"You are always concerned with your cultivation and do not pay enough attention to the outside world. The affairs of the Clan have been handled by me for a long time already." Sacia continued to speak calmly, her explanation patient. "The appearance of the Martial Gods has caused a lot of the status quo to change, we can't be as willful as we have been previously."
The Faerie King stared toward his wife a long while, but the words Martial Gods seemed to dampen his mood considerably.
"What do you suggest, then?"
Sacia smiled lightly, her pale face gaining some color. She was truly mesmerizing in this current state.
"Send the little ones after their aunt." Sacia replied plainly. "They need to be properly trained for the coming tide regardless. The Mercenary Guild is as good a place as any."
The Faerie King sat back down, another budding flower magically forming beneath him.
After some thought, he nodded. The little ones didn't need to defeat their aunt, they only needed to lay eyes on her and deal with her Life Partner. After this, it would be far easier to find out exactly where they were. Then, they wouldn't have to rely on the Mercenary Guild any longer.
"Call Rollaith and Sanreth over."
Not long later, two young men were escorted into the meditation room, their eyes wide with curiosity and apprehension. Elafaren's sons, daughters and wives might have been bold enough to charge right into his meditation rooms, but the youths separated by a few generations didn't dare to be so bold.
To them, the Faerie King was like a living legend. They might not even get the chance to meet him until they stepped into the Dao Pedestal Realm. But, even then, they wouldn't have expected him to be aware of their names.
Of course, what the two young men didn't know was that the Faerie King was very doting of his family. He kept a distance from his grand children not because he didn't love them, but because there would always reach a point where it was impossible for him to give them all the same love and affection.
As such, it was an unspoken rule that the Faerie King would only interact with his direct line descendants so as not to show any favoritism.
That said, the Faerie King was quite unique in this aspect. Many took the same path as him for vastly different reasons. To them, getting to know family members too far removed from them was a waste of time. After enough generations, they were hardly even related any longer.
But, clearly, the Faerie King didn't fall into this camp unlike Ryu's great grandfather. It could be said that the only reason that Primus knew Ryu's name was firstly because Sky Gods had infallible memories. He would have only needed to hear it once to never forget it. And, secondly, the only reason he bothered to hear it in the first place was because Ryu was born with a Great Ancestral Circle level title, something incredibly rare through the Martial World.
Rollaith and Sanreth, though, were still among the most talented five of their generation. For them to reach such a standard within the Cultus Clan, their level of genius spoke for itself. To achieve this feat in such a family was akin to standing atop the Shrine Plane.
Despite both being less than 2000 years old, they had long since taken deep steps into the Immortal Ring Realm. Rollaith and Sanreth both were in the 3rd Immortal Ring Realm. And, unlike the pitiful Zu Clan members Ryu had met previously, each had formed Ancestral Grade Rings. Their strength was easily hundreds of times that of those Zu Clan members Ryu defeated.
Still, when they both heard of the task they were given, they couldn't help but hesitate. They too felt a fire light in their belly when they heard that their aunt had such baggage hanging onto her life, but…
"… Grandfather, are you sure that we are enough?" Sanreth spoke hesitantly. "Aunty's Life Partner should, at worst, be in the Dao Pedestal Realm. We're no match for him or her…"
Rollaith nodded in agreement.
"No. The only information we were able to glean was that this bastard is still a mortal and he is also young."
The two boys looked at each other, their expressions half filled with confusion and another determination. If their aunt's Life Partner was truly so weak, this wouldn't be a problem at all. However, they couldn't understand why there was such a difference in strength. The most fundamental law between Life Partners was that they would be born on the same day, at the same hour.
A billion year old mortal? That was impossible.
The Faerie King didn't bother to explain. Noble Faeries didn't usually seek out their Life Partners so they were ill informed on the subject. The more talented a Faerie, the more the rules bent. If a Faerie of Ailsa's talent was really born on the same day at the same hour as her Life Partner, if their intimacy reached the deepest level, the power the two could exhibit together would be Heaven rending.
As a result, the more talented a Faerie, the less compatibility they tended to have with their Life Partner. It was simply the way of the Heavens.
Of course, Elafaren had no idea that Ailsa and Ryu were indeed born on the same day at the same hour. Not only that, but it was the same minute and same second as well. Their blessings fell down in unison and they gifted the world with their first cries simultaneously.
Their partnership was simply unprecedented.
"Take these Soul Binding Formations. You only have to kill your Aunt's Life Partner a single time within Osiris and they will take effect. By then, there will be nowhere he can hide from us."
The two young men were shocked seeing such things handed to them. In order to bypass the formations that formed Osiris, these formations would have to be at the very peak of the Ancestral Grade at worst… The reality only made the seriousness of their mission truly settle in.
"Leave it to us, grandfather!"
**
Oblivious to all of these matters, Ryu dashed through a forest, trying to gain better control of his body. With his talent, he had already gone from 10% control all the way to 50% in just a few hours. He could tell that if he tried to use his corpse puppets now, his skill would be on a completely different level, he almost regretted not entering earlier.
But, as things went, the further you progressed, the more difficult more progress became. Ryu already felt that even reaching 51% might take several dozen minutes which was significantly slower than the past.
'The location should be up ahead. Just defeating a Sixth Order Beast, right…?'
Unfortunately, even as Ryu downplayed his task, his nerves were pulled tight. This was because before, the best Sixth Order Beast he had come across was of the Earth Grade.. This one, however… was of the Sovereign Grade.