Eternal Emerald Dragon

Star was fidgeting in Lind's sight as the group of 5 Elementals floated under his lockdown. He was recovering swiftly but he knew they could overpower him if they worked together.

Goldthorn at his side with the other 5 from the group teaching him kept them in check as well.

Lind suspected but he doubted they understood. Everyone had confirmed that while their construction speed or other immediate abilities worked, their ability to analyze and detect was severely limited.

Their auras only went a few kilometers at best.

So why were they digging?

The small group of men and women looked up at him and then at the others arrayed around him. The signal was clear that they did not want to reveal anything at all.

Lind did not give a damn. His eyes glowed and the feeling of pressure increased. Star seemed to want to move but stayed silent.

"You are no different from the rest! You are treating us as things!" One of the broad shouldered Elemental men shouted but Lind ignored him. He slowly turned to Star and Thunder Child.

"What is done if someone attempts to steal from a hold?" His question changed the atmosphere instantly. Lind had never said a word about their moving in or using resources. Yet, theft had happened in the past.

It varied but generally, stealing from a hold was the same as stealing a piece of the cultivator connected to it.

It was considered an expulsion offense at the very least. Despite all knowing, the man sneered.

"This is not your hold! You stole it from your true self!" Confusion flared across the group but Lind did not argue. Instead, he let his full power flare around him.

As emerald flames surrounded him, 6 orbs slowly condensed until profound Qi flowed in a balanced storm. Eternal Origin Qi was easily flowing around him as it was part of him. His harmonic flames wove it all together.

Shock was clear on all faces but the Elementals were different. They looked like someone stuck in a desert had found an oasis. They involuntarily tried to get closer to him.

Lind had a suspicion confirmed at that point. They could feel the flow of the Qi and where it was coming from. Also, something about the arrangement was appealing to them.

Their cultivation process was so different that he realized the key to their own progress was likely tied to external experiences like a Celestial. He recalled how they passed down their cores after they ascended.

It was odd that there were not more Eternal Realm cultivators from their race. After one success, the generation that came after should have a massive advantage adjusting to what they needed to do.

"Star." The name snapped all out of the trance. The man was no longer nervous but looking at him like he was the answer to all his problems. "You are dying, aren't you?"

His question made all 6 Elementals flinch. The whole basis of the Eternal Realm was to live essentially forever. They became the source of life, Qi, and so forth. Yet, Elementals were different.

The current tier was not true eternity. There was a sliver of mortality left and Lind suspected their desperation for his Origin Qi was what they desperately needed.

He looked at them and his eyes flared. His Eternal Eyes stripped the issue bare.

"I see. Your matrix is locked in a cycle of endless need for higher quality Qi but without it, it starts to fray and break down. You fall apart, literally." His words were like thunder and broke a spell of some kind on the silence.

"Daoist Frey! It is not that they wanted to–" Star tried to argue but Lind held up his hand. His face was cold.

"You accused me of treating you like things, yes? Yet, you know that the amount of Qi you would need would drain my hold dry. Tell me I am wrong." The deafening silence and shame on some of the 5's faces made it clear he had hit the target.

The man that spoke before became enraged.

"WE DESERVE TO ASCEND! WE HAVE SUFFERED MORE THAN ANY RACE! WHY MUST WE DIE ONCE WE REACH THIS REALM?!" Lind sighed. It was the same argument.

Not verbatim, but it was awfully close to the Bastard's very premise.

"The very monster hunting us thinks the same as you." His words were softly spoken but it shifted the mood of the group instantly. The color darkened on the Elemental's face showing he was no longer angry.

He was shivering as realization slowly set in.

The Fiend that was consuming all life had also defied his nature. The result was now a threat to them all.

"It is tempting to grasp at the easiest solution and worry about an uncertain future. The same Qi you now feel from me is all around you. Why were you digging?" His question was repeated and a woman came forward.

She had her arm grasped in a vice-like grip but she shook it off and bowed low to him.

"Other holds are just extensions of the cultivator. It feels like a reflection to us, but not here. At least, not until now." She glanced at the arrayed orbs around him. "It feels like a true world. It feels like a place where we can finally grow."

Her words did not seem that bad. In fact, Lind had no objection, yet there was a shift in the 4 behind her. He sighed internally.

He had seen that look before far too many times.

"We do not age, just like the rest, but we are falling apart. We are just dismissed as incomplete creatures by the rest. They do nothing to help us at all even when they could." That caught his ears, but he never stopped paying attention to the other 4.

Did they think he was blind? It seemed so as he began to feel a tug on the Qi projection he was making.

"This place has the answer! We know you are not part of this place too! You have that illusion around you but it is just what you have stolen from what was laid before!" Understanding slowly came to him.

They did not want the truth. They had a way to live and no one could argue against it. The fact his hold was different was all the justification they needed.

Lind felt a stronger tug but just kept floating. The woman then bowed low to him.

"I am sorry but I do not want to die." She was not in the worst shape but she was one of the most unstable.

"NOW!" A massive tug on this Qi followed the man's shout. Lind calmly floated and while Qi flowed into them, his expression of his dantian never even budged.

The 5 stared at him while Star looked in terror at Lind.

Goldthorn calmly looked at both sides and shook his head.

"It is his dantian. Do you not understand that? The power you are so greedy for comes from him." The old man was almost right. Lind had made it, somehow, but it was no longer reliant on him.

"It's–it's–the same!" The woman that had distracted him was terrified and the other 4 also shared in it.

His eyes glowed with quiet authority.

"Of course it is. This place was crumbling when I took it over. The Fusion path is dead and gone. That was always the plan from what I can tell. I simply claimed a space that no longer had an owner." Lind did not hide it at all and Goldthorn nodded next to him.

"I was here. It was honestly insane. Violet Cloud and her lass were here too." Lind saw the looks of disbelief flow across their faces.

"You–you–you are a world?!" Star finally found his voice but Lind shrugged.

"My deviation created a rather interesting Immortal World before I ascended." He turned to the now listless figures and raised his hand. "You were digging to steal from me before I knew what you were doing. You were going to kill a whole hold no matter the fallout to save yourselves."

Thunder suddenly rumbled above their heads. Shock flared as many recognized it. Heaven and Earth! How?!

Lind smirked as he looked up.

"The reason this place feels like a complete world is the ascension pool. The reason you do not feel the connection like others is because I am not like others. If you had asked, come to me, I would not have turned you away." Star blinked but the others seemed to want to protest but then the 3 aether children stepped forward.

"Our kind has been abused as yours. He has a wife of our race and many others at his side. Some of them are only Immortals but all are treated as equals. He is not the lord of his family but a partner." Tempest Child's words seemed to cut into them but Lind only smiled coldly at them.

{People are not things.} Lind nearly passed out but his intent bloomed like a volcano. The emerald field behind him changed and various confrontations he had faced in his life came back to the fore.

Everyone present saw him bleeding, nearly dying, for those races that could not defend themselves. They felt his rage when people came to his sect or empire and tried to dismiss non-human races as less than them.

Heaven and Earth added to the visceral experience and Star began to cry. The 3 aether children had already known but to feel it so powerfully made them also become watery in their eyes.

The humans, demon, and a few others in range on the surface saw Lind roar in defiance of convention and put his actions to his words. Many guarded figures felt like a weight lifted from their souls.

[This hold is my place. I am not going to banish you all to face the Bastard but cross my bottom line and I will never help you again. No resources and no weapons. You will stand alone, like these 5.] The projection collapsed and Lind released them.

He did not take the Qi back. They noticed. He could have, it was his, yet he let them have it to repair the damage to their matrix structures.

That act alone told them they had been wrong. He was not looking down on them as things. He had judged them on their actions alone. He even had allowed them to heal.

Regret was written on their faces but it was too late. The Qi flow was completely cut off! They could still detect it but could no longer absorb it! Such an act could only be done by an Eternal Realm in his hold.

They left with crestfallen faces as Star quickly crushed a jade stone communication artifact. He was sending a warning to any of his people in the hold or on the way. They had to know what they were getting into!

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