"How absurd!" the Purewind Family patriarch exploded.
His aura surged out of his body like a cloak of green flames, and a terrifying pressure swept across the hall, bearing down on Selene and Kael. The air turned hot and heavy, and the marble beneath their feet gave a faint tremor.
"Treacherous woman!" His finger stabbed toward Selene. "Do you have any proof of this?"
"My word is all the proof I need!" Selene roared, her voice cutting through the air like a drawn blade.
Then she unleashed her cultivation.
A deep blue aura, as dense as the ocean on a moonless night, surged from her body. It rose against the old man’s green flames and devoured them in silence. Not a single spark escaped.
It took but a single instant.
Patriarch Purewind’s aura collapsed like shattering glass and fled back into his body. The old man’s eyes went wide with sheer astonishment, and a rush of blood climbed to his throat, filling his mouth with the taste of copper.
Was that...
The Spiritual Transformation Realm?
"So it’s true... you’ve really advanced!"
Until that very moment, the old man had dismissed the rumors as nonsense. Now a cold weight settled in his chest.
Around the hall, more than one family head stiffened, eyes narrowing at the deep blue aura still swirling around Selene.
It was no secret that Sol, Seraphine, and Lucian had their eyes on the resources Kael had accumulated over the years.
The fact that the three of them were plotting something against the boy was common knowledge among the leaders of the Twelve Great Families. Yet until then, no one had bothered to intervene.
Kael was seen as a good-for-nothing. Selene lacked the power to truly protect him. And Sol, in everyone’s eyes, seemed far more worthy of being the heir and disciple of the Ashen Family.
That was why everyone had chosen to remain silent.
But now, everything had changed.
Kael had found a powerful master and awakened his cultivation. And Selene had reached the Spiritual Transformation Realm, surpassing even her own husband—a man many considered the most talented genius the sect had produced in a thousand years.
"G-Grandfather!"
Seraphine and Lucian turned to the elderly patriarch at the same time, their voices choked with emotion, their faces pale as wax.
The old man didn’t so much as glance at them. He kept his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed on the marble floor, as if the answer to an impossible problem lay somewhere in the polished stone.
There was a reason the Ashen Family led the sect.
The current head of the house, Dorian Ashen, stood at the peak of the Spiritual Transformation Realm, and the sect’s patriarch remained completely neutral in any internal dispute.
Now that the Ashen Family had yet another cultivator of that realm in its ranks, its position was more secure than ever.
The Purewind Family, despite being one of the wealthiest in the sect, didn’t have a single cultivator in the Spiritual Transformation Realm.
Selene alone was worth more to the sect than the entire Purewind Family combined.
If she wanted to push the issue, he would have no choice but to give in. He knew it, and the knowledge tasted more bitter than the blood in his throat.
"What do you want, Senior Selene?"
The patriarch forced the words out through clenched teeth, humbling himself even as he struggled to stay standing under the weight of that terrifying aura. Sweat beaded along the deep lines of his brow.
"My granddaughter-in-law made mistakes—I know she did—but I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you."
"Simple." Selene’s lips curled into a cold smile, and her gaze slid over to Seraphine, pinning the girl in place. "She used her own beauty to lure my dear Kael into that cursed forest, so she must take responsibility for her own actions. She will become Kael’s concubine!"
Beside her, Kael’s smile widened a fraction.
"On top of that, your family must still pay him a thousand low-grade spirit crystals."
Patriarch Purewind’s face darkened even further, the veins in his neck bulging beneath his wrinkled skin.
"Isn’t that too much? Seraphine—and on top of that, a thousand spirit crystals?"
"Becoming my stepson’s concubine is a reward for Seraphine—not a punishment! The thousand spirit crystals—now those are the punishment..." Selene tilted her head slightly, her green eyes glinting coldly.
"Of course, if you’d rather confront me, we can settle this another way."
The blue aura around her pulsed once, and the weight pressing down on the hall grew heavier still.
"Grandpa..."
Seraphine no longer wore the smiling, contemptuous expression she’d had before.
The blood had drained from her cheeks, and her slender fingers trembled where they clutched the hem of her dress. Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths beneath the fabric.
She... to be that damned man’s concubine?
No... that couldn’t happen. Never!
She’d rather die!
She turned her gaze to Kael. He still wore that same confident smile he’d had when he walked into the room, and now his eyes traveled over her, slow and unhurried, from her hips up to her face, like a man looking over something that already belonged to him.
Her own adoptive grandfather hadn’t even tried to argue her innocence. The realization sent her heart sinking even deeper into her chest.
She searched the faces of the other Great Family leaders in the hall, hoping for support, but none of them seemed willing to speak up on her behalf.
They all looked away—some with icy indifference, others with muted pity.
Had their plan to kill Kael really been that obvious to the patriarchs of the Great Families?
"Grandpa... you can’t accept this! She’s my wife! Pay five thousand spirit crystals if you have to!"
Lucian grabbed Patriarch Purewind’s sleeve, his fingers trembling, his voice on the verge of breaking. "But don’t hand over my—"
"Silence!" the old man shouted, tearing his sleeve free, fury etched into every wrinkle on his face. "You two brought this upon yourselves. Now accept the consequences."
He did his best to swallow his pride, but the glare he turned on Selene burned with rage.
If he were just a little stronger, if he could reach the Spiritual Transformation Realm, all of this would be easily resolved.
But deep down, he knew that breakthrough wouldn’t come in the next fifty years. Perhaps never.
He turned his gaze toward the head of one of his allied families—the most powerful house beneath the Ashen Family, and one that also boasted a cultivator in the Spiritual Transformation Realm.
But that family, too, showed not the slightest interest in getting involved. Its head met the old man’s eyes for a heartbeat, then looked away.
Had Selene demanded this of a woman from the Purewind main line, they would have stepped in.
But for all her beauty and talent, Seraphine was, in the end, just a commoner who had received the Purewind surname through adoption.
Her blood was not noble.
It simply wasn’t worth confronting a Spiritual Transformation Realm expert for her sake.
In the end, the old man’s eyes fell on Dorian. The head of the Ashen Family merely nodded, slow and silent, sealing the final verdict.
Gritting his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, the old Purewind patriarch declared, "Seraphine, plus five hundred low-grade spirit crystals! We won’t pay a single crystal more than that."
Hearing that, Selene let a smile of pure satisfaction spread slowly across her lips.
The deep blue aura receded into her body like a tide drawing back from the shore, and the crushing weight lifted from the hall. Here and there, a family head quietly exhaled.
Her eyes flicked toward Kael for the briefest moment before she looked away.
Finally, with Seraphine to deal with Kael’s lust, she would no longer have to find herself in that inappropriate situation with her beloved stepson... right?