Litian's face darkened as this was brought up and Fengtian frowned deeply. Before they could even say anything, the burly fellow continued venting his grievances openly.
"If it wasn't for the fact that I spoke up that torturing the young miss as a baby was inhumane, would I have been captured and lumped in with you? As if that wasn't enough, they threw in my entire family!" He roared with anger.
His grievances were enough to ignite a spark in the hearts of the others, who saw validity in releasing their pent-up frustrations, and they rallied to his side.
"My wife revered Miss Bingtian for her kindness and managed to become her close friend. Because of that, we were all thrown in to suffer for over 20 years! My son died in the Heavenly Imprisonment Tower!"
"I and my father supported you, Uncle Litian. What did we get in return for it other than suffering?!"
"You're all a bunch of fools, but at least there was an inkling of a reason for your imprisonment. In my case, I simply was unlucky enough to share a relation with him, so I got tossed into that godforsaken place, having to listen to your whining for 20 years!"
Litian was red-faced with fury and about to retort when Fengtian patted his son on the back. He glanced at the group arranged before him who were full of fury slowly, which had the effect of making them settle down.
They dared to talk down to Litian because of his bad reputation as a henpecked man, but Fengtian was legitimately a legend in the Lineage that commanded great respect. It was because of him that Lingtian had shied away from executing the whole group and could only imprison them with an 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality.
"Your complaints are understandable for various reasons. Whether you genuinely supported me and my son or not, we thank you for your support and also hope to make up for the pain you suffered since then."
Fengtian's eyes sharpened as he glanced at everyone and then the burly man intensely. "However, that is another topic altogether. My initial statement was that my granddaughter, Shuangtian is the legitimate reincarnation of our progenitor, the great Pangu. Say what you want, but your body doesn't lie. Who here dares to look me in the eyes and claim that your blood doesn't feel the connection?!"
The group became silent and looked to the burly man to voice out their thoughts. The man glanced at Fengtian, Litian and then deeply at Shuangtian before sighing and stepping forward again.
"Fengtian, you're a legend and even Lord Litian had his merits in the past, but you both are forgetting the creed of our Lineage. Even as far back as Miss Shuangtian was born, we could feel the power from her bloodline. The statue of Ancestor Pangu shook in her presence, the Primogenitor Giant even knelt before her."
The fellow looked at Fengtian pointedly. "Even the stupidest person could tell that Shuangtian was special."
"But we cannot accept her! Regardless of whatever bloodline percentage she has, regardless of whether she is born to the sitting clan patriarch and regardless of any phenomena she creates, she cannot be the reincarnation of our ancestor nor can she be our leader!" The fellow stated plainly.
He pointed to Shuangtian directly. "Because she is a woman."
Immediately a wave of killing intent swept over the man who spoke from multiple sources, most being the females among the core members, and the women from the Lineages minus Gremory who simply seemed angry without the viciousness behind it.
The fellow felt his face pale in fear and had to take multiple steps back because any one of the current core members was like a mountain to him, much less so many of them. The only reason he was still alive was because - shockingly - Shuangtian protected him using her own aura, a slight smirk on her face.
Draco and Eva were confused about what was happening while Shuangtian simply glanced at Fengtian and Litian who did not seem surprised but had complicated expressions on their faces.
When Draco and Eva saw this, they seemed to understand that things were not simple. Their knowledge of the Pangu Lineage, even for Eva who had grown up normally, was limited. Those Pangu fellows were frivolous and cruel but their loyalty to their Lineage was insane.
More often than not, they would rather die than bend!
"Hmph!"
A single snort from Shuangtian cleared the pressure completely as their souls became lighter and felt normal, but no matter who it was, sweat formed on their brows. Draco and Eva were also unfazed by the pressure, but their faces became ugly because they were beginning to understand something.
The soul avatar was of a burly bronze skinned man with a muscular body sculpted to perfection. His face was ragged and not very handsome, but it radiated masculinity and strength. He had a head of blazing red hair that was spiky despite being short as well as a beard that linked to his sideburns from his square jaw.
His wrists were tied by two metallic blue bands while his upper body was bare, revealing his perfect muscular form. His lower body was covered with a skirt-like quilt that was brownish black, decorated with designs of five clawed golden dragons as well as various spirit beasts. On his feet were two gladiator style sandals that seemed simply and indiscreet.
This was the primordial giant, Pangu!
Pangu stood up and dusted himself off calmly, not sparing a single glance for anyone but Shuangtian as well as then Draco and Eva. His dark brown eyes roved over the group slowly before finally landing on Shuangtian and staying there.
"Well, there was no need to be so rough, little girl. We could have spoken just as fine within your soul space." Pangu spoke with a gruff and masculine voice that was domineering.
Shuangtian folded her arms with a sneer. "I can't tolerate the idea of you being anywhere near me for single second anymore. To think I once trusted you and treated you as my family!"
Pangu sighed. "Do not let the actions of my past self jeopardize the relationship we have. I don't deny having said those things, but they are as just the young brat over there had surmissed, ones I made in spite and jealousy. I am more surprised that they took it so seriously."
The faces of the Pangu members who were present changed when they heard this. One of them stood forth and asked shakily.
"B-but Great Ancestor, those were your decrees!"
Pangu glanced at the fellow boredly. "Decrees? I have never decreed anything to you fellows. Like Fuckboy Lucifer and Whorebitch Amaterasu we all decided to remain hands off with managing you guys. All of us let you grow without interfering in your fates, especially since we had long planned to leave."
"Any 'decree' your received was either someone using my name to lie or was something I said in passing and they took too seriously, this particular case being the latter."
Pangu even seemed unhappy. "Do you know how furious I was when I woke in Little Girl Shuang's soul and learned the existence of those so-called clan decrees? Half of them were things I myself would never do!"
"What?!" The Pangu Lineage members were as if struck by lightning, but the Morningstar Lineage and Radiant Lineage people who came along were not much better. Even those among the core members from other Lineages were dumbfounded.
The decrees were all indirect and some were even fake?
But... but... we grew up with those decrees. Those decrees shaped our morals, our thinking and our very lives... they were all... fake?
Pangu glanced at Misery. "The souls from old man Merlin's bunch, you can come out now."
Misery was startled, but the souls of Cu Chulainn, Scathach, Arthur, and the rest of the 9 all came out one by one, their faces extremely pale as what they were hearing was thunderous. After all, they had been alive when Merlin was still here and even interacted with both him and Pangu himself!
Yet what they were hearing today overthrew everything they had known from their birth.