"Even though I somewhat expected this, I was still caught unprepared." The Cultus King said softly.
He was prepared for Ryu's talent, but was still caught off guard by the sheer volume of it. At this moment, he really wasn't sure what to do.
The world was simply too vast. He wasn't his daughter and as such didn't have a special connection with Ryu. How then could he find them as easily as Ailsa had found Ryu? It was like looking for a needle in the vast expanse of space.
The Cultus King sighed. "I don't know if this boy was sending us a message or not, but despite the fact both of those brats died, I couldn't sense any injury to their souls."
How could the two little nephews actually dare to repeat Ryu's words to their grandfather? They were just happy they weren't punished.
"… They seem to have gotten word?"
The Queen seemed to shift the subject completely.
"Well, they've been looking for her as furiously as we have. It's not a surprise that they got word almost as soon as we did. But, I'm afraid that this time, they'll truly be disappointed. It's impossible for my little girl to marry into their family now. Even if I wanted to allow it, it's certain that they wouldn't now." The King replied wearily.
Their relationship with that Clan had been contentious ever since the matter with their eldest son occurred. Now, once news of the failure to retrieve Ailsa spread, the tension between the two would only grow worse.
"Marrying off my daughter before she was even born was a foolish decision to begin with. In this regard, I will never stand on your side."
The Cultus Queen spoke coolly, not holding back with her words. Just because she wanted to save Ailsa from Ryu, it didn't also follow that she wanted to ship her daughter off to someone else, especially with how many question marks there were about that Clan.
"Having a few connections with that Clan didn't seem like a bad idea at the time." The Cultus King said. "A Clan on that level doesn't just pop up out of nowhere like this. Someone would have sensed them in the Stream of Fate long ago. Yet, it's like they just appeared.
"There's a massive secret behind this. With our daughter's talent, she wouldn't have been a mere pawn, she would have been the right hand to an Emperor among Men."
"If you really believed what you were saying, why would you agree to seal her?"
"You know that was different. It was simply a precautionary measure. I planned to undo the Seal after she completed her Immortal Rings. But, who would have thought that that lass would run away. It did her some good to gain some perseverance without relying on obscene talent. Who knew all my efforts would go to benefit an outsider?"
"An outsider? And that Clan isn't?! They might not even be from any Plane of Existence we're aware of! How could that be any closer to being an outsider?!"
Despite her sickly appearance, when the Queen became furious, she seemed to have momentum that surpassed even her husband. Any softness she seemed to carry sharpened into several blades aimed for her him.
The Cultus King met his wife's eyes and sighed.
Back then, his most talented son had still been alive and he hadn't been worried about the future. He thought he was only securing a path to the top for his daughter. But, who knew she would actually be so talented?
The moment Ailsa was born, he already had thoughts of annulling, but it was a delicate thing. So, he chose to leave it in his daughter's hands.
When the initial contract was signed, he had left a way out for his daughter, but that way out would require her to hold strength greater than her future husband. In order to help Ailsa refine herself for this goal, the Cultus King laid one of the most delicate seals of the Cultus Clan.
This seemed to be a malicious seal, but the truth was that much like all the other techniques of the Cultus Clan, it was meant for nurturing.
The Seal would lock away a large portion of the target's talent for a period and once it was undone, it would allow for explosive growth.
The trouble was that the longer the seal was laid down, the harder it was to undo. Theoretically, this meant even better results, but it was also impossible to tell if there would be any side effects for leaving it down too long.
Who knew that his small exercise in teaching his daughter perseverance and helping her to refine her Mental Realm would actually end in his precious little girl running away and disappearing for almost a billion years?
The markers of the seal were so subtle that even though Ailsa knew it existed, she might never even suspect that it had been cast on her. And now they were here, almost a billion years later and the seal still laid down.
And that Clan… They called themselves the Martial Gods.
"Huh?!"
The Cultus King shot up right in the middle of his wife's enraged rant.
The Queen frowned, almost ready to snap for her husband cutting her off. She really didn't seem sickly at this moment at all.
"The seal was undone!"
However, these words caused her to freeze in her tracks.
**
Ryu stood at the library entrance, unfazed by Flora's aggressive gaze. At the moment, she was completely unlike her usual na?ve and innocent self. Though, Ryu knew that that had been a fa?ade, seeing her in such a state almost made him sigh inwardly.
"Ah…!"
Eska's exclamation truly caught them all off guard. If Flora's could have been ignored as a manic episode, what was Eska's exactly? Of them all, she had always been the calmest.
What was happening here exactly?
Of course, Ryu knew why. He had progressed quite far in Eska's [Immortal Sakura] as well…