Ancestor Scorpion finished speaking.
The Four Ancestors all seed to be giving him a great deal of pressure, but he continued to stand in the air calm and unbothered. His beard danced in the wind along with his air, glowing with hints of vitality and the smallest, almost unnoticeable shades of violet.
"So you an to say that a traitor you banished instead of killed was the reason for all of this?" Ancestor Serpent asked sweetly.
"I can only say that my heart was too soft during the events of back then." Ancestor Scorpion replied without missing a beat.
"Mm. Is that so?" her smile deepened. "I seem to rember a connection being established between the Emperor Sanctum and a branch Sanctum less than a year ago, no?"
Ancestor Scorpion's gaze flickered.
"This was indeed the case," Pedraeg hurriedly stepped in from below, not daring to step into the skies along with the other Ancestors. "The traitor attempted to return to the Emperor Sanctum by climbing the Emperor Steps. Because we sensed that it was a Scorpion, I went personally with my son to welco the person. However, when we saw that it was the traitor, we sent him away. I am not sure if this was also part of his sches or not, but it seems so."
Ancestor Serpent looked down toward Pedraeg and the latter almost collapsed to his knees.
"How fascinating. A Patriarchal Spirit Beast like yourself has the ti to welco such people personally?"
Pedraeg's expression paled, but at this point they were in too deep and he could only continue with the lie.
"Like I said, esteed Ancestor of the Serpent, I went with my son. He was the one who had been curious, and since at the ti I had been training him, I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to go along with him."
A cold sweat poured down Pedraeg's back, but his Will remained surprisingly steady.
Finally, Ancestor Serpent looked away and Pedraeg almost collapsed once again after the sudden vanishing of the pressure.
He regained his composure and breathed out.
"What does this an for us?" Ancestor Whale asked calmly.
"We've lost all of the accumulated Karma of this last 714th Cycle. We'll be set back for at least the next two generations, if not three. But with the warning of the Thryskai Gods... it's hard to tell what the underlying consequences will be. They can't interfere with us too directly, but given the strength gap, just this warning alone will put us in a very precarious position. aning..." Ancestor Dove was the one to speak, a man of shorter, but very spry and slender stature. He looked as though his body was built for nothing but speed.
The Thryskai Gods won't have to act personally.
After losing their Karma, every other power that was of relatively the sa level, and even so that were the slightest bit weaker, would all be circling them like hounds.
They could take a huge chunk out of them before they managed to recover-if they managed to recover at all.
That alone was problem enough, but with the Thryskai Gods making it clear that they were unhappy, their very foundation was hard, and it would make those who would only be willing to nibble at the edges before far more willing to take large bites out of them.
This was a disaster in the making, and they knew it.
"We need to put in place policies to recover our Karma quickly. First we need to cut down on the number of branch Sanctums. Second we need to incentivize improvent and ambition. Third, we need to loosen so of the restrictions we have on our reserve resources and things of the like." Ancestor Whale waved a hand and the new ranking of the Sanctums appeared.
She raised an eyebrow, the most eye-popping change obvious to them all.
The 073 Sanctum had moved all the way up to 001.
Was this the pawn the Mortal Thryskai Clan had used to progress?
Ancestor Whale looked at this in silence for a long while. She raised a finger and then with a slash, 60 Sanctums were severed from their Emperor Sanctum.
She could feel the oddity of the rankings, so she didn't just cut off the bottom 60, instead selecting them carefully until there were none left by the 40 she found the most worthy.
And still there, right at the top, was the 073 Sanctum.
Pedraeg's expression flickered, but he didn't argue. Now wasn't the ti to try and overextend himself.
What a sche indeed.
Sylas slaps them with one palm while holding out the other palm for his rewards.
And how could he get away with it?
Because he knew they would need him now more than ever.
While Purvon had managed to worm his way to a claim on the Karma through his own sches, there was still no doubt that the Emperor Sanctum still held the most claim to the Karma produced by their now new 001 Sanctum.
If they severed that connection, they would not only lose even more Karma, but they would lose a path to gaining
more.
The Ancestors quickly adjusted things, implenting one new rule after another. They didn't waste any ti.
In a matter of minutes, the entire Emperor Sanctum had been reford in unfathomable ways, the coffers of the organization having been opened up like never before.
The next few decades would decide if they survived or not.
**
Ancestor Scorpion walked down the halls of the Scorpion Palace, a silence Pedraeg and Elbrum following after him. His hands were still clasped behind his back, and since leaving, he hadn't spoken a single word at all.
And then he suddenly did.
"Why have you not called Keyesen here yet?"
Pedraeg's pupils trembled, but he sent the ssage. However, even after several minutes, his son still didn't appear.
Before Pedraeg could apologize on his behalf, Ancestor Scorpion raised a hand and the void was torn open. A half naked Keyesen appeared and stumbled forward, catching himself before he collapsed.
"What the hell-."
A slap cut off the rest of his words.
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