Selheira seemed quite taken aback by Ryu's question. Domain? That was a game she loved to play, but no one here seemed to care very much for it. Some of the elders might, but with her personality, it was hard to work up the desire to challenge them as it might lead to some… less than desirable outcomes. After all, if she went around defeating all of these elders, then where would they put their faces?
So, ever since she had come here, Selheira didn't really make any attempts to challenge anyone. The likes of Old Wan and the others were far too powerful for her to be a decent match for them, while the other Sky Gods were far too weak. As such, she truly had no one to challenge her.
Suddenly hearing Ryu's request, while she was shocked at first, a light of splendor lit her irises soon afterward as a hardly concealed excitement danced about.
There were only two times that Ryu had ever seen Selheira shift from her baseline gentleness. The first was when she cried in the Frost Clan remnant, and the second was right here and now. She was truly an anomaly.
In her excitement, Selheira had already grabbed Ryu's forearm and taken a step in a certain direction. But to her surprise, while she thought she might have had to pull Ryu along, he simply took a step just as calmly as she did.
The weight of his body turned to nothing and Selheira felt as though she was pulling on air. She didn't have to put in any effort because Ryu wasn't relying on her to move in the first place!
Selheira blinked before she blushed slightly. In her excitement, she had grabbed Ryu without thinking much. It seemed that she had done something embarrassing again, and unfortunately unlike Ryu, she couldn't just shrug it off as easily as he did.
"Oh? This is rare."
Old Wan suddenly appeared with a "knowing" smile in his eyes. He looked as though he was a small measure away from bursting into a cackling fit, and that only made Selheira's blush deepen. It took quite a while before she realized that she was still holding onto Ryu's wrist, and even longer than that to finally return to her usually calm.
Old Wan chuckled. "I assume you two came here for something?"
"Ah, right," Selheira lightly cleared her throat, her beautiful voice sounding a half octave higher than usual. It reminded one of a sonorous bell. "I wanted to borrow a Domain board from you, Senior. Is that possible?"
"Oh? You two little ones want to play Domain? Okay, okay, this is a great opportunity. I'll spectate, those two old codgers refuse to play with me anymore."
"Who are you calling an old codger? How about we spar a few rounds, you old coward?"
Old Wan froze slightly before he coughed. He still hadn't gotten used to Aika's senses being so sharp these days, so he had suffered more than just once due to his loose lips.
Selheira, seeing that Old Wan was in trouble, smiled lightly. "Senior, I just wanted to borrow a Domain board so that I can play a few games with Junior Brother Ryu."
Aika appeared in a rustle of wind. Despite the fact her soft voice had reached them much earlier and didn't sound strained at all, in reality, she had been quite a distance away. This forest scape was quite a large expanse of territory and Aika carved out space for it to be larger and larger everyday, seemingly not satisfied with the small scale of the Sect. Although Old Wan protested, claiming that they didn't even have enough disciples to take advantage of this much space, Aika had simply ignored him and doen as she pleased.
"Domain?"
Despite it only being a single word, Aika's gorgeous features twisted as though she had just stuffed a mound of shit into her mouth. She absolutely hated that game.
Due to the nature of the Radiant Star Sect, there were many experts of Domain within their walls. This made sense, after all, Domain was a came of the mind and strategy, while the foundation of the Radiant Star Sect was mapping out the stars and calling upon their secrets. The two things coincided with one another quite well, especially in regard to certain paths.
With her personality, when Aika had first learned about Domain, she went around challenging and crushing everyone. But when Old Wan picked up the game, she could never defeat him, and this was especially infuriating due to the play style Old Wan used.
Domain was ultimately a game of playing General with the pieces being your soldiers. Aika liked to take more aggressive stances, rushing into her enemy's territory and crushing them one by one.
But Old Wan was extraordinarily patient. Sometimes he would let his defenses collapse only to circle around her back and crush her. Sometimes he would pretend to put up a weak counter attack only to suddenly unleash a sudden and powerful strike from a seemingly weak stance. Sometimes the game would even seem like it was just one move from ending in her victory, only for him to flip everything on its head with just a single piece.
Aika was stubborn, so one could imagine the number of times that she had challenged Old Wan before reaching such a state. She wasn't traumatized by much in her life, but this was definitely one of those times.
At that moment, Grand Elder Samson's laughter slipped out from a bush nearby. He tried to hide it quickly, but it was already too late, he was thoroughly exposed.
In her current state, Aika was like a sparking fuse, ready to unleash a rush of fire and explosions at any moment, even Old Wan, who was clearly her superior in this aspect at least, didn't dare to make a single sound. But Samson had actually made such a rookie mistake.
Aika's head snapped over like a predator that had found her prey.
The instant she vanished, screams of agony echoed through the mountain ranges.
