After leaving Silver City and then the Five Cities region, Iris headed for her homeland in the Fern region while preying on men along the way. Since she was constantly moving and left no witnesses, her feats remained unknown for the most part, but thanks to her diligence, she reached the peak of the Soul Realm in less than a year. Even top geniuses couldn't achieve this speed, but it was still nothing out of the ordinary for cultivators of the demonic path. If she continued at this pace, then she could have broken through to the Earth Realm before returning home, but she retained enough of her wits to know that overeating would only ruin her.
While stabilizing her cultivation, Iris silently returned to Foliage City, the base of the Bloombird family. Before reuniting with her family, she first investigated to find out what had changed, and this was how she discovered Freesia's plight. At first, she had no pity for her poor niece and laughed at her misfortune, but along her journey she realized how inefficient it was to do everything by herself and considered building her own force. Her cultivation was enough to erase the Bloombird family, but the young master Freesia was sold to had some capable guards so she had to be careful.
The old Iris wouldn't have taken the risk of going against that young master and offending the force behind him, but since falling to the demonic path, Iris' thought process became more straight-forward. If she wanted something, then she would take it. Once her preparations were complete, Iris snuck into the young master's mansion to check on her potential lackeys. After verifying that they would be able to serve her well, she carried out her plan of wiping out the Bloombird family with pure might and draining the young master's guards to their deaths. She also destroyed Freesia's former sect as a bonus so that she could rob them. They had a few Earth Realm cultivators, but she could eliminate them by using poison and manipulating other high-ranking members of the sect.
Soon after leaving with the first of the Pink Devils, Iris broke through to the Earth Realm, and it was smooth sailing from there. She absorbed more women into her force and had them work to provide her with resources and information, which she used to increase her strength. Everything seemed to go well, but her force was more effective than she expected. As a result of her rising notoriety, it became harder to hunt strong prey because they were wary and more likely to recognize her.
Fortunately, her little devils found a way for her to overcome this problem at an upcoming underground auction. There was a mask artifact set to be at the auction, apparently capable of creating a disguise that couldn't be seen through by those with less than a Master's level of perception. Since she wasn't ready to target Masters yet, this mask was just what Iris needed, but given that many unlawful figures such as herself had the same issue, this mask wouldn't be won easily.
For the time being, she was having her little devils earn funds by acting as luxury prostitutes for the rich. She had them refrain from killing since it was difficult to conceal murder in Paraj, but she didn't punish anyone if they moved out of self-defense. After all, if the authorities found them, then she could simply cut them off then.
Iris covered her body with a robe and walked towards the door, but it suddenly closed before she could reach it. This was obviously strange, so she quickly spread her spiritual sense throughout the room and found the intruder standing next to the wall. She hadn't detected his arrival, but she didn't let confusion or fear stop her from making the first move.
Pulling a whip from a storage necklace that she stole from a dead target, Iris lashed at the intruder, but he easily caught the whip. She tried to wrestle it from his grasp, however, with one look into his eyes, her body was frozen.
"I know I didn't knock, but aren't you being too rough on your former nephew?"
Initially, his appearance didn't ring any bells, but his words allowed her to recall who he resembled.
"You're-?! It couldn't be! You can't be Shui! You should be dead!"
"Well, I'm not. As you can see."
After reading the three jade slips, Shui checked the suspicion he had while listening to Fox. He didn't have a close relationship with Iris, so he had to use an indirect method to find her. Shui took out the dark purple spear that Nathan had used in their final battle. Nathan's blood and sweat had sunk into this spear so he could use it as a catalyst to find those of his bloodline.
Using the spear as a guide, Shui used a spiritual art to spread his awareness like an outgoing signal. Over time, it would cover more ground until it interacted with someone that resonated with the spear. Controlling his body had refined his use of his soul, so only those on a similar level or arrays built for such a purpose could detect his spiritual sense and it would be hard to find a case like that, even in Paraj. The Heaven clan didn't have any recent interactions with Paraj, so when someone caused a reaction in the spear, Shui was mostly sure that he had found Iris. It was a surprise since that meant she had fallen to the demonic path, but when he thought about what she did to Nathan, it didn't seem that unexpected.
'Looks like I'll be able to find more answers about what happened to the clan on that day.'
Once he locked on to the target, it didn't take long for him to arrive at the mansion she was in and silently infiltrate it.
[I know you're probably feeling hot and bothered, but perhaps you should pick a different woman?]
[This is serious. Please stop with the jokes for now.]
[Okay. Just tell me when you start so I can close my eyes.]
Even if he was going to do what Alia was suggesting, Shui would have had her leave first, but he wasn't in the mood to bring that up. When he found Iris, he saw a strong yin essence coming from her and sensed a light pull on his own yang essence. Rather than doing it consciously, it seemed that this was a side effect of the demonic method she cultivated, and it was obvious what type of method that was.
'So it was true. I don't think Nathan would have liked it if he knew that his mother was so talented in this area.'
Since he had mostly confirmed that the Iris of the Pink Devils was the Iris he knew, Shui isolated the room with talismans and revealed himself. Although he practiced a demonic art in the trial of the Primordial Library, Shui thought it would be hard to respect her on a personal level. Nevertheless, he had to praise her willpower, given that she still seemed sane after her cultivation was boosted by two complete realms. She was now in the late Earth Realm, but even while restricting himself to comprehend Soul Perfection, Shui had no trouble handling her.
"You dare talk to me like that! You sure have grown into a rude young man. I guess it can't be helped since you lacked parents to give you a proper upbringing."
For a moment, Shui imagined slicing through the neck that dared utter those words and the killing intent he exuded made Iris break out in a cold sweat. If she could move, her knees probably would have gone weak from fear, but she bit her tongue and gritted her teeth to retain composure.
'No! This can't be true! How could I be afraid of him? And why can't I move?!'
Once Shui calmed down, he stated his reason for being here.
"Know that your head is still attached to your body because I have questions for you. But don't think I'm not capable of simply searching your memories."
Unless he was deliberately cruel or there were mental restrictions in place, Shui could read her memory without causing long-term damage, but Iris assumed he would use the rough methods that often left the victim retarded and so she refrained from provoking him further.