An elder across from Ryu and seated on the same level as Thera and the others stood to his full height. Although he was quite willowy, his height was tall and his posture was surprisingly firm. His face, though, was covered in odd dark spots that didn't quite seem natural. Ryu, though, who had been in Sacrum's Nether Realm before, recognized these spots.
They exuded a hint of Nether Qi and was most definitely a sign of poisoning. Though, it didn't seem that this elder's life was in danger, which was interesting.
In truth, he had also been a hint surprised that the Dream Asura Race wanted to return to the Nether Realm though his face didn't show it. And that was because they had spent so long away from it that there was simply no way their bodies were still perfectly adjusted to the environment. Just looking at this elder, it was quite clear that he was very much correct.
It took quite a deal of effort to deal with Nether Qi if you weren't acclimated to it, but the current Dream Asura Race didn't have much of a choice. It was either they succeed in this endeavor, or they give up their lives to the higher Heavens of the True Martial World.
To them, it was clearly better to give up their homes and protect a genius with an Ancient Dao than it was to give up Mae.
Ryu's gaze flickered. Indeed, although he didn't have much patience for it, the rage of the Dream Asura Race toward him wasn't entirely unwarranted. Of course, he still didn't care very much about it, he wasn't a person who was very sympathetic to begin with even if his enemies were in the right, let alone the fact they were very much wrong about him being a cripple.
"As descendants of the Dream Wraiths, we are given a great deal of face in the Nether Realm. Our return has been accepted, but there are many stipulations.
"The first is that we can only settle on the Fourth Nether Plane at the highest."
There were some murmurings, but this wasn't unacceptable. The True Nether Realm had Nine Planes just like the True Martial World. Being able to settle on the Fourth wasn't too bad, and it could be considered that they had indeed been given quite a bit of face. They were only on the Fifth Heaven of the True Martial World to begin with, and they were used to treating the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Heavens as basically one entity. The gap between them wasn't very large.
"The second is that we may only bring 10 million descendants."
While many were still calmly accepting the first proposal, this made all of their expressions change drastically.
10 million sounded like a large number, but for a Clan of their size, this was impossibly small. Just take the officials in this room as an example, there were already almost 100 000 of them present here, if each of them only had 100 family members, that was already the 10 million quota met.
Of course, things weren't that simple and many present were actually family with one another, but they were still only the highest echelons of society. Their main Clans, their branch Clans, their subordinates, their children, their children's children....
Cultivators of their level had lived for a very long time. Many even had great, great, great grandchildren with grandchildren of their own. Their individual family members were easily well over 100 each.
And that didn't even count the fact that there were many without the status necessary to be here who had extended families of their own.I think you should take a look at
They might not care about these people normally, but they were still the life blood of the Clan. They were the ones that helped the substructures of the Clan to stay afloat, they were the ones that manned their shops, farmed their food, mined their Qi Stones, managed their resources...
They allowed the upper class to remain the upper class. If they were suddenly cut away, then there would have to be a new lower class and many of them would have to foot the bill.
Their Clan numbered in the billions. Just the number of Sky Gods they had alone was counted in the millions and was probably over 10 million. How could they decide which Sky Gods got to go, and which of the fresh blood would be allowed to live?
This requirement was simply too heavy, but Elder Rayword wasn't even remotely finished.
"The third requirement is that we must pick out several Sky God women with remaining potential to marry into the surrounding Clans to establish ties."
The murmurings only grew louder and louder.
The logic of this was quite clear, it wasn't only a check and balance that protected them from the Dream Asura Clan, but it also helped the Dream Asura Race integrate with their world easier. After generations, just how many experts would have fallen in love with one another and married? Intermarrying was a common practice and there were many Dream Asuras who weren't perfectly pure blood as a result of this.
But even so, the idea of being forced to do this left a sour taste in their mouths, especially since the requirement was for the most astounding women among them.
"The fourth requirement is that our geniuses beneath the Sky God Realm will be sent to exchange pointers with their own for a year before returning."
If the murmurings were just that earlier, the ruckus was only growing now. Many older men and women had even been unable to control themselves, slamming a hand down on their armrests.
This was simply an open scheme.
Only sending 10 million? Marrying off their best daughters? Sending their children to "exchange pointers" for an entire year? They just wanted to swallow up their Dream Asura Race and absorb their Bloodline to increase their strength.
By the end of it all, what would be left of the Dream Asura race but a dispersed number of offspring with just a trace of their original Bloodline? Wasn't this too sinister?
"The fifth requirement is that we must allow the adjacent Clans and Sects to send in one descendant into our Samsara Wheel every year."
The meeting chamber exploded, the furious shouts of innumerable elders descending like a torrent.