Chapter 361: “Isn’t This My Cute Grandson-in-Law~?”

With those words, her feet quietly left the ground as she began floating upward without any visible spell formation or noticeable release of energy.

Luke’s mouth twitched slightly when he noticed that.

’Great... so she’s A-Rank too, and I still had the courage to flirt with her earlier.’

He immediately decided not to think too much about what had happened inside the bathhouse, silently hoping Emberlyn wasn’t the kind of person who would hold a grudge over something that small.

Still, another thought crossed Luke’s mind.

For some reason, whenever he interacted with women who weren’t his wives, he usually ended up becoming far more confident and dominant in the conversation without even trying, while the moment one of his actual wives appeared, that confidence had a strange habit of disappearing.

"Okay."

Luke muttered before calling upon the wings of his Winged Titan, and with a strong flap, his body rose into the air beside Emberlyn.

’I need to improve my control over Force.’

If he could manipulate it precisely enough, Luke believed he should eventually be capable of flying without relying on Vorthar’s titan form, although reaching that level of control would require considerably more practice.

The two continued flying through the artificial world for several minutes before eventually reaching a lake so wide that calling it a small ocean wouldn’t have been much of an exaggeration.

As they began descending, Emberlyn glanced toward Luke before speaking in a quieter voice.

"Remember, Grandma is very sweet and kind, but don’t provoke her or make her angry."

Luke immediately nodded.

He had absolutely no intention of deliberately provoking an unknown high-ranking existence, especially after everything he had already learned about the dragons living here.

Once they landed beside the lake, Luke finally saw two figures waiting near the water.

One was Rhaenyra.

The other was a young woman who appeared to be around twenty years old, whose long hair flowed behind her in shimmering strands of white and sapphire, looking as though moonlight and blue crystal had been woven together, while two elegant horns rose from above her head.

At that moment, however, the beautiful young woman was casually pinching both of Rhaenyra’s cheeks.

Luke stared at the scene for several seconds, then leaned slightly toward Emberlyn.

"Where’s your grandma?"

"..."

Emberlyn became speechless for a moment.

Only then did she remember that, by human standards, the words grandmother and grandfather normally brought to mind elderly people with obvious signs of age, because humans possessed comparatively short lifespans and even powerful cultivators often carried some visible trace of the years they had lived.

Without saying anything else, Emberlyn raised one hand and pointed toward the young woman currently pinching Rhaenyra’s cheeks.

"She’s our grandma."

"O_O"

Luke’s mouth slowly opened.

For several seconds, he genuinely wondered whether Emberlyn was joking, because telling him that a woman who looked barely older than twenty was someone’s grandmother sounded completely absurd.

Emberlyn ignored his stunned expression and calmly introduced her.

"She is Zephyrielle Arkanthyr... Dragon of the Stillness Beyond Time."

Luke silently repeated the title in his mind.

’Dragon of the Stillness Beyond Time...’

Even without knowing what her power actually did, the title alone sounded ridiculously grand.

At that exact moment, Caelith’s voice came from within him.

"Luke, she’s a demi-god."

Luke nearly cursed aloud.

’Damn, another demi-god? And with a title like that?’

Fortunately, he managed to stop himself before anything escaped his mouth, because Zephyrielle chose that exact moment to release Rhaenyra’s cheeks and turn toward the newcomers.

Rhaenyra also looked over.

The moment she saw Luke, however, her expression barely changed, as though whether he was standing there or not made little difference to her.

[It seems you still have a lot of work to do, Luke.]

The System immediately commented after noticing Rhaenyra’s reaction.

Luke ignored it.

At the moment, increasing his cultivation mattered considerably more than worrying about whether Rhaenyra acknowledged him as her husband.

Zephyrielle, on the other hand, reacted very differently.

"Ohhh~ Isn’t this my cute and handsome grandson-in-law~?"

Before Luke could properly understand what was happening, Zephyrielle disappeared from beside Rhaenyra and appeared directly in front of him.

Luke instinctively stiffened, but by then, both of her hands had already reached his face.

"What a cutiepie~"

She immediately began pinching his cheeks.

Emberlyn giggled quietly from the side, clearly familiar with this behavior from her grandmother.

Luke, meanwhile, became increasingly embarrassed and tried pulling his head backward, only to discover that he couldn’t move his face out of Zephyrielle’s hands at all, as though all the strength inside his body had suddenly become meaningless.

More unsettling than that, however, was the strange sensation that appeared while Zephyrielle continued smiling at him.

Luke felt exposed.

Not physically, but in a way that made it seem as though everything hidden inside his body had already been laid bare before her gaze.

’Damn... is this what those protagonists feel like when they meet some mysterious old monster who can see through everything with one look?’

Zephyrielle didn’t say anything, but Luke’s instinct wasn’t wrong.

With nothing more than a glance, she had already realized that the being standing before her was no longer human.

That discovery immediately confused her, because everything surrounding Luke’s arrival in Valtharion indicated that he had entered this world as a human.

So Zephyrielle silently asked the stars.

The answer she received confirmed exactly that.

Luke had arrived in Valtharion as a human, yet sometime afterward, his existence had changed into an entirely different species.

’Interesting.’

Zephyrielle’s smile widened slightly as she finally released Luke’s cheeks.

"What a cute grandson-in-law I’ve gotten."

She gently patted Luke’s head before disappearing from his side and reappearing beside Emberlyn.

"Ohhh~ Only my dear Emberlyn is left."

Without warning, Zephyrielle began pinching Emberlyn’s cheeks as well.

"When are you going to find another grandson-in-law for me?"

Unlike Luke, Emberlyn barely reacted, maintaining an almost completely normal expression as though years of experience had already made her immune to her grandmother’s habit of pinching her cheeks.

Zephyrielle clicked her tongue.

"Tch. If you keep acting like that, how is any man supposed to like you?"

This time, Emberlyn’s calm expression finally cracked slightly, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

Apparently, even she wasn’t completely immune when her grandmother started bringing up marriage.

After teasing Emberlyn for another few moments, Zephyrielle eventually returned to Rhaenyra’s side before turning toward Luke once again.

"Alright, I only wanted to meet my grandson-in-law, and now that I’ve done that, I should probably leave."

She smiled warmly, although before leaving, she seemed to remember something else.

"My useless son gave poor Rhaenyra some troublesome work and made her manage this useless territory for an entire year, so help your wife while you’re here, alright?"

Zephyrielle tilted her head slightly while smiling toward Luke.

Luke immediately nodded.

He didn’t dare refuse.

Rhaenyra’s expression, however, became visibly uglier after hearing her grandmother casually assign Luke to help her, although she merely showed her irritation and didn’t openly argue.

"Good."

Zephyrielle smiled one final time before disappearing without warning.

The lakeside immediately became much quieter.

Left behind were Luke, the Hero of Light, Emberlyn silently observing from nearby, and Rhaenyra, the wife who still refused to acknowledge Luke as her husband and was now staring directly at him with an expression that suggested she had already forgotten everything her grandmother had just said.

Luke stared back at her.

Emberlyn remained silent, clearly waiting to see what would happen next.

So now...

What exactly was Luke supposed to do?