"Ryu!"
Mae hurriedly caught up. Ryu's strides might have been long, but he wasn't moving very fast to begin with.
Ryu looked back and his gaze softened somewhat. He wasn't the type of person to fall for a woman just because he had bedded her, Isemeine was probably a prime example of that. But Mae putting her life on the line to ensure his success in the tower, although he hadn't really needed it, had moved him enough.
When Mae saw Ryu's gaze, she blushed somewhat.
"I'm sorry," Ryu said, "I'm just tired. How about you follow me to see Aika?"
Mae blinked. She was stunned for a moment. Did Ryu just apologize? The more she learned about Ryu, the more she felt that he wasn't exactly what she had originally assumed him to be. But rather than being put off, she found herself falling further and further. A cold man might initially be attractive, but spending the rest of your life with a man who was endlessly stoic wouldn't make for a fun time.
The more she realized that Ryu wasn't so rigid, the happier she felt. She too was presumed to be cold while not entirely being so.
"Oh, okay!" Mae nodded, blushing as Ryu grabbed her hand. Everything she did with Ryu felt like a first, if her fellow Dream Asura sisters could see her now they would probably laugh their tails off. Imagine a Dream Asura blushing because someone held her hand, she was such a disgrace.
Ryu took a step and vanished into the void.
Mae was somewhat caught off guard, she had never traveled through space like this. It felt almost like a cool breeze was gliding across her skin, but what was even more odd was that there was definitely no breeze. When crossing through space, there couldn't possibly be any wind.
When her vision cleared, she found herself in a beautiful oasis surrounded by mountains. But she was suddenly surprised by something else. A Dao Pedestal Realm junior could travel so far in space on the Fourth Heaven?
In that step, Ryu had crossed at least a kilometer with ease, and that didn't seem to be his limit either. If this was the Third Heaven, she could accept it, but the very fiber of the higher Heavens was on a completely different level.
"This..."
Mae blinked again, but feeling the warmth of Ryu's hand, she smiled before realizing there were people around them.
Up ahead, there was Samson, Old Wan, Selheira and finally Aika. They sat at a familiar table, seemingly sparring in another game of Domain, but this time they seemed to be analyzing a game, one that Selheira and Ryu had played.
Old Wan was the first to look over, his brows raising when he saw Mae.
"Hoho, bringing your little Dao Companion here," Old Wan looked toward Selheira and even somewhat subtly toward Aika, the latter of which was far too quick to spot to avoid another beating. "Bold choice, bold choice indeed. Respect."
Samson looked up with interest and immediately began to laugh as well.
"You pretty boys really have it easy, bold doesn't even begin to describe it. Look at that, they don't even look angry. Little Ryu, you have to teach me your ways, I'm so powerful and yet these women are still so unruly. How can a weakling like you-AH!"
Aika kicked Samson out of his chair, sending him flying into a mountain range in the distance.
Ryu smiled and shook his head. "Everyone, this is my wife, Mae."
Mae lowered her head in a greeting, regaining much of her usual demeanor. She seemed to realize that she wanted to put her best foot forward this time.
Old Wan opened his mouth to say something but was stifled by a glare from Aika.
"Come, come!" Aika waved. "We have much to discuss."
Aika didn't seem to mind, and Selheira smiled as she brought out another seat for Mae. As for the things they were going to discuss, it was likely that everyone else would soon learn about what was happening here anyway. The truth behind the Radiant Star Sect wasn't exactly a secret, it was just that these things had happened at a higher pay grade than these Clans and Sects could deal with.
Soon, they had situated themselves and Aika reclined up in a tree nearby, looking up into the skies. She had seemingly become far more serious than usually was.
"Old Wan, you explain, I've done enough today," Aika said.
Old Wan coughed. He had expected this, and he knew that this was probably the reason he didn't get kicked to oblivion this time either. Poor Samson was still trying to dig his way out.
"I'll try to keep this nice and simple, there's no need to overcomplicate things."
"The Radiant Star Sect was once a Sect of the Seventh Heaven. In fact, if we went deep enough, the Radiant Star Sect was once a Sect of the Eighth Heaven. However back then, we weren't the Radiant Star Sect, we were the Dual Radiance Star Sect."
"Unfortunately, due to some conflict, we split into the Radiant Star Sect and the Fading Star Sect. We weakened greatly after the split and were slowly pushed out of the Eighth Heaven and became probably the strongest existence on the Seventh Heaven."
"Problems tend to come in pairs, though, and the Fading Star Sect was obsessed with returning to the Eighth Heaven, not that I could blame them, and that required fusing the legacies of both Sects once again which would, of course, require assimilating us."
"We were evenly matched and could hold our own, but the values of the Fading Star Sect were more aligned with certain powerhouses, causing us to be schemed against in the shadows. In the end, much of our foundation was destroyed and were chased down the Sixth Heaven."
"It was too difficult to survive with the constant harassment, so we made the choice to scatter and many of us ended up on the First Heaven."
"The plan was to slowly rebuild and wait for a certain event. There are legends of luck cycling and certain geniuses being blessed enough to catch a wave from the First Heaven that leads them all the way up to the Ninth. Of course, it's not usually so exaggerated. Some of these geniuses come from the Third Heaven, some from the Fourth or Fifth, and some might only reach the Sixth or Seventh or Eighth, but with patience there could be some great rewards to claim.
"Unfortunately, Aika is impatient and now that she's the most powerful among us, she makes the decisions."
"The end."
Old Wan nodded, satisfied with his summary, but very soon an apple whizzed by and hit him in the head.
"Stop trying to con children, tell everything, in detail, and stop glossing over the danger."
Old Wan was too used to trying to con people. In truth, he had done well to con Ryu when they first met, even placing the latter in debt almost instantly. But Aika wasn't like that, she preferred the more straight forward approach, she wanted Selheira and Ryu to know exactly what they were getting into.
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