Chapter 227: Enigmatic Smile
In the middle of the journey, once everyone had finally calmed down and relaxed, Priam made a small wave with his hand.
"Sorry for the wait. You can come out now."
In the blink of an eye, Mirra jumped out of her inner space and landed gracefully on the deck. The moment she appeared, she let out a grumpy huff, turned her face away, and refused to even look at Priam.
Priam frowned in confusion.
She looked genuinely upset.
"Hey, I had to introduce you to everyone properly. Don’t be so hard on me," Priam muttered, but Mirra remained completely stubborn.
Letting out a quiet sigh, Priam turned toward the adults, only to find utterly horrified expressions on their faces.
Orlaith and Boey immediately recognized the overwhelming aura of a Primordial Chaos Beast. As for Seien, she instinctively felt an immense pressure and danger radiating from the tiny creature.
And the bloodline flowing through that little cub was unmistakable...
"Yeah... she’s their Divine Daughter," Priam confirmed.
The instant those words left his mouth, all the color drained from Orlaith’s and Boey’s faces.
During the time they had lived with the Pyrix race, they had heard all about the Aether-Wood Deer and knew exactly what had happened afterward.
The Divine Child’s egg had simply vanished without leaving a trace, triggering a bloody civil war and a relentless investigation throughout the entire race.
Every allied clan had been devastated by the searches.
The Ylisse Clan, on the other hand, hadn’t suffered much, since they were nothing more than weak slaves.
Besides, they had already lost everything.
"Meow?"
Mirra tilted her head curiously at the adults’ exaggerated reaction.
Priam continued,
"I formed a contract with her using our Ancestral Art. Luckily, I managed to help her hatch earlier than she normally would have. I’ve been taking proper care of her ever since..."
Seien covered her mouth in disbelief.
"My son... adopted a Chaos Beast as his daughter?"
Priam sighed but didn’t deny it.
He had never seen Mirra as just a pet or a tool. She was his partner—someone he had promised to protect and care for.
In practice, she really was like a daughter to him.
"So cute!!" Suien exclaimed excitedly, staring at the fluffy little kitten with her bright green eyes sparkling.
Even Meien, who was usually more reserved, couldn’t take her eyes off Mirra, clearly wanting to pet her.
"You can play with her. The Flying Ship will keep heading to our destination on its own," Priam said.
The twin sisters immediately smiled and slowly approached.
At first, Mirra gave the two little girls a suspicious look.
But it didn’t take long for the ice to break.
Soon, the three of them were running all over the deck together, happily playing.
Taking advantage of the children being distracted, Priam walked over to the adults.
His gaze settled on Orlaith, whose expression revealed painful anxiety—after all, she didn’t even know whether her two children were still alive.
Priam began recounting everything that had happened since they were separated.
He left out the bloodiest and most gruesome details, but everything else was the truth.
The three of them listened with their hearts in their throats.
They were horrified to learn that the group hadn’t remained under the Thunderhead Sect’s protection, and that Priam had boldly chosen to head for the southern region of the Divine Plane—a place infamous for being mercilessly dangerous.
Seien turned pale upon learning that her race’s treasure had fused with another relic of the same origin that Priam already possessed, becoming the decisive pass that allowed him to be accepted into his new sect as a Super Genius.
The hearts of all three began pounding when they heard that the four young people had not only become official disciples, but had already established a faction of their own.
The biggest shock came when Priam revealed the timeline.
For him and the others, only a single year had passed since they left.
"Anyway... ever since we left, we’ve never stopped working hard. Everyone’s doing well and staying safe," Priam said calmly.
"I reached the Mage Master realm in just this one year. I’m only one Rank away from becoming a Sage and qualifying for the Inner Sect examination. I promise it won’t take long."
Boey, Seien, and Orlaith swallowed hard in stunned silence.
They had expected it would take him at least one or two hundred years before he’d even have a remote chance of accomplishing something like that.
Hearing those words directly from Priam made everything feel like an impossible dream...
Yet somehow, one that could actually come true.
...
...
...
Half a day later, they reached their destination planet.
The trip had been a little slower, since channeling the energy of an Orange Prism was considerably less efficient than using the Divine Plane’s navigation crystals.
It wasn’t a matter of the material’s energy, but rather the type of energy being used.
The Flying Ship entered the atmosphere without any trouble.
Before landing, Priam activated the ship’s concealment mechanism, hiding its aura and making it appear to be nothing more than an ordinary flying ship to the locals.
The moment they landed on the arrival platform, he stored the ship inside his spatial ring and walked toward the border guards.
The entrance fee for that planet was absurdly expensive.
Visitors either had to pay with rare coins or hand over treasures to be appraised by senior experts.
Without the slightest concern, Priam casually took out an extremely ordinary medicinal herb from his inventory—something he had enormous quantities of.
However, because it had come from the Divine Plane, the density of the energy contained within it was unimaginably high by Mortal Plane standards.
Its mere presence nearly made the appraisal Mages faint from shock.
Filled with panic and reverence, the officials immediately issued residence identities valid for more than five years to the entire group, then even returned an astronomical amount of money as change.
Priam walked forward alongside the adults while carrying Suien and Meien in his arms.
The two little girls were fast asleep, completely exhausted after spending so long running around the deck.
The entire planet looked like a gigantic, dazzling metropolis.
Every street was perfectly maintained, radiating wealth and luxury.
After looking around, Boey hesitantly suggested finding a modest inn on the outskirts of the city.
Priam rejected the idea immediately.
They were going straight to the very heart of the planet—the most prestigious district there was.
And they weren’t going there to rent a place.
They were going to buy the finest property available.
That was the best guarantee of safety.
Showing themselves as an unbelievably wealthy and powerful group would make any Mage think twice before bothering them or questioning where they came from.
They walked toward the most luxurious district in the city center.
In the distance, Priam spotted an enormous estate—the grandest and most majestic mansion in the entire metropolis.
Without hesitation, he headed straight for the golden gates, while Boey and Orlaith followed behind with their hearts pounding.
"STOP!" two cold-faced guards ordered, stepping forward.
Priam merely snorted and released a faint ripple of Ether from his body.
"!"
The guards felt an overwhelming force slam into both their bodies and souls, as though they had been struck by a divine hammer.
They froze in place, paralyzed with terror.
Priam didn’t take another step.
He simply stood there, waiting.
Barely ten seconds later, a streak of lightning tore through the air, shooting out from deep inside the estate at astonishing speed.
The electricity faded, revealing a tall elderly man whose body was still crackling with arcs of blue lightning.
Priam looked at him with a calm smile.
Another average-level Mage Master.
"WHO ARE YOU?!" the old man roared, his electrified aura surging around him.
He had felt the crushing pressure radiating from Priam from miles away and instantly realized that a monster had appeared at his doorstep.
Priam gave a small wave.
"It doesn’t matter who I am. You were once a disciple of a Divine Plane sect too, just like I am."
"What do you want?" the old man asked, his arrogant tone dropping considerably.
Indeed, he had less than a hundred years left to live, which was why he had returned to the Mortal Plane to spend his final years with his descendants.
Priam smiled.
"I want to buy your estate. I like this place."
The old man narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
Before he could even refuse, Priam flicked his wrist and tossed a Spatial Ring toward him.
The old man caught it and gave its contents a dismissive glance...
Then his pupils instantly shrank in absolute shock.
Inside the ring were five Orange Prisms.
Although he had once belonged to a sect, he had never managed to reach the Sage realm. He had long since been demoted to a servant before eventually growing old.
For someone in his position, even obtaining a single Red Prism had been an enormous struggle.
An Orange Prism was worth a thousand times more!
Those five Prisms were worth more than all the wealth he had accumulated and brought back to the Mortal Plane.
The mansion itself wasn’t even worth five Red Prisms.
Currency from the Divine Plane was nearly impossible to obtain in the Mortal Plane, making its value there practically immeasurable.
Only a handful of powerful factions possessed any at all, and only because they had traded enormous amounts of resources with people from the Divine Plane.
"Do we have a deal, Senior?" Priam asked in a calm, smooth voice.
The old man broke into a huge grin.
"Absolutely, my young brother! I’ll move my family out immediately!"
Without hesitating for even a second, he turned around and rushed back into the mansion at top speed.
Behind Priam, Boey, Orlaith, and Seien watched everything unfold in complete silence, wondering what kind of surreal madness they had just witnessed.
---
When the twins finally woke up from their deep sleep, the family had already settled into the grandest and most luxurious mansion on the entire planet.
They gathered for a warm, lavish meal.
Afterward, Mirra and the two little girls were allowed to run around and play throughout the estate’s enormous gardens.
The property was gigantic, surrounded by extremely high-level protective Inscriptions and guarded day and night.
The planet itself was already a safe haven, but the inside of that mansion had become the most impregnable place in the entire Mortal Plane.
Priam enjoyed three uninterrupted days of absolute peace with his family.
Feeling the tranquility of home restored his energy in a way nothing else ever had.
After all, happiness was incredibly simple.
Why did living beings insist on ruining themselves in bloody battles where life and death hung by a thread?
Within that peaceful metropolis, Priam experienced a serenity unlike anything he had ever felt before, as though the burden of endless fighting had simply vanished.
Still, he kept his feet firmly on the ground.
He knew this peaceful break was only temporary.
Soon enough, he would have to dive back into the chaotic storm once again.
During those three days, however, one particular detail began to puzzle him.
His mother kept bringing up the same topic over and over.
At first, Seien always found an excuse to ask about the people he had met in the Divine Plane, showing an almost obsessive curiosity about whether anyone had caught his attention.
Completely oblivious, Priam answered honestly every single time, listing the sect’s most outstanding geniuses and companions.
But the moment he mentioned Dandara’s name, Seien’s expression changed instantly.
From that point on, every single question centered around one person:
Dandara.
Priam told her everything he knew about the girl, yet his mother’s questions never seemed to end.
Finding out that the young woman possessed half of the bloodline of Seien’s own race had already been an enormous surprise.
But what truly caught her attention was the way Priam talked about her.
Whenever he mentioned Dandara, Priam’s voice would unconsciously soften ever so slightly.
His eyes would take on a warm glow that he himself never noticed.
To a mother, that subtle change was as obvious as the sun in the sky.
Seien immediately realized that this young woman was different in her son’s heart.
Without understanding why his mother kept asking such detailed questions about Dandara’s likes, personality, and habits, Priam continued answering innocently.
Yet every time he looked at Seien, he could see a knowing, deeply amused sparkle in her eyes, along with an enigmatic smile that left him completely confused.