Once she arrived at the back of the mountain, Yasenia came across an enchanting image. Cecile was standing on the edge of a rock with the sunset in front of her. The silver wings and her body reflected the orangish light, giving her a beautiful halo while her platinum blonde hair waved with the breeze.
The aura around Cecile was one of detachment, like usual. However, it was not a depressing detachment, but more of a lofty and elegant stance of a creature who stands above, looking down to the world with indifferent eyes.
Yasenia walked in her direction with silent steps and reached Cecile's side. Yasenia asked with a gentle smile. "What are you thinking about, sweetheart?"
Cecile looked toward the horizon where the Sun was gently setting and asked. "Love, when do you think that we will be able to leave this World?"
Yasenia paused and looked toward the horizon together with Cecile. "Why do you ask?"
Cecile commented. "Honestly, while I don't mind this place, it is slowly becoming too small. People in this world are not talented or experienced enough. Even Tengliu is about to be within our reach. I admit that we probably won't be a match just as we enter the next realm, but it is a matter of time."
Cecile continued with a unsure look. "The war we are going to take part in soon is completely set up, and you can pull the trigger whenever we all break trhough. Honestly, the only reason you have yet to start it is because you want to participate personally, right? With our current military strength, it's not completely impossible to push them back."
Yasenia didn't answer and waited for Cecile to finish.
"Knowing you, the chance of leaving things to chance is slim. You are shrewd, calculated, sharp, decisive, and ruthless when fighting wars. You've proved it within the Trial and you've proved it again during the test that happened in the Summit. Even the way you dealt with our enemies has always been decisive enough for eyebrows to rise among our allies."
Yasenia didn't deny it. Since she took root in this large basin, the Astral Sky Sect has waged many small-scale wars with powers in the surroundings that didn't want them here. All those powers now didn't exist, as Yasenia had pulled them out from their roots.
As Cecile said, Yasenia had always been decisive and ruthless with her enemies.
Cecile asked. "I understand that you want to give us a safe Haven to give birth without fearing anything. However, what's your main objective, Yasenia?"
Yasenia answered what Cecile was pointing at. "Getting strong enough to catch up with Tatyana."
Cecile continued. "Yes. While I don't underestimate your efforts, the energy in Distancia is just… lacking. Even with all the formations, the increase in purity thanks to Sky Continent's energy that fell from Tatyana's portal, and many other factors, it is slower than cultivating in the Rita Academy."
Cecile looked up to the sky and sighed. "Tatyana is not cultivating in the Academy, but a special place probably prepared to increase her cultivation speed several times over. Tatyana is a genius who doesn't lose to us, and with her two bodies, she can have her main body constantly cultivating while the other accompanies you to play house here."
Cecile looked at Yasenia and spoke truths. "Even the Tatyana here has overcome you in cultivation level. She is already at the first level of the Dantian Spiritualization Realm, quickly approaching the second Level."
Yasenia didn't speak as she listened. Cecile continued. "It's true that you are cultivating three paths, and if you focused on just Spirit Cultivation, you could've probably matched up her speed. However, is that enough?"
Yasenia smiled wryly. "It's not."
Cecile said sharply. "It's not because you want to catch up, not keep up. Yasenia, I know your plans. I know what you want to transform this world into. You want to have a safety net as you challenge the future, right? You want to place Distancia under the shadow of your wings so that you can always have a place to return to. You…" Cecile trailed her words and spoke. "You are trying to make Distancia your nest."
Yasenia didn't deny it. Those were certainly her intentions.
Alliances and other things mattered little to Yasenia. The reason Yasenia was also trying to assimilate humans and create an all-race paradise was that her children and further descendants would be of such races.
In short, the same as birds gathered little branches to make a pretty nest, Yasenia intended to place everything and everyone in Distancia under the Astral Sky Sect's influence and change this entire world into her Dragon nest.
The war, the alliances, the politics, everything was done solely to that Yasenia could create a proper nest for her progeny.
Cecile looked into Yasenia's eyes.
Below her gentle and loving golden gaze was a swirl of pure desire to swallow everything. Cecile didn't fear that; she was glad that her lover was such a person because, in the ruthless cultivation world, only someone as power-hungry as Yasenia could eventually reach true independence or die trying.
However, now, with Tatyana pregnant, she could feel her lover's restlessness increasing as her nestling instincts pushed Yasenia to create a nest.
Dragons knew that their children were not only fragile but prime prey of almost every creature. Eating a young dragon of a decent bloodline was a ticket to power for nearly every beast.
If the young dragons were alone, that would not be difficult since their strength before maturity was usually weaker than an ordinary beast of a similar level. That's why the dragon's instincts related to nestling were especially powerful.
To prove this, our dragoness, a relatively weak peak-level fourth-level realm dragon was trying to swallow an entire world and transform it into her nest.
Cecile smiled as Yasenia's eyes fixed on her. "Love. Don't be afraid. With just a word from you, Tatyana, Mirrory, and Valeria will move. They are just waiting for your word. They understand you better than me, so they certainly know everything you are doing. I understand your desire to place Tatyana out of the warzone and protect her while you lead the army. However, do you think that Tatyana, a woman of her age who is having a proper child with a lover for the first time, will place herself in danger?"
Yasenia opened her mouth and then closed it. She looked back toward the horizon, seeing that the Sun was almost completely hidden, and sighed. "I know."
Yasenia laughed a bit sadly. "I know all of that, Cecile. But, I just feel… useless."
Cecile blinked, surprised. "What do you mean?"
Yasenia's lips arched a bit in a forlorn smile. "There is push and pull inside of me. A part of me tells me that I need to forget about everything and push forward. Another part tells me that we are going too quickly, and soon, you girls will be left behind far enough that you will be unable to help me properly."
Yasenia extended her hand. "A part of me wants to protect Tatyana from all harm because she is carrying my child. Another is telling me that action is stupid as I'm too weak to even utter or think of those words."
Yasenia retrieved her hand and looked at her palm. "My strength is rapidly snowballing. While my realm is not as fast, that doesn't mean I'm not stronger. My energy control is increasing by leaps and bounds; my intents are also breaking through; my skills are becoming stronger; my weapon mastery is incomparable to a month ago; my battle awareness is super compared to me a year ago; even my dual cultivation is getting perfected which each session, giving me and you more energy to work with and increasing our advancing speed."
Yasenia gathered strength in her fist and opened her legs wide. Then, starting from the ankle, she began a twisting motion that quickly traveled and multiplied while it climbed up her entire body and ended in a straight punch.
Her energies had interlocked through her muscles as her intents fused and got magnified by her buffing skills. Her three cultivation paths also got mixed, changing the arm into a scaly dragon arm.
As the motion was being completed, the air around her became dense enough to feel suffocating.
This was her all-out strength punch; nothing held back.
Cecile's eyes widened as the air before her punch visibly compressed, and when Yasenia completed the motion, an explosive sound echoed.
BOOOM!
A shockwave burst forward with incomparable might, rushing skywards and hitting a distant cloud.
The cloud was burst open, leaving something like a hole in the sky.
Cecile's eyes remained widened as she heard Yasenia ask. "Can you do that?"
Cecile shook her head. "Impossible."
Yasenia laughed a bit sadly. "Even while taking care of everything and not completely focusing on myself, it is like this. You are going to enter the Dantian Spiritualization and Epoch Core realm soon, while I'll probably take another year. You will then become stronger than me. But… What's a year? Nothing. It really is nothing for us."
Yasenia straightened her body and placed her arms behind her back, touching the root of her dragon tail with her hands.
Cecile asked, curious. "What level are your intents, love?"
She had heard that Yasenia's intent had increased in level, but she was unsure of how much. Yasenia answered. "All Level Four expect my Celestial Intent, which is currently Level 3. I'm taking a year to break through because that's the time I guessed I'll need to increase the Celestial Intent to Level 4 while stabilizing the others." Yasenia added with a smile. "Well, that and the fact that I have yet to perfect my Body Cultivation Path and my physical body."
Cecile was silent. While she would probably break through into the fourth level as well when she entered the fifth realm, Yasenia might enter the fifth. "Hm, right, the body. You are refining it with [Celestial Cosmos Body Refinement]. Is that why you can do…" Cecile looked at the cloud that had burst open from the shockwave. "…That?
Yasenia nodded. "My current body is as durable as a peak-level Earth-ranked armor, while my bones are in the Heaven-ranked standard already."
Cecile looked at Yasenia, and Yasenia summoned a high-level Earth Ranked sword. Then, without any hesitation, she swung it with all her strength toward her left arm.
CLANG!
The sword rebounded, making Cecile look speechless at the small red line that appeared from the blunt damage. Yasenia looked at Cecile and smiled. "Your lover is like this, Cecile. I'm trying to help you all. I really am. I've been trying my best to advance at a proper rhythm while not leaving any of you behind. A balance I can maintain for a while because of the complexity of perfecting my foundation is ridiculous."
The dragoness looked upward toward the darkening sky, spotting the full Moon unveiled by the increasing darkness. "However, at this pace, if you don't speed up somehow before the Transcendence Realm, you really won't be able to keep up. Not even with my help."
Yasenia addressed what Cecile told her. "You are right that I'm focusing too much on Distancia." But then, she threw questions back at her.
"However, in the grand scheme of things, tell me, Cecile, what are ten years more or less?"
"How long will we live?"
"How much are 100 years for Tatyana, for example?"
"Where do you picture us 1000 years from now?"
"What about 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? Will we even be alive by then? Will we die in the way? Can we charge that far without having a foothold?"
Cecile stayed silent this time. Those time frames were too long even to start speculating. Even the 1000 years felt an eternity away.
Yasenia turned toward her and smiled. "I can ask Tatyana and the other two to conquer this world and then focus on myself, forgetting about everything. It's really not hard. But what do I gain from that?"
Cecile paused to think; the only thing that came to mind was time. Yasenia chuckled. "That's right, I gain time. Time to cultivate without experiences and just increase my raw strength, time that I could've used to polish ourselves even further."
Yasenia asked further. "Do you think that if I asked Tatyana and the rest to do everything for me, we could've discovered our current Body Cultivation manuals? That we could've gained the support of half the world against the sudden invaders? That I could've created my immortal-level technique? That our intents would be this developed?"
Cecile didn't think so. It was just a coincidence that they managed to get a Diamond Key in the Secret Realm.
Yasenia hugged Cecile and kissed her lips. "Sweetheart, Distancia is the perfect place to create a foundation so solid that we won't flinch with future challenges. Does it take time? It does. Could we go faster? We could. Have I ever thought of just leaving everything to everyone else? I have."
Yasenia separated with a smile and stated. "However." Her golden eyes shone with a profound and imposing light. "I'll make this world kneel by my hand and make it my nest." Her smile became cold. "If the otherworlders come in my way, I'll just stomp them until they either die or voluntarily step out and let me continue forward."
Cecile's heart skipped a beat as her cheeks gained a rosy color.
Then, after placing a kiss on her forehead, Yasenia turned around and left. "Even then, it's not that far away, love. I guess that in 20 years at most, we'll be leaving this place. Sweetheart, I'm looking forward to your tribulation~."
Cecile made a silly sound as she touched her heated cheeks. 'My mate is too attractive sometimes…'