After being led out of the water by my trusted attendant, I was guided into a small, enclosed area where there was a wall of water behind me and a regular sized door and walls in front of me.

I entered the door expecting to see a room, a large one in fact, based on the descriptions of the rooms my other Infernals had received. Instead, I was met with the inside of what looked to be a big house.

There was a full kitchen, a living room, and a loft, and I could sense multiple branching hallways that led to several different rooms. The area was huge. Multiple families could live here, which I suppose was good for me since Vrusha and the rest of the guard could simply stay here, which they happily did.

The attendants let me know that there would always be someone waiting by the wall of water if I ever needed anything for the duration of the entire trip. I thanked them for their help, entered my large abode, told Vrusha and the others that they could focus on their cultivation for a while since I did not plan on leaving, and then I proceeded to do the same, doing my best to reach the next realm.

This only lasted a few minutes before I was interrupted.

It was Vrusha.

"Forgive the interruption, Patriarch. The lady whom you have allowed to travel with us is requesting to meet with you. Should I reject her and all future disturbances?"

"Oh, I suppose I did not inform her about the things I learned earlier. I can spare a few minutes. Invite her in."

A few moments later, Sendoira joined me. We found a place to sit, as there were many in this large place, and began to talk.

"What do you know of our destination?"

"I suppose I don't know all that much, just that we are heading to an empire and that one of the important figures of this empire is who we are traveling with. In fact, she's a princess."

Sendoira looked at me quizzically, her head tilting this way and that. "A princess, you say? What is that?"

Oh…perhaps her culture did not have such things. Interesting.

I then spent the next few minutes explaining not only what a princess was, but also a prince, a king, a queen, a duke, a duchess, and any other noble titles I could think of, because there was a chance we might run into these titles once we reached our destination. It took a couple of minutes, but she eventually understood, or at least I thought she did.

After that, I explained my purpose there, which of course would be fighting battles for the princess.

"That's pretty much it."

"I appreciate your patience. So, you will be fighting on behalf of the princess against other beings chosen by those like her?"

"Yes."

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She went silent for a few moments before speaking again.

"May I observe these battles? I am curious to see how others fight. I've only ever seen my people fight, and it is not all that different from one another."

I didn't see why she couldn't, so I said sure.

Now that I think about it, it's been a while since I've added some new techniques to my repertoire. Everything I have is for the Qi Refinement realm.

I doubt I'll be able to find anything specifically for Infernals, much less Infernal Patriarchs, in this empire I'm about to visit. But perhaps there are other things I can make use of to develop techniques of my own.

It's not like that isn't an option. Maybe I can develop something specific to my clan, though I doubt I'm the first Patriarch to have had similar thoughts, so maybe anything I can think of right now has already been done. Who knows.

Wouldn't hurt to try anyway.

And just like that, six months passed.

During that time, my days became repetitive, but not in a boring, mind numbing kind of way. I spent time talking with not just Sendoira but with anyone and everyone in the clan.

I can't say I had in depth conversations with every single one of them, but I definitely exchanged more words than I had in the past, even if it was just, "How are you?" or "How are you liking your new quarters?" Small talk like that still mattered and I made sure to talk to them as much as I could.

Though what was interesting was that a lot of those longer conversations came with sparring. Although we were focused on our cultivation, it wasn't like we all entered closed door training.

There was still plenty of interaction, hence the conversation and sparring.

Since there were many Core Formation Infernals among my clan, sparring against them, sometimes more than one at a time, became almost a daily occurrence over the past six months.

It was interesting, and although I could tell those first few initial battles I had against my clan members left them nervous and hesitant in their actions, eventually they reached a point where they could fight without hesitation.

The nerves never fully went away, though, except for the boys—who I suppose technically aren't boys anymore. Both of them are in their early twenties now, and neither of them looks like they're thirteen anymore. Their voices have grown deeper, and their bodies have filled out according to their natural progression, even without the influx of their cultivation.

They are young men now, proper pillars of my clan.

Both of them were sitting there, hunched over and exhausted, in one of the training rooms we were allocated after sparring against me.

"You are still too strong for us, Patriarch."

"Am I, or are you just too weak, Lirian?"

Both boys only sighed at what was supposed to be humorous reply from me, then Sendoira spoke up.

"No, I agree with him. You are simply too strong, Raizen. I've sparred against you countless times, and I have yet to win a single battle myself. I worry for your upcoming opponents."

I thought about her words for a moment, then looked back toward Lirian and Frian.

Oh. Hm. On one hand I could consider all of them biased in how they described my strength but I did complete all those cycles of Body Tempering, reached double digits in my Core Formation, and trained with an Infernal Immortal on a desolate moon under immense weight, among other things.

"Well, it's not like it'll be long before I find out. We'll be landing soon, and I'll finally set foot in another universe. I'm looking forward to it."

Two days later, it finally happened. We landed, and I received a message along with the rest of my Infernals to prepare for disembarkation. We didn't have to gather in any sort of hangar bay. We just needed to make sure we weren't leaving anything behind that we wanted to keep and that we were ready to go.

In a few moments, the same feeling of teleportation I experienced upon entering the ship returned. All of us, regardless of where we were on the ship, were teleported out. I genuinely expected to reappear in a magnificent, sprawling city underwater, but instead, I found myself in the courtyard of what looked to be a disgustingly large mansion on land. No matter which way I turned, I saw no signs of water—or at least no large bodies of it. I could see a couple of fountains in the distance, but that was all.

"Huh. Well, this was unexpected."

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