Two years quickly went by…
Silas was now 20 and Thea 24.
They had both made progress in their cultivation, with Thea having just stepped into peak Transcendent in both body and qi cultivation and Silas at late Transcendent in both body and qi cultivation. They had also each made progress in their Daos but were still stuck at touched and minor completion, respectively.
As for Kai and Red, Kai was now a peak Transcendent lifeform, and Red had finally made it to Transcendent and was a mid-Transcendent lifeform now capable of human form. When transformed, he looked similar to Silas, as if they were real brothers, only he had dark black hair with two strips of red mixed within, and he was a little taller and more slender.
Over the two years, Silas had also had weapons and armor made for each of them. Kai, of course, wanted claws as weapons, and Red actually decided to go the path of the staff, deciding to only fight in his human form. Both of their armors, on the other hand, would fuse into their bodies while they were in their beast form and then transform into black and red robes that were similar to Silas's and matched the Armstrong clan when they transformed to human form.
They had also each used the Fiendgod Weapon Refinement Technique on both their new weapons and armor, with Kai using his own version from his inherited memories and Silas showing Red how to do it with his technique, since it was much better than his Armstrong clan's technique.
It was currently summertime in the inheritance realm, and the sun was shining down on the small island that Silas, Thea, Red, and Kai had been calling home.
Silas was sitting in a lotus position next to a small pond in a courtyard of their large estate.
He had been sitting there for hours, meditating on the Dao.
***
A couple of hours before…
"Thea, why don't you just go get him? We've been waiting for hours," Eli Redstone said. He was a 39-year-old peak Transcendent lifeform and was currently very unhappy that his patriarch, Oscar Redstone, had sent him and several of his other junior and senior brothers and sisters to come and pay their respects to this Silas Armstrong. He knew that Silas was talented for his age, being that he was the reigning king of the Battle of the Region, but why did he, a peak Transcendent lifeform, have to come and pay his respects to a child?
To him, this was just the patriarch's way of making him and all the other talented youths of the Redstone clan bow their heads to Thea's future husband. And while he admitted Thea was slightly stronger than him when he was her age, he didn't think she was all that. She just happened to be in the direct line of the patriarch, and he thought she was only strong because she was heavily doted on.
"I'm not going to disturb him while he's meditating. You are here to pay your respects, so why don't you all actually show a little bit of respect for Silas," Thea said. She knew that these youths had no respect for her and definitely not for Silas. They were all talented in their own right, and they just considered her lucky enough to be the granddaughter of the patriarch. But little did they know, she was already on the patriarch's level of comprehension of the Dao, and Silas was far beyond even that. But she didn't want to tell them that quite yet—she would leave it for Silas to show them the errors of their arrogant ways.
Several more hours went by, with Eli, Marcus, Neya, and the others all constantly complaining that if they were here to show their respect for Silas, then the least he could do was show them a little respect in return. But they all shut their mouths real quick when Oscar, their patriarch, walked into the room. With him here, they wouldn't dare bad-mouth or talk disrespectfully to Thea.
"Thea, where's Silas?" Oscar asked, curious. He too had come here to once again learn a little bit from Silas in the way of the Dao. He completely admitted his inferiority in the Dao when it came to Silas; he would even admit he was inferior to the little mouse that was always by his side.
"He's meditating," Thea simply said, not even opening her eyes. She too was calmly meditating, waiting for Silas to come out with his brothers.
But luckily for Oscar, he didn't have to wait long. Twenty minutes later, Silas walked out, talking to Red and Kai, who, like always, were on his shoulders.
Silas at first was a little confused as to why all these youths were in his and Thea's estate, but after seeing Oscar, he felt like he had an idea.
"Greetings, young master Silas," the youths bowed, showing their proper respects, especially with the patriarch here.
Silas just nodded, "Kai, why don't you show them something."
Kai gave off a smirk, then hopped off his shoulder and transformed into his human form.
"A mouse?" Eli, the most talented as well as most talkative and arrogant of the youths, said with a scoff.
"We came here to pay our respects to you, not this little mouse," Eli said, looking back at his patriarch to see if he had gone too far, but Oscar just stood there with a smile on his face, waiting to see how Kai and Silas would handle this. But Eli took this as a sign that he could keep going.
"If you aren't going to bother to teach us yourself, then I'll be taking my leave," he said with a harrumph as he and the other youths followed his lead.
"Ha ha," Kai began to laugh as he transformed back into his beast form, "the likes of you don't deserve to be taught by me."
"Oh, so you're finally going to teach us yourself?" Eli said, looking to Silas for confirmation.
Silas shrugged his shoulders. He didn't care one way or the other, but out of respect for Oscar, he would do him this small favor and teach these arrogant youths.
Silas stepped forward, and with a flick of his wrist, he created a small, spherical space in the air, no bigger than a fist. It shimmered with a dark energy, twisting in and out of reality, as if the very air around it were crumbling away. "This is the Lesser Dao of Crumbling. It is the path of destruction, where everything, no matter how strong or resilient, eventually decays and falls apart. Watch carefully."
He tossed the small sphere toward a nearby boulder, and as it touched the stone, the rock didn't explode or shatter like they might have expected. Instead, it began to disintegrate, crumbling into fine dust from the inside out. The process was eerie—silent and slow, yet inevitable. Within moments, the large stone that had stood proudly in the courtyard was nothing but a pile of dust.
The Redstone youths stood frozen, their arrogance replaced by awe and a growing sense of fear. What would happen if Silas used that sphere on them? Would they be able to stop it?
Eli, still standing closest to Silas, felt his legs tremble, but he fought to maintain his composure.
Silas continued, his voice now quieter, almost intimate. "Destruction is inevitable in all things, and in time, everything will crumble."
He raised his other hand, and a deep black aura began to pool in his palm.
"This is the Lesser Dao of Rot, the path of death, where life itself decays and withers away. It's not as flashy as destruction, but it is just as absolute."
Silas stepped forward, his hand extended toward a lush tree in the courtyard. The black aura wrapped around the tree like a fog, seeping into its bark. The tree, once full of life, slowly began to wither. Its leaves turned brown and fell, its trunk sagging under its own weight as rot consumed it from within. In less than a minute, what had once been a symbol of life had rotted away, leaving only a husk behind.
"You see," Silas said, turning back to the Redstone youths, "your power, your arrogance, your pride—all of it will crumble and rot in time. There is always something greater, something beyond what you think you know."
Silas stepped forward again, and this time, a pale, translucent energy began to coalesce around his hand, forming the faint outline of a blade. "This," he said, his voice calm but carrying the weight of certainty, "is the Lesser Dao of Cleaving, the path of the scythe. It is the power of separation, to split apart anything that stands in its path—whether it be flesh, stone, or even the very fabric of space itself."
He swung his hand in a sharp, fluid motion, and a thin arc of energy shot forward, cutting through the air with a soft hum. As it passed, everything in its path—the trees, the stones, the ground—was split perfectly in two. The cuts were clean, unnaturally precise, leaving no sign of resistance. Even the air itself seemed to shudder as the scythe's invisible edge sliced through reality, leaving behind a deep, unnatural stillness in its wake.
Silas turned back to the Redstone youths, his eyes cold. "Cleaving is not about force or destruction—it's about precision. It is the inevitable division of all things, the separation of life from death, and the line between what is and what no longer can be."
The courtyard was deathly silent, save for the faint rustle of the wind. None of the Redstone youths dared speak, their earlier bravado having completely vanished. Even Eli, who had been so quick to challenge, could not meet Silas's gaze. The oppressive aura of Silas's Daos weighed heavily on them all, their minds racing as they tried to comprehend the sheer power they had just witnessed.
Oscar stepped forward then, his expression solemn but respectful. "Silas," he began, his tone carrying both humility and reverence, "you have shown my clan a lesson we will not forget."
Silas just nodded, then turned around to leave. "Come on, Kai. Maybe next time."
"Hmph!" Kai harrumphed as he leaped onto Silas's shoulder.
Thea looked at her grandfather, then with a small smile, happy that Eli and the other arrogant youths had been taught a lesson, she turned and followed Silas.