"Seemed like she was absorbing the life essence or soul power of the Guardian and the Queen—the two people who just seemed to have the highest amount of it.
The system analysed as Ryuk's eyebrows furrowed.
'But I gave her an order with the Contract Grimoire to not kill anyone. Has she been able to override that?' he thought in confusion before the notification appeared.
[No, the Contract Grimoire is in effect.]
[It's just that your order was not to KILL anyone, which she didn't. She hurt them instead of killing them, therefore allowing her to not be punished by it.]
"Seems like I'm the one that should have framed it better..." Ryuk mused to himself as he rose upright from the Queen—whose injuries had healed, picked up from the ground by the Muscular Guardian.
"Rest assured. This won't happen anymore..." He consoled before he rose up, and in the next instant, a gigantic dark vortex opened before them as he slowly stepped in—before turning his gaze to the side.
"Come with me, Asteralaxia."
"Tch, you can't order me around, kid!" Aster said with a scoff, but then Ryuk compelled:
"By the order of the Contract Grimoire."
"Arrggghh—" A groan of pain left Aster's lips as her hand suddenly reached for her head in pain, her eyes coated in red veins, making her resemble a demon.
Her teeth gnashed together as Ryuk watched her try to fight back against the sudden force.
But in the end...
He watched as she soon quieted down and rose up with a neutral expression before she entered the portal first, disappearing within.
"My apologies..." Ryuk said with a wave to the Guardian and the Queen, who were looking at him as if he was a ghost, before he also stepped in and disappeared into the portal.
"Tell me, Oceiros. What do you think the power level of that lady is?" the Queen asked as Oceiros looked at the disappearing vortex, his eyes flashing.
"The same stage as me, my Queen. The Pseudo-Eternal Stage."
"But her battle arts and techniques are beyond anything I have ever seen."
"She wielded primordial rules in every one of her moves—something only an Eternal Stage should be able to do."
"In fact, my Lord, it won't be wrong to refer to her as an Eternal Stage expert," Oceiros replied as the Queen's eyes narrowed even more.
"A lady seemingly at the Eternal Stage... under the control of a human boy..." she mused under her breath as her head flashed with memories, finding the situation quite familiar.
Suddenly, her eyes widened in shock as it hit her.
"Could it be him?"
_____
When Ryuk stepped through the portal, the world faintly paused as he felt himself sliding through a space wormhole.
Then, he felt his legs solidifying and found himself before the surface of a large ocean.
Turning his head to the side was none other than Asteralaxia, who didn't have quite the satisfactory expression on her face yet was also filled with confusion.
One question was raging through Aster's mind:
'How?'
'Just how had he been able to track me down?'
'And so fast, I didn't even know he was onto me already.'
'Tch, if I had just absorbed that, I could have just reached the Eternity Stage and broken away from his control already.'
'Tch, I was so close...' Aster thought in her mind, seemingly lost in her train of thought but was awakened from the sound.
"Ahem?"
"You! How did you even find me?"
"The same way you put a tracker on me and lied that it was a communication tool?" he replied, as Aster's eyes flashed before she grinned evilly.
"Seems like you're pretty smarter than you look."
"Trust me, I am," Ryuk said, before his eyebrows furrowed at her forehead and he continued,
"Seems like you've been a bit busy. You were barely at the Cataclysm stage the last time I saw you, and now you're close to the Eternal Stage?"
"Going around, absorbing people's soul essence. You've been doing more than just a simple walk, Asteralaxia..." Ryuk mused as he noticed her cultivation.
Right now, her aura was stably on the Pseudo-Eternal Stage, and he could even feel that faint aura around her—
The aura he had only seen around that Frost Wyvern Lady and the Half-Fallen one.The aura of Eternity.
It was clear that right now, she was infinitely close to the Eternity Stage herself.
'Seems like I came at the right time. Who knew if she would have broken through the Contract Grimoire once she reached the Eternity Stage. Things may have gotten quite dangerous...' Ryuk thought to himself.
"You're surprisingly not as mad as I thought you would be, though?" Asteralaxia said, looking at Ryuk's expression with a raised eyebrow.
She had kind of expected him to flip out because of her actions, but he didn't even seem that much bothered at all. His expression was as neutral as ever.
"Come with me, Aster. We have a little catching up to do..." Ryuk said as he resumed his walk into the distance, and Aster could only click her tongue.
Now that Ryuk had used the Contract Grimoire to force her into walking around with him, she couldn't refuse his order of walking by his side.
But then, she watched as Ryuk stopped in his tracks with troubled eyes.
'Where do I even go?' he thought to himself.
He had no house and had no academy to go to.
'Seriously, I need to get a house of my own. I can't be living territory-less like this...' Ryuk thought to himself with furrowed eyebrows.
'Perhaps, it's time I get a job and get some life too. A house, a car, somewhere safe and secret...' he mused to himself, but then heaved a sigh as he brought out his device.
'I'll do that after I get the Leader's Deal settled. For now, I'll need to rely on MadWhite,' Ryuk mused to himself as he picked up MadWhite's number from the array of memories in his head and quickly input it into the device before he dialled it.