Chapter 1467: Danny Died!

Long before Hayashi appeared before Phei that morning...

Ryuzen stood within one of the private chambers with his expression grim enough to chase away whatever sleep still remained in him. Across the low table sat his father, Old Man Hayashi, unusually still for a man whose composure had survived more disasters than most people would willingly count. A porcelain tea service rested between them, steam having disappeared from both cups long ago because neither man had remembered to drink.

Beyond the wide windows, morning spread beautifully across Hell’s Paradise Island, sunlight touching distant trees and rooftops while the strange freshness left behind by the previous night’s transformation remained woven through the air.

None of that warmth seemed capable of entering the room.

The third person inside the chamber was Yuzuki.

She sat several metres away beside the windows with one leg folded beneath the other and her sword rested within easy reach against the side of her chair.

Under ordinary circumstances, placing Yuzuki in a room where her father and brother were discussing something important guaranteed unsolicited commentary before the conversation had properly begun. She would challenge an assumption, accuse Ryuzen of worrying too much, complain if their father withheld anything and somehow twist at least one serious sentence into an argument simply because silence apparently offended her.

Today, she had contributed almost nothing.

Her gaze remained somewhere beyond the glass, fixed upon the sunlit reaches of Hell’s Paradise Island without truly seeing them—

Her tea had gone completely cold beside her, untouched from the moment someone placed it there, and judging by the distracted stillness following her since she returned, at least half of Yuzuki’s thoughts remained wherever the Nether Goddess had taken her not too long ago— Phei Ryujin Tiamat

Ryuzen had tried asking about it.

Once but that had earned him a glare sharp enough to suggest curiosity had become a punishable offense.

A second attempt resulted in Yuzuki telling him to mind his own damn business with enough venom that any intelligent brother should have interpreted the warning correctly and retired from the subject.

Ryuzen had not been blessed with that particular kind of intelligence when it came to his sister.

Their father eventually asked as well, far more casually than Ryuzen had managed, and Yuzuki became defensive so quickly that both men independently reached the same conclusion.

Something had happened!

Neither knew what.

Yuzuki certainly had no intention of explaining that her most recent encounter with Phei had inflicted considerably more damage upon her mind and soul than it had upon her body.

She had spent years cultivating.

Years refining her Essence, strengthening her swordsmanship, sharpening her instinct and dragging herself upward until Sky Sovereign became something earned rather than inherited from a powerful name. Yuzuki possessed pride because she had paid for the right to possess it, and very little irritated her more than people assuming someone from a family such as hers reached strength through privilege alone.

Sienna had brought Phei to her after his return.

Yuzuki, in one of those moments she would deeply appreciate history agreeing to forget, confidently informed the Young Master that he would not land even a single attack upon her—

—one restrained knuckle later, Yuzuki had been unconscious.

The humiliation of being erased from the conversation by one deliberately restrained strike should have been enough to occupy her thoughts for several days.

Unfortunately, her treacherous memory had preserved other details with crueler clarity.

There had been that brief surge from whatever ridiculous lustful power Phei carried, an influence powerful enough to turn several seconds of Yuzuki’s existence into something she refused to examine too closely. Worse was the moment afterward when she looked at him and discovered that somewhere between the arrogant boy she remembered and the white-haired monster standing before her now— her eyes had begun interpreting him differently.

Very differently.

Yuzuki told herself those few seconds meant absolutely nothing.

Her face had disagreed with her almost continuously since.

Which was precisely why staring through the window felt considerably safer than participating in the conversation between her father and brother.

Thankfully, Ryuzen had a much larger catastrophe occupying him:

"What did the Empress say, Dad?"

Hayashi’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the untouched teacup before him. "Very little."

Ryuzen frowned. "Very little?"

"She is with the Lins. Whatever is occurring there presently has her full attention, and from the manner in which she answered me, I would strongly advise against disturbing her again unless some part of Hell’s Paradise Island begins collapsing."

That alone was enough to sober Ryuzen further.

The Empress was not a woman anyone repeatedly bothered while she had decided something deserved her attention. If she wanted assistance, she would ask. If she wanted information, she would take it. Interrupting her merely because one’s own nerves had become uncomfortable sounded like the sort of decision a person made only once before they die.

Hayashi placed one hand beside the cooling cup. "She asked me a single question. Whether the Young Master killed Danny, or whether anyone acting directly on the Young Master’s behalf killed him."

Ryuzen’s expression sharpened. "And?"

"I told her no."

"What did she say?"

Hayashi leaned back slowly, displeasure gathering around his eyes. "Then there is nothing else."

Ryuzen considered the answer for several breaths, and for a moment some of the tension left his shoulders.

If Empress herself had heard the circumstances and dismissed the matter, perhaps the mountain sitting upon his father’s mood existed mostly because Old Man Hayashi had spent too many centuries learning to imagine the worst possible conclusion.

Ryuzen’s brows drew together again.

"Wait."

Hayashi looked toward him.

"Didn’t you tell me that if one of those Legacies dies by Young Master’s hand, or because somebody directly connected to Young Master kills them, they can return as Supreme Immortals?"

Near the windows, Yuzuki’s distant gaze shifted almost imperceptibly at the mention of Phei, though neither man noticed the movement.

Hayashi nodded once. "Yes."

Ryuzen stared at him for another second. "Then why are you sitting there looking like somebody just delivered your funeral arrangements and asked you to approve the lettering?"

"Because your question contains the entire problem."

Hayashi finally lowered the untouched teacup onto the table. Porcelain touched wood with a soft click that somehow seemed louder inside the tense chamber.

"Danny died on his own."

Ryuzen waited for the rest.

Hayashi’s eyes hardened. "But we took him."

Understanding began appearing across Ryuzen’s face even before his father continued.

"We captured him over matters connected directly to the Young Master. We held him beneath our protection and our control. We decided where he remained, who could reach him and what circumstances surrounded him. Danny then died while still in our custody." Hayashi’s voice lowered, losing whatever patience remained inside it. "I heard what the Empress said. I also have absolutely no intention of wagering our lives upon the hope that whatever fate that ties the Legacy return to the Young Master considers cause as simply as she does."

That was the true nightmare hidden beneath the situation.

Danny had not died beneath Phei’s hand.

Hayashi had not executed him and neither had Ryuzen killed him.

So the truth remained; nobody under direct instruction from Phei had walked into the room and ended his life.

Yet Danny had been seized on their orders and they were related to Phei.

Held because of Phei, questioned because of matters surrounding Phei, kept him imprisoned because Phei wanted him alive and then he died before any of them released him.

If whatever fate that governed the strange return of Legacy descendants cared only about the hand that delivered death, then nothing had happened.

But if it cared about consequence, involvement or the road leading toward that death, somewhere beyond anything Hayashi understood a dead Danny might awaken carrying the cultivation of a Supreme Immortal.

And he would remember perfectly well whose custody contained his final breath.

Ryuzen released a slow breath. "That’s bad."

Hayashi stared at him: "Brilliant deduction."

"I was attempting to be polite."

"Do not."

Ryuzen rubbed both hands over his face and leaned back. "Still, if the Empress isn’t worried—"

"The Empress is an Ancient being, Ryuzen!" Hayashi’s answer arrived so quickly that Ryuzen’s hand stopped halfway down his cheek.

His father gave him a humorless look. "Do you understand how meaningless a Supreme Immortal is to her?"

The last traces of relief disappeared.

Hayashi leaned slightly forward: "She can afford not to worry."

That was the distinction Ryuzen had failed to appreciate.

A returning Supreme Immortal might become an irritation to Phei and those around him, but to the Empress a Supreme Immortal was something troublesome enough to her grandson and acknowledge before being crushed when patience expired.

To Hayashi and Ryuzen, that same existence could erase them.

The chamber seemed quieter after that realization.

Ryuzen’s gaze shifted almost instinctively toward Yuzuki, perhaps measuring how much of the possible disaster involved her as well. His sister still appeared determined to maintain the illusion that the conversation did not concern her, though her eyes had wandered away from the landscape and now rested faintly toward the room.

Hayashi followed his son’s glance for barely a heartbeat before returning his attention to the true problem. "And that is not even the worst part."

Ryuzen looked back immediately. "There’s worse?"

Hayashi appeared almost personally offended by reality. "Of course there is worse."

He rose from behind the low table and began pacing across the chamber, robes whispering around his legs while agitation finally broke through the measured calm he usually carried:

"The Young Master wanted information from Danny."

Ryuzen understood before the next sentence arrived.

Hayashi said it anyway, because apparently speaking the disaster aloud was necessary for appreciating exactly how thoroughly the morning had betrayed him.

"That information concerns the accident that killed the Prince and his wife— his parents."

The weight inside the chamber changed.

Even Yuzuki turned fully away from the window now.