Ryu's words crashed into the Faeries in waves. The last felt like an anvil falling atop their chests, the realization making them completely unsure and uncertain of themselves.

The lack of a Sky God had slowly crept up on them. It was the kind of thing they all knew subconsciously, but hadn't realized the true impact of until it was pointed out for them all so blatantly and obviously.

Ryu knew exactly the kind of emotion they were feeling right now. It was the same emotion he and his family had experienced when they too realized something was wrong. The change was far too subtle to be noticed immediately and it took time, but when one realized, it was so in-your-face that it was simply impossible to ignore.

Back then, it was simply too subtle. Generations slowly passed as talents became scarcer and scarcer. But, no one panicked because the older generation was such a solid backbone. By the time everyone realized that things were worse than any of them had thought, Ryu's grandparents had gotten old and his parents hadn't yet grown strong enough to fill in their shoes.

Just like that, an empire that had existed for billions of years came crumbling down while the dirty underbelly of the Clans and Sects that had been beneath them rose up, claiming what had once been theirs with impunity.

And now the same thing was happening to the Faeries, but their situation was even worse. Their entire Plane had not a single Sky God, and to make matters worse, this was the product of their own doing. Whereas the Tatsuya Clan had fallen to the machinations of others, the Faeries fell as a result of their own hubris.

The Faeries thought themselves to be so great and so excellent, they believed that they were above humans because they didn't do dirty things like fight in wars and they had the love of nature in their hearts.

They lacked sharpness, they lacked drive, they lacked gratitude, they lacked humility

Maybe Ryu was the last person to knock another for being too arrogant, but Ryu also never had any intention on relying on others like the Faeries had. Everything that he gained in life, he was more than willing to scratch and claw for himself. There was no one who could say that he, Ryu Tatsuya, was ungrateful.

Ryu had said multiple times that the Fey had warned the Faeries that such a day would come, but he had never made clear exactly what that warning was about. Right now, the Faeries were learning first hand that the words of their Ancestors shouldn't have fallen on deaf ears.

The Faeries were, in the crudest sense, the inferior Fey. While they could mostly only rely on few and very constrained kinds of qi, the Fey could not only wield Primordial Qi, but they had an entire half of the energy spectrum of the world to themselves.

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The Faeries were essentially beasts without Heaven's Blessings. Because they didn't fight along with their Ancestors, they didn't earn the care of the Heavens. As a result, they were essentially moochers who could never get full service.

When the Heavens were still powerful, it was still possible for some Faeries who were a bit more talented to breakthrough that final barrier and enter the Realms of the Sky Gods. But, what do you think would happen if these same Faeries allowed invaders to weaken the very Heavens they relied on?

The Heavens above would weaken and be replaced by a new Order. As the Order the Faeries had come to know disappeared, the Faeries who had always believed in passivism and never fought for anything they had gained in their lives would lose their strength.

At the same time, the Faeries, who never truly had Heaven's Blessing to begin with, would be the first to be abandoned. After all, if there was one race the Heavens would back to make a final push to protect itself, wouldn't it be the Beasts that they favored to begin with?

And in such a situation, wouldn't the Heavens be in the right?

Once again, the Faeries had turned their noses up to another helper of theirs. They sat by and watched idly as their home world was invaded by alien individuals from another world. Why wouldn't they be the first that the Heavens abandoned?

This was exactly what the Fey had warned the Faeries about all those Eras ago, yet they hadn't listened.

Judging by the look of it, King Cultus had already used special means to raise his cultivation to the Peak of the World Sea Realm. Though he tried to hide it, such a thing couldn't escape Ryu's gaze. In fact, maybe the reason King Cultus had gone so far as to seal Ailsa to begin with was exactly because he was worried about this.

No matter how much the Faeries bloviated about maintaining peace and harmony, they knew deep inside that without appropriate strength, they would live miserable lives.

And now, in the irony of all ironies, the Clan best suited to nurturing and building up others, had no way of nurturing and building up itself.

"How annoying." Ryu almost spat out these words. "Nothing but a waste of words and breath. If reason was enough to deal with fools like you, there wouldn't have been a need for me to waste my time here to begin with. You spend all of your days meditating on the meaning of life and refining your crafts outside of battle, you would think that in all this time you've wasted philosophizing, you would have stumbled upon something called 'reality' a long while ago.

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"Let's go."

Ryu made a subtle movement with his hand, his other still holding onto Ailsa's own. However, this seemed to trigger a fierce reaction from King Cultus and the others. They had gone through all this trouble just to ensure that nothing happened with Ailsa, how could they possibly allow Ryu to just leave now.

"Do you really think I'll allow you to go anywhere?"

"Who said it was your choice to make to begin with?" Ryu replied.

King Cultus had already been enraged by Ryu's previous 'history' lesson. No one liked to have their scabs opened wide for everyone to see and usually when one was so firmly entrenched in their beliefs, rather than words like Ryu's helping them, it would instead further entrench them in their beliefs.

This was exactly why Ryu didn't normally waste his words on speaking at all. He had done that during the whole of his first life, making him grow a deeply entrenched aversion to it all. If he couldn't defeat someone, he would more likely than not walk away in silence, which is what he would have done here had it not been for Ailsa's sake.

"Boy, you've spoken a lot of words today. Do you think that because I've chosen to listen to you that you can do as you please? This is nothing more than the grace of my Faerie Race. If you would like to see what our lack of grace looks like, I would be happy to show you."

"Your lack of grace? I've seen and read about plenty of that already. But by your words, you seem to think that I'm some kind of pushover?"

Ryu took a step forward, gliding through the air. His gaze turned fiery. It was no less bright than the look he had when he forced King Adonis to not dare to take even a single step forward.

"Did my little nephews tell you the words I spoke back then?"

Ryu looked his father-in-law up and down, his oppressive might pressing down. He needed no more than a moment to tell that the answer was no.

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"I see, the little ones probably didn't have the courage to tell you, but that is fine as well because by now, it's already too late. I warned you that if you wanted to take Ailsa from me, you'd have to find me quickly because I improve fast. Unfortunately for you, you're already late.

"I won't pretend like I would kill you or even think of killing you. But make no mistake, that isn't because I respect you, nor is it because I fear you. There is no one in existence that I fear, that I can promise you.

"I want you to know that the only reason you can stand before me with your chest puffed out and your aura so unrestrained is only because you allowed my wife to be born. Nothing about your existence is valuable to me outside of this.

"However, I would warn you to not test my patience, because compared to those World Sea Realm experts of the Martial Gods

"I can kill you far easier."

Ryu's words rumbled like the call of a Demon, his cadence slow and his voice causing the chests of all those who heard it to vibrate along with every syllable.

Ryu took another step forward. This time, the distance between himself and his father-in-law was no more than half a meter.

He raised his foot again, causing King Cultus to flinch.

But, by the time it lowered, Ryu and Ailsa had suddenly vanished, leaving the half Ethereal Realm in nothing but complete silence.

King Cultus took deep breaths, his chest heaving and dense droplets of sweat beading down his forehead. It took several moments for him to recover as he stared out blankly into the distance, seemingly not realizing that his daughter had vanished.

When he finally recovered, his body trembled, his crimson gaze glowing.

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He unleashed a roar of unbridled rage that even rang throughout the Real Plane.