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nAster noticed Natasha had a strange smile on her face, like the one of a kid who stole a candy from someone, but he decided to not ask, and just waited for her to speak.

nNatasha grabbed another cookie and after munching on it, her gaze fell on Kana for a couple of seconds, before she said.

n“Ahem, the offspring of the main lineage from the Storm Roc family always comes in pairs, not twins but in the meaning that one is from the poisonous branch and the other will always belong to the gentle branch, the older takes the first while the younger takes after the second”.

n“According to my friend, the rupture in the two branches of the Storm Roc family started because the sisters which represented each one of the branches, had a fall out, apparently they can reach their maximum potential if they exchange spirit energy between each other, with simply holding hands and meditating it’s enough”.

n“But then the older sister who belongs to the poisonous branch thought that the process was to slow, and after investigating she found some censored records from her clan which stated a much simpler way which was developed for clan-threatening situations, and it only worked for the poisonous branch”.

n“The older sister then went to her mother which at the time was the matriarch since their father died in a war a long time ago, she exposes the method to her mother who was also from the poisonous branch and it was approved… the problem is that the method practically required for the little sister to be sacrificed, if she lived, she’ll be bedridden for life”.

n“The mother accepted because she was weaker than her own little sister so she couldn’t force her, but her daughter was the perfect target, and that would allow her to breakthrough and that would put the Storm Roc family at the top of the food chain in the Divine Feather Firmament”.

n“Luckily the younger sister of the matriarch happened to listen to their plan in secret, and helped her niece to escape, the matriarch discovered them halfway through it, and using her authority ordered the elders to hunt them down while keeping hostages the members of the gentle branch of the family”.

n“The younger sister of the matriarch who was a rune master, realized her side of the family will be slaughtered, and used her life to create a formation to not only transport all the members of the gentle branch to a place only she knew about, but also curse her older sister and the poisonous branch”.

n“In fact the curse would have killed the matriarch as her younger sister was only second to their ancestor in strength, their ancestor forcefully stopped her meditation and blocked a part of the strength of the curse, which allowed the matriarch to escape from dying… but she was basically deformed to reflect the ugliness of her heart in her previously beautiful appearance”.𝑜𝚟𝑙𝐞xt.𝔠𝑜𝑀

n“Anyway, the younger sister of the matriarch gave what was left of her cultivation to her niece, before she died as she was unable to send her with the other members of her branch, but still managed to transport her to a random location as far as her final breaths allowed her to”.

n“Since that moment onwards, what was left of the Storm Roc family has been trying to find the gentle branch, because the curse makes it so, once they go past the Heavenly Conqueror realm, they will start losing their innately good looks and ultimately look like their matriarch, but that’s not the worse, they will need to start exchanging spirit energy with other members of their family to be able to cultivate and that will shorten their lifespan”.

n“The younger sister did it so, they wouldn’t be affected if they remained weak, but if they strived to become strong, they will have a short life and look ugly as a punishment for wanting to sacrifice their own family, their ancestor also suffered wounds due to the invaders that went to kick them while they were down, but she somewhat recovered using some questionable methods”.

n“The matriarch then paid a rune master and a spirit blacksmith to create some kind of detector, that allowed them to find the royal lineage of the gentle branch of the family and have been looking for her younger daughter’s whereabouts to no avail, but haven’t found anything”.

n“If they still had someone from the gentle branch it would have been easier, but since that fight, as I the heavens had punished them for their selfish actions, no matter how much they tried all their offspring belonged to the poisonous family branch”.

n“It’s been some hundreds of thousands of years since that, and they haven’t even been able to find the other members of the gentle branch let alone the last member of their royal lineage… until now”.

nAster looked downwards at Kana who was still munching on a cookie, while listening to Natasha’s story, and then he frowned.

n“That doesn’t make sense though, Kana is the daughter of one of my partners and her mother has a different aura overall, I can pretty much assure she isn’t like Kana”.

nNatasha doubted for a split of a second before she added.

n“Well, as far as I know, the younger sister of the matriarch was the warlike one, her niece wasn’t keen on cultivating, she advanced pretty fast though, because it was said she was loved by the spirit energy… no, she was loved by everything, animals, other people as long as they didn’t have a close relationship with anyone from the poisonous branch, and especially flowers and other plants”.

n“To be honest I thought all that was just a made-up story, until I saw that woman going crazy and trying to get that little girl from you, while I find her adorable is not to the point where I would say my thoughts about her are being influenced, so I still have my doubts, she also doesn’t have the nature element of the gentle royal lineage, but she has wind element like the poisonous branch, though hers isn’t detrimental to others”.

nAster was lost in his thoughts for a moment, the girl in question probably ended up somewhere in the Viridian Griffon Heavenly Quadrant, and since she hated battle, she forgot about everything and just lived her life, married had offspring and the blood diluted, like what happened to the Wolfstein, and probably the last one to ever manifest and outstanding talent was… Aurelian.

n‘Loved by almost everything but envied by the heavens, which bring them misfortunes’, thought Aster.

nOriginally, he held Mylene responsible for what happened to Aurelian, but then Eris told him to not blame her, as they discovered something was off about, they always fighting each other, something they only realized after they got to meet him for some reason, could be because they took a moment to have a decent conversation, or maybe there was something more involved.

nAnd since Sarina and Kana who were supposedly the last direct descendants of Aurelian didn’t hold it against her, then he gave Mylene a try and she turned out to have a good heart, and Kana got fond of her pretty soon too.

nAnyway, this wasn’t the moment to be thinking about the vicissitudes of life, Aster unfolded the piece of paper Charlotte gave him and read the list of places that were written in there, before he showed it to Natasha.

n“Do you recognize any of the names in this list, and know where they are?”.

nNatasha raised an eyebrow, but she still answered.

n“Yep, I know a couple of them why… are you going to pick up a fight with them?”.

nTo Natasha’s surprise, Aster shook his head, but then his next words nearly made her fell of her chair.

n“I’m going to eliminate till the last one of them, either now or during the trial for the Emerald Whirlwind”, said Aster with a calm and firm voice.

nNatasha saw Aster’s serious expression and she licked her lips before saying.

n“That woman is probably not your match… but while she is the only daughter of the daughter of the matriarch, the young master in their family is her older brother and that guy can outpower both me and Charlotte in a fight”.

nAs if she was waiting to make her entrance, Charlotte’s voice could be heard as she walked downstairs.

n“Hmph, he is older than us, and also a Sea of Knowledge

/Body Solidification dual path cultivator, we are far stronger than what he was when he was our age, besides he also became stronger with some shady methods, as a proof of that his sister who is our age can’t hold a candle in front of you or me”.

nAster saw charlotte intensely staring at the cookies, because Natasha was grabbing some from time to time, and he chuckled as he offered her some too.

nA little smile appeared on the corner of Charlotte’s mouth as she took a seat in front of Aster, and next to Natasha.

n“Are you really going to declare war to the Storm Roc family?”, asked Charlotte while she ate some of the cookies.

n“They already did it, when that bitch came with bad intentions towards my family”, said Aster, with a calm voice.

nKana then turned around and looked at Aster with her big eyes.

n“Big brother do you really need to…”, she said with a worried voice, although she didn’t understand a lot of the things Natasha said, she could easily tell the people Aster wanted to fight, weren’t like the ones they have faced before.

n“Do you remember what I told you about good and evil?”, he said as he patted Kana’s head.

n“Mm, big brother said that in most cases being good is relative, but regardless of that big brother will always take care of me and mom”, mumbled Kana.

nAster nodded in response.

n“That’s right, although I do believe they are scum for treating their own family as resources, that’s not the reason as to why I’m going to get rid of them, but because they are not going to stop nor doubt in harming you or Sarina for their own purposes, and at the same time I’m not going to allow that to happen, it’s a matter whose will is stronger”.

n“I’m sorry, I know big brother only fights for our sake”, mumbled Kana with a slightly ashamed expression.

nAster smiled and he gently stroked her hair, Kana has become more used to fight and defend herself, but she was still pretty troubled about killing, and Aster was fine with that, in fact he wanted her to keep her hands clean as much as it was possible, unfortunately just as Vivian mentioned, this world doesn’t allow you to be unstained.

n“Don’t worry, that’s what I am here for, just remember, never hesitate to cut down an enemy, because the other party would not show you mercy, my little Kana is the gentlest girl that exists, but being gentle and being naïve are two different things”.

n“Mm, I’ll listen to big brother~”, said Kana as she returned to eating the cookies.

nAlthough Aster was smiling on the outside, on the inside he was coldly looking at the list of places in the list.

n‘If you would have stayed out of my sight, I wouldn’t have done anything, you can only blame that woman for trying to harm my family’, he thought.

nAster could feel his blood boiling and his spirit energy roaring, which made Natasha and Charlotte notice he seemed to be stronger than before, and the difference wasn’t small at all.

nThen without him noticing there was something else that seemed to be roaring in the mind space, or more accurately a couple of things, the most noticeable being Hyperion which was radiating more golden light than usual, the second thing was a certain sword which hasn’t left its scabbard since the moment it was given to Aster.

nThe Dragon Fang which Lilia gifted to Aster when he started his cultivation journey, shook in its scabbard for a couple of seconds, before everything returned to normal.

nRya who was meditating inside of Hyperion, opened one of her eyes and then closed it as soon as everything calmed down.

n‘First that attack and now this, no matter how much the heavens try to suppress you… you always remain loyal to yourself~’, mumbled Rya as another strand of her golden hair became silver tones, before she continued with her meditation.

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