Chapter 98: Daniel: Arrogance Requires Skill, and I Happen to Have It (Patreon)

Chisei Gen and the others stepped out of the elevator. He had barely stopped in front of the door, and Yasha hadn't even reached out to knock, when it swung open on its own.

"Come in, gentlemen."

Yabuki Sakura and Yasha exchanged a look. This wild hybrid knew they were coming?

"Young Lord, let me go in first. It could be a trap," Yabuki Sakura said warily.

Chisei Gen raised a hand to stop her. "No need. I'll go."

As an Emperor, he had his pride. He didn't need subordinates scouting ahead for him.

He pushed the door open and walked in. Daniel was sprawled on the sofa in the hotel's complimentary bathrobe, utterly at ease, studying the newcomers with a faintly amused gaze.

"You know who we are?"

"Of course. The Serpent Eight Families, the lead sheep of Japan's little dragonkin.

"I just didn't expect you to be the one to show up. Is it because the power I used on that hybrid looked a lot like your Sovereign ability?"

Daniel didn't spare them a glance of respect. His tone carried not a trace of wariness.

Chisei Gen neither confirmed nor denied it.

He turned to look at the front door and found no switch anywhere on it.

Had Daniel opened it with gravity alone, without even leaving his seat?

And he hadn't heard any Speech Spirit being chanted, and no Golden Pupils had lit up.

This guy was dangerous.

Before he could speak, Yabuki Sakura beside him flared up first.

"You're just some lucky wild hybrid. Stop putting on this act!

"The Young Lord came to you personally, which is already more than enough face for you. What kind of attitude is that?!"

Daniel flicked a glance at Yabuki Sakura and scoffed. Ignorance really was bliss, wasn't it?

"Heh, give me face? Nobody in this world can give me face. And who gave you the guts to talk to me like that?

"Kneel!"

Thud.

The moment the word fell, Yabuki Sakura, who had just thrown down her bold challenge, slammed onto both knees. The sharp crack of breaking bone rang out from them.

"Sakura!"

Seeing this, Yasha instantly drew an alchemical pistol from behind his back and aimed it at Daniel.

The next moment, the gun in his hand burst apart without warning, shredding his palm into a bloody mess.

A crushing weight slammed him to the floor as well, and he knelt there beside Yabuki Sakura.

Chisei Gen hadn't expected Daniel to strike over a single exchange of words. Worse, he hadn't sensed the slightest wind-up of a Speech Spirit.

Sakura might be at fault, but they were still his subordinates.

At a time like this, an Emperor had to stand up for them.

Chisei Gen's black eyes instantly blazed with a brilliant molten gold.

"Speech Spirit: Sovereignty!"

Any creature with dragon's blood in its body would be crushed by several times, even dozens of times, its normal gravity under this Speech Spirit.

It couldn't affect objects, but against hybrids its power was already terrifying.

Chisei Gen had no intention of killing Daniel outright. He only meant to force him to release the other two.

To his shock, Daniel kept sitting on the sofa in that same posture, as if he felt no pressure at all.

"What are you expecting?"

Daniel simply stood up and walked toward Chisei Gen.

"Did you cancel it out with your own Speech Spirit?

"For a wild hybrid, developing a Speech Spirit to this degree is certainly something to be proud of.

"But let me tell you this: there's always someone better, always a mountain beyond the mountain."

Chisei Gen decided to teach Daniel a lesson first, to make him see the gap in strength before they discussed anything else.

The Speech Spirit had failed, but as an Emperor his physique far surpassed that of an ordinary hybrid.

He drew the Spider Cutter from his waist in a backhand motion and slashed at Daniel's shoulder.

A flash of steel.

Clang!

Daniel lifted a hand at leisure and stopped the blade with the nail of a single finger.

"Too weak. You wouldn't even pass as a nail clipper."

"What?"

Daniel only glanced at Chisei Gen's stunned face, and Chisei Gen suddenly understood exactly what the hybrids he'd bound with his Speech Spirit had felt.

Under that terrifying gravity, even his Emperor bloodline gave him no room to resist.

One more person knelt on the floor.

What kind of joke was this? He was an Emperor. Whoever could suppress him in both bloodline and Speech Spirit was absolutely not a hybrid.

"Which Dragon King are you?"

Chisei Gen lifted his head with difficulty and glared warily at Daniel.

"Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not some lowly creature like a dragon."

Daniel reached out and patted Big Bro-in-Law on the head.

"Your level is too low to understand what I am now.

"You know what? Humanity is a race that evolves through desire: Pride, Lust, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony.

"To put it in terms you can grasp, I'm the incarnation of those seven concepts."

Daniel stirred the Power of the Beast just slightly, and the light around his body began to warp.

From Chisei Gen's point of view, Daniel still looked human, but with a single glance his mind was flooded with countless negative emotions. His brain felt as if it were receiving endless streams of information, and the world spun.

His body began to tremble uncontrollably, and he wanted to retch.

Thankfully it lasted only a blink, and the sensation eased considerably, though he still felt nauseous.

But that brief moment had told him one thing for certain: the man before him was neither dragon nor human, but something far more indescribable.

Daniel reined in his aura and patted Chisei Gen's shoulder.

A little scare was enough. He was Big Bro-in-Law, after all. What if he drove the guy insane?

"Understand now, Chisei Gen? That woman came to provoke me. The only reason I didn't crush the lot of you is your sister."

Hearing that this monster had his eye on Erii, Chisei Gen instinctively bristled. But faced with this monster and the intimidation he'd just suffered, he couldn't force out a single word.

"All right, stop bothering me. I don't plan to do anything to you hybrids for now. Get lost."

Daniel turned his back on Chisei Gen and walked to the wine cabinet. He took out a bottle of Penfolds Grange and opened it.

He didn't bother letting it breathe. He just poured it into a glass, ready for a quiet drink once his guests were gone.

But just then, Daniel seemed to remember something.

"Oh, right, a heads-up. Your foster father, Tachibana Masamune, is the King of the Fierce Ghosts.

"And Tachibana Masamune isn't his real name. His real name is Herzog, an old relic who survived the Second World War.

"His true goal is to use the three of you siblings as vessels to filter the White King's bloodline power, and so steal the White King's power.

"He left a backdoor inside each of you. The moment you hear the sound of the wooden clappers, your bodies will no longer obey you."

"That's about all the intel. Figure out how to deal with it yourself. Believe it or not, it's up to you.

"But I'll give you one week at most. After that, I'll deal with that old relic Herzog myself.

"Though how many people will die by then is anyone's guess."

His words done, Daniel waved a hand and teleported the group out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind them, and the crushing pressure on Chisei Gen and the others vanished.

Yabuki Sakura and Yasha were left in a daze. Was any of that something they were even supposed to hear?