through.
He hadn’t been a match for that fiend to begin with.
Now the fiend had stepped into the Ancestor Realm, the only publicly known Ancestor Realm powerhouse on the Exalted Continent, he could do whatever his mood suggested and nobody could stop him.
Caspar was drowning in regret over letting Neal talk him into it.
That useless trash had been no help whatsoever, then, to save his own hide, he’d gone belly-up at Soren’s feet like a dog.
He threw away the human race’s dignity, then turned around and butchered the leaders of every major faction himself.
Moonveil’s strength dropped through the floor in a single afternoon.
Not that Caspar had earned any right to sneer.
Domain Protector, the mysterious figure supposed to steer a domain through catastrophe, and here he was, a beaten prisoner floating along at Soren’s heel.
He was honestly envious of Basil, that old fox from the Cold Moon Palace.
Basil picked right, kept his life, and got handed the Moonveil Human Domain on top of it.
Caspar had stopped caring what Soren did with him.
What scared him was Soren taking it out on his granddaughter, a frail girl without the strength to truss a chicken.
My poor girl, blame your foolish grandfather, your grandfather did this to you.
If this fiend lays hands on you, how do I face your parents in the underworld?
Had I known, I’d have let them beat me to death before I came out of seclusion for Neal.
This demon is absurdly strong, what in the world do I do?
His frantic muttering carried right into Soren and Lysara’s ears.
Soren smirked, his voice drifted back over his shoulder.
"So you do know how to be afraid."
"Old thing, you didn’t hold back a scrap of mercy when you fought me, every sealing technique you owned."
"That Heaven-Burying Demon-Locking Bell especially, you nearly coughed up your last drop of blood essence to trap me in it, didn’t you?"
Caspar barked at him. "Fiend! If you have a grudge, take it out on me!"
"A man of your strength and standing, bullying a helpless girl! What kind of Lower-Tier Demon Ancestor does that? Aren’t you afraid the whole world will laugh at you when word gets out?"
Soren’s tone stayed level, his face went sinister.
"Old thing, that expression is my favorite thing about today, desperate to kill me, completely unable to."
"Rest easy, I’ll take very good care of your precious granddaughter."
"You just said three things I didn’t like, so once we get there, I’ll humiliate her three times to start."
"And from here on, every sentence out of your mouth I don’t like adds one more."