...…
"Hey, stop hogging Azmodeus's attention away from me, Father! He's my friend, not yours!" Yang Hua exclaimed, her lips forming a small pout as she snuggled closer to the boy beside her.
"…Beloved disciple, are you already making moves on my daughter?" Yang Fa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Screw you, old dude! I have made no such moves on anyone!" Azmodeus shot back while pulling the girl away from him.
However, when he saw the chipmunk-like girl tear up again, he furrowed his brows before letting out a sigh and allowing her to latch back onto his arm.
"Ho?" The Sect Leader wore an amused expression as he chortled a little before saying, "Sure, sure, beloved disciple. Just remember to take care of my daughter in the future."
"I-I… Y-You old bastard…" Azmodeus stammered, utterly at a loss for words. Never in his entire life had he met someone so annoying.
'It's decided. This old fart will become a loot bag—'
However, he was suddenly taken out of his thoughts by a thin yellow book, adorned with a cloud on the cover, being tossed his way.
Pat.
As soon as he caught it, a wizened voice followed. "Take this and comprehend it. It should help you become faster as long as you obtain enough insights into it," Yang Fa said casually, not even looking up from his own book.
Azmodeus took a good look at the middle-aged man before turning his attention to the manual in his hand. He muttered, "The Cloud Chaser Steps…"
For some reason, he felt like this technique was something far beyond his capabilities to understand.
He also had the strange sense that it was equally beyond the capabilities of the Sect Leader, so how was he even in possession of such a technique?
"I know what you're thinking," Yang Fa interrupted, his tone cryptic as he gave an extremely ambiguous explanation. "You will understand exactly what you wish to know the day that you're able to fully comprehend the technique. But for now, let's just say that I'm doing a favor for an old friend."
'An old friend…? What does he mean by that??'
Azmodeus couldn't shake the feeling that everything this Sect Leader said was something that only further deepened the mystery surrounding his own past.
'Why do I feel like something is trying to resurface in my memories, but before it can, it gets blocked by something that I can't see…?'
Even though he could sense that something was interfering with his memories, trying to understand it felt as impossible as a mere mortal trying to understand the essence of heaven.
'Something is wrong with my memories, but what is it??'
However, the moment this thought entered his mind, it completely slipped away from him, leaving him with nothing.
Yang Hua turned her big, bright eyes up toward the black-haired boy, sensing various emotions conflicting against each other inside his sharp gaze.
'Is my new friend okay…?'
She was starting to get worried, and without thinking much of it, she placed her hand on his forehead.
"???" Azmodeus was surprised by the sudden cold touch. His eyes met the anxious expression on the adorable girl's face.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his head tilted to the side in confusion.
"I'm helping! My mother always used to do this to me when I looked like how you do now, so I thought that it would help you as well!" Yang Hua responded with a heavenly giggle, her laugh light and pure.
Azmodeus observed the cheerful girl as he shook his head side to side before refocusing on the Sect Leader.
"Oh, please don't mind me! Just pretend that I am nothing more than thin air and continue!" Yang Fa teased, a slightly mischievous smile creeping onto his face. One of his hands covered his mouth while the other waved.
Tick!
"I swear I'll leave you half-naked with all your possessions in my pocket, you old bastard!"
Azmodeus's perturbed voice echoed out as he was prepared to unleash all of his strength in order to knock some sense into this old dude!
Yang Fa laughed, but then shifted his tone, becoming serious. "Nonetheless, little one, you better check out that technique soon. It will be quite useful to the current you, and especially so for that little conundrum you have brought yourself into with the Black Tiger Family of Spirit River City."
Azmodeus's irritation quickly calmed down at these words. Confused, he asked, "You aren't going to help your disciple out when he's in trouble?"
"Why of course—" the Sect Leader paused dramatically, "I won't!" His serious facade broke apart into a smirk.
'You know what? Screw this! I'm going to kill this master of mine!'
Azmodeus was once again put on edge and a deadly aura erupted from his small frame, startling Yang Hua a little.
But regardless of the scary aura, she felt that there was too much kindness in his eyes for him to be a bad guy, so she snuggled even closer, a contented smile on her face.
"…"
Realizing that he might've gone a little overboard, Azmodeus pulled his aura back. Irritated, he asked, "Why won't you help me, even though we both knew you possess the strength to?"
Yang Fa watched the interactions between his daughter and his disciple as a sly smirk emerged on his expression. Replying, he said, "Of course I have the ability to assist you, and quite easily at that. But where's the lesson in that? I mean, how else are you going to become stronger if I do everything for you? Or were you expecting me to bring the members of the Black Tiger Family to your doorstep and make you more powerful without making you do any effort on your part?"
Azmodeus's eyes narrowed, his tone taking a mildly dangerous edge. "What do you mean by that?"
'He can't possibly know about the system… So what exactly is he hinting about?'
He wasn't one to jump to conclusions; however, the Sect Leader was being oddly mysterious with all of his vague words.
'It's almost like he knows something about me from my past—'
Before that thought could even enter his mind, it disappeared just like before, leaving his train of thought where it had previously been...
...…