Alice and the Luna sisters also noticed the stammer in Anais's speech and focused their eyes on her.
But Anais, being quite experienced in manipulating through difficult situations, could control her blush and tried to take the reins for the flow of discussion. She turned her face in my direction and asked.
"How are you planning to infiltrate the royal palace? They have a vast army of about 10,000 royal guards solely under the emperor's authority, making the palace impenetrable.
Each of these guards has a cultivation at the peak of River Consolidation, excluding the captain of the guards, who is in the Star Formation Realm. This resulted in them being the strongest army in the whole Empire."
I gave some thought to the various cards in our hands.
(If Anias says it is impenetrable, then it will be challenging to enter the palace without getting detected. And with such a large number, it will be nearly impossible to barge in through brute force.)
The only thing that could be useful in the situation was diverting a large part of the army away from the palace. And I got a brilliant idea on how to do that. I grinned at the idea of upcoming mayhem and shared my thoughts with Anais.
"If I remember correctly, there was a ravine at the dividing line between the western and rebel armies. And there is a large river flowing beside the ravine, right?"
Anais nodded her head in affirmation. After confirming the veracity of the facts, I proposed my idea.
"How about you direct your boys to misdirect the forces of the dukes loyal to the emperor and make them fall into a trap set by the rebels? Using the ravine as a strategic point of breach from the rebels, make the loyal dukes' armies station themselves in the ravine."
Anais's eyes widened, getting a hint of my idea, and she asked a little feebly.
"And then?"
"Drown them in the watery grave. We will cut down a mountain on the side of the river and make the ravine flood with the river water."
I spoke resolutely. Although there would be a large scale of death due to this action, it was a war. Deaths were common in war, and the ones who would die had terrible luck for standing on my opposite side.
Everyone had finished the dinner, and the plates had been cleared away by then. Everyone was listening to the discussion between me and Anais. Except for my mother, everyone else was shocked at my words.
Either it was due to the ruthlessness behind my words or the nigh-impossible task of levelling a mountain.
And it was Elfie who broke the silence.
"How is it possible to level a mountain?! It is impossible."
"Who said it is not possible?"
I rebutted Elfie and swivelled my head in the direction of my mother. My previous indifferent expression melted, and I tried to put on a puppy dog expression.
"Mom, can you please help me with this problem?"
My mother looked at my pleading gaze. Her smile bloomed at seeing my attempt to look pitiful. She tapped my nose with her index finger and giggled.
"~Fufufu~ Weren't you the one who told me before that it is your fight and you will see to the end without my help?"
Since her damaged meridians got treated, my mother's new cheerful expressions and mischievous actions had often caught me off guard. Mother also knew that and thus started teasing me full-time.
Though she still had her unwavering love and care for us siblings, I was sometimes helpless against her new naughty side. So, I didn't know how to respond to her question and let myself get played by her.
"Sorry, mom. But I need your help this time. I couldn't do this on my own. Please help me this one time, and I will do anything you asked in return."
To my request, my mother pinched my nose and retorted after tutting her tongue.
"Tut-Tut-Tut. My darling, you are mine from your birth. It is already given that you will have to fulfil my every request. But you should be careful. Don't say such things to the others, especially girls."
I acquiesced to her words.
"Yes, mother."
She patted my head in approval and said.
"Good. But since you're offering yourself on the platter, how can I refuse it. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything right now. I will ask you to fulfil my 'request' when I find something suitable. Okay, darlingg~?"
I didn't find anything wrong with mother's proposal and nodded in approval.
With everything settled for the upcoming days, everyone went to their separate rooms for their own preparations.
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Inside a room filled with many beautiful inscriptions, a lady wearing a nightgown was scribbling something on a sheet of paper. Her almond-shaped eyes were focused on the paper. Every stroke on the paper was smooth and confident, as if she had done this many times.
After a set of time, a portrait of her with a young man and a young woman was drawn on the paper.
She didn't stop and continued to add another person to the portrait. The portrait was of another lady with a tantalising figure and was standing beside the young man.
Her strokes were not confident this time, and she had to modify them occasionally. Clearly, this was the first time she was drawing the new lady.
"A new addition to the family."
The woman muttered as she finished the portrait.
She was none other than Sylvia, Lucas's mother. And the portrait she drew depicted her family of three with an additional member, Anais.
On their first meeting day, Sylvia found that Anais had a small crush on her lovely son. And she didn't shy away from seducing him during the dinner. As a mother, she was happy knowing that her darling son had such great luck with women. Even her cute daughter fell in love with him.
And she couldn't help but tease these prospective brides-to-be for her son. Lucas had not noticed anything before when he agreed to do anything she wanted. But she had seen the girls, Anais and Alice, having a change in their expression.
Their eyes glowed in fervour as if they wanted Lucas to grant them this chance to get him so they could make him do their bidding.
(How about girls fighting among each other and doing many complex tasks just to get such offers from my darling son?)
Syliva chuckled at such thoughts and started drawing another portrait of her 'new family' on a new sheet of paper.
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The following day, Alice and I set out on our training hunt. We used the familiar 'Snow Frekins' carriage for our travel. During this journey, I only cultivated and did the physical training.
After reaching Star Formation Realm, one couldn't increase my natural physical strength anymore. So, I could only do the training that was set before breaking into this realm.
According to my mother, if I wanted to further enhance my pure physical strength, there is a special method. One could absorb beast's blood in their own to get physical features like strength, agility, defence, etc. But she couldn't find any suitable beast for that purpose on the planet Caligen.
So, I had to wait until we could find a suitable beast before further enhancing my training for natural physical strength.
Throughout the journey, my dear sister Alice wanted to spend time with me. But with her blushing expression, it was clear that she wanted to 'bond' with me.
But since the last incident with her and my 'Color Feel' ability, I had decided to have some space between us till I could fully make the ability under my control. So the last 'incident' would never happen again. Even though my heart and body desired Alice, I couldn't give in to them.
So I used the excuses of cultivation and training to avoid her. However, Alice didn't know my worries and only thought of me ignoring her. One day, while meditating, she sat behind me with her back touching mine. Her lithe frame was shaking as I could feel the tremors passing through her. With a choked-up voice, she asked.
"Lucas… do… you hate me… now? Why are… you not… spending…(hic)… time with me?"
I knew she was unhappy but didn't guess it made her so sad that she would cry. I stopped my meditation and turned on my hips to hug her.
I didn't care that my ability could get activated. I just didn't want to see Alice cry. With my arms around her waist, I tried to defuse the situation.
I couldn't explain my ability because even I didn't have a complete understanding of it, and I didn't want to take any chance of our relationship getting sour just because of the effects of the ability on Alice. So, I had to bluff my way out of it.
"Big sis, I love you so dearly that I want to leave everything aside and spend all my time with you. But I am shy that the maid, who is always following us in the shadows, will witness our 'bonding time'."
My words made Alice stop crying as she turned towards me with a look of incredulity.
"How do you know that?"
"Mother knew everything about our relationship long before our confession. It is only possible if someone who had been spying on us reported it back to us.
And mother, being protective of us, should have arranged someone to protect us without getting discovered by us or the others. And the only ones I could think of being able to do that would be the maids in our house. You have also witnessed their abilities firsthand."
Gradually I added details to my bluff and made a pretty reasonable excuse, if I do say so myself.
I didn't care if there was a maid, who was protecting us secretly, witnessed the acts of love between Alice and me. Though if there was someone other than my family, I would have searched for him till the edge of the world and gauged his eyes out.
But Alice was quick to accept my bluff.
"I should have known this from the start. See, little brother, due to you not being able to control your desires, someone witnessed those shameful things. Now is not the time to fool around. You should cultivate diligently and practice hard to become stronger."
However, she had a total change in demeanour as she changed from a clingy lover to that of a mature older sister. After pushing everything to me and clearing her innocence, she left me alone for her own cultivation.
I smiled, witnessing the two facets of my lovely sister. The shy and clingy side of hers when she wanted love, and the mature and authoritarian side of hers when she acted as an older sister.
With my sister free of worries, I went back to a meditative pose and continued cultivating.
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Unbeknownst to the two siblings, a maid moving along with the carriage and hidden in the nearby foliage could hear their conversation. She was started by the sudden 'revelation' of her actions and was in awe at the genius of the young master Lucas.