Chapter 428: Insecurity

Priam left his room and headed toward where he assumed Dandara and her sisters were.

In an open field in the middle of the forest, the two factions had gathered.

As he approached, Priam saw an enormous wall of earth separating the three thousand soldiers into two groups. The women were on one side, while the men were on the other. He caught a toxic, extremely nauseating smell in the air, causing him to immediately narrow his eyes.

Muffled groans echoed like a funeral dirge, while a foul, heavy aura flowed around them all.

Taking a closer look, Priam observed both groups sitting down, their entire bodies covered in a thick layer of purple poison. They weren’t wearing any clothes, but the toxic crust was dense enough to form a thick second skin over their bodies.

Priam exhaled, his expression tense. This was a method known as Diabolic Refinement — something extremely torturous, yet perfect for tempering both the body and one’s vital energies simultaneously.

Besides causing excruciating pain that would make anyone beg for death within minutes, this method was terribly dangerous. Anyone administering it needed to possess precise, down-to-the-millimeter knowledge of both the toxin and each individual’s physical capabilities. Even the slightest mistake in dosage would quickly condemn the target, burning their vital energies from the inside out.

Standing beside Dandara was Mo Lan. She was the troop’s poison specialist and, together with Dandara, formed a pair of high-level torturers straight out of purgatory.

Priam couldn’t spot the twins anywhere. Suddenly, Dandara turned around and noticed him watching the scene. She quickly walked over to him and stopped right in front of him, ’discreetly’ blocking his view of the women’s side.

"The two of them are waiting for you," Dandara said hurriedly, leading Priam away.

He sighed softly but allowed himself to be led away.

There was nothing worth looking at there anyway, but Dandara’s jealousy — fueled by her little insecurities — was still something she couldn’t control. At least she was aware of it and tried not to draw attention to herself.

Mo Lan remained behind to look after the soldiers, while Priam and Dandara headed toward a more secluded location.

Before they even reached their destination, Priam already felt an intense elemental and spiritual fluctuation erupting from the top of a nearby mountain. An overwhelming pressure made the very space around it turbulent.

He quickly leaped up, floating to the summit in the blink of an eye. Then, his eyes widened.

At the top, he saw the two of them sitting opposite each other, their eyes closed. Around them, nearly 300 tiny points of light orbited through the air, spinning in a perfect circle and creating a magnificent spectacle. They were all Elemental Spirits.

Suien’s entire body was covered in thousands of tiny runes that glowed brilliantly with the elements of Wind and Water in perfect conjunction.

Feeling her aura, Priam was shocked to notice an absurd similarity to his own Elemental Physique. However, hers had been conceived by fusing two distinct elements with soul energy. Everything had been arranged into tiny runes like a complex, flawless puzzle through an inscription, creating a terrifying variation.

On the other side, Meien radiated a mystical flame extending just a few centimeters around her body. The fire had a deep indigo hue and, instead of black smoke, it released a shimmering silver mist.

Upon sensing the nature of that power, Priam realized in surprise that those flames contained absolutely no Yang energy. They were a type of purely Yin flame, harmonized with soul energy.

Noticing Priam’s shock, Dandara smiled beside him and murmured,

"In the world they visited, there were Elementals identical to the ones in ours, and they formed contracts with over a hundred of them. That allowed the two of them to reach the highest level of the Vanculari race’s Ancestral Art: Hegemonic Soul Binding."

Priam was even more astonished. In theory, this supreme technique was something that could only be mastered at the peak of the Sage Ranks. However, the two of them clearly hadn’t developed it just now, but back when they were still Mage Masters.

In short, the soul power that the Vancularis could wield alongside their partners could be infused into anything to increase its power exponentially, granting it terrifying properties.

By this point, Priam was certain that the Vancularis no longer existed anywhere else in the universe, and that his Ylisse clan represented the last living remnants of the species.

It was no coincidence that the Vancularis had been hunted to the brink of extinction. Aside from the abnormal raw power they manifested alongside their partners, this ultimate technique allowed them to amplify any ability, weapon, or element several times over.

Since very few people possessed strong defenses against soul-energy attacks — and raw physical strength had almost no effect against them — this power became even more terrifying.

Priam quickly understood the situation.

Each of them had applied this potential in an entirely different way.

Suien channeled this trump card into her innate talent for inscriptions, using Priam’s own Elemental Physique as a template. Back when Dandara had been training the two of them before the sect’s test, he had even given them the unknown Wind Element technique he had studied.

Now, using everything at her disposal, his sister had proven that her karmic title, Archmage of Inscriptions, hadn’t been bestowed upon her by chance.

Meien, on the other hand, did the simplest thing and, at the same time, the most absurd: she completely altered the properties of the Fire element. Naturally, this element should be composed almost entirely of Yang energy, so her flame was an abomination.

Only specific races, such as Flaris’s, could create something like this by burning their own bloodline. Therefore, a Mage or Sage creating something like this shouldn’t have been possible.

However, recalling her karmic title, Seeress of Flames, Priam had a hunch that Meien had shaped something she had already been deeply accustomed to and connected with in her previous life.

In the end, everything Priam had given them in the past had finally borne extraordinary fruit. Both had amplified what they had already been genuinely brilliant at in their previous lives, pushing their trump cards to their absolute limits.

As he stopped to reflect on this dynamic...

Priam’s mind seemed to light up with a new understanding.

Flaris also bore the karmic title Azure Empress, and she had developed a technique by fusing her two races that perfectly lived up to that title.

Priam was now certain that, given the necessary conditions to develop, people naturally tended to follow the path in which they had excelled the most in their past existences.

Perhaps the laws of the world erased everyone’s memories and placed them in adverse situations precisely to force them to develop new skills? Now, that seemed to make profound sense.

Being exceptionally good at just one thing had never taken anyone to the true peak. The path to becoming an immortal by ascending through all the Ranks tested individuals in multiple ways. If someone wasn’t truly resilient, adaptable, and capable, they would never get very far.

However, after going through several lives and achieving great feats in different fields, an individual would eventually be reborn under perfect conditions, possessing several ultimate talents that would finally allow them to reach the summit.

’I think I’ve understood something crucial from this. However, there are always multiple paths leading to the same destination. Exploring someone’s Karmic Title — without preventing them from developing in other areas — isn’t necessarily a bad thing.’

Priam finished this train of thought and took a deep breath.

He slowly approached the two of them. When he was just a few meters away, all the Elemental Spirits orbiting in the air froze in unison.

Both girls slowly opened their eyes and turned their gazes toward him.

"You two have done a great job. I’m genuinely proud of you," Priam said with absolute sincerity.

Radiant, unguarded smiles blossomed across both their faces.

They quickly recalled all their elemental partners and stood up, positioning themselves in front of Priam with unmistakable anxiety practically spilling out of them.

Suien, despite being a Catalyst Sage, had transformed into an immortal monster on the front lines thanks to her pseudo-Elemental Physique combined with her profound nature energy.

To win the mission’s great battle, she was the one who had developed herself into the troop’s ultimate, unbreakable shield.

Meien, on the other hand, had focused on the tactical and strategic aspects. She had named this ability Spiritual Flame.

With this power activated to its fullest and infused deep into her being, she claimed she could practically predict the near future during combat. She said she could sense the exact next moves of anyone she focused on a little before they actually made them.

Furthermore, she could read people’s fluctuations and intentions with absolute precision. Any and all hostility, as well as anything that person was hiding, was decoded by her with terrifying accuracy. No one could set a trap or deceive her.

Combined with her devastating offensive power enhanced by the pills, she could orchestrate the entire course of a war, striking with surgical precision at exactly the right moment.

Hearing all this, Priam was surprised. In practice, she really did seem like some kind of oracle... She had literally become the Seeress of Flames all over again.

They went into great detail about the full extent of their abilities, explaining everything as meticulously as possible, as if desperately trying to prove they were strong and capable enough to walk alongside him.

Noticing that hidden urgency, Priam let out a slight snort.

The two of them also carried deep insecurities. Remembering Dandara, Priam began to think that he really was the problem, not the three of them.

To the twins, Priam had become an almost unreachable figure. Even Dandara stood countless steps above them. Because of this, deep in their souls, they feared becoming a burden and that he might not want them to join his faction in the future.

After reflecting for a few brief seconds, Priam looked at them with extreme tenderness.

"Even if you two were perfectly ordinary people, I wouldn’t mind in the slightest. But the truth is, you’ve never disappointed me or given me any real reason to worry. You don’t need to overthink things or carry that burden. I’ll continue counting on you both by my side in the future."

Hearing those words, both their hearts trembled. They swallowed hard as a trembling, emotional light filled their eyes, wiping away years of anguish and uncertainty in a matter of seconds.

Beside them, Dandara smiled softly, satisfied with the scene. Priam merely let out a slight snort before immediately adding, a sharp glint in his eyes:

"Now, let’s get down to what really matters. Meien, you’re coming with me. The two of us have some work to do together."