Chapter 157

They stopped several dozen meters in front of the siblings.

Both were built like bears and wore ornate armor crafted from feathers.

The older wore a trimmed goatee and gold trim on his armor, the younger wore silver.

That feather armor was no ordinary work, its defensive properties were something else, nobody could say what class of artifact it was, but it stood several realms above any demonic or Spirit artifact forged on Exalted Continent.

Liana's full-strength Spirit arts and Innate Ancestor Techniques had scattered off it without leaving a mark.

She couldn't scratch them.

If supreme Spirit techniques did nothing, fists and feet were worth even less.

The silver-trimmed Beast Ancestor sneered, his gaze moving between brother and sister.

"Death is standing in front of you."

"And you still have the mood to trade jokes."

"Are you not afraid to die?"

"Or do you simply not see us?"

Liana bared her teeth, face twisting.

"Since the Immemorial Era your Kunpeng Beast Tribe lived under the heel of our Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe, now it's finally your turn to strut."

"Heh. How very grand you look."

The gold-trimmed Ancestor couldn't be bothered to argue, he did remark, offhand:

"The Patriarch of your Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe walked into his own grave and dragged your whole lineage down after him."

"A supreme Immemorial tribe wasn't enough for him, he wanted shortcuts, he put his hands on powers he should never have touched."

"Word on the Beast Continent is that the Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe has fallen all the way to a second-rate faction on the Spirit Continent."

"And in your prime you offended half the supreme races alive, the wheel has come around, your borders are under siege from every direction, at the rate it's going, I don't see your tribe lasting much longer."

The faces of both siblings changed.

They had known none of it.

Because this was Exalted Continent, not the Spirit Continent, both of them had been sealed away here for eras, they had only broken out a few months ago.

And Exalted Continent was cut off from the other four supreme continents entirely, a cage with the outside world standing guard on it. No news came in.

Sealed away that long, whole ages had turned over, and the world they remembered was gone.

They knew some familiar faces were still walking around, neither had been in any hurry to cross the ocean and inspect the Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe.

Now, hearing their proud tribe had fallen to second-rate in a hundred thousand years, something in both of them shook loose.

"The Beast Continent and the Spirit Continent have kept close contact for thousands of years."

"The Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe of today isn't the thing it was in its Immemorial prime."

"Heh."

"But back to the matter at hand."

"Your tribe has barely a handful of Ancestor-realm powerhouses left breathing."

"And of your younger generation, the ones who didn't die badly were left crippled."

"As for the two of you, I don't recall meeting either of you across the sea."

"Which goes double for you."

Both Beast Ancestors turned their heads at the same time and fixed on Liana.

Real curiosity sat in the look, the gold-trimmed one kept talking.

"A mutated bloodline."

"You don't see one of those often."

"From the Immemorial Era to today, the Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe has produced exactly two on record, the first was the founding Patriarch."

"And the second..."

"Oh? Now that is interesting."

He stopped halfway through his own sentence, eyes lit with the look of a man appraising goods.

"Could that be you?"

"No wonder I've never seen your face."

He didn't wait for Liana to confirm or deny it, he laughed and turned to the silver-trimmed Beast Ancestor at his side.

"I'm not wrong, this is Liana."

"Hmph, a prodigy of their younger generation."

"If she hadn't vanished all those eras ago, she'd be sitting at Eight-Turn Spirit Ancestor by now, maybe Nine-Turn."

"Though vanished isn't the right word, somebody sealed her away."

"The Heaven-Robbing Black Dragon Tribe emptied their intelligence network looking for her and never found the place, that loss gutted their future."

"Heh, Kain, leaving this woman breathing is a hazard."

"Let her cultivate back to her prime and build a faction around herself, and she won't just be a disaster for the native tribes here, she'll be a knife aimed at our Kunpeng Beast Tribe."

"Finding her first is a gift from heaven."

The man in gold-trimmed armor said all of it in a heavy, considering tone.

"Brother Azel." Kain's voice went flat.

"This woman keeps her mouth shut, not one word about the Kun-Heaven Nether Sea, not one word about the Destiny Nether Pearls."

"And we can't kill her outright, we need her alive to open her up."

"Let me handle it, I'll crush her limbs, break every joint, and seal her dantian."

"Then we drag the wreck of her back to the Kunpeng Beast Tribe and take our time with the questioning."

"She'll talk eventually, they all talk."

Azel gave a small nod.

"When a decision needs making, make it, go ahead."

"By crossing the ocean and showing our faces on Exalted Continent, we've already broken the Four Continents Treaty, if word reaches the other supreme races, the fallout won't be small."

"We can't sit in this wasteland much longer."

Kain grunted and gathered his force for the last blow.

Liana didn't move a muscle, her eyes stayed full of cold, flat murder.

She knew perfectly well that at her current strength she couldn't kill either of them, dying didn't frighten her.

What galled her was the sheer rotten luck of it.

Destiny Nether Pearls? Portal coordinates? I have never laid eyes on either of those things in my life.

Orathis, on the other hand, looked like a dragon who knew something.

He had chosen to keep quiet, so Liana didn't press him.

She knew her little brother better than anyone alive, if he was sitting on information and refusing to spit it out, it meant the secret involved people and matters that outweighed the two of them, cornering him wouldn't change that.

Besides, she had told Azel and Kain over and over that she knew nothing about the Nether Sea or where it opened.

If they wouldn't believe the truth, that was their problem.

Liana turned her head a fraction and looked down at Orathis.