Chapter 14
Author: I tried something someone suggested and it worked, so the format is as it should be. Thanks Moitor!
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Bai Lingfei descended towards the mortal world like a fairy come from heaven. Her feet stepped lightly upon a silvery longsword. She looked down upon the tall skyscraper with indifference.
It’s here, She thought grimly. The anomaly.
She’d been searching for more than three weeks already, going all over the world. This was no exact science and the anomaly’s presence flared up and drifted out into the universe. It had taken much effort to track it.
However tears nearly welled in her eyes as she realized that it’s origin had been right underneath her home city all this time. This was strange to her. It was almost as if someone had been purposely throwing her off the trail from the beginning. But finally, after painstaking effort, she traced the energy signature of the impurity to somewhere in this mortal city underneath Azure District. That was the name of the floating landmass that was her home.
There were many districts around this small mortal world. Azure District is where many of the local noble clans were located. Local meaning the cultivators within the galaxy they currently inhabited.
Lingfei’s brows furrowed. Were it not for this planet holding a newly-discovered World Treasure, they wouldn’t even be here. Years ago they’d sensed an evolution from the planet, a great discharge of energy that alerted all the great clans.
They recognized it for what it was: A top-grade World Treasure.
The various clans had rushed to the planet to claim it for themselves. Wars were fought off-world and many died from every side. It was thanks to her Grandfather’s strength as a half-step Divine Flame realm cultivator that their Bai clan had been the ones to win in the end.
This was their planet now, and only they held sovereignty here. This meant the other clans could only hold themselves back. Not that they could do anything but. Her Grandfather had always been the most powerful of his generation since ages past. He may have been in secluded cultivation for a long time, but the appearance of the World Treasure prompted his return. With him here, the noble clans wouldn’t dare act out.
But this was a dangerous time for her Grandfather. Assimilating with the World Treasure and using it to ignite his Divine Flame was proving difficult and time consuming. He could have ascended long ago, but he had wanted the perfect fuel. His goal was to break the sky. To merge his will with the laws of their universe and break from it’s shackles, taking their clan to a greater, higher realm.
This was only possible with a sufficiently powerful Flame. None before her Grandfather had been so close to breaking the sky, so many waited with bated breath.
And still others wished for his failure. The noble clans in particular. They were content being big fish in a small pond, earning her Grandfather’s disdain.
Sadly, his difficulty in assimilating with the World Treasure also meant the rest of the clans may start having thoughts of attacking soon. It’d already been a couple hundred years since their arrival. Any longer and things got dangerous.
That’s why her mission was so important. This...impurity. It destabilized the Laws of their realm. The universe would not be adversely affected in itself, but this made it much harder for anyone to merge their will with the local Dao and attain cosmic awareness.
If the impurity persisted, the best case is her grandfather fails and falls back a cultivation realm or two Worst case is he succeeds but goes insane. A being with that much power going out of control, she hardly dared imagine the destruction they’d wreak.
Lingfei gathered her wandering thoughts and refocused on the task at hand.
She descended once more, her majestic robes fluttering in the wind. She was about to find this impurity and end it.
Following the black, eerie sense of wrongness, she came upon a small building near the center of the mortal settlement.
As she got closer her skin crawled. She paused. The air felt...different. She shifted her gaze, reaching out with her spiritual sense. A dozen miles in every direction were scanned but she found nothing abnormal.
After carefully examining the area once again, she slowly calmed down. Perhaps this unease was simply caused by the impurity. Nodding to herself, she entered the bakery.
The building was crowded. Dozens of men, and some women, were staring at a tall, beautiful woman with auburn hair who stood near a podium taking orders. She wore maid attire that was a bit short around the skirt. Lingfei surmised she was a main attraction of sorts. The woman did not serve the guests, but her look of disdain as she wrote down orders riled the customers into a frenzy.
Lingfei’s entrance caused no disturbance. She had activated an artifact that hid her presence and so she walked calmly into the store.
The wrongness led her to the kitchen. She saw two figures. One was another woman, also beautiful, with a motherly aura. Her light pink hair and purple highlights caught her attention, but only passingly. This was not her target.
It was him.
The boy.
Lingfei stared. And stared. For how long, she didn’t know. But there was something about the youth. Something different, special.
She raised a hand to her breast. Her heart, it was throbbing. Pounding against her chest so hard she thought it would burst outwards. She didn’t understand.
Lingfei swayed, catching herself leaning against a wall for support. It hurt. Why? Why did her heart hurt so? Was this some attack? Had he noticed her?
She glanced up just then and caught sight of the boy. Her breath stopped.
Those eyes….
….They trapped her.
Her arms reached out.
I need him. He’s mine. I--
Someone grabbed her. She was pulled upwards. Through stone and steel, made intangible. She found herself suspended by her arm, stared at menacingly by an imposing man with hair like night. But more terrifying than that were his wings. Ebony, dipped in red.
Her scalp went numb as she recognized the being before her. An Envoy….
“Another descendant, huh. That damn father of mine, he really is such a trouble-causing son of a slut.” Arcadia snorted. “I wonder if I should call you cousin? Though we barely share any blood, so maybe that’s not very accurate. Ah, whatever.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” His eyes, hidden behind his signature sunglasses, burned like coal. “You’re a bit too much for him to handle right now. And I can’t have you disturbing the balance, can I?”
“Don’t hurt me. Please.” Lingfei begged, her voice barely a whisper.
Cade shook his head. “The females always go crazy when they catch his aura. So, sorry. I can’t overlook this.”
He smiled.
Ah, uncle. You really were born under a bad star.
His brother is causing him headaches from a whole universe and two lives away.