The Goddess was slowly awakening all her power.
Hayashi's back bent deeper than Ashworth's, one hand folded over the other.
"This old Hayashi greets the Nether Goddess."
Sienna regarded him with those impossible violet eyes. "Rise."
Only then did Hayashi straighten.
Even after doing so, his posture retained a subtle deference absent from the easy familiarity his daughter might have shown. He had lived too long and seen too much to confuse Sienna's present age with the existence looking through it.
Her gaze moved toward the road again: "Phei advanced."
Hayashi's expression sharpened immediately.
"He's a Mortal Sovereign," she said. "His cultivation crossed into the later reaches of the Mortal Realm before he even awakened properly."
Hayashi's brows rose.
He had known the Young Master would advance after what occurred but he had not expected the leap to be quite so obscene: "Four stages in a single night?"
Sienna's violet gaze shifted toward him.
That was all.
