Ellaura and the Patriarch stood on a balcony high on the Clan Estate's walls. They looked down to see everyone off, their expressions quite serious.
If it was up to the Patriarch, he might have participated. But the reason he couldn't was because his Bloodline was far too close to Empana's. When the time came, this may ruin things on the other end. As a result of this, each of the Fifth Plane's strongest existences would only send forward who they most wanted to take the Birth Right for themselves while the remaining individuals would only be of the supporting cast.
Empana shot a glance toward his father but didn't say anything to him.
"General Jorlumin."
"Yes, Young Master!"
A strong, powerful man standing at almost three meters tall stepped forward. His steps alone seemed to cause the ground he walked upon to crackle and creak, his armor trembling and clanging as he walked.
"The troops will be under your charge, you will be responsible for making sure that they follow orders as swiftly as possible. We will be following this young man's lead, however he's not someone that the troops trust wholeheartedly, so this set up will make things run smoothly."
Jorlumin looked over toward Ryu, a great deal of pressure descending. He didn't seem to be doing it on purpose, but it was rather the weight of countless years of experience and even more dead bodies. Looking into Jorlumin's eyes made one feel as though they were swimming in a river of blood.
However, Ryu didn't say anything, remaining silent. He was all too used to these sort of strategic games. Not giving Ryu the ability to directly command these 10 000 or so elite troops was as good as putting a muzzle on him.
In Ryu's opinion, there'd probably come a time where Empana regretted this action, but there wasn't much that he could do about it. It was common sense that shorter lines of command were more efficient, especially when the numbers were as small as just a few thousand. Having to filter his words through Jorlumin first would cause problems.
That said, it was also impossible to expect Empana to do anything different.
Empana had planned to try to get to know Ryu some more over this past month, but who could have expected that Ryu would spend the entire time in seclusion without a care for the world? Let alone "enjoying the city", he didn't even enjoy the hallway out of his room.
This made Empana second guess what he understood about Ryu's character. He had thought that lanjor would only be friends with a certain kind of person, and Ryu definitely wasn't that archetype. While lanjor had spent his time living it up, indulging in women and drinking, Ryu didn't even ask for alcohol to be sent to his room.
He didn't understand how these two could be friends at all, but he had witnessed it for himself.
Not being able to understand Ryu only made him more cautious. However, he was still relatively calm because there was a weakness of Ryu's right before him, and that was none other than Mae. He didn't have to be worried about much so long as Mae didn't leave his line of sight.
"It's coming," Empana said coolly, looking up into the skies.
At that moment, at the entrance of the Lizard Demon's Capital City, a large portal appeared in the skies.
The Plane rumbled.
All across the Plane, in regions where those with Birth Rights were sensed, portals began to appear one after another, large and small, and of varying colors. It didn't seem to have much rhyme or reason outside of making themselves larger for the sake of accommodating the numbers of those sensed, however those that were historians of the Plane comprehended that the true significance lay within the colors.
In this last month, Ryu had been anything but idle. He looked like he had done nothing but meditate on himself, but he had made a great deal of discoveries in this last month.
Of these discoveries was one innovative technique he called [Soul Walking].
Separating the soul from the body wasn't an unheard of technique, in fact there were many that could do it, however Ryu had only heard of such things in Sacrum. This became possible after the Soul Birth Realm. However, in the True Martial World, the pressure and climate was much tougher and it was difficult to survive as nothing more than a soul with supporting treasures.
However, Ryu had gained more of an hunch after beginning to use his Three Souls and Seven Spirits as a foundation. Then, by relying on the plasticity of his Perfect Blackbody Soul, he was able to accomplish quite a bit.
He had learned to split his soul in two, withstanding excruciating pain for the sake of a temporary puppet of sorts that acted as a second him. The astonishing part about this puppet was that it was invisible and entirely undetectable for the simple fact that it was constructed of Void Spiritual Qi on top of having Ryu's innate Spacetime Soul Nature. It was the perfect spy. In these months, Ryu had used his [Soul Walking] technique to split his Original Spirit in two. Then he descended into the catacombs of the Lizard Demon Race and read through their records. He probably knew and comprehended more about this Birth Right Phenomena than even Empana and his father did.
As such, he knew that these portals were separated into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, Black, White and Gold.
The closer to Gold one was, the better the starting position, the greater the Heavenly Favor, and the better chance you would have at becoming the ultimate winner.
Most usually, the best of a Plane would be granted a Green or Blue Portal, Indigo and beyond was very rarely documented, and the final three was entirely unheard of.
But to Ryu's silent shock, this portal was actually colored Violet with only slight touches of Indigo.
His expression gave nothing away and those around him, who were entirely ignorant on the matter, didn't say much as they came forward to enter. Soon, they had all vanished, the portal swirling close.n0velusB.c0M
It was only Ellaura, who stood beside the Patriarch, whose eyes flickered, her pupils unconsciously narrowing as her tail swung beside itself.