Daji followed the owl that hovered above his target, the Wastelander woman. He landed on the deck of a small Blackflame Cloudship that had rammed into his father's main ship.

  He remembered how the woman had cut his neck in their previous fight. He wouldn't rush head-on this time. Despite being an Underlord, he had seen the state his brother had ended up in when facing the Truegolds the Sage had sent them after. He would be careful. In fact, if he could make his own choices, he wouldn't fight at all.

  He crept slowly through the melee taking place between the golds, careful as he made his way to the invisible figure beneath the Sage's owl.

  A sudden squeak from his right, quickly followed by the sound of wood breaking, and he swung his sword to his right. A loud clang echoed as his blade of Force madra clashed with a Blackflame Skysworn's sword. He tried to push, but he felt her push back.

  She was an Underlord. That was when he remembered that this fight would not be an isolated match like it had been previously. This was taking place inside an ongoing battle. If he wasn't cautious, he would be dead.

  Daji let her sword slide down his own, guiding the strike into his pauldron. The armour the Sage had given him held. His free hand snapped up, a blast of green Force madra slamming into her chest. She hurtled backwards, but before she could fall, jade wings flared from her back, arresting her descent. A moment later, two Seishen Underlords crashed into her, locking her in combat.

  Daji heard a familiar voice shout.

  "Enough!"

  He turned his gaze and found the Wasteland woman standing before him in the distance, no longer invisible, her armour and knives caked in blood.

  "End this farce, Seishen Daji!" she yelled at him.

  Daji felt the grip of his sword shake, and he tightened his fingers.

  "I can't!" he yelled through gritted teeth.

  "You're a prince! Surely you could do something!"

  A prince in name but not in power or responsibilities. And as she had previously said, he was only a second son. A younger brother.

  His frustration burned, and an old wound ripped open. And he returned to what he now knew was his uncomfortable comfort place.

  "I can't!" he yelled again as he charged, unsheathing his other sword.

  A blast of Force madra ripped forward, but she was gone, slipping into invisibility. His technique struck only air. A Highgold stumbled into its path, and he barely dispersed it in time.

  Her voice echoed around him again.

  "Yerin and Lindon are Underlords now. Your brother and the other woman weren't able to beat them when they were Truegold."

  She let her words hang in the air for a moment , and Daji hesitated.

  "They will die!" she finally said.

  Before he could reply, the sky thundered.

  "I have witnessed an Underlord slaughtering and attacking Golds." A voice boomed from above. "We have cause to RETALIATE! "

  Daji's eyes grew wide, and he felt the blood drained from his face. He looked up.

  He felt numerous Underlord lightning striker techniques gathering madra from above, and through his perception, he knew that despite being an Underlord's technique, it was a powerful one. Very powerful.

  And he knew who they were meant for. It wasn't for him.

  His eyes met the Wastelander woman's. She wasn't his target. She was the Sage's.

  His body moved before he could think. He dropped his twin swords, the blade of Force madra fizzing out as the hilt clanged on the hardwood floor. Then, he raised his arms high in the air.

  He fought through the pain, through the agony of his madra channels breaking its limits. He channelled all the soulfire he had, all the madra inside his spirit.

  The Overlord binding of his armour ignited.

  A protective force field blinked into the space above the cloudship, and the golds beneath it lived.

  "Aunt Charity!" Akura Mercy yelled at the top of her lungs. "You need to stop this! It has gone too far!"

  She tried to break free of the white-haired Seishen Underlord's grasp, but the woman had continued to follow Mercy wherever Mercy went.

  The woman wasn't attacking her, but she kept Mercy boxed in, preventing her from joining the bigger fight.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Aunt Charity!" Mercy yelled again.

  Mercy knew the Sage could hear her and probably had a dozen owls scattered around the area to observe the fight. Underlords had begun killing golds, and she couldn't understand why the Sage hadn't ended it yet. Wouldn't this weaken their vassals too much?

  "Eithan!" Cassias Aurelius shouted over the heat of battle at the Underlord as he fought side by side with his wife. "What have you done?"

  Eithan was busy fighting off three Seishen Underlords. He would have preferred not to, but someone had to guard one of his favourite family member and their family. He dispersed an Earth striker technique with his scissors, channelling pure madra to dispel the attack.

  "Casias," Eithan replied as he swung his broom at the jaw of an Underlord. "As much as I know how highly you regard me. Do you really think that I have anything to do with this?"

  Cassias didn't reply immediately, and Eithan's bloodline web told him that the man was fighting two Highgolds simultaneously.

  Then his breath almost caught as he sensed movement beneath the Cloudship Cassias and Naru Jing were fighting on. A wounded Skysworn was crawling towards the aura crystals inside. They were planning to drain the aura into their spirit.

  "Don't do it," Eithan muttered in a whisper as he dispersed a Force madra striker technique.

  A second later, Eithan sighed. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Abandon Ship! All ships!"

  Through his Bloodline technique, he saw that Cassias was already being lifted by Naru Jing into the air and away from the cluster of Cloudships. Golds began to jump into the air, and Skysworn activated the Thousand-Mile clouds and flew away.

  Actually . Maybe that Skysworn underneath was onto something. Unlike the Skysworns, not all of the Seishen Kingdom warriors had Thousand-Mile clouds. Under most circumstances, this would be a good idea. But Eithan didn't feel that this circumstance would qualify.

  Maybe Whitehall's animosity towards the Sage was not unfounded after all.

  "Dakata!" Emperor Naru Huan roared as he slashed his sword mid-air, sending a long curved line of wind aura. "What is the meaning of this? Have your Underlords gone mad?"

  He heard Chong Ma's declaration , and he knew that the Cloud Hammer Underlord would never lie about such a declaration.

  King Dakata channelled wind-aura underneath his feet, pushing him to the side and dodging Huan's striker technique.

  The striker technique crashed into the side of a mountain, leaving scars of uprooted trees and soil.

  "It is as the Sage desires!" King Dakata roared back.

  "Eithan Aurelius's apprentice has advanced! You felt it as soon as I did!" How did they manage to evade everyone's senses, including the Sage's? He didn't know.

  Wei Shi Lindon Aurelius and Yerin Aurelius have both advanced to Underlord, there was no point in continuing this farce. Underlords are slaying golds, and if this battle continued, they both knew they would soon start doing the same.

  "Seize this madness before it festers any longer!" Huan demanded.

  King Dakata readied his shield and blade. "They are not the only targets, you fool!"

  The Wastelanders? That doesn't make any sense. Didn't the Sage send them to his Empire's care in the first place? Why wouldn't she just slay them herself and be done with it?

  He thought he knew the answer. He didn't like it, especially when he thought of the neighbour of his empire with whom he shared borders.

  Dakata launched boulders of Earth at him, and Huan used his wings to evade the blow. They had brought the battle far, and the boulder landed on a patch of woods. However, that was not much comfort. Their fight had dragged on, and every second, they were inching back to battle at the web of Cloudships.

  As his next in line, his sister, Naru Saeya, would have assumed control. Although they were outnumbered, he had every confidence in her effectiveness as commander of his army . Especially when he knew Naru Gwei would also be nearby.

  Then, he felt a sudden burst of myriad auras, and as he looked towards the source, he saw large, colourful, deadly explosions coming from the entangled cloudships.

  The Sage had disabled the offensive and defensive scripts, but she had not disabled the wells of gathered aura. And now, after sustaining more abuse than they could handle without the defensive scripts, they had begun to tear apart.

  "Huan!" Dakata screamed at Naru Huan's fleeting form as he chased after the Blackflame Emperor. "Your enemy is me!"

  But Naru Huan didn't care. His wings can carry him faster than Dakata could hope to keep up. At least when it came to travel speed, he had an advantage over the Seishen King.

  Whitehall clashed with the Underlord, trying to kill him. His whip cracked and struck Kiro's new shield. Whitehall knew the moment it made contact that the shield was not ordinary.

  Kiro looked manic as Whitehall made eye contact with him. Apparently, the prince could not face the consequences of his actions.

  "You could be saving your golds instead of fighting me," Whitehall said as he prepared for another attack.

  Kiro's face darkened, his eyes brimming with hatred. "You do not understand the burden I carry," he growled.

  Whitehall shook his head. "No," he muttered. "You do not understand your own."

  Kiro raised his blade in defiance and lunged at Whitehall.

  Whitehall activated his enforcer technique and leapt backwards, the Sage's owl floating above him like a parasite.

  The blade missed again, and Whitehall cracked his whip towards the Underlord. Kiro raised his shield, and the whip slashed harmlessly onto the metal surface.

  Whitehall followed it up by swinging his bloody hand, and again, Kiro caught it with his shield.

  "Are you trying to wait for me to bleed out?" Whitehall taunted, dodging to the side as a stray striker technique blasted in his direction. "Don't forget my friends are on their way."

  Kiro gritted his teeth.

  A sudden madra exploded behind Kiro, and looking back, he saw one of the Blackflame Cloudships burst into colourful light. The ships burst like dominoes, one after another.

  Whitehall took the distraction and ran towards the edge, jumping off the ship into the night air. He would have made it out undetected if it hadn't been for the Sage's owl that began to hoot uncontrollably.

  Whitehall's fall was cut short when Kiro suddenly skewered him mid-air with his blade, flying on a thousand-mile cloud. Luckily, the blade pierced between his chest and left shoulder. He most likely would survive, but it still bloody hurt.

  Whitehall shook all his limbs, splattering even more blood onto the Underlord.

  "Why won't you just die?" Kiro growled as the blood hissed wherever it made contact with his skin.

  Whitehall smiled a bloody grin. "Trust me, I wish I knew the answer."

  Then Whitehall slipped free of Kiro's blade and began freefalling again. Kiro went after him, but Whitehall did not have time for that right now. He needed to focus on stopping the bleeding.

  Lucky for him, an Underlord came to his rescue, placing gentle hands underneath his armpit and lifting him away like a prince saving his damsel in distress.

  "Are you alright?" Naru Saeya asked, her green wings flapping as she flew.

  "For now," Whitehall gave her a thumbs up. Then he pointed to the owl flying alongside them. "That's the Sage's owl. She made me a target. Probably want to let me go. I can take it from here."

  Saeya looked over her shoulder at the Underlord pursuing them. No. Underlords now. Two other Seishen Underlords had joined the prince in his pursuit.

  "Seems that he finally called for help. Don't recognise them." Whitehall said.

  Saeya smirked. "Not to worry, Wastelander. My brother told me to watch after you two. And besides, help is on the way."

  Suddenly, two large bars of Black Dragon's breath shot towards their pursuers, causing them to shift apart.

  "Finally found you," Lindon's voice echoed as he descended from above.

  "Took you long enough," Whitehall snorted.

  In the distance, the web of Cloudships had finally begun to freefall to the woods below.

  "Forgiveness, Elder Whitehall," Lindon replied, lowering his head slightly. "You were not the easiest to find with your veil."

  [But the Sage was kind enough to mark you for us] Dross added.

  Whitehall rolled his eyes. "Sure. If you say so."

  They descended to the ground below, Lindon covering their descent with striker techniques.

  "Where's Yerin?" Whitehall asked as Saeya let him go.

  "She went after Sadi," Lindon answered.

  Whitehall exhaled a breath of relief.

  "Boys," Saeya called out, her gaze fixed on their front. "We have guests."

  Three Underlords emerged from the trees, and Whitehall recognised one of them. Prince Kiro. He stared at them with wide, bloodshot eyes.

  "You have caused the deaths of many tonight," Kiro wrasped. "The Sage was right through all her wisdom."

  Lindon opened his void key and took out his new weapon. Then, he fired his canon.

  House of Blades

  Iteration requested.  Amalgam.

  Date.  Denied

  Report Complete.

  Valiar's hands moved with meticulous precision as he carved the delicate floral patterns into the stone. Each stroke of his blade was deliberate, each curve and line a testament to his focus and skill. This temple was different from the others. It wasn't just another structure to fulfil the impossible task Dayang had set before him. This one was special. He had designed it specifically for her, a masterpiece that would stand as his magnum opus. The patterns of lilacs and tulips—her favourite flowers—were etched into every surface, a silent tribute to the woman who had captured his heart.

  His body moved with a strength he had never before unleashed, every muscle working in perfect harmony. The chains of Valinhall coiled further up his body, their cold weight a constant reminder of the power he wielded—and the price he paid for it. But he didn't stop. He couldn't. He had more temples to build, but he had calculated his time carefully, ensuring he had enough to spare for this one. It had to be perfect.

  In the distance, he heard Dayang's voice, faint but desperate, calling his name. He ignored her, his focus unwavering. There would be time for words later. For now, he needed to concentrate. Least said, soonest mended, he thought, the old adage echoing in his mind. He would finish this temple, and then he would face her. But not yet. Not until it was done