Selene held Kael tightly against her body. Her soft, full breasts pressed flush against his bare, sweaty ribs.
Her delicate hands moved with grace. One settled gently over the young man’s Dantian, fingers splayed wide as if to anchor him, her palm cool against the bare skin of his lower belly.
The other pressed firmly into the small of his back.
A single thought was all she needed.
Her Qi flowed into him like a cool, gentle current, neutralizing the chaotic energy raging through his meridians and organizing each turbulent flow.
"Don’t use your power so carelessly, sweetheart." Her voice was a soft murmur against his ear, sweet and mature, her breath warm on his skin.
"Once you’ve recovered, you’ll train directly under me, alright? I’ll teach you how to control your Qi properly." Selene smiled, the warmth of the gesture coaxing a matching curve onto Kael’s lips.
For the next few days, he’d have a gorgeous milf as his personal nurse... and once he was back on his feet, she’d be his very own training partner.
Opportunities piled on top of opportunities, blossoming right before his eyes!
He was a happy, happy man!
Feeling Kael nod weak against her shoulder, Selene lifted her head.
Her eyes narrowed, every trace of tenderness vanishing in a single blink.
"Kael won. What the hell are you all still doing here? Get out!" Her voice cracked like a whip across the courtyard, but Lucian Purewinds didn’t budge so much as a single step.
"It’s impossible! There’s no way Kael went from a cripple to this powerful in such a short time! He must have used some kind of unorthodox technique!"
Lucian’s voice rose, gaining a sharp edge as he jabbed a finger toward Kael.
"I’m certain whatever he used didn’t originate from our sect. We must send him to the Penitent Demon Pavilion to prove his innocence!"
Hearing those words, Selene growled low in her throat, her lips tightening into a thin, furious line. Her arms cinched tighter around Kael.
"Over my dead body!"
The Penitent Demon Pavilion was a spiritual array belonging to the sect, designed to root out demonic cultivators.
Useful, certainly... but it had one rather significant flaw.
More often than not, the target ended up crippled. Or dead.
"Say something! He’s your son!" Selene snapped her head toward Luke, her voice trembling with barely contained fury.
Luke merely curled his lips into a smile dripping with contempt, not even bothering to uncross his arms.
"Lucian is right. I don’t believe for one second that this good-for-nothing could unlock his cultivation and advance this far by his own merit. At the very least, he must be possessed by a demon!"
Kael’s face twisted as those words spilled from the mouth of Luke, the very father of this body’s original owner.
A small pang of worry settled into his chest, but it didn’t linger long. His eyes drifted toward Selene’s status screen.
[Name: Selene Ashen
Age: 134 years
Cultivation: Second Layer of the Spiritual Transformation Realm
Race: Human
Spiritual Roots: Green Water Roots (Rank C+)
Talent: High + (Relative to the sky)
Affection: 5/100
Husband Humiliation: 0/100]
Every ounce of tension drained from his body.
He cast a look brimming with amusement and pure wickedness in the direction of this body’s so-called father.
Selene wouldn’t have stood a chance against Luke if they were at the same realm... but being a whole realm higher?
There was simply no comparison to be made.
’Yeah, you old fucker... You’ve completely fucked yourself over by choosing to stand against your own son!’
Selene clenched her pearly, perfect teeth and rose to her feet in one fluid motion, drawing Kael up along with her.
One arm locked around his waist to keep him tucked against her side, his head lolling against the generous swell of her breast.
Her aura exploded.
Dust leapt from the courtyard stones and loose strands of her hair whipped about her face. Kael felt every pulse pass straight through her body, the cushiony flesh beneath his cheek quivering along with it.
"I’m tired of your bullshit..." Selene’s eyes flashed with raw murderous intent as she extended a single, slender hand toward Luke.
Until that very moment, Luke had kept his relaxed posture and that smug, contempt-laden look.
Now he froze solid as the crushing weight of Selene’s cultivation came slamming down on him. The smile slid off his face, his knees dipped under the pressure, and cold sweat broke out across his brow.
"R-Realm of Spiritual Transformation?" His eyes blew wide with shock, his throat bobbing visibly. "IMPOSSIBLE!"
His fingers twitched, but he didn’t even have time to call his spear to hand.
From Selene’s delicate palm, a dragon of pure water erupted with a thunderous roar.
The temperature plunged in an instant, and a fine, icy mist sprayed over everyone in the courtyard, carrying the clean scent of rain.
Its serpentine body twisted and coiled through the air, scales shimmering like liquid jade, a gaping maw lined with razor-sharp fangs snapping wide as it lunged at its prey.
The dragon’s jaws struck Luke square in the chest, hurling him backward.
With a deafening crash, he smashed clean through the massive concrete wall surrounding the residence and tumbled onward in a helpless, uncontrolled flight.
Trees toppled with dry, splintering cracks for every meter he traveled, ancient roots tearing free from the earth in great clumps of dirt.
For nearly a full kilometer, a path of pure destruction carved itself into the ground.
Luke’s body finally came to a halt only when it slammed into a gigantic boulder with a bone-rattling thud.
Every last drop of Selene’s aquatic Qi continued to pour down upon him, hammering relentlessly like a waterfall onto rock until even the stone itself shattered into countless fragments.
When the water finally drained away, it revealed Luke sprawled among the rubble, utterly soaked, bleeding from every orifice, ravaged from head to toe by severe internal injuries.
That was the difference between the Realm of Nascent Ascension and the Realm of Spiritual Transformation.
"Take this trash to his pavilion and get the hell out of here before I decide to kill every single one of you," Selene growled, her voice low and laced with venom.
The youths shuddered as one.
With eyes filled with absolute terror, they scrambled and fled in a desperate hurry, snatching up a dying Sol and disappearing down the trail of destruction Selene herself had carved through the earth, off to retrieve Luke’s broken body as well.
"Y-you damn brat and your worthless whore! I won’t forget this!" Luke’s screech of shame and rage echoed across the horizon, slowly fading into the distance.
[Luke Ashen’s Humiliation increases by 30 points!
The amount of talent you can steal from him at a time increases!
The chances of bonus gains increase!
Just be careful he doesn’t kill you.]
Kael’s eyes widened at those notifications, his heart hammering with pure, undiluted satisfaction.
Hell yeah!
If he hadn’t been slumped against her looking like death, Selene, with that sweet personality of hers, probably wouldn’t have acted half as brutally.
Faking that internal injury was so worth it!
"Ah... don’t mind those disrespectful pigs, sweetheart. They’re just jealous of you!" Selene smiled sweetly as she sensed the sudden change in Kael’s heartbeat and the faint tremor running through his eyes.
Her hand gently brushed a strand of damp hair from his forehead, and she hugged him a little closer.
"Come on now, you need to get some sleep."