“Aaarrrgghh!!”

An elder was zapped by a thunderbolt created by an elderly woman who looked over one hundred years old.

She was Yevani Chevry, the Matriarch of House Chevry, and Candice’s great great grandmother.

“Your punishment comes later. Now, we push through,” Yevani said. Her voice was like the creaking of old wood.

“...Yes.”

He was the Level 3 elder that acted as this expedition’s overseer. He was not the only one getting zapped. Busdin and every Chevry with a managerial position were also getting an electric slap.

The voltage was on par with the electric chair’s execution on Earth.

After speaking, Yevani coughed repeatedly. She refused someone's gesture of rubbing her back. The old woman was furious, sensing that the inheritance had changed hands. Leading fourteen Level 3s, Yevani stormed the inheritance site.

Viers saw them from the surveillance array. The air turned into some sort of screen.

She’ll be here soon.

Viers looked around, weighing the value of this land. How much effort would he be willing to put into it in order to defend it.

The creator of this place, Janus Chevry, was a lightning Pathseeker. It was clear just by looking at this place. The core of the inheritance was his personal Profound Codex, along with his understanding of cultivation, and signature Artes of a man that was called the Doom of Roael. There was even an invaluable item capable of giving a person lightning 5 affinity and other precious items albeit not as great as those previously mentioned. Furthermore, the Aviary would provide ample resources for the inheritor’s growth.

The mighty inheritance was useless to Viers. No one in his inner circle used lightning either. The lightning affinity resources could be food for Futon, the cloud elemental, but that was it.

What I really wanted was a food inheritance but it is what it is. It’s all wealth and I will take it.

He would stow this inheritance for future use.

Clarissa and the others were instructed to scour the land and take the most valuable resources like maniacs. Viers helped them by flashing left and right using Raging River Step Arte to put raw materials into his storage items, even the magical birds were not spared. They were put into cages built for magical beasts but Viers only had so many, making it so only the greater ones were packaged and ready for relocation.

But there were things that he couldn't bring such as a lightning lake that removed impurities, a cave that tempered one's mind, and other mystical terrains.

After some time, Viers felt the entire realm shaking.

She’s here. Time to test if my defensive strategy holds water.

Viers had no intention of letting go of his gains easily.

***

It’s weaker than I thought.

Yevani Chevry thought as she examined the condition of the impressive barrier protecting the door. After she smacked it with a lightning battering ram a few times, she determined the barrier could be broken forcefully.

“Halt, crone.”

A projection of a man appeared before her. It was Viers wearing a disguise.

“Charlatan, I’ll only say this once. Return the entire inheritance to us and I’ll let you leave with your life,” Yevani said.

“I have a better offer,” Viers scoffed, pulling Candice closer so the people outside could see both of them. “Leave this place alone or she dies.”

“Candice!”

Candice’s parents were horrified but Yevani was undaunted. She recognized the most promising seed of her house, nevertheless, her answer was striking the barrier once more.

A brilliant flash of lightning blinded them. The barrier protecting the door was cracking.

“Matriarch, please-” Candice’s mother pleaded.

“Inside is the hope of our bloodline,” Yevani coughed repeatedly after exerting herself but her will never wavered.

“A promising seed might be lost but with the treasures left behind by Doom of Roael, House Chevry’s rise to supremacy will be assured. Even if she is my own descendant, the family is more important!”

“Heartless, I like you,” Viers sneered. The negotiations broke down, not that he’d any delusion it might succeed. Farley wanted to present the negotiation more tactfully if Yevani hesitated but the old woman’s stance was clear. “Then there’s only one thing to do.”

Viers raised his hand to execute Candice but the thing he hoped to happen, happened.

Candice’s parents and grandfather attacked Yevani from behind.

“You-”

“I’m sorry, Matriarch, but she’s my daughter,” Candice’s father said.

“You, w-we can talk about this,” Candice’s mother addressed Viers. “Just let my child go!”

“Ah, familial love. How touching,” Viers chuckled.

Candice was in a soul-hacked state, she couldn't hear or see them but Viers felt the disturbance in her soul. Before the cliché happened, he sealed her consciousness further.

The three wanted to negotiate out of love for Candice but Yevani was having none of that, so she ordered the other elders to detain them and a fight broke out.

Viers was content letting the drama unfold, the more time they wasted, the better. Paina and the others were able to collect more materials.

In the end, the winner was clear.

“...The House must stay above all,” Yevani bitterly said to the bloodied bodies of her family. She didn't kill them. She couldn't.

Then she turned to Viers. “For making me raise a hand at my children, I’ll make you pay.”

“If your priority is your family, then you’d do well to give up this inheritance. Be warned, this will not go well for House Chevry.”

Yevani gathered power in her hand for a third strike. If the barrier was destroyed, they could forcefully enter the Aviary. Viers realized the time for talking was over so he called for his allies to end the free-for-all grabbing session and converge to his position.

“This place has been claimed by the Gardeners of Perfection! Carve this into your hearts… this is what it means to defy our will!”

Viers broke Candice’s neck, showing her death to the Chevrys outside before ending the projection. The small mercy was that the parents and grandfather didn't have to witness Candice's death.

Viers had no compassion for his enemies, and Candice had marked herself as one. There wasn't anything else she could bring to the table like Izabella’s enchantments either. Her fate was to be sent to a Tartarus where Viers ruled as Hades.

The Chevrys witnessed Candice, with a twisted neck, fall to the ground with a silence of disbelief.

Yevani’s Arte wavered slightly. The other elders felt pain and anguish at the treatment of their own, but their hatred triumphed.

And Viers conveniently pinned their hatred onto Fajrin’s devil cult!

“Break this gate down and catch that lowlife interloper! He will answer for Candice’s death!”

Yevani bellowed at the elders and they all attacked, channeling their rage into their Artes with abandon. Right now, they wanted nothing more than to tear Viers to shreds.

In the matter of minutes, the barrier was visibly weakening. A supreme inheritance that was rightfully theirs was so close they could smell it.

At that moment, battle hardened ones felt a supreme premonition of danger, Yevani more than anyone.

Wha-!?

First came what looked like a ripple in the fabric of space. Then came the tearing of the air as something slowly came out, along with a grinding sound as loud as a volcano eruption.

The Pathseekers in this place had shielded themselves against the loud sound so that their ear drums wouldn’t burst.

Yevani didn't know what to make of it at first because it encompassed her whole field of vision.

The thing seemed like something that tried to pry itself from too small of a window. Space itself began to tear with the ominous arrival of…

A boulder?

But it kept getting bigger.

And bigger.

“RUUUN!!!”

A Chevry elder shouted, fearing for his life. Meanwhile, Yevani’s eyes widened as much as they physically could.

Viers was not ejecting a rock at the invaders but a whole landmass!

As the master of the Serene Thunder Aviary, a pocket dimension similar to a Biome, Viers tried a plan that he cooked up in case his Biome was under assault.

He had a last resort plan to hurl the Biome itself at the invading force, inflicting heavy damage on them and himself. Naturally, the Biome would suffer catastrophically. The lost earth wouldn't grow back like a lizard’s tail. It was a permanent loss.

He tested his defensive strategy using the Serene Thunder Aviary which was less precious than a true Biome.

If I cannot have it, then no one can!

The Aviary was much smaller than Dia’s Biome but it was still kilometers wide. With the help of the parrot caretaker, Viers cut chunks of the landmass, and space-tossed gargantuan solid grounds at the people outside.

Viers didn't have the strength to lift such hills, no. It was a form of teleportation which the parrot handled.

The result was extraordinary. It was like there was a titan swinging its fist to crush a bunch of ants. The ground trembled as mass crashed against mass, a mountain was born inside a mountain. The smell of soil and grass encapsulated the hall as large chunks of rock collided together.

The hall was utterly wrecked by the fangs of the earth.

Hundreds of meters above, the people on the surface felt the earthquake.

“Kaaaaaa!!”

The Chevry matriarch tried to resist with all of her might, invoking her full might as a Level 4. Her Domain clashed against the emerging landmass.

It was Viers’ first time seeing a real life case of an ant trying to stop a train.

To some success, amazingly.

Using some sort of a lightning drill, large swathes of earth and dirt the size of an island were decimated by her, but she was running out of ground. More and more earth was pouring out from the crack in space as if it was a Niagara Falls of solid rocks, and rubble the size of rhinos was piling up. Yevani might be able to hold her ground but she was about to be swallowed by the terrain.

But that was not the only ammo in Viers’ arsenal. He threw more landmass at Yevani from other directions. This time from two different directions at once, reducing the size of the precious cultivation paradise even further! The creator, Janus Chevry, would roll in his grave if he knew what Viers had done to the place he’d created by pouring his heart and soul into it.

If the other Chevry elders were in despair before, seeing more space meteors coming from multiple directions made them spirit-broken. The sound of crackling walls, falling ceiling, dust that choked their lungs; all were very terrifying. Once again they were reminded that they were deep underground. Some of the earth Pathseeker had it easier but not the others.

As Viers kept teleporting landmass to bury the Chevry Matriarch, another disaster struck, gallons of water rushed in from the broken walls. It was the power-vanishing water!

The elders realized the threat to their life. They were already fumbling to dodge or destroy the incoming boulders in an enclosed mountain’s bowels. In this dire situation, being unable to use Victa would be the final nail in their coffin.

Some decisively took the risk and teleported out but the disturbance in space disrupted any efforts of spatial transfer.

Out of the upper echelons of House Chevry at this place, a third of the elders teleported but got torn up by spatial hazards or lost in the void. A third managed to teleport safely, partly because they had better teleportation methods and means. The last third did not teleport, unable to or unwilling.

The inheritance ground was inside a thin mountain in the middle of a lake with power-vanishing water. The Aviary was in a different layer of space but the pathway connecting it was at the bottom part of the lake.

The sudden emergence of a large body of matter had further compromised the structural integrity of the inheritance ground. The whole mountain was collapsing but Viers paid it no mind. As the master, Viers only cared about the gate at the bottom of the lake, the rest could be ruins for all he cared. He focused his defense to protect the Aviary.

The remaining Level 3s tried to fight for their life against the lethal pressure being applied all around them. Some managed to group up, and invoked Arte after Arte to protect themselves, but when the ceilings and walls collapsed, they were buried under the earth and water.

Despite their Unreality Fields protecting them, they wouldn't last forever. They were trapped and couldn't get themselves out. The water made their agony shorter, disturbing their effort to maintain the Unreality Field which outright drowned them.

Because of Viers making a landmass into his weapon, many people got implicated. People in the tunnels were trapped due to cave-ins or crushed to death. The slaves in the mana crystal mine suffered the same fate but some felt it was a release. Some of the ruins above were sunk.

The aftermath was disastrous. He had run out of land to throw. At some point, Viers had lost sight of Yevani.

Among the chaotic rubble, there was a flicker of movement.

…She’s still alive. Level 4 is a different breed indeed.

Despite Viers’ effort, Yevani was still alive and she didn't get pushed too far from the crucial door.

The old matriarch, bloodied and battered, destroyed the rocks and obstruction in her way until she stood in front of the door with a weakly flickering barrier.

“You, will pay… for all that you’ve done to my family.”

Yevani said with all the poisonous hate and bile from the pit of her stomach. Her hand cracked with lightning as she gathered energy to destroy the barrier once and for all.

Looking at Yevani through a surveillance array, Viers sighed disappointedly. He’d failed to kill the Level 4 and there was nothing more he could do to prevent the Chevrys from storming the Aviary.

Well, this is it…

The Aviary was now only the size of a soccer field, a mere 1/50th of the original area. He had already thrown all the landmass that he could send out. He couldn't reduce the size any more than this lest the very space he was in broke down in the dimensional instability.

Against Level 4s, I’m still too weak…

Viers had scattered incendiary bomb beads, during the time that the hostage situation changed. The bombs would explode after he evacuated. Yevani and the Chevrys would take the Aviary but it was far from the cultivation paradise rich in resources they hoped for. Far from it. It would be a burning wasteland.

Scorched earth policy!

“Alright Parroty, beam me out.”

The Aviary had a sophisticated teleportation array for emergencies, one that Viers could make use of now. The spatial disturbance shouldn't pose an issue to the high grade array.

Viers naturally had secured an escape route. If there wasn't one, he would have been gone before the Chevrys arrived. The parrot didn't even make a peep as Viers destroyed the Aviary. It was only a construct and Viers was the master.

It is a shame leaving this great spot behind. This place had a secret base feel, immortal cultivation cave feel.

Outside, Yevani raised her hand, she was about to throw an enormous spear of lightning. However, she suddenly pressed it against her chest. The Arte became unstable and self-destructed!

A heart-twisting scream came from her lips.

On the other side, Viers watched the scene with an open mouth.

What the fuck!? A heart attack? Followed with an Arte backlash!

Yevani Chevry… died.

“NOOOO!”

“Matriarch!!”

There were wails of sorrow from the Chevrys that were still alive.

While Viers was thinking about his next step after the unexpected development, he heard multiple explosions. It was the bombs he set up earlier!

Could it be? Is the Aviary defendable now?

“Girls! You know what to do!”

Viers sent his tenants to bomb disposal duty. He turned from wanting to destroy as many resource points as he could to saving them. Viers himself went after Yevani.

A sudden Level 4 loot was within his reach! Viers tried to open a path near Yenavi’s body.

It was difficult but he managed to open a small teleportation window, the size of a door’s peephole. Viers’ Euryale Sight and soul sense established that she was truly dead and not playing dead.

Oh no!

Viers was too late. Some Level 3s were still alive despite the collapse of the mountain. They moved quickly, securing the body.

The disturbance in space worked against Viers this time. He couldn't open a portal fast enough for him to take the body of Yevani and further his gain from the corpse and belongings of a Level 4.

So he settled for a consolation prize.

Arte - Subtle Soul Gravity!

Stealthily, ever so stealthily… a soul floated towards him. It was like a ball naturally rolling to a lower slope.

Hehehehe, Bwahahahaha!

The Chevrys might have gotten Yevani’s body but Viers got her soul.

Calling this a bad day for House Chevry would be the understatement of the century.