Patriarch Ember had been allowing his subordinates to monitor the situation around the disappearance of the Awoken Moon Sect for several decades already. In truth, he had been monitoring them even before this because of this thorn he had had in his heart.
To Ryu, this matter had only occurred two or three years ago, but to Patriarch Ember, it had already been hundreds and yet he was still holding onto such a grudge. It could only be said that the matters of that day had become his own heart demon and the truth was that it wasn't entirely because of Ryu.
Of course, back then, Patriarch Ember had tried to stop Ryu from leaving the tournament using a dome of fire. But, due to the flame immunity Ryu's Rebirth Flame gave him, the low level flames of the Ember Clan couldn't even touch the hem of his robes if he didn't want them to, quite frankly. As a result, he had been able to escape that day after killing an Apostle.
Though that had been a bit embarrassing for Patriarch Ember, there were too many ways to explain it away. Ryu could have had a special treasure that helped him, or, Ryu could have even been dead. After all, he simply vanished after that with this help of his black cloak. This made it easier for Patriarch Ember to weather the storm of the questioning gazes that had fallen like an avalanche around them.
Unfortunately… What came later was something he couldn't ignore, because it was impossible to trick himself.
The reveal of Ryu's name, Sarriel's words exposing his cowardice in not even daring to say them out loud, all compounded by old man Aberardus coming to give Patriarch Ember a warning left the Patriarch feeling like a shell of himself.
Patriarch Ember had always known that he was weak in the grand scheme of things. After all, he could only be considered to be the pre eminent powerhouse of the Pedestal Plane, the absolute weakest of the Immortal Planes.
However, he had always been able to somewhat ignore this feeling. He could explain it away with his relatively young age and his foul luck at being born on such a low plane… After all, hadn't he made the best of what he was given? What more could he ask than to become number one in the place he had been born?
But something about that day shook his inferiority loose and revealed the scars he had been hiding for so long. Even after all this time, those scars had only scabbed over, pulsing with puss and blood and refusing to heal.
As such, when the Ember Clan and the Awoken Moon Sect first clashed, Patriarch Ember immediately remembered Ryu.
He had initially thought that he could force Ryu out by destroying his crutch, but the Awoken Moon Sect somehow managed to find ways to survive time and time again. Every time they seemed close to collapsing, Patriarch Ember's attention would be ripped away, forcing him to train his eyes on something else.
The task to unite the Pedestal Plane was something that he simply couldn't ignore as it had come from Sarriel herself. As much as he feared the Tatsuya name, the fear he had for that woman was ingrained onto his very soul. He didn't dare to skip out on her wishes for his own selfish desires.
Uniting the Pedestal Plane might sound simple since the Ember Clan was already the top powerhouse and one of the only powers with Path Extinction Realm experts, but it had to be remembered just how much sheer uninhabited space there was on the Pedestal Plane. And in this context, uninhabited unfortunately only related to humans.
There were large swaths of beasts and beast clans strewn throughout the Plane. In fact, this was true of all three Planes. Many of them had been no less powerful than Patriarch Ember himself, making the task especially daunting.
By the time the Awoken Moon Sect could be cornered, they were no longer the Awoken Moon Sect of the past. Their Inheritor Disciple had begun to shine forth with her true potential, one talent after another seemed to continuously be born, and the wealth of the Sect exploded with each passing year to the point where their growth was the envy of all.
If it wasn't for the fact only a few hundred years had passed, they might have already begun to rival the Ember Clan. Luckily, cultivation was far too difficult to allow such a thing. The younger generation of the Awoken Moon Sect might have been blossoming, but the older generation was still stagnant and was having trouble progressing. How could they stand a chance against a real power house?
In the end, though, they managed to disappear without a trace, leaving nothing more than a hole in the ground. And, to make things even worse, Patriarch Ember was absolutely certain that all of this luck and accumulated Karma was the result of Ryu's actions, a fact that only infuriated him all the more.
Thinking of all of these things, he had already riled himself up to a furious extreme when he entered Ryu's range. He wanted nothing more than to rip Ryu limb from limb.
But, the moment he crossed the 100 meter barrier to Ryu, he suddenly felt as though everything within him had frozen. It was as though it was no longer a human that stood before him, but rather a wild, seething beast. The kind that pat him to death with a single claw.
The feeling was completely irrational. How much could Ryu have possibly improved in just 200 years? He had been in the Divine Vessel Realm back then and should still be in it now. How could anything have changed?
"You've come at a good time."
Ryu's words snapped Patriarch Ember out of his thoughts, those silver irises seeming to see right through him.
"Now you tell me. Why is it that my Sect vanished into thin air? Don't tell me that they chose to leave their home for now reason, hm?"