The cloudiness in Hubert's eyes receded as Roy, Julian, the maids, and the twins revealed their backs to him.
His once brown eyes were immediately dyed red in the desire to monopolize and remained fixed on Roy's back.
At the same time, the tips of his ears turned pointy, and a watery, somewhat scaly membrane coated his entire body.
His face blurred, morphing back into his original, dignified look.
He no longer looked like Hubert, the old man who molested his own daughter since she was young and did the unspeakable to her when she became a perfect replica of his wife before killing and burying her beneath the land and spreading the false news of her looting him of his wealth and eloping with a man to garner the sympathy of the simple-minded villagers and fool them.
He now looked like the God who punished Hubert for the sin of ruining the innocence and purity of his daughter, striking him dead instantly and condemning him to hell.
He now looked like the fearsome and dignified Water Celestial, the true owner and sole resident of the massive shrine in the center of the village, and the master of Ganesha, the realm lord of the icy, cold land, and his blood brother, the realm lord of the warm lands!
Roy and his friends back were to him, so none of them except for Arlo noticed the massive change he had undergone.
"Seeing how intensely you're staring at his back, he must be to your liking." Arlo mentally communicated to the Water Celestial.
Just like Ganesha, water bodies were like the eyes and ears of the Water Celestial, and he had seen Roy helping Amelia, Delilah, and Jeanne, three scattered descendants of his clan with such impure bloodlines that he considered it below himself to appear before them or even treat them as his own, but it wasn't wrong to say that he felt good when they were helped, and his heart moved for Roy, wanting to bless him.
However, he held his hand, and that became the biggest mistake of his life.
From Far West, he found out that Roy had foiled the plans of Chaos.
Immediately, he wanted to assign him as his successor.
But a bald donkey was faster than him.
He glared at the bald donkey and spoke.
"No… he isn't."
Arlo: "..." Do you think I am blind? You are looking at my nephew like a kidnapper! And you still have the guts to say you don't find him interesting. How shameless can you get?!
He rolled his eyes at the husband of his only daughter and spoke.
"Honestly, I am feeling jealous of you. You found an excellent person to pass down your legacy to, and I am still searching for one."
His words directly rang in Arlo's mind like thousands of bells, almost knocking him out, but he used aura to deafen his voice, saving himself from the embarrassment of being knocked out cold from just talking with him.
"You have eyes, but you can't recognize Mount Tai. I know an excellent specimen to who you wouldn't regret passing your inheritance, and you have met him many times. If you take him as your legacy inheritor, you will die free of regrets." Arlo said to the water celestial in a confident voice.
The eyebrows of the Water Celestial raised, signifying his interest was piqued.
"Oh, who is he?"
"Me! How about you let me inherit your will, father-in-law?"
The Water Celestial knew Arlo was shameless, but he didn't know he was shameless to such an extent.
"I did rather die than hand it over to you, and stop calling me that!"
"It has been 24 years since I married her, yet you still refuse to accept me as your son-in-law. What will it take to have you bless our marriage, father-in-law?" Arlo asked the Water Celestial, intentionally saying what he didn't want to hear.
The Water Celestial's face crumbled.
He was officially pissed off!
"Live up to my expectations, and I might consider you family, but before then, you are just an ugly-faced rascal who swindled my lovely daughter into marrying you. I don't know what was going on in her mind when she fell head over heels for you. If I could go back in time, I would have surely thrown you in the water when you came to meet my daughter and married her behind my back."
The Water celestial scolded Arlo, cursing him once every second.
"I might be ugly like you said, but I at least have a wife. You don't even have that." Arlo retorted, face-slapping the widowed Water Celestial.
What Roy read wasn't Hubert's past, but the water celestial's.
Hubert was a dirty old man who did the unthinkable to his daughter, while the Water Celestial was the sad and betrayed father whose daughter eloped with a man without informing him. Ah!
"I will go crazy if I keep on talking to you. Goodbye!"
The water celestial's body turned into droplets of water that plunged to the ground and sunk into it. This caused massive fluctuations in the surrounding energy, and it didn't escape Roy's notice. Roy turned to look in the direction where these fluctuations were taking place and realized that Hubert was no longer at his station; only his cart was left behind.
"Eh? Where did he go?" Roy wondered.
…
They eventually climbed up the slope, reaching the cliff with the large manor sat.
From far away, it looked like it was surrounded by a dome of darkness, but now that they got a good look at it, they realized it was homely and welcoming, like a house that would cheer you up the second you stepped inside it.
A small garden with massive bamboo trees planted on each side and a fountain in the middle led to the towering, tall doors of the manor.
A vast field of grass could also be seen.
It was covered in leaves that had fallen from the trees.
They saw a young girl dressed in heavy armor dancing in circles, catching the falling leaves while giggling.
A sword was embedded on the ground close to her.
She had just stopped training and started playing when she felt someone's gaze on her.
She immediately stopped what she was doing and turned around, only to see seven strangers in her garden.
A wind blew.
Her soft hair bounced up and down
She stared at them like a startled cat. "Who might you be?"
