The Rise of the Black Plain

A few hours later...

After leaving Dry City in a hurry, it did not take long for Kara to find the place where some of her family members were.

Kara had not found them at the first camp she passed, but at the third place she had gone, she had felt the spiritual fluctuations of some people she knew.

So, without much difficulty, she was already passing through the middle of that large camp, where Linette and Ford were at this very moment.

'Looks like Ford didn't go straight to the Kingdom of the End...' She thought about this while she had a thoughtful expression on her beautiful face. 

'Sigh...'

'That won't be good...'

Kara was not worried about her brother being jealous or anything like that. That's because the two's relationship did not involve romantic feelings.

The two loved each other, but that was more like a fraternal love, which any siblings could feel for each other. On the other hand, there was a physical attraction between the two, but this was not, or at least had not been enough to turn that fraternal love into something romantic.

As such, the two just had sex because they liked it and found it fun.

That did not come with a sense of possession, which would make one of the two feel threatened by other people, perhaps at some point demanding some kind of exclusivity.

In fact, both Kara and Ford had no problem dating other people, dating or even eventually marrying others.

The only situation that might irritate them was when other people courted one of them when they were together. But other than that, the two knew very well how to separate their sexual adventures from other things.

Consequently, that was of no concern to Kara. 

But she was worried about Ford finding out what she had done with Minos, an enemy of this family of theirs!

That would not be hard for him to figure out, and considering their unique relationship, she could already foresee that such an encounter would not go well at all.

"Let's go..." She muttered just before passing through the entrance of that large tent, which seemed to be the place Linette and Ford were using for resting or cultivating.

Such a place was very classy, with quality furniture and well laid out in a way that might make the person entering there think that this was not a tent but a large house.

But this would be more true for ordinary people. For someone like Kara, that was the lowest standard that her higher-level family members had when camping!

In any case, she paid no attention to the details around her and soon came face to face with the two people she was looking for.

One of them, Ford, was sitting in the middle of what looked like a living room while he had a grave expression on his face. On the other hand, Linette was in a lotus position on a cultivation cushion, meditating with her eyes closed.

"Oh?"

Then upon sensing someone's presence and turning toward that young woman, Ford immediately put his serious expression aside and a smile slowly formed on his face.

"Kara!" He said, just before he decided to probe her body, merely to find out the current cultivation level of his sister.

"Ford, aunt Linette, it's good to see you well!" 

As Linette opened her eyes to watch in satisfaction the beautiful woman in front of her, Ford's smile froze when he smelled a specific scent coming from Kara.

But before he could say anything, Linette got up from where she was and made her way toward Kara, intending to hug this young woman she had not seen in so many years. "Kara, you are looking more and more like your mother..."

Then, when he no longer had any doubts, Ford clasped his hands tightly and asked in a concerned tone. "Kara, if you have come all this way, then assuming that you know about the current regional situation is not wrong, right?"

"Hmmm." She replied.

On the other hand, Linette still had not understood what was happening here. "Ford, what is it?"

But Ford did not even bother to look at his old mother. Instead, he just looked eye-to-eye with Kara, disappointed. "So, you..."

"You... Even knowing all this... Kara, tell me I'm wrong." He said in a troubled manner, feeling that the world had played a trick on him. "That smell on your body, don't tell me it's from Minos?"

Upon hearing this, Linette's eyes opened in shock. "Kara, is that true?" She asked as she stared at that young woman.

'Damn it!'

'If Ford wasn't here, I could keep my privacy...' Kara thought about this as she regretted the fact that her brother knew Minos much more than Linette did.

Cultivators did not need much to remember something. And since Minos, Ford, Ruth, and Kara had trained a few times during the weeks of the Spiritual Tournament, recognizing the other's scent was not exactly the hardest thing to do.

Such a thing might even go unnoticed in other situations. Still, since Minos was now an enemy of the Carline family, Ford could not help but think about this young man a few times a day. And in doing so, it had been easy to remember his scent as he smelled it on Kara's body!

She then said. "I would rather not have my private life debated in this way, but yes, I have been with Minos."

"He is my friend, after all."

"Hell!" 

"Ahhhhhh!"

Ford shouted in anger at hearing such nonsense as he threw a vase beside him away. "How can you do this to him? Are you crazy?" He said, just before jumping toward Kara in anger.

"Kara, how dare you say that?" Linette asked. "You said you knew everything, but yet, not only do you lie down with an enemy, but you still call him a friend?"

"That's wrong! That's wrong!" Ford shouted as he held his sister's shoulders and looked at her like he was looking at a whore. "Tell me. Did he force you to do this? You wouldn't be so stupid to do such a thing unless it was forced, right?" 

While Linette stood in disbelief and Ford seemed to have had a mental breakdown, Kara ignored how her brother touched her shoulders and answered their questions. "Minos didn't force me into anything."

"I went to him on my own, already knowing everything."

"And when I arrived in Dry City, I met him. We talked about the options to resolve this conflict, and eventually, things happened as they should..."

"He didn't force anything on me." She repeated, seeing her brother's eyes twitching with anger.

"Kara..." Linette muttered as she brought one of her hands to her mouth. 'If your father finds out about this, he'll probably have a temper tantrum!'

"Ahhhhhh!"

"Minos!" Ford shouted once more, just before letting go of his sister, already running out of that place, determined to go to Dry City to get an explanation from that person.

'You manipulated my little sister, Minos!' He pondered this, confident that such a ruler had used Kara's libertine characteristics against herself.

And he, who had seduced his own sister when he was only 17, could not fail to realize that such a thing would not be difficult to do!

'Worst of all, now I will have to accept that an enemy has touched her!' He thought in disgust.

But while he was running in fury out of that camp, Linette and Kara had stayed where they were.

"Kara, do you truly see no problem in what you have done?" Linette asked seriously. "That is wrong. By doing that with him, you have betrayed the whole family!"

"What will the counter-revolutionary alliance think of us if they find out such a thing?"

But Kara was already prepared to hear such criticism when she entered this tent. So, she did not allow herself to be taken in by such comments!

"Aunt Linette, despite Minos' clear confidence, I cannot say who will win this war. But I can say that even if he falls, it will happen after our family and all the others in this war have already been severely damaged."

"Maybe you, dad, mom, and all of you will die before Minos is stopped."

"I don't want to risk that, so I went to Dry City determined to talk to Minos to settle at least our family's future."

"As for the fact that I had sex with him, no offense, aunt Linette, but that's none of your business..."