The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 374 - Mask Finally Torn, To Let The Face Beneath Breath Naturally

Chapter 374: Chapter 374 - Mask Finally Torn, To Let The Face Beneath Breath Naturally

The violet sky was familiar and the grassland was too. But the boundaries had moved, as Elua er Goltbred stood at what she remembered clearly as the realm’s eastern boundary. Where the plains had once met a shimmering distortion that marked the coiled edges of space and nothingness.

What once extended perhaps eighty miles from a centerpoint now stretched beyond her spiritual sense, even aimed and lanced into the distance. When she judged by the quality of that haze on the horizon, where the earth curved slightly upwards in this spherical space... she considered it to be probably twenty to thirty miles more from where they stood.

"So another forty miles more in diameter or so. A lot of change. Funnily enough, this helps me calculate some estimates that I hadn’t been able to before. Assuming nothing strange is what caused the growth other than natural processes."

Math equations popped into her mind about the rate of growth on these Astral Exclaves, once studied by the very person who had shown her this one in her past. The ancient cultivator was also familiar with stellar drift, but going through the hassle of identifying all the stars in her memory to make the estimates had never seemed to appeal to her.

Exactly how long it had been since she died didn’t matter, because she was focused on being the ’sweet’ little heiress. In a world that was so much calmer and nicer than the age of more violent cultivation. And then, all her focus was on Qat.

’It still is. The golden clouds above make me think of her hair, even though they aren’t the same color at all.’

A deep sigh escaped her as she went back to taking stock of what she was dealing with. The essence flows under the ground were denser too, more complex in their patterns. A natural result of the pocket dimension coming into its own. She idly wondered if the biggest chain of ancient Exclaves were still active.

They had been filled with people, cities, beasts, and all manner of things. The stomping grounds of new Defiers and hidden refuges of new Demi-Gods that pissed off someone stronger than they were. A connection of ’worlds’ that didn’t require the lengthy periods of travel exploring the greater cosmos did.

"Probably destroyed by now like everything else. Cycles reset everything if given the chance."

Behind her, Sevra knelt in the grass with nervous deference - her spiritual pressure betraying the constant anxiety. Madrigil had wandered off perhaps fifty yards away, having followed them but now examining the impossible flowers whose stalks grew in perfect geometric spirals.

"E-Elua... that is, if I may ask... When you say this will take time to resolve, might I inquire what the plan is about shelter? Food sources? I don’t wish to presume, but if we’re to be here for any extended period..."

The scout trailed off, clearly hoping to be of use rather than demanding. The ’young girl’ that had no problem being demanding - and had made her use her first name instead of all the nicknames or titles - allowed a slight, awkward, *terrifying to the woman* smile to form on her lips.

Not the ’bright’, illusion fueled facade of her public persona. But something more genuine she usually saved for Qat. Not because these people were ’worthy’ of her genuine reality... but because they were good practice. The kind she didn’t get out in the world they lived in.

"All reasonable concerns. And yes, I know where we should most likely establish ourselves. This place... has just grown considerably since my last time here and I wanted to gauge how much."

She began walking inland, silver dress fluttering as the brunette headed toward the cluster of ancient stone formations she remembered from her ’youth’. Sevra scrambled to follow while Madrigil looked up from his flower examination - obvious reluctance to leave such fascinating specimens clear on his face.

But it was replaced with a smile soon knowing that more to discover could be on the way. After a few minutes, the Shadow Whisker member couldn’t help herself anymore and opened her mouth.

"Was this place your prison back then, too?"

Sevra asked carefully, trying to gather information without seeming presumptuous. She failed *right* at the point she assumed the ancient cultivator had been punished in order to come to this place.

"Some twelve thousand years ago, give or take, this place was held by a Guild that got on my bad side, you could say. I attempted to claim the realmshard from here in retaliation. To serve as the doorway to form a personal voidspace."

A not quite toneless chuckle followed. Her voice was a small step up from flat and her ’reality’ was not completely exposed. A small percentage of the facade remained. But the distinction was that she was not leaning so heavily into it... but instead attempting to improve upon herself naturally.

’Instead of hoping that pretending would somehow make it seep completely into me. If it was working, it wasn’t working fast enough. I want to be able to smile at my beloved, to be called cute from the bottom of her heart without anything tricking myself into acting that way...’

And adding that training to the list of things she wanted to accomplish before she could return to her Qat was easy. So easy that the casual drop of her reincarnated truth hardly phased her. Sevra who supposedly already knew stumbled slightly, but Madrigil - walking parallel to them at a strange distance of about sixteen yards away - called out with excitement.

"Twelve millennia! That’s amazing. So this place is not a temporary mental construct but a living reality all its own?"

If he was asked, he would admit that he thought he was dreaming. He sometimes did have dreams that the voices were quiet - or that they had never existed in the first place. They were nice dreams, where his wife had not left him and annulled their marriage because of his fixations.

Where the scholars of his homeland respected his accomplishments and insight, instead of driving him away in exile. It made the wild smile from earlier appear on his face again, to think that this place was *permanent*.

"It’s probably far older than that, overall. You people of this age call only *that* old ancient, but we used to only think of things from the true first few dozen Divinities as ’ancient’ a hundred thousand years."

Elua paused in her walking, considering how much more context to provide. In her careful way of life such decisions were always filtered through what would benefit her Qat, her facade, her survival. Here, with no particular benefit or harm to any of those three things... she could simply choose based on the whim of what felt right.

"And it was only forty-two-thousand ago when the Spatial Divinity that enacted his mandate lived. To repurpose the edges of the expanding universe and prevent heat death by recommitting the energy into birthing these places. The Astral Exclaves."

"You really are her, aren’t you? The Acid Tongued Villainess."

Elua er Goltbred tilted her head, again considering whether she wanted to admit to it. Not because she was heavily ashamed to... but just if it would be more interesting in the coming months to pretend to be someone else. She nodded anyway.

’No point in pretense here. I can finally simply... be.’

"This obviously was not my name, it wasn’t even my title. Do you think the cultivators back then actually ever considered themselves villains? Even when they were enemies, it was just kill or be killed."

A small step forward made the ’older’ woman step back. She remembered the Challenge and how she had been bested so effortlessly. At any point during it, she could have lost her life... if it was not for the heiress holding back.

"They didn’t go around calling each other such black and white names meant for plays and fables. More often, you were not remembered at all. But... it describes the cultivator I was well enough. Of course, your stories about her are missing some important context."

Madrigil approached closer during this exchange. With a hand on his chin, he studied the brunette just like he’d been doing to the spiraling flower before. Like an oddity and a discovery.

"Fascinating... so you are a genuine ancient cultivator in adolescent form. Long lived? No, you are strong but too weak for that. Built a new... no, a new body alone doesn’t make sense. Neither would possession..."

"She’s... a reincarnator. Like from the Merzijan Prophecy."

Mint eyes turned to Sevra and she looked away. But Elua honestly had no idea what she was talking about... and the noble wasn’t even paying attention to her in the first place, too busy doing something else that risked his life.

"Ah, the spiritual pressure makes so much more sense now. A fellow Breacher. I can’t even be upset that you are so young bodied, it’s simply wonderful to meet another-"

"You know, you’re lucky that I’m trying to be a nice person or I might have devoured that little probe attempt. It’s rude to do so in a way that the other cultivator can sense it."

Spiritualists may not have been as common in this age, but the Goltbred knew there were still plenty of them outside of her home continent. A few books she’d read from her father’s library when small made it clear that they even kept some of the same old ways in mind

"Could I truly have ever done it in such a way that someone of your experience would have actually missed it?"

Elua blinked and laughed, with a hand on her hip. Not the cute ’giggles’ of her usual facade, but short and deep ’haha’ that were horrifying to one of them hearing it. Because she’d been raised on stories of such laughter preceding massacres.

"No. I suppose you could not. You’re kind of terrible at your control, after all. Not that I don’t understand why."

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