Damien was quite kind to his wives. He definitely thrusted them into unexpected situations with his choice to deploy them, but it was never meant to harm them.
Instead, it was meant to push them forward. He hadn't been able to see them much, but he did spend several years with them in the time dilation during his last visit to the palace.
Some of them told him directly what they were feeling, while others hid it, not wanting to trouble him.
But no matter what route they chose, they couldn't hide their hearts from their own husband,
Damien understood what they each craved and what they needed the most.
Ruyue didn't tell him what was happening to her, but he could see it.
Her demeanor had changed quite noticeably, after all.
He respected her decision. After all, if Ruyue thought her sacrifice was necessary, then who was he to tell her she was wrong?
The fact that she'd made compromises for his sake and for the sake of their family was more than enough for him.
However, was Ruyue truly okay with letting her entire world go?
Damien remembered the version of her that blossomed during their adventures together in the Cloud Plane.
She was happy, expressive, and completely different from the ice-cold woman he'd met originally.
She'd returned to that ice-cold state, but she'd done it by choice and nature. It wasn't necessarily a cover that hid her insecurity anymore.
Still, Damien knew Ruyue. He knew the kind of person she was around him, and he didn't want that side of her to slowly be killed.
If she wanted the power of Absolute Yin, that was fine.
But as long as he had any say in the matter, that power would not be allowed to take away things that were rightfully hers.
Nevertheless, it wasn't yet time for her to realize any of that.
Currently, Ruyue stood on a frozen lake in the middle of a tundra.
This place was in the Eastern Region, surprisingly enough considering the climate. It could be called a forbidden zone, but it really wasn't one.
It was at least three steps below a forbidden zone in danger, and when Ruyue was brought into this environment, that changed even more.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtThough, she wasn't the one who picked it.
Rather, a group of over ten Demigods had chosen this place as their battleground.
The Divinities of Straea weren't given a totally specific order.
They were told to spread out throughout the world and wait. If anyone appeared near them, kill without mercy.
The Divinities roughly understood that they'd be facing enemies, but they didn't know exactly who those enemies would be.
This group of ten had grouped together specifically because they all had similar powers. Those powers would work even better in an environment where they had the advantage, so naturally, a tundra was perfect.
They were practitioners of Ice Laws after all.
Did Damien just want to get Ruyue out of the house or did he really mean for there to be a challenge here?
Ruyue was honestly indifferent to this task already, but it still made her curious.
After all, even if there were ten of them…
WHOOOOOOOOSH!
A huge breeze blew through the tundra.
It seemed like a natural event, something caused by the harsh environment that this location was.
However, it was anything but.
The ten Demigods from Straea were not weak people. None of them were below middle rank, and three of them were even high rank.
Yet, not a single one sensed Ruyue's approach.
Her pure white clothes were like a reflection of the surrounding snow. Her skin, and her piercing gold eyes made her seem like an embodiment of the tundra itself.
Her steps did not taint the purity of the atmosphere. Rather, every step she took made the land feel more sacred than ever before.
But the Divinity she carried was not one of hope or holiness.
It was not a thing others could worship. Only something they could fear.
She represented destruction.
Death. Mayhem. Murder. Madness.
If someone tested her patience, they would die.
If someone touched her people, they would die.
She walked down from the sky, her visage clearing up within the forming blizzard.
The ten Demigods she was sent to face finally noticed her presence. They went on alert and immediately summoned their mana to attack.
Their orders were clear. Anyone who approached needed to die. Other questions didn't need to be asked.
But Ruyue's mentality was the same.
VOOOOOOM!
Ten Demigods held a whole lot of mana between them. As they exerted their power, the surrounding snow and ice came completely under their control.
Using their laws to manipulate the ice's properties, to make it deadly to Divinites, they shot countless attacks at the mysterious person in the sky, aiming to get rid of them in one go.
Ruyue looked at the approaching storm without a change in expression.
There was no need to waste time understanding what these people could do.
Absolute Yin.
A power she risked everything to obtain.
If it wasn't leagues above its peers, then why would it be deserving of such a price?
SHING!
Like a sword slicing through air, a crisp sound cut through the atmosphere.
The Demigods on the ground collectively made sounds of surprise as they realized that their mana no longer followed their orders.
It had been frozen.
Their attacks no longer followed their orders.
They had been frozen.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmTheir bodies…no longer followed their orders.
Their souls had been entrapped within a cage of Absolute Yin.
To fight was to exert effort. To exert effort was to care.
Ruyue, who no longer had the ability to care, no longer had the ability to fight.
Her only choice was domination.
Ice was one of the most basic aspects of Yin. It was the most accessible, and also her own starting place in the larger law that she only started to truly understand later on.
Ice was very dear to her, despite being so basic.
So when it came to maneuvering ice, Ruyue had expertise above anyone else.
VOOOOOOM!
Another explosion of mana, this time from her own body.
RUMBLE!
The entire earth shook. It was as if an earthquake had suddenly shot through the area, but that was an incorrect assumption.
It was a hardly noticeable vibration in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't as if the phenomenon made itself known to everyone, but anyone who managed to sense it immediately knew what it alluded to.
Those ten Demigods were not a part of that group.
For the ground under them was already unstable due to their extreme manipulation of the elements. For the blizzard raging around them overstimulated their senses and threw them off.
Ruyue had taken control over everything.
As long as it was Yin and existed within a range of ten thousand kilometers, it was now Ruyue's weapon.
And with that calamity's worth of Yin in her possession…
Ruyue made her move.
The white blanket of the tundra suddenly changed.
It became bumpier, lined with hills and mountains of snow and ice that didn't exist before.
Not many people would ever know of what happened here.
But maybe one day far in the future, someone would dig into one of those mountains and find something unexplainable.
The sight of ten perfectly preserved Demigods encased in ice.