"My father was the most talented man of the entire clan."

With my hand brus.h.i.+ng Eve"s hair in slow and steady movements, I could see her chest lifting up and falling down in a slightly unsteady manner. 

"As long as he was on the very top of the food chain, there weren"t any problems with the demands from our ancestors and "uncles", but the moment his brother managed to reach immortal stage with the pills that our clan exchanged most of its fortune for, position of my branch of the bloodline started to slowly dimmish."

By bringing up the matter of bloodlines and using external resources to raise one"s cultivation, Eve already hinted me what was the entire story about. While I would like to cut to the chase and ask the question that popped up in my head as soon as I heard about this approach to cultivation, I decided to wait for her to say everything herself, instead of jumping into conclusions. In the end, I hoped my premonition was wrong, and bringing it up if it wasn"t the case would only sour the mood of my beloved even more.

"The real problems started when my mother died, just when I reached my fifth birthday. So far, we could count on the support of Manneria clan to prevail through the power struggle in our clan… Sadly, her family was ranked way higher than ours, making them ditch us away as soon as the marriage was over. With that, my free-willed father who refused to be used as an a.s.set to the clan lost his only advantage over my uncle and was forced to escape from the clan clutches."

As we approached this part of the story, I could see Eve"s const.i.tution worsening with every word. It was clear that we were reaching the part most unpleasant to her. With no better idea of how I could alleviate some of the burned of these memories from her, I grabbed her hand with my own and tightened my grip on it. 

"To this day, I don"t know how, but my father managed to raise his cultivation in a span of a single year from the upper realm to the immortal one. Just when I thought that our life would finally be calm, we were attacked by those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, my father got killed in a fight and well… you know the rest of the story."

Unable to bear the weight of those emotions, Eve lifted herself up a bit and hugged herself into my upper body. Closing her in my embrace, I made sure to not stop brus.h.i.+ng her hair even for a moment, trying to calm down the delicate shaking that was transmitted to me as she sobbed. 

I had no heart to ask her anything else about her family problem. It was plainly obvious why they sought her. With the outstanding growth of her father, they were probably sure that she held some information about how he achieved it. This kind of information was priceless for a clan that wanted to ascend into new heights, especially if the most powerful expert grew his strength only thanks to medicinal pills!

"Bloodline merging?"

While I don"t want to put even more pressure on her, this is the question I have to ask. This match of the words is a phrase I found all the way back in one of the books that I read while living in the bas.e.m.e.nt of my family. Even if the phrase sounded complicated, it basically meant forcing two parties that were believed to possess great talent to make a child together, so that the overall strength of the offspring would be even greater than the one of their parents. 

Historically, that wasn"t a bad idea. Most of the clans and sect often had only one or two prodigies in their lands, making them a great pair for each other, because only this small group could share the troubles of cultivating new heights. But with the spreading of the talent all over the world, this process became something that clan not suggested, but enforced of their more talented parts, stealing the love and affection from their lives.

Treaded as nothing else but a breeding cattle, it was obvious that with as free-willed cultivators were, no one would willingly accept such a thing! Especially when I was the one whose lover was looked at through the prism of this perspective!

With my hand involuntarily tightening into a fist, I accidentally pulled on Eve"s hair, forcing her to slightly moan in pain. 

"Ah, sorry. But I guess that explains your previous drive to get pregnant, am I wrong?"

If I were to make a child with her, no matter what this clan would do, their plans towards her would be foiled. While it wasn"t much, as long as the parents didn"t change or grew cultivation-wise, the firstborn would always be the most talented one. Even with insane amounts of resources placed in researching this phenomenon, no one yet could understand why it occurred, so people just accepted it as common sense. 

Just by making her first child with me, her worth for her clan would instantly dimmish. No matter how bad does it sound, this was the only way to avoid direct confrontation with her clan. But since when I am someone who hides away from those who cross my bottom line?

"Yes, I"m sorry for not telling you before. It wasn"t fair of me to force you into that situation."

Pus.h.i.+ng her head even deeper in my chest, Eve trembling only worsened as if she was scared of my potential reaction. 

Who does she take me for? I"m here to be her support, so if she judged it to be the best way to go with things, I would pin her down and filled her with my seed for as long as it would take her for the child to be finally conceived! While I" have enough resolve to go with her idea, my earthy way of thinking is waaay to rebellious to allow her to fall so low as to avoid the confrontation if there is any way around it!

Pus.h.i.+ng her at the legs of my arms, I saw her teary, messy face and uncertainty seeping from her eyes.

"Do you have anyone in your clan that you still have any sympathy for?"

Ignoring the sharp pain in my heart steeming from the fear and anxiety of her face and my decision to put it aside for now, I asked this question seemingly out of nowhere.

"What? Why you are asking this?"

Unable to comprehend the meaning behind my words, her expression turned from teary to a puzzled one.

With my inner feelings of rage and hate surfacing on my face, I uttered those words while trying my best to not scare her with my sentence alone.

"Because I will make sure to kill every single one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, so I want to know who should I spare."