Being a bit impatient, YunYun managed to persuade Nick to leave before the other passengers. They both said goodbyes to the captain, who was almost dancing happily from getting rid of them, and then crawled over board and dashed towards the docks. YunYun masterfully directed Nick between the smaller boats and they avoided the crowd on the pier, and stealthily entered the city between few warehouses.

The Eastern continent was a bit bigger than Nestri empire and its egg-like oval form was split directly in the middle separating the Styx kingdom in the north and the Lethe kingdom in the south. The border was more theoretical and the biggest cities of each kingdom were on the coast, while the middle of the continent was occupied by mountain ranges and thick forests.

The mountains were not as high as the Heavenly mountain range Nick experienced on his way between Anula and Rolum, thus even in the most secluded places it was possible to enjoy the snow and cold only in winter. The rest of continent experienced quite a warm climate, especially the south of the Lethe kingdom, but it was not yet quite tropical like in the Paradise city.

Not only the climate, the architecture differed from what Nick was used to see in Aurora. The capital of the Lethe kingdom, Xian, that the “Queen Elizabeth” brought them to, was very ‘wide’ city. Indeed, that was the term Nick decided to describe it with.

Instead of the usual view of having many buildings cramped together in the center of the city, on the sides of the wide streets there were estates built on large pieces of land separated from each other with walls of a human height or even higher. The same walls ensured the privacy of residents from curious eyes of onlookers on the busy streets.

Still, behind those walls Nick could discern large buildings that were mostly only one storey high and looked more like pavilions. YunYun explained to him, that this light building style was mostly because of the availability of the land and the warm and friendly climate, and, in fact, every building he saw had tens of rooms and housed large families.

Nick watched these views in light shock – it felt as the whole city nested hundreds, no thousands of aristocratic families, at least according to Aurora’s standards where price for a piece of land in the city center was incredibly high.

Unfortunately YunYun didn’t let him enjoy the sights for too long and directly brought him to the palace.

Nick knew the palace was located in the very heart of the Xian, but when they approached the entrance, all they could see was high walls and a guarded large gate. YunYun didn’t linger around, but directly approached the gates, took of her hat that was hiding her beautiful face and under paralyzed eyes of the guards pulled Nick inside.

Only few seconds after she entered, the captain on the watch reacted and in a lightning speed ran past them to inform the queen about YunYun’s return. The princess didn’t hurry anymore, probably letting her mother to have some time to prepare, and slowly walked towards the buildings in the distance introducing everything she saw to Nick. He, of course, felt her anxiousness and patiently listened understanding that the girl has waited for this moment for a long time.

It was true she enjoyed her time in Aurora, but it wasn’t her home and before that she was abducted and had to run for her life for over six months. Now that she was finally back and could meet her family, he even had to admire her ability to resist the urge to run home screaming while chaotically waving her hands around.

But after they crossed a small park and neared the largest building, YunYun couldn’t hold back anymore. She ran towards the small crowd of people who were gathered in front with tears in her eyes.

“Mom!” She shouted and leapt in the hug of a woman who looked almost like a copy of queen Hua, just wearing a golden robe embroidered with pictures of black tigers. As soon as Nick saw her, he instinctively had his guard up – if one sister was like a coiled up snake that could strike at any moment without warning, there was no reason to doubt the other one wasn’t the same, even if she was as pretty as queen Hua.

After hugging her mother, YunYun hugged a young, beautiful woman standing right next to her.

‘What a good karma this family has. Every woman looks so beautiful, and the latest generation are basically goddesses.’ Nick pondered while slowly approaching.

YunYun greeted everyone after hugging her sister and the crowd slowly entered the building while she waited for Nick with a blushed face.

“Why are you so slow?” YunYun pouted.

“Do you think it is even possible to catch up to you?” Nick smiled back.

Only now the rest noticed the young, blond and slender boy in weird trousers and shirt following YunYun.

“Who is this?” Queen squinted her eyes.

“Mom, this is Nick. Nick, this is my mother queen Hu. This is my older sister Min. I’ll introduce to the rest later.” YunYun happily introduced. She wanted to introduce him as her fiance, but at the last moment she felt embarrassed and hesitated.

“Alright, Nick.” Queen Hu nodded and entered the building.

“Don’t mind her, she is actually very kind.” YunYun whispered, “Once she gets to know you, she will like you as well.”

At this moment Nick felt a chilling killing intent washing all over him.

‘F*ck! Of course she heard it! Don’t tell me she will attack like the crazy one in our palace?’

Luckily queen pretended she hasn’t heard anything and just went in.

In a spacious hall servants were hurriedly organizing a feast. After entering, Nick had a sigh of relief and saw that there won’t be a grand reception like in Aurora, but he could understand that as well. The queen received the happy news of her daughter being alive and well already several months ago and probably celebrated then.

After twenty minutes everything was ready and the family was taking their seats, but YunYun got upset when she noticed that Nick had to sit at the other end while she was at her mother’s side.

“Why can’t I sit next to my fiance?” She pouted and immediately realized her slip up, but it was already too late.

Nick almost fainted from the killing intent that struck him from all sides. Only now he understood the terrifying mental strength or rather – sharpness of the Qi sword masters. On special occasions even their gazes could turn in to swords. Unfortunately for him this was one of those occasions.

“Oh?” Princess Min was clearly surprised and turned to her younger sister, “Did he really manage to defeat you? Since when you have become so weak?”

It would be fine as long as YunYun gave a confirmation, but she didn’t see any reason to lie. Nick was strong and she knew it.

“He … he didn’t win.” She stuttered.

“So he lost the challenge and you still agreed to marry him?” Min was surprised.

“No, there was no challenge.” YunYun looked helplessly at Nick, but the latter understood situation has become unfavorable to say the least.

“Then why would you marry a weakling from Mainland?” Princess Min got angry, “Our aunt lost to their king because he was stronger and had to leave, but there is no reason to marry someone who can’t even defeat you!”

Li family women apparently were extremely protective and Nick knew that Min will one day become the next queen.

The Lethe kingdom was unique in their hereditary tradition as their society was led by females and matriarchy system has been around by centuries. Some years ago Nick learned that Alexander Maxwell traveled to the Eastern continent to practice his sword and met the local sword prodigy princess Hua. He immediately fell in love and challenged her to a duel. Only after he won she became his wife and left her homeland to the great regret of the whole kingdom.

But now another prodigy was lost even without being challenged! This was unthinkable and unacceptable.

“That’s not possible.” Queen shook he head, “You can’t marry a weakling.”

“Nick … he is strong.” YunYun stuttered and felt terrible déjà vu. She was not good with her words in such situations and would prefer to solve the problem with her sword. These were the moments when she especially admired Nick’s wit and intelligence that allowed them to escape death multiple times and even envied him for that.

“Then why didn’t he challenge you? Don’t tell me he doesn’t know our traditions and how it was with our aunt back then?” Min already was angrily looking at Nick.

If at first Nick got caught by surprise from the amount of hostility, then now he already managed to adjust to it and didn’t care that much. These women were a bit crazy, but there were too many people present for them to jump around and slaughter the innocent. The sword users had their pride after all. He calmly looked around trying to think of a way out.

“Why would I fight him if I know he is stronger than me? We will just end up hurting each other and I don’t want it!” YunYun argued.

“We have our traditions!” Older sister argued back. All this time queen Hu expressionlessly watched the proceedings from the side.

“Let me deal with him.” Suddenly a loud voice interrupted the argument and a young man around the of age twenty five came in front of Nick. He was almost as big as king White and Nick had to actually look up to see his face.

“No, brother in law, why would you …” YunYun got panicked.

“If he can’t even defeat me, why would we even give him a chance to challenge our precious YunYun?” The man laughed and the small crowd around them snickered as well.

“So you are YunYun’s brother in law and princess Min’s husband. Nice to meet you, I’m Nick.” Nick politely said and smiled. He remembered the expression – ‘never hit a smiling face’ and played a safe card.

“You wont trick me with some nice words. This is nor Mainland nor the Sun kingdom! Let’s go out and fight!” To Nick’s great regret the man probably hadn’t heard the expression or simply didn’t care.

“So you want to duel me?”

“Yes!”

“And you are Qi master, right?”

“Of course!”

“So you, around twenty five year old man, being a Qi master, want to bully a fourteen year old boy who just arrived as your guest and brought back your wife’s only sister?”

Everyone in the hall froze. Even if the words were said in extremely polite tone and with a smile on the boy’s face, they cut like a knife through their pride.

“Great! Then you understood what he meant. Let’s go outside and watch!” Queen clapped her hands and woke up the crowd.

Nick was absolutely confident he had already solved the situation and now after small confusion and clumsy apologies they would merrily sit down and eat, but that crazy woman turned out to be just like her sister and decided to use her son in law to beat him up instead of doing it herself.

“Mom, please …” YunYun wanted to argue, but queen Hu already was at the doorstep. The only thing girl could do was look at Nick with teary eyes and try to apologize. This was not even close to what she imagined her return to be like.

Nick smiled at her and winked. Only then she remembered – this was Nick! He killed the emperor in his own bedroom and led the whole group out of the Nestri continent! Why would she be worried for him?

Of course, Nick’s idea was absolutely different and he just wanted to cheer her up a bit.

In the courtyard the crowd of almost thirty people created a large circle, apparently the fighting ring and the huge challenger already stood in the middle. It looked like the whole court of the Lethe kingdom was gathered or rather – the most important people in addition to the several family members. While only few were elderly, everyone was dressed in colorful expensive clothing and carried swords on their backs. All of them, women and men, were eagerly waiting for the punishment that the youth from Mainland has brought upon himself.

“Excuse my manners, I didn’t introduce myself properly.” The man drew his sword and said, “My name is Tao, I’m YunYun’s brother in law.”

“Nick, nice to meet you.” Nick answered.

‘That was the part where you think your manners were lacking? Has the whole country or only this family problems with their heads?’ Nick was upset. These people couldn’t discuss things normally at all, just like the queen Hua.