*Gulp*

For some inexplicable reason, Asura felt a strong feeling of thirst coming from his entire body. He felt as if his body was telling him that he must get that drop of silver blood no matter what.

He was unaware of the changes taking the place within himself, but at this time his pupils had turned into a shape of a four-pointed star, as if the two slits—one horizontal and one vertical—combined into one. The only difference was that the central parts of those slits were thicker than the ends, resulting in a star-shaped pupil and not in a plus-shaped one.

Asura's blood began heating up, yearning for that silver drop of blood as if feeling its closest relative. Something like this was entirely new to him, as could be seen from his lack of control.

"Haa.. Haaaa..."

His breathing gradually turned heavy and audible, which caused Nayi's brows to furrow in doubt.

"Hm? This reaction... why is it so intense?", she thought.

Asura's gasps intensified as he made two quick steps and lunged at her arm. He didn't have the time to inspect himself previously and hadn't noticed that he possessed a pair of fangs—like a well-known creature in his past life - a vampire.

He hadn't noticed this, but Nayi did, judging by her face that reflected pain at the moment the Asura's teeth bit into her arm and pierced her skin.

"No way... he could actually tear through my skin? What kind of monster is this kid?!" - these were her thoughts at that point, completely disregarding the pain she felt; probably because the pain wasn't even that strong.

To those who continuously gathered the energy of the world, their bodies would be slowly strengthened and such a situation shouldn't be possible considering Nayi's power. Yet, the unfolding events made her realize just how frightening of an existence she had met when she felt the pain from her arm.

"What a monster he is... What a catch! It seems like the future will be very, veryy fun... Hehe...."

As if feeling her thoughts, Asura shuddered and finally recollected himself, quickly letting go of her hand and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"M-master, I'm sorry... I don't know what happened back there. I-I lost control of myself...", he said with a face full of guilt and shame.

Nayi couldn't hold back the chuckle when she saw a genuine guilt on the kid's face.

"You really are a kid, at the end of the day... Heh, don't worry little brat. I won't die from something like that. However, we will need to find out what caused that since we don't want you going around and biting the arms of everyone you come in contact with."

As she was speaking, Nayi suddenly noticed that Asura's eyes had turned dull as he kept staring at the sky. She felt something strange and focused on the little kid, only to have her pupils rapidly contract when she understood the situation.

"H-h-he... advanced? He advanced a rank from drinking my blood? Wha—!!!"

*RUMBLE—BOOM!*

Not giving her any time to react, the sky Asura had been staring at suddenly lit up with endless white as a thin lightning bolt descended with insane speed, falling on the top of his head and rampaging through his body, leaving his skin charred black.

"..."

*Plop!*

After a brief silence, the kid's charred-black body limply fell face-first onto the ground, causing Nayi to finally snap back.

"Ah! No! What happened?! Why was there lightning?!"

Her thoughts rapidly became chaotic as she crouched next to the unconscious kid and infused the milky-white energy inside his body to help him recover, similar to what she had done with Xia before. When the energy entered, she encountered a rampaging lightning causing chaos within Asura's body, which instantly made her extremely concerned.

She quickly used her energy to neutralize the lightning as fast as she could but just as she was about to lead the gathered lightning energy outside of the kid's body, she suddenly lost control of her own energy. Her out-of-control energy brought all the lightning and even itself towards the kid's heart. The only thing she could do was to helplessly watch as that terrifying energy submerged in the little kid's heart and vanished as if entering the deep abyss.

"!"

"..."

"?!"

As her facial expressions changed several times in response to the changes taking place, a pitch-black energy with vivid green traces slowly seeped out of the place where her energy was taken away previously and started coursing through Asura's body. Wherever it passed, the damaged tissues, veins, bones, organs and skin would recover as if nothing had happened, but the speed of this energy was slow.

"What... is this...", she subconsciously spoke.

"Oooh... yummy!"

A sweet, sweet angelic voice came from her side. She turned her head in that direction and saw a pair of red eyes looking at the silver blood still oozing out of the cut on her hand.

"X...Xia? You're awake?!"

Xia leaned forward and collected a few drops of silver blood with her finger and then cheerfully sent that blood directly to her mouth.

"Mmmhh... sweet! Very sweet! Very tasty! Hee-hee."

Looking at the cheerful little girl that seemed like she would start jumping from joy, Nayi felt helpless once again while feeling the changes taking place in Asura's body.

The girl's eyes changed as her pupils turned vertical from the blood she had ingested and her aura slightly rose, indicating that she had also risen in rank like Asura previously. Nayi quickly glanced at the sky with wary eyes but what she expected didn't come—Xia's change didn't summon any lightning from the sky.

"Hooo..."

She could finally let out the stale air when she ascertained that the events with Asura won't be repeating with Xia's case. Then, she saw Xia mimicking what Asura had done previously as she crouched on the ground and bowed.

"Master.", a half-sweet half-serious voice came from Xia's bowed head.

"E-eh? What are you doing, little girl?! Why are you calling me master?"

Xia rose up, patted her knees and pointed towards the unconscious boy on the ground.

"Asura."

Then her finger trailed off and stopped when it reached Nayi.

"Master."

Then, once again, her finger moved and pointed towards herself.

"Xia."

And then, she clapped her hands together as she spoke with a smile that seemed to radiate gentleness, as if thousands of flowers were coming from it.

"Family!"

The only response to all this were two dumbfounded blinks coming from Nayi who was continuously supplying Asura with white energy all the time. Her golden eyes had never been so full of disbelief as in this short day, just because she had listened to the 'vision' her sister had told her. She met these two strange kids, took them away from the middle of nowhere and brought them here, to her home.

She planned on letting both of them absorb some of her blood so that they could also enter the Forbidden Domain without the curse acting up, because only those of the same bloodline as her could enter.

Yet! She had never expected that her efforts would result in such a strange outcome.

One of them immediately broke through and even caused a Mini Heavenly Tribulation on a minor breakthrough, while the other said that the blood was tasty. According to the common sense of this world, the children shouldn't be able to digest her blood—it would only stick around in their bodies and allow them to go inside the Forbidden Domain. Yet, both of them immediately digested it as soon as it got inside their bodies and even broke through directly.

Usually, this drop of blood would blast a six-year-old kid to pieces if the energy within was released, or it would cause the one who miraculously absorbed all that energy to break through at least two major realms, where each major realm had ten minor realms, yet these two only advanced one realm.

"Wha—what are these brats? There's no way they aren't some kinds of divine beasts in human form, right? Right?". Nayi was so troubled that she had to reassure herself even in her own thoughts by asking herself the same thing multiple times.

At the moment her thoughts had reached their peak, a familiar voice appeared.

"Hnghh... that hurt. Agh... What was that?"

Nayi's hand shook as she watched at the charred-black kid slowly standing up with some difficulty. Asura gave it his all just to straighten up and even felt as if his hands would fail any moment and he would slam into the ground once again, but he still tried his best to raise himself into a half-sitting position.

"Hnnnnngg!!! Haaaaa... finally."

After a lot of effort, he finally succeeded and then let his arms limply fall on the ground as he kept panting.

"Ugh! What a surprise... is this what Tenri meant? Fuck, it hurts so much. Kghh—Aah I felt like I would die back there... no—I think I may have even died for a moment. Hm? Oh, Xia! You're awake?! How do you feel?"

Nayi and Xia had been listening to Asura's monologue with full attention and only now when Asura called out to Xia did the little girl react.

"Asura! Happy!!!"

Xia's eyes went mega-excited as she recklessly jumped at him while giggling all the while.

"A—aah no! Wai—!"

*Plop!*

As he was in a very weak state, Asura could barely keep himself upright and when Xia jumped on him, there was no resistance at all. He fell on his back with the little girl tightly hugging him.

Xia kept rubbing her head against his cheeks like a cat while cheerfully giggling, which made Asura start giggling as well as if his pain and weakness had lost any meaning.

All of this was reflected in the golden eyes once again filling with disbelief and helplessness. A sigh full of emotion resounded from Nayi's mouth as she closed her very, very tired eyes.