No, I cannot overstate enough how crazy that image drove us. You must understand, this is Aaliyah-al-Ydaz we are talking about. We knew the most how mighty she was, and there were only two ways that she could have been hurt this badly.

  Yes, 'badly' is a subjective term. But seeing her skin scratched was nearly cataclysmic.

  Those two ways were either she had been struck with an attack strong enough to scratch her stone-like skin – which we doubted the assassins were capable of – or she did not have enough vitality to boast her common durable skin without the defense stance on.

  It did not matter to us how the assassins had managed to lower Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's vitality. Even now, I am not entirely sure. She had not batted an eye for many days now, and whilst that could have slowed her normal vitality regeneration, it would not have made her lose her already backlogged vitality. Beyond the flowing stance, there are not many ways to lower vitality.

  …

  You know something, do you not?

  Alright, keep your secrets if you want, but I will not share my theories about it then. Agreed?

  Whatever.

  As I was saying before you interrupted with that grin of yours, we did not care how the assassins had lowered her vitality. It only mattered to us that she was hurt. That she could be hurt.

  A madness overtook us all, much akin to the monsters that had assaulted our encampment many days ago. But this was no compulsion of the assassins, no, this was the rage Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had been cultivated for decades finally being unleashed at the first outlet we saw.

  "The bitch can bleed!" It was Afar who uttered the war cry, the oldest of the sultanzade, the first of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's children.

  Not all sultanzade had noticed what had happened with our mother before, but after Afar's cry, everyone's attention was redirected to the Sultanah. Our eyes glinted with rage and hunger.

  All the sultanzade lunged at the battle. Not to defend their mother, oh no, but to kill her.

  As I have said, I cannot overstate the collective madness that overtook us. We just wanted that bitch dead, consequences be damned. Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had created weapons with us, the sharpest of them all, and weapons she would have.

  Mighty was the rage, for even the coward Rani dipped her toes in the blood of the soldiers if just to see the beautiful image on the cut in the Sultanah's cheek.

  Whilst our own army was too far away to discern what was happening, the Loyatan army echoed our sentiment with battle cries as we no longer were enemies but fellow comrades.

  Cultivators, assassins, and soldiers all joined together to strike at the Heavenly Descendant.

  The first of all was the fire. The assassins had already shown their mastery over fire with their Nurture-Enlightenment synergies, but some of my siblings could also wield it. Some far more brightly than the assassins. It was Afar's flames that could be seen the most with their golden hues. Loyatan soldiers scattered if just not to be engulfed by the flames of their allies, whether of assassin or cultivator origins.

  But they did not retreat.

  The image of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was powerful, and seeing her bleed this way – as slight as the cut had been – was… ecstatic. You may have heard of the term battlelust before, but right then it was truer than ever. I could feel my body quake in excitement at the idea of seeing the Heavenly Descendant defeated.

  But I was well aware of my capacities. Loyatan soldiers may throw their bodies to the meat grinder with the sheer faith that the Sultanah might fall thanks to their sacrifice, but I was not satisfied with that, I needed to see her dead myself. That meant I had to survive.

  Mind you, I did not run.

  We required superior tactics to defeat her. I could see bodies of soldiers being sent to the stratosphere through the corner of my…

  What? Oh. It does not really matter; it is just a part of the planet that also happens to be used as an expression to mean really high up. It does not have anything to do with the narration.

  Ehem. So yes, Loyatan soldiers met the heavens as they were thrown around like pebbles. We needed better tactics if we wanted to defeat her. I could not contribute much with my measly Haya at the moment, maybe once they depleted more vitality from Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, but the fray would have to wait.

  No, I directed myself to my own army with my hasty feet.

  "I am Naila Asina, commander of this army!" I shouted whilst wielding the strength stance. The Sultanah might have been directing the army for these last days, but she never gave the decree to size my power and position away. "Archers, I order you to stand down until further commands!"

  They did not have the best visibility of the battle, especially when they did not have access to the sense stance, and it certainly helped that the kerfuffle was a visual mess with bodies and flames flying everywhere.

  "Stand down!" One of the generals shouted after pondering my order.

  The Ydazi war machinery was a well-oiled one, so the soldiers lowered their bows in a cascading ripple. It was a satisfactory sight to behold, and it brought a sliver of pride to my heart. Remember, I was still a teenager back then and I had stopped a whole army with a single command. It was an intoxicating feeling.

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  "What is happening?" The same general asked me.

  I could not tell him the truth, of course. I might be the head of the military right now, but they still were Ydaz's soldiers, Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's soldiers. My mind was thinking frenetically and panicking. The man did not deserve any answers from me, but the sight of the Heavenly Descendant bleed still reverberated through my bones and left me in disarray. I was the traitor here, and there we only two results, either the Sultanah survived and she executed us all, or we killed her and one of the sultanzade claimed the throne.

  Yes, I guess I have spoiled the outcome a bit, but do not tell me you did not know that already.

  Panicking as I was, I knew I could not have the army against us, so antagonizing one of the generals was not the solution.

  "We have collaborators amongst the enemy army," I told him. By all means, it was the truth. Though the collaborators were helping the sultanzade, not the Sultanah. "We have to watch out for friendly fire for the rest of the confrontation."

  This decision I had carefully pondered though. Whilst it was possible to make a pincushion out of Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, the assassins were even more vulnerable to arrows than normal people, and we needed all the manpower we could get. An army was easier to hit than a single person, even if the thousands of arrows could have helped deplete her vitality.

  "What are our orders, honorable sultanzade?" The general inquired again.

  "For the time being, stand by," I responded with the military cadence I was used to by interacting with soldiers daily. "The current confrontation is no place for common soldiers, whether infantry or cavalry, and we are to preserve manpower and our strength until the dust has settled."

  "Understood," the man affirmed with a military salute.

  We all heard Aaliyah-al-Ydaz grunt a few moments later. It was a rageful scream lacking any commands. She was confused and infuriated because the volleys that had been killing so many enemy soldiers had stopped, but it looked like she was not in the condition to speak and shout orders with her mighty voice.

  Excuse me?

  Yes. There is virtue in strategy and tactics, and I was most useful to myself and my half-siblings by staying with the army and keeping them at bay. I did not stay still, mind you. I personally gathered every scout – as I was too fidgety and nervous to stand still – to instruct them to not divulge any information they may have beholden. Not many had, but still, better to keep the flow of information about the ongoing massacre in check.

  Soldiers were used to taking turns and rest, so they had no problems just standing by when I ordered it, but I was not the same. Yes, I could not do much more, but never before had I been this nervous. The worst outcome was my death, but I did not dream of the best. The one who struck the death blow on the Heavenly Descendant would claim her title, so that meant I would be changing one monarch for another. As bad of a mother as Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was, she was a competent ruler and perhaps the best Ydaz had had, so the idea of having one of my half-siblings was horrifying. Not that many were competent as human beings, let alone in statecraft.

  You know what helped me to keep calm then?

  No, ha-ha.

  It was a child.

  The arrow volleys had stopped for over an hour now, and that inspired the curiosity of some people; most surprising of all was that of my personal scribe. Yes, little Aya Ayad had decided to come to the frontline, much to the dismay of the mother who walked behind her.

  "What is happening?" She asked with an innocence characteristic of her age yet pragmatism worthy of her position.

  "A battle," I responded taciturnly as my attention was put on the battlefield. Mirah dedicated me a scornful gaze, but she was as transfixed by the ongoing battle as I was. Only her daughter was unable to comprehend the true severity of it.

  "I might be speaking out of turn here, but if it were just a battle you would not be this fidgety."

  It was a simple statement. The girl did not lie at all, but not many people stated the truth here, especially where I was raised, and that soothed my nerves. A single, simple statement calmed me, for it was uttered from a heart filled with worry. It is a marvelous feeling knowing someone cares for you. I had never felt that in my life, not even from either of my 'mothers'. One had never cared about me, and the other had just been doing her duty.

  Yes, I was highly unstable at the moment.

  Part of me was fidgety because I could die at any moment, yet another part of me was so because it itched to be in the fight. It was a vicious cycle, truly.

  What followed were meaningless conversations we had to kill time as people killed each other a few kilometers into the front. I asked Aya later why she decided to be with me at that moment and she responded that it was because I had been good to her. In her mind, I had given her a job when their family had lost their source of income, and whilst it was true, I could not help but laugh at that. That innocence was unheard of at the palace of Asina, and instead of wanting to destroy it as my siblings would… I wanted to protect it.

  But that is a matter for later.

  Thanks to Aya's presence, not only I was able to calm down, but also rest. These days had taken a toll on my body, and even a single hour of breathing room was appreciated.

  …

  I already told you; I was a soldier resting. I was no coward for avoiding the battle. I would enter. But only when the timing was right. And talking about timing…

  Earthquakes shook the world.

  The sheer brutality with which the ground moved was not of the strife of nature and the ground, but of human origin. Yes, we could all know that as we stood up in surprise. You needed not to be a cultivator to know that the epicenter of the tremors was the Heavenly Descendant.

  Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had displayed a modicum of self-control her whole life. You have heard how she destroyed one of the peaks of the Heaven's Starway range, right? That is the might of her prowess when channeled.

  As twisted and unpredictable as my mother's mind was, I had strategized that she would have been using the defense stance all this time to fight the aggressors. Now, as for her second stance, it would have to be either sense or regeneration…

  You did not know about Aaliyah-al-Ydaz's second stance? How curious.

  Yes, my mother could wield a second stance. The only cultivator to do that. No, I will not tell you how she did that.

  You are awfully keen, are you not? But I digress, let me return to my narration.

  It was almost predictable that she would have used the defense stance to fight off the swarms of enemies she was fighting, especially since she had been hurt at the start of the confrontation. The defense stance was the only way to avoid herself getting hurt more.

  It is obvious for anyone to say that a hemorrhage is a bad thing, but for a cultivator, a hemorrhage is infinitely worse. Our power comes from the blood; the less blood we have, the less vitality we can store. And the less vitality we have stored, the weaker we are. Keeping your inwards in is just not a matter of survival, but power.

  So now that she had decided to unleash the strength stance…

  Exactly. She had grown desperate. Tired. Maybe both, or a whole other thing. But the swing of the battle had changed, and I was going to exploit that.

  But as I was about to rush into the battle, I sensed something.

  We all sensed something.

  A wave of power so vast that it echoed through the whole world. Honestly, I do not know how you did not feel it. You are not going to tell me you were out of this world when it happened?

  …I was jesting. Though I need to hear about those plants later if you allow me.

  But yes. A pressure of power incarnate assaulted us. The soldiers did not feel it as much as I, likely because they were not attuned as much as I was to the vital arts, but they felt it, nonetheless.

  As oppressive as that feeling was, I rushed forward, and it only got stronger as I did so.

  If I had to give a descriptor to that feeling, I can only speak one word.

  Red.