What is he doing? Her eyes remained transfixed on Maxus as he calmly raised an arm and pointed his sword toward the sky, left to his leisure as none of the surrounding militiamen were intent on engaging another black-robed disciple. As the earl hacked down with his weapon, she opted to observe Maxus’s movement rather than meet her killer’s gaze in her final moment. Astoundingly, the expected blow never came as she continued to sail through the sky without interruption, her eyes widening as she sensed the man’s life signal disappear for a single moment and then reappear directly above Maxus alongside an odd painting, which abruptly spat the confused lord straight onto the young man’s upraised sword.

Another figure emerged from the incomprehensible confines of the portrait, a young man that she crashed into even as Maxus slashed his sword free of a now mutilated Haussian nobleman. It took a moment for her to gather her wits about her as several earth-rattling booms echoed throughout the distance, each sound growing further than the last.

“Come now, Sersa,” said an irritatingly familiar voice. “All that confidence and this is the state that we find you in?”

She pushed the young man away as soon as he set her down, for he had caught her with comforting ease that was anything but worthy of the word.

“My name is Rose,” she spat. That portrait, it’s both a talisman and an Essence Fusion object?

“Maxus doesn’t tell me much,” said Rane, who calmly stowed the strange painting away in his spatial bag and then began to unfasten the straps that kept the black breastplates of the unconscious young noblemen in place. “But he did tell me your name. Sersa has a much more beautiful ring to it than Rose. A good name, that; one that I would utter many times more if you’d only agree to my advances.” He grasped the arm of one of the young men and flung him twenty paces into the air, his hand piercing straight into his exposed chest and waking him with a scream of terror that she would never have thought to hear from one so valiant in action and appearance.

The other disciple knelt down without delay and quickly refined the first victim’s brother, who was soon knocked unconscious in order to assure an efficient harvest of his inner essence.

“Don’t think me as foolish as the other girls within the sect.” She turned to go, for there was much to be done and little time in which to do it. “I will repay this favour, so don’t act familiar with me. For now, I suggest that you two leave, as I’m sure that this place will be flattened in a few moments.”

A circle of empty space had opened up around them and the trio of dead lords, for most of the militiamen in the area had dispersed once they’d seen their leader and his two most powerful sons killed in such a bizarre and effortless manner.

A hand suddenly clamped around her shoulder. “Maxus?”

“Listen, Sersa. Do you hear that?” He was undoubtedly referring to the distant echoes. “My master is currently engaging with the oncoming Haussian. It seems that he was reluctant to leave his family and friends to the same fate that claimed our village.”

Rane observed their exchange with his deep blue eyes as he tucked a marvellous golden scroll into his spatial bag, at which point his cultivation was suddenly revealed. Seventh level of Integration? Come to think of it Maxus was of the same level, both far above that of the boys in her memory. Evidently the item that Rane had just stowed away was of immense value, a particular talisman that could erase one’s aura to a certain degree. Now she understood why the earl hadn’t reacted to the boy’s sudden appearance, for she could see now that he had arrived beside them and then directed the painting to swallow up all three of them. Despite his status as a direct disciple to the great elder that she now found herself in service to, Sersa couldn’t help but wonder how he had come to possess such valuable treasures.

“Your master is Sere, holder of the twenty-second seat?” she asked her old acquaintance. If she recalled properly, the woman in question should be at the peak of Integration, powerful and yet not enough to take on the Genesis-staged cultivator whose imminent arrival she had been anxious over. “Why is someone of Lord Zaro’s faction present in Hauss?”

“She currently occupies the twentieth seat, and she is here to assist Lord Marcus with the conquest of this kingdom.”

How can that be so? Their factions are directly opposed to one another. Just how many people has the great elder won over? “Regardless, we must defeat these armies and secure the city while she deals with the enemy.”

“I heard that Master made you deacon of this new domain,” said Rane thoughtfully. “Do you expect us to follow your orders?”

Hundreds of disciples passed by them as the main battlefront continued to shift closer and closer to the city’s stocky walls. Arrows began to rain down upon the invaders from the few hundred defenders that had remained behind to man the battlements, a futile attempt now that the tide of the battle had shifted in favour of the sect.

“I don’t care what you do. I have a task, and I’m going to complete it.”

“We will assist you,” said Maxus. “After all, a deacon’s word is as good as the great elder’s.”

“Come then,” Sersa said, “there is work to be done.” She was still taken aback from the unsuspected turn of events, though she did her best to acclimate to the odd if not convenient development.

“Wait!”

“Maxus?” There was an odd urgency to Rane’s tone as he turned his gaze to the east, the direction where the frightening sounds of high-level combat had inconspicuously ceased.

The brown-haired boy gave a prompt command. “Order a retreat. Master has been injured by her opponent and can’t hold him off for much longer!”

“Just when victory was right within our grasp,” Sersa muttered as her narrowed eyes swept the scene before her with frustrated attention to detail. She wheeled on Rane, who stood to the side with the perpetual nonchalance that defined him. “Why isn’t your master here at a time like this?”

“Does Great Elder Kilian tell you about his business?”

She rolled her eyes and turned around to give the order, her voice projecting loudly throughout the area though not on the scale necessary to reach the ears of everyone in the region. Maxus and Rane quickly disappeared in different directions and began issuing the same order, and with their help she was able to order a largescale retreat to Davenhold, the future capital city of Great Elder Marcus’s new domain.

Many hours later, once a gloomy sun had set and a cloudy night sky had stolen away all luminescence from the silent city of Davenhold, Sersa sat within a large dining hall on the fifth floor of a large building within the heart of the central district. It had belonged to some irrelevant noble that Kane had made a show of refining to some of the inner court disciples, a crude attempt at entertainment for those so sick of mind that it was enjoyed with exuberance.

Thick panels of varnished wood lined the walls from floor to ceiling, with lanterns hanging from polished metal hooks all around the room. Of the dozen tables that filled the room in two neat rows of smooth wooden structures, only a single one was occupied, the one furthest from the arched, open entranceway that led to a modest hallway. Maxus and Rane sat about a pace apart from one another on the other side of a platter of slightly stale bread and warm cheese, a simple meal that they had scavenged from the kitchens on the building’s lowest level.

“How long will your master make us wait?” Sersa sighed. “Our martial siblings are not the most patient bunch, and I fear that they will begin to help themselves to the remaining stock of resources in the city dungeons.” They had discovered over a thousand criminals locked away in the vast labyrinth that dwelled beneath the former lord’s dusty palace, with just as many lying dead in their cells from drawn-out dehydration.

“She is likely clearing those cages as we speak,” Rane said, helping himself to the food on the platter. “Old Sere has been quite unreasonable since we took this city. Any idea why, Maxy?”

“Master was outwitted by some cultivator that she chased a few leagues into the Dragon’s Tail, a genius arrayment practitioner, apparently. It seems that he had been in possession of Lord Zaro’s sword, Poison Fang.”

An odd weight settled in Sersa’s heart as she heard Maxus’s indifferent words. Back when she had killed Meldon in order to take sole credit for the campaign of southern Hauss, she had personally witnessed Lord Zaro’s prized weapon in the hands of that strange and crafty boy that had lent a helping hand in the murder, someone who defied the laws of common sense when it came to their ability to battle those above them in cultivation. For his weapon to have wound up in the hands of some expert could only mean that he had been killed before the time when his legends would have lingered throughout this land, for she had never heard of someone with such a dense aura despite having such a weak appearance. She couldn’t help but wonder how many prodigies had lost their lives in just this kingdom alone, a subtle reminder of the bitterness of this world.

“She found Poison Fang?” Interest coloured Rane’s face. “What are the chances of that? I thought that greedy little Brecht lost it for good when he was done in by the boy that killed his brother. How happy I was when I heard that!”

So the boy I met was the one that killed Lord Zaro’s grandsons.

Everyone started as the door suddenly opened, for none had sensed any life signals aside from their own within the building.

“Master.”

Rane and Maxus echoed one another as they stood from their chairs and then turned to kneel before the handsome man and tall woman that had just walked into the room.

Sersa stood and mimicked the actions of the other direct disciples in a show of respect. “Your Excellency,” she said levelly. Standing once more, she turned to the woman and gave her a deep nod. “Lord Elder.”

She had only met Elder Sere once during a brief visit to the Core Domain where the sect master resided, a light-haired woman with broad shoulders and a lean frame, her robes of wealthy quality with a bloody hand sewn on the bosom of the soft yet strengthened silk, outlined in silver as with seated elders. She was of a nasty temperament, quick to anger and high on avarice at every instance of potential gain.