Whisker and the old man were off to the side, staring at the passing forest-cities, seeing the world built with no humans at all. Most houses had different architecture than one would expect.There were constructs made by manipulating the growing trees that made it look like tree houses. There were giant caves dug on the side of many mountains where beasts lived.
In one location, Whisker saw a city built entirely out of spiderwebs, with most beasts living in it or around it. White webs covered a large span of land, going from tree to tree as everything was interconnected.
In another location, ants and termites had grown giant mounds that were larger than mountains. Beasts lived in these towering mounds, each taller than most towers and pagodas they had seen.
There were other locations where there was nothing built for them to stay in and instead everyone lived in a giant open meadow next to a large lake.
Whisker alone was so fascinated by all of this that one didn’t have to wonder what it was doing to the old man who had never been out of Hell.
The old man was far too used to beasts having little to no intelligence, so seeing a world built only by beasts was the most shocking thing he could have seen the moment he escaped from Hell.
From start to finish, he remained stunned no matter how much he saw.
Alex let Pearl be alone with his grandfather and walked over to where Bladedance had sat down on the deck and had begun cultivating. He sat beside her, saying nothing.
After a while, Bladedance spoke up. "It will take me a few days to prepare for the tribulations, and then I’ll be done. One week later, we should be ready to leave."
"Leave?" Alex asked in surprise. "Master, I can’t leave that soon. I have things to do here."
"What things?" she asked. "There can’t be anything more important than getting those trees to the Sky God."
"They are, to me," Alex explained. "Master, this is Pearl’s home world. He’s finally met his family. And there’s his father’s family that he hasn’t met yet. I can’t leave without at least meeting them. And there’s the matter of Scarlet. I need to get her too. I can’t leave without her."
"Who is this Scarlet you keep talking about?" Bladedance asked.
"My other bonded beast," Alex explained. "I have three, and she is the third."
"A bonded beast?" Bladedance frowned. "Why did you let her be on her own then?"
"I needed to let her fulfill her oath. She had a continent to rule after all," Alex said. "Now that she’s done and has come back, she’s finally free to leave with me."
Bladedance paused for a long moment. "Rule?" she asked.
Alex nodded.
"What... What is Scarlet?" she asked.
"What... oh! She’s a Vermilion Bird. Or as you might say, a Phoenix," Alex explained.
Bladedance stared at him for a long moment. "You... you are bonded to a phoenix?" she asked.
Alex nodded.
"And you’re bonded to a White Tiger too, and technically an Azure Dragon too, since he has the bloodline," she said.
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