Chapter 1387: Let’s Go Hunt a Progenitor’s Soul, Queen

Phei had taken considerably more than seven Cores from the dead guardians he slaughtered while rescuing the Elves, and although several already had obvious uses, there was one person he absolutely could not forget now that he had returned home carrying that kind of treasure.

His ravenous Undead Queen.

After leaving Consort, Phei disappeared and reappeared inside the penthouse Sienna and Victoria had originally used when they first arrived on Hell’s Paradise Island.

Victoria had since moved out, although Sienna still used the place whenever she wanted somewhere quieter than the main penthouse, which made increasingly more sense considering how many people had somehow become part of Phei’s household.

So one of the spare bedrooms of this very penthouse Vic used to sleep in had also effectively become the Undead Queen’s whenever she returned from spending time with Consort, something Phei had only recently learned she did surprisingly often.

Unlike most of the others, the Undead Queen had never really appeared around the main penthouse or inserted herself into the family’s daily chaos.

Well, to be fair, several of the others probably would not have either without someone dragging them into it—

The Moon Elf and Dragonkin for one would likely have remained distant if the boys had not practically adopted them into the household, while the two Elves, the female Demon and Seraphine would probably still be keeping mostly to themselves if the girls had not decided that anyone remotely connected to Phei deserved aggressive amounts of hospitality; slave or not.

Welcoming family.

’Perhaps a little too welcoming.’

The Undead Queen was different, though.

She did not seem uncomfortable with Phei’s family, and she certainly did not dislike anyone. She simply preferred remaining here, where Sienna still spent enough time for the two women to have developed something resembling a relationship.

Although calling it an ordinary relationship ignored the rather enormous chasm of hierarchy sitting beneath it.

Sienna was the Nether Goddess. The System called her the Empress of Death, but from everything Phei had slowly pieced together, even that title failed to fully explain what she had once been. Sienna had not merely wielded Death as an element or cultivated some powerful path connected to it. She had ruled over Death itself as the Concept itself existing across creation answering to her as something beneath her throne.

That remained true even now.

She had reincarnated and had probably lost almost all the cultivation base she once possessed; she had only recently climbed back into the Lesser God Stage, yet none of that changed what she fundamentally was.

The power was returning slowly, but the identity beneath it had never disappeared.

The Undead Queen on the other hand belonged to the Death Monarch Race, and that made being around Sienna an entirely different experience for her than it was for anyone else.

Death Monarchs were not simply undead cultivators with strong Necromancy affinity.

Their race was rooted directly in the Concept of Death itself, their souls were born from that Concept and their existence naturally capable of wielding Death as an element. They could summon Spirits of Death, raise corpses, command all kinds of Necromancy abilities and they ruled over roots of Death whose connection to life had already been severed.

Which meant Sienna was not merely some overwhelmingly powerful Goddess the Queen respected.

Sienna was quite literally the Undead Queen’s real Goddess.

The Undead Queen could speak to Sienna and carry herself normally enough, but there was always something beneath it, something deep enough that even Phei would soon feel without knowing the ancient stories about Sienna the Queen clearly knew.

Reverence.

And probably enough awe to crush a normal person beneath it.

For a human comparison, it would be like a Christian meeting Jesus face to face and then discovering they were going to live in the same penthouse as Jesus.

Phei frowned slightly while walking deeper into the living room.

Actually, that example felt weird.

Maybe the better example would be a Greek king meeting one of the Olympian Gods; say Zeus for example or Poseidon. At least for those Phei already knew those Greek Gods actually existed somewhere on the Earth Realm of just outside it; he wasn’t sure.

Which made the comparison strangely literal.

How about a Norse king meeting Odin himself walk into the same hall probably came closer, except even that still felt too small once he considered what Sienna represented to the Death Monarch Race.

Their race literally came from the Concept of Death which Sienna ruled.

Take either example, and then multiply the feeling by a thousand, add the weight of every ancient story the Queen knew about Sienna and then place that same terrifying existence before her in the form of a younger reincarnated version of that Goddess whose presence was already becoming impossibly profound again.

Yeah.

’That is probably closer.’

Phei could practically imagine the Undead Queen seeing Sienna for the first time and thinking: *Oh my gods, that is actually Her.*

Although that raised another question.

’Do people who personally know and were before Gods still swear by Gods?’

Probably.

Language had survived stranger things.

Phei was still considering the theological implications of casual profanity when Death shifted somewhere nearby.

The change was subtle; a cold current brushed through the penthouse before black-violet mist folded into itself and the Undead Queen appeared directly in front of him. Whatever ancient dignity usually surrounded her vanished beneath immediate excitement the moment her completely black eyes settled upon him.

"Handsome Master~"

Phei barely had time to react before her gaze travelled shamelessly over him, taking in the long white hair, the changes to his body and whatever differences she could sense beneath his cultivation.

"You look even more beautiful now than anyone in all realms," she declared, stepping closer with obvious delight. "And hotter. Much hotter. Oh, you are stronger too!"

Phei stared at her for a second while an entirely different thought crossed his mind.

’Trust me, Queen, you’re so fucking hot yourself.’

He wisely kept that part inside his head.

Because fuck, she really was.

The Undead Queen had always possessed a strange kind of beauty, pale and almost unnaturally flawless, made even more striking by those abyssal black eyes and the deathly presence forever clinging around her.

Phei smiled instead. "Thank you, Queen."

Her expression brightened immediately, clearly pleased by the compliment, while Phei reached into his void storage; returning home with treasures only to forget the other dangerously ravenous woman attached to him would have been criminal negligence.

Especially considering where he intended to take her afterward.

Phei’s smile widened slightly as he looked at her. "Anyway, I have a gift for you, and after that, we’re going Progenitor Soul hunting."

The Queen’s black eyes sharpened instantly.

Phei tilted his head.

"What do you say, Queen?"