Chapter 1391: The Queen’s Seven Gifts

’Wow.’

This time indeed; Phei Ryujin Tiamat genuinely had nothing ready to say.

He remained staring at the Undead Queen for a few seconds while she stood there shamelessly pleased with herself, black-violet Death Essence still flowing around that ridiculous body of hers and her completely black eyes sparkling as though everything she had just confessed was perfectly normal conversation. Phei had fought World Transcendents, had Goddesses for wives, he was also a Master of the Endless Void and he’d somehow built a household filled with women capable of turning practically anything into chaos, yet this woman had managed to leave him completely lost for words simply by being herself.

’She really is something else, huh?’

A quiet laugh finally escaped him as he leaned back against the couch:

"Thank you for all that, Queen. Seriously." His gaze lingered on her for another moment before his smile changed. "Anyway, I actually came here because I have a gift for you." He paused, reconsidered the wording and lifted one hand. "Gifts, really. And after that, we’re going Progenitor Soul hunting. What do you say, Queen?"

The Undead Queen’s smile had barely begun widening when the space beside Phei darkened.

Unlike his portals, his Void did not open like some ordinary portal as it tore space.

Instead, a small hollow appeared beside him, it was perfectly black at first before faint pale edges traced its circular boundary, revealing one of the private pockets he had carved inside the Void itself. Cold emptiness breathed from within it for only an instant before Phei curled two fingers toward himself.

Something enormous moved inside and one body emerged.

Then another and another.

The Queen’s expression changed before the fourth even appeared.

Seven bodies floated from the Void pocket one after another, their enormous bodies suspended effortlessly beneath Phei’s control until all seven hung several meters above the floor. They rotated slowly in the air, allowing every remaining trace of the power they had possessed in life to become visible beneath the penthouse lights.

Seven Wolf Beastkins.

Seven of the guardians Phei had slaughtered while rescuing the Elves.

Even dead, their bodies carried enough pressure that an ordinary cultivator would have struggled simply standing beneath them. Thick muscle remained packed beneath fur hardened by cultivation. Phei had stored them inside the Void almost immediately after harvesting the cores while he was still in his Void form preserving the corpses in a place where ordinary time and decomposition barely mattered.

But even then, these are World Transcendents, decaying would take years upon years for them.

After being in the Primordial Zone and all the killing, Phei had somehow skipped the phase where a dead body would make him flinch, much less react like it would’ve after Anarctica. Probably why he had not given them to her before he left apart from the fact that Sienna has snatched him.

The Undead Queen inhaled sharply.

Her hands slowly lowered from where they had been resting against Phei, and for once the shameless woman who seemed capable of flirting through practically anything simply stared.

"M-Master, you’re so..."

She stopped.

Phei raised an eyebrow.

The Queen looked from him to the seven rotating bodies, then back to him as though language had temporarily become too inconvenient to bother with. Suddenly she stepped forward; she caught his face between both her hands and kissed him.

Phei froze.

Her lips pressed firmly against his, warm despite everything deathly about her existence, and the kiss lasted several stunned seconds while Phei simply sat there with his eyes slightly widened and absolutely no response prepared. She did not deepen it or try to turn the moment into something more. She merely kissed his unresponsive lips with an impulsive sincerity that somehow surprised him more than all her earlier shamelessness.

She pulled away.

"Sorry," she whispered, although the happiness shining through her face made the apology rather questionable. "But please accept that."

Phei stared at her for another second before slowly nodding. "Accepted."

That was enough as her attention immediately snapped back toward the seven corpses.

Phei watched her face and almost felt offended by how completely captivated she became to her gifts than she was of him anymore.

Almost.

He was well aware that it was narcissistic, but come on. He was Phei fucking Ryujin Tiamat. Possibly the most handsome man in the world. Hopefully. If some ancient bastard hiding in another Realm turned out to possess a prettier face, Phei would prefer never receiving that information.

Yet the Queen was currently looking at seven dead Wolf Beastkins with more naked hunger than she had shown while praising his face.

Phei sighed internally.

’I have been replaced by corpses.’

"These..." the Queen whispered, stepping beneath them as her black eyes travelled over every enormous body. One hand lifted almost reverently toward the nearest Beastkin without quite touching it. "These are all for me?"

Phei shrugged. "They’re yours."

Her head snapped toward him.

"All seven?"

"All seven."

The Queen slowly looked upward again.

Phei understood exactly why this meant so much to her.

The past several weeks had taught him enough impossible things that his standards had become almost embarrassingly distorted. He had discovered races that Earth would have dismissed as fantasy, fought creatures that sounded like something ripped straight from cultivation novels, entered primordial regions older than ordinary concepts of winter and now casually carried around corpses that most factions would probably start wars to acquire.

Powerful Wolf Beastkins had once sounded ridiculous.

But he had killed them, consumed their Soul Essence, removed the Cores he actually wanted and stored the bodies for later because apparently that was just something Phei did now.

He still possessed the Cores too. Three, if he remembered correctly.

Then there were the five World Transcendents he had already handed the Queen in Anactica: Bromgar, the Half Behemoth-Dwarf whose corpse alone was practically a fortress; Cassian, an actual fucking Vampire, something Phei might have found considerably more unbelievable if he had not already enslaved the Progenitor of the Vampire Race itself; the Ancient Naga, the Gorgon and the Demon.

And those were hardly the strangest things currently orbiting his life.

He had Elves living under his roof. A Dragonkin. Demons. A Moon Elf. An Undead Queen practically vibrating with happiness over dead beings. A little sister who was an ancient Dragon. His wife was the reincarnated Nether Goddess as she was of Death. Somewhere inside his collection of increasingly ridiculous problems sat Original Progenitors, Primordial beings, mysterious races and enough ancient secrets to make normal Earth history look painfully underfunded.

At some point, Phei had apparently crossed the line where fantasy stopped being surprising and simply became inventory.

The Queen turned beneath the seven bodies, excitement radiating from her so strongly that black-violet Death Essence had begun curling from her shoulders.

Phei smiled.

Her excitement was entirely justified. These bodies would strengthen her mighty, and anything strengthening the Undead Queen ultimately strengthened him as well. If she ever fought beside him again, every powerful corpse he gave her became another weapon they could eventually unleash against someone stupid enough to stand in their way.

Honestly, Phei might have been slightly hurt if she wasn’t this excited.

"Do your thing, Queen," he said, gesturing toward the suspended Beastkins. "But hurry up. I meant what I said earlier. We’re going Progenitor Soul hunting."

The Queen glanced back at him:

"Oh, right!"

Then, astonishingly, she returned immediately to inspecting the corpses.

Phei stared. ’Does she even understand what I just said?’

Probably not.

Maybe she thought he was speaking metaphorically. Perhaps "Progenitor Soul hunting" sounded to her like some exaggerated expression, because as far as the Queen’s worldview was concerned, Progenitors were not prey.

They were the beings preys prayed never noticed them.

Original Progenitors stood at the foundation of entire races, ancient existences whose bloodlines had spread through generations and whose names could weigh upon civilizations. Even World Transcendents did not casually speak about hunting them.

Phei’s lips slowly curved.

’Well, Queen, I’m about to change your perspective.’

He rose from the couch while she remained mesmerized beneath her seven new toys, and the Void quietly gathered around his body.

There were still several people he needed to collect before this little expedition began.

And one sleeping beauty who had been unconscious for far too long.

Phei disappeared.

The Void folded over him and vanished without leaving so much as a ripple behind.

What was coming next was something neither the Legacy Families nor even Danton, with all his elaborate planning and ancient confidence, had ever seriously considered possible.

For too long Phei had remained reactive.

Marcus schemed, Danton moved pieces across entire Realms, the Legacy Families prepared rituals, stole races, manipulated bloodlines and pursued whatever ancient plans had survived through generations, while Phei mostly responded whenever those plans finally crashed into his life—

He fucked, cultivated, protected his family, chased his own mysteries and played the shameless lustful Dragon everyone had already decided he was.

That was changing.

This time Phei was moving first.

The restrictions upon his Soul had loosened enough for him to claim another Progenitor, and he had absolutely no intention of repeating the safe choice he made with Kyle.

Kyle had been useful but Kyle had also been the underdog.

Phei had spent enough time catching tuna.

Why the fuck would he keep fishing for tuna when the ocean contained sharks and whales?