Chapter 676: Zanda (1/2)

Boje’s back was slick with sweat as he hurried down the vast hallways. Being summoned by the Supreme Ancestor could only mean one of two things. You had either made such huge contributions to the clan that the Matriarch actually ended her perennial cultivation to commend and reward you, or that you had screwed up by such epic proportions that it might implicate your entire branch.

Of course, Boje knew he hadn’t accomplished any grand feats as of late. Furthermore, his father walked next to him, and his pallid face was ample evidence which of the two scenarios was more likely. The steely demeanor of the two deacons leading the way did not give indications to the contrary either, causing the group to move through the Zethaya Headquarters in oppressive silence.

From what Boje had heard, the last time Zanda Zethaya left her seclusion was over ten thousand years ago. A few select elders were responsible for supplying the endless materials required for her experiments into the Dao of Alchemy, but not even his great grandfather had spoken to her for millennia from what he had heard. Let alone he, a piddling member of the younger generation.

The group soon reached the gate to the hidden realm and passed through, and Boje could barely breathe from how immense the energies were on the other side. Unfortunately, he had no chance to take in the grandeur of the Everseed Gardens, the heart of the Zethaya Clan's Alchemy foundation. Countless priceless herbs grew under the constant care of intricate arrays and watchful Deacons, but both Boje and his father's attention were trained on the walled-off area far in the distance.

The Matriarch's private quarters.

The distance was too far for an early E-grade cultivator like him, so his father lifted him with his spiritual force. The world around him turned to a blur, but it still took twenty minutes before they reached a set of gates. The energy was even denser here, and Boje felt himself quickly losing grip of reality.

A surge of his father’s Cosmic Energy traveled through his body to expel the power, waking him up. Boje hurriedly closed his pores as to not get himself accidentally killed before taking a steadying breath.

”Remember, mind your manners,” his father urged him as the gates slowly swung open by themselves, and Boje’s heart sunk when he saw the trepidation in his eyes.

This was his father, a proper Late-stage Hegemon whose alchemical skills would make him an honored guest in most places in the Zecia sector. Yet here he was like a scared child. There was no escape, and Boje nodded and walked inside while. He kept his eyes peeled to the ground, afraid to look at anything he wasn't supposed to. Finally, he sensed a presence in front of him, and he immediately stopped in his tracks.

“Boje Zethaya of the 1,837th generation greets the matriarch,” Boje said as he bowed deeply, and he remained unmoving out of a mix of reverence and fear.

In front of him was Zanda Zethaya, the direct descendant of the founding patriarch of the Zethaya Clan and likely the foremost Alchemy Expert of the Zecia sector. She was once the 3rd Clan Leader, but now maintained the identity of Supreme Ancestor, delegating the running of the clan to the younger generations.

She had taken a thriving but unimpressive faction and pushed it straight to the peak of the sector roughly eight hundred thousand years ago, and she had made sure it never lost its glory in the time after. Anyone in the sector could understand the reverence people held for her, but the ones who knew the reason to fear her were a lot fewer in number.

The terror rather came from her second identity; Thousand Mile Death, one of the deadliest poison masters in the sector. It wasn’t a real secret, but it was also not something that you spoke openly about because of the sinister reputation of poison wielders. After all, almost all of them belonged to the unorthodox path.

Zanda was one of the greatest geniuses of the sector in the past million years, and most put her shoulder to shoulder with peak experts like the Void Priestess and just below the Eveningtide Asura. Some even believed she would’ve had the potential to reach even further if she hadn’t chosen a hybrid path.

“Rise, child,” a soothing voice drifted over, and Boje hesitantly stood up and glanced at the legendary figure he would normally have no business meeting.

She looked just like the paintings, like a young woman in her twenties exuding infinite charm. She sat on a swirling cloud of pure medicinal essence, and the only tool on her was the large unadorned wooden spoon on her lap. Next to her was a small Alchemy Cauldron, a perfect copy of the far larger one behind her back.

It was golden and reached almost fifty meters into the sky, an enormous monstrosity that hummed with the Dao of Nature. It was covered in dozens of pictures of the wild, or was it just inscriptions? Boje had a hard time telling, and it felt like the cauldron's surface kept shifting as he looked at it.

It was the Cloudsoar Cauldron, the defining treasure of the Zethaya Clan, an ancient relic dating all the way back to the Limitless Empire. Much of the Zethaya heritage was derived from the mysterious runes covering its surface, and not even a peak C-Grade Monarch would have an easy time breaking through the defensive shields it could summon.

If he could just meditate in front of that cauldron for a few days, then he would no doubt make enormous strides on his Dao...

“Tell me about your encounter with the one calling himself Zac Piker,” Zanda Zethaya suddenly said, which was like a bucket of cold water that brought Boje back to reality.

Sweat once more started poured down Boje’s back. It was just like he feared; this was related to that lunatic and the events in the Tower of Eternity. He had waited, steeped in anxiety for three long years. The elders’ response to his handling of the situation had been excruciatingly ambiguous, to the point that Boje had even wished to be punished so he could get on with his life.

But now that he stood here in front of this celestial being, any such thought was replaced with abject dread.

“It’s my fault,” Boje cried fell on his knees, slamming his forehead into the ground with enough force to bloody himself.

The instructions from his father and grandmother were clear; if things started to go sideways, pray and beg like your life depended on it. Because it did. And not only his but his whole family’s life was hanging by a thread. He could only hope to elicit some sympathy for the younger generation from the ancient matriarch.

“Calm down,” Zanda laughed. “Do I have such a bad reputation among the younger generations? After all, I am essentially your great aunt. Come, sit.”

“N-No, not at all,” he hurriedly said, but he inwardly cried from fear.

Who didn’t know how this smiling ‘great aunt’ once annihilated a whole Pill House, from lowest clerk to the Branch Director himself? She waved her sleeves and fifty million people were dead a minute later, including hundreds of D-Grade hegemons. It happened eighty thousand years ago, but the memory was still all-too-fresh in the clan’s collective memory.

And that was just one of a hundred bloody tales that detailed her exploits during her long tenure as the peak powerhouse of the Zethaya clan.