Immortal Kingdoms

"What? Got your confidence shaken?" Leonardo teased when he returned to Wendy's side. The woman was still in a daze, even the black thunderbird was trembling while struggling to maintain its point of levitation in the air.

"So you were this powerful all along?" Wendy looked Leonardo up and down once more, feeling like he became a stranger all of a sudden. "Are all cultivators this powerful?"

She remembered that he wasn't actually from Arcadia, to begin with, so she decided to doubl-check.

"Eh… Not really, a very small minority of the cultivators are as powerful as me, if we're talking about my peers in the same cultivation realm."

Leonardo then explained the difference in talents and constitutions among cultivators from the ordinary, mortal, saint, and eventually divine.

"Honestly, you're on the cusp of obtaining a divine constitution because you have no set energy pockets yet, but your body has gone through a lot of tempering. When we're done with our journey, you'll probably have already attained the talent of a divine constitution."

Leonardo sighed, shaking his head, "What a pity, though. If that were to happen, you can no longer get pregnant, at least not from people on Arcadia… So, you have to consider whether or not you want to go through with the metamorphosis."

Wendy was shocked, but she led the black thunderbird to land down nonetheless. According to Leonardo, unless she found a male from the tribes with a divine constitution as well, it would be impossible to get pregnant.

Seeing her expression, Leonardo was speechless and reminded her, "You know that once the city is established, there is no need to adhere to your past convictions, right?"

Leonardo obviously meant that they no longer needed to be constrained by how many children a woman can give birth to or the harsh recruitments to have a strong offspring. Survivability will no longer be an issue for those with weaker physical bodies, lessening the burden on Wendy's shoulders.

Wendy had a complicated look in her eyes, her thoughts unknown. Then, she sighed and went on ahead to search for an entrance underground.

Since they could narrow down the position of the Divine Pool, she could make use of her experience to look for an entrance naturally formed from the movements between the energy veins and the crust of the earth.

About an hour later, they found the entrance. During this hour, Leonardo was carving formations around the perimeter of the region that was narrowing down towards the suspected location of the Divine Pool. Needless to say, this was very taxing on his spiritual energy, but it had to be done.

The next step was to make use of the remnant spiritual mark he left in the pool to function as a node for this minor formation. Followingthis, the minor formation would also work as a node for the greater formation involving 81 Divine Pools scattered across the land and 36 Divine Pools gathered near the core of the land.

According to Leonardo's theory, the outer region of the Sky Mountains Domain should be populated with creatures that reach their peak by achieving a level of power equivalent to the mortal cycles.

The second region, also known as the second ring, should be for those with the equivalent of the first cycle sainthood, and things should progress like so the deeper one went inland. Leonardo based his judgment on the fact that a first-cycle mutated beast was the overlord of an area around this region, hence he didn't need to be careful while exploring.

"Are you going to temper yourself now?"

Standing in front of the underground Divine Pool, Wendy began to take off the straps of cloth that bound her breasts and crotch, seemingly unbothered by Leonardo's presence.

Of course, that was because she knew Leonardo couldn't do anything to her even if he wished, let alone the fact she recognized him as someone who wouldn't stoop so low as to take advantage of her. Further, the two of them were in a rush and had no time to waste on feeling bashful and shy.

Leonardo shook his head. "Whenever I do something, I either go big or don't do it at all."

He decided to wait by the side and recuperate his spiritual strength while Wendy absorbed half the energy of the Divine Pool. As she was concentrating in the pool, she felt a wisp of something ethereal and ephemeral invading her mind, but the feeling was fleeting so she didn't bother thinking about it.

Off to the side, Leonardo's spiritual energy was fluctuating conspicuously, but the fluctuations were too faint to be noticed by Wendy who was focusing on tempering her physique and expelling the chaotic energies.

Just like that, the two swept the second ring region from far and near, high and low, lands and rivers, valleys and mountains.

In the blink of an eye, two months went by, and they arrived at the final Divine Pool's location which would serve as the core of the formation and the Hidden Ancient City.

Leonardo came up with that name because these tribes were truly the pure blood of ancient humans who had for some reason and for some reason ended up stranded in this forsaken place. Although Leonardo was curious as to how history developed in such a direction, he wasn't about to open up old wounds by asking.

"This should be the last one," Wendy was panting heavily as she looked up at the high mountain ahead, its peak reaching into the multicolored clouds above.

Her forehead was sweating, and a weird sensation that confused her filled her head. Oftentimes, a light headache would escalate to a painful migraine, but Leonardo told her this had to do with the metamorphosis of her body.

For the past two months, she grew intimately familiar with Leonardo's experience, he even spent the time to teach her some close-quarters of combat that were akin to a match made in heaven when combined with her monstrous physique.

It could be said that the lack of combat experience against intelligent creatures affected her growth, causing her to lean in the direction of brute combat with no finesse or skill.

Since Leonardo couldn't possibly be her training partner directly, they had to make do with visual training against humanoid creatures.

Now since this two months journey was coming to an end, Wendy didn't know what she was supposed to be feeling about it.

"Let's go!"

Leonardo said lightly and stepped forward without hesitation. For the past few days, a dark cloud weighed over his heart for some reason, and even Wendy came to notice the shift in his attitude.

…

Exodian Imperial Palace, Throne Room.

Three people were in the room at the moment. Namely, the Three Emperors of the human domain.

Queen Adeline and King Austin had weird expressions as they stared at King Ivar in disbelief.

"What did you just say?" King Austin thought that he misheard.

"You heard me clearly, the only preparations that need to be done are some evacuations on the route from the Elven Domain to Grace Imperial City, there is no need to worry about anything else." King Ivar spoke calmly.

"What do you mean by that?" Queen Adeline asked.

King Ivar looked her way, "The Human Sovereign told me that invading a planet isn't as simple as you may have been led to believe, especially now with the High Elf Lord suddenly falling ill, he can no longer sustain the passage through the atmospheric membrane."

"Other than the people protected by the laws of the higher realm, everyone with the aura of the middle realms will be intercepted by Arcadia's will and banished."

"But… Banished to where?" King Austin and Queen Adeline had puzzled expressions.

King Ivar was silent for a moment before replying in a solemn tone, "That I don't know, the Human Sovereign said that some things are better kept buried in the sands of history. However, just know that they'll be banished to a place of no return."

King Ivar didn't say it, but there was a high chance that the half-step divinity, the Sovereign from the other planet, could make it into the Elven Domain safely.

At that time, the Human Sovereign, Elven Sovereign, and Beast Sovereign might have to intercept the man in outer space, leaving their Arcadia under the mercy of the people from the higher realms.

Therefore, while it may look like they're taking a neutral stance by starting their evacuations, they're actually tacitly opening a path for the Elven Army and the people from the higher realms to march peacefully into Grace Imperial City.

This is something both Queen Adeline and King Austin realized, hence their complicated feelings. This is no neutral stance, by a silent stab in the back.

"How long do we have?" Queen Adeline asked.

"They should have already started to worm their way through the atmospheric membrane, it should take a few days minimum, a week at most," King Ivar thought for a moment before answering.

Hearing that, Queen Adeline thanked him and excused herself from the meeting.

…

In the Grace Imperial Palace, Aria was having a silent nap on Leonardo's bed in his absence when she suddenly felt something amiss. Then, she looked up in a certain direction to see several spaceships twisting and moving through space, all within the confines of the atmospheric membrane.

Narrowing her eyes, she seemed to glimpse a hint of some spatial dislocation, the target of displacement being… The Sky Mountains Domain?

Aria decided to not bother.