"Pseudo-Eternals!? They are all at Pseudo-Eternal Stage!?" Ryuk wondered in shock as he passed his gaze through each and every one of the Fallens before him.
Somehow, he couldn't sense even the most minute aura on each of them.
It was like they weren't even existing at all, with no telltale signs of cultivation on them, yet their mere standing was enough to make his hair stand on end.
"Why are we here, you ask, Ryuk?" The Half-Fallen One's voice resounded from above Ryuk as he raised his head up, watching her take a seat on her throne.
He noticed as all bits of warmth seemed to fade away from the Half-Fallen One's face, replaced by a biting gaze of coldness that seemed to lack any sort of emotion at all towards him.
It was like he didn't even exist before those golden eyes that stared at him.
A marvelling change that shook Ryuk's heart.
"My reason for you being here is simple, Ryuk. To erase my doubt!" she said, as Ryuk raised an eyebrow.
"Your doubt?"
"There is something about you unsettling to me, Ryuk. Something that is not just right."
"You grew too fast. Too fast for any race that exists on Endearth."
"When we met, you had barely stepped foot on the first stairs of cultivation, and now just three years later, you're already close to the peak steps."
"Not even our most mighty genius was capable of such speed."
"Good thing for you then, huh?" Ryuk said with a smile, but the next few words knocked him off his perch.
"This has created doubt in my mind."
"Doubt in who you truly are. Doubt in what you truly are!"
"And today, I have come to erase my doubts about you..." the Half-Fallen One explained lightly as Ryuk's eyebrows curled up.
'Have I offended her before somehow? or does she not support me and Morgaine's Relationship?' He thought before his eyebrows steeled and he muttered,
"You know Your Lost One, if you don't want me with your daughter, you could simply say it, and I would have given her space."
"This, on the other hand, looks like a pretty cheap way to get back at me, don't you all agree?" Ryuk said, as the Half-Fallen One's eyes flashed with piercing godlike might.
It seemed like those words had broken through the façade, and even some of the dark Fallen on the altar had their eyes flashing to the Half-Fallen One's expression.
"Morgaine is just a part of why I need to truly know who you are!"
"She's young and blinded with love to see your abnormality—but not me."
"And when has it been wrong for a daughter to know well the identity of her lover?"
"If anything, this is just one of my responsibilities as a mother!" she said, as Ryuk scoffed.
"I understand that all right. If I was a mother, I'd also be interested in knowing the identity of my daughter's lover."
"But is setting a total of five Pseudo-Eternal beings to gang up on him and watching from a throne in the sky as they trash me up really what you will refer to as 'understanding me'?"
"Really?"
"Of all ways to understand me—unleashing your elders against me after I just had a life-death battle, and just recovered really the best idea you could come up with?"
"You have not earned the ability to talk back my decisions! "The Half-Fallen Once shot back.
"I saved the lives of your Fallens!"
"I saved your armies from destruction!"
"I saved your daughter's life when she could've had her head crushed t under the death grasps of a Hobgoblin King!" Ryuk shouted in anger.
"All of what I did! And yet, you still don't know who I am!?"
"You doubt if I'm on your side still?"
"Oh, I grew too fast!?"
"Too fast and ended up saving your armies!? Too fast and fighting alongside with you?"
"Too fast and preparing for the next war against the Knulls!?"
"Too fast and standing behind Endearth as an unshakable pillar of support!?"
"Oh, I grew too fast!? And now I've birthed doubt in your mind?" Ryuk shouted furiously, as the Half-Fallen One's eyes flashed, but then, the emotions in them were wiped out just as fast as she settled calmly on her throne.
"My choices are final. You fight my guardians, and when your life flashes before your eyes, you will reveal to me what you truly are!" she said, closing her eyes and raising her hand up to command the Fallen soldiers—but then,
"You're a coward!" Ryuk followed straight after as the Half-Fallen One jerked her eyes open.
"What did you just call me, kid!?"
"You're a coward. Every one of you here is!" He said, as disbelieve flashed in the eyes of the Elders/
"You have no doubts in your mind. No, no you don't"
You're all just...afraid!"
"A kid that was barely at the Origin stage when you met him now just a single step lesser than you two years later, after you all spent centuries just to reach where you are!"
"That's what has made you all afraid!"
"You're afraid that if I am left for two or three more years, I would grow too strong."
"Far beyond your grasps."
"I could be a threat, no?"
"And now that Morgaine is the Princess and will soon be chosen as the Queen—making me the King of the Fallens..."
"You don't actually want the King, who is nothing but a human, to be uncontrollable, do you?"
"You don't want him to be too strong to escape beyond your influence!"
"Or you don't even want a King at all?"
"After all, the Fallens only have a Queen, not a King, right?"
"That is what you're afraid of."
"And what does that make you—if not a coward!"
KAAAABBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!
A powerful aura blasted out—not from the Half-Fallen One—but from the Elders who were seated on the Altars, as a monumental pressure slammed down forth, blasting onto Ryuk and crumbling the ground beneath his feet.
Yet, his knees refused to bulge, instead his legs digging deeper into the ground—his eyes clashing firmly with that of the Half-Fallen One.
"You're in the presence of the Devilish Half-Fallen One! Watch your tongue, low-life!" the roar blasted out from the lips of one of the Elders as Ryuk turned his head up and laughed out loud.
"Presence of cowards, and you demand respect!?"
"Tch. Ignorant Bastard!"
"Tell me, Half-Fallen One!"
"Do you think if these fools fight me, then you'll be able to know whatever I am?"
"That all my secrets will be revealed?"
"Or that what I am will be exposed!?"