Pov: Vik
For the first time all in the afternoon she changed her posture; her usual casual arrogance turned instead into a sharp and greedy determination as she fixed her gaze directly on the tablet. Under the sleeve of her sky-blue robe the black obsidian ring on her finger started to produce a tiny and violent distortion, prepared to feed.
I whispered, "She's going to take the bait," and put my hand flat on the wooden table.
Pushpa opened her two golden eyes and pressed her small claws into the fabric of my shoulder as the thread started to weave.
Two strong guards got Old Uncle Han down on his knees on the platform where the execution was to take place, and one of them took out a sharply edged ritual dagger, putting the cold blade against the old man's shaking, calloused palm in order to carry out the bloodline sacrifice.
On the terrace Ruby moved forward, her eyes wide with eager anticipation and the black ring on her finger emitting a humming sound as its greedy vortex spun upwards.
At the tea house table Noah's knuckles had become so white they were almost bone-colour under the dark cloak of his. "Master... it's the tablet," he whispered, his voice tight with urgency. "Even if we manage to redirect her absorption, how are we actually going to get hold of the physical jade? And as for Old Han—he's weak, blind, and tied up with soul-suppressing iron. The guards, the protective arrays, and the Heavenly Sword elders... how are we going to recover both of them from that stage?"
I sipped my lukewarm barley tea slowly and leisurely while gently adjusting my spectacles with a slight smile.
"I'll just go down and take them," I said in a mild tone.
Noah blinked and looked at me in total, confused silence. "Walk and take them? Master, the courtyard is surrounded by three hundred elite spell-riflemen, two elders of the sixth circle, and there's an active defensive barrier. You can't just stroll up to the auction dais—"
Noah, a gentleman doesn't sprint, I said, and then placed the ceramic cup down with a gentle, final click. Sprinting would cause the linen to wrinkle.
I looked over the table at Lina.
Lina, start the White Wash mission.
Lina's face broke into a razor-sharp grin, throwing off her usual quiet attitude with complete and pure madness. She opened the brass casing of her small console under the table and then pressed her thumb down on the glowing crimson rune.
"Lina whispered that Protocol White Wash had been authorized. The targeting coordinates had been locked in place and fire was ordered."
Situated several thousand miles away, deep in the unspoiled wilderness beyond the regional limits of West Oak City, there was a huge lake covered by fog.
The snow white hull of the Great White was quietly situated within the deep silt trenches, at a distance of miles below the icy, crystal-clear surface.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
In the unmanned bridge the principal tactical terminal flashed a bright amber. Throughout the vessel's dorsal spine the high-pressure pneumatic valves hissed as six huge external launch hatches slid open against the immense deep-sea pressure.
KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!
Six sleek and enormous ballistic missiles, their astral-steel casings inscribed with dense spiritual propulsion matrices and containing ultra-compressed spiritual warheads, shot out of the launch silos. Encased in supercavitating bubbles, they sliced through the lake water like rising sea monsters and broke the surface in a burst of spray which dispersed the morning mist.
Their spiritual booster engines roared with a deafening and apocalyptic sound.
The six metallic spears shot through the sound barrier within half a second, rising vertically and cutting directly through the troposphere before punching through the upper atmosphere at Mach 25, then transforming into a group of blinding white shooting stars that curved downwards on a terminal trajectory directly towards West Oak City.
In the Governor's Grand Plaza the executioner lifted his dagger to cut off Old Han's hand.
Ruby extended her right arm, the black vortex surrounding her ring growing so as to engulf the upcoming bloodline resonance.
Suddenly, her hand froze.
DANGER! FATAL THREAT DETECTED!
EVASION PROTOCOL STRONGLY ADVISED!
Crimson warning boxes burst across Ruby's line of sight in a cascade, screaming with a kind of intensity her system had never before been capable of. Her face lost all colour and her breath became trapped in her throat. She turned her head sharply towards the clear afternoon sky.
Six bright streaks of fire had just pierced through the cloud layer from high above.
The atmospheric pressure over the whole city dropped instantly. The terrifying and crushing spiritual signature emitted by the warheads falling was so pure and so disastrous that it was as if six stars that had fallen were heading straight for the courtyard.
An elder of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion screamed, "INCOMING AERIAL ATTACK!," his face contorting in genuine and utterly undignified fear as his protective aura broke apart under the descending kinetic pressure, and then shouted, "SEVENTH-TIER ORBITAL CALAMITY! RETREAT! EVACUATE THE PLAZA!"
"Protect the Governor!"
Run! Get out of here! Save yourselves!
In West Oak city countless defense systems were activated, even the most skilled experts launched their strongest attacks in an attempt to intercept the incoming projectiles, but my special missiles aren't ones that simply fall—they are capable of gliding as well. Therefore, when they sensed the interception attempts being made upon them, the missiles carried out zigzag maneuvers to dodge all those trying to intercept them.
Within less than three seconds the well-ordered and arrogant auction broke down into complete and wild chaos. The rich merchants knocked each other down in their haste to get to the blast shelters; the armed guards dropped their spell-rifles out of absolute panic; and Ruby, her teeth clenched with sheer disbelief, used her most advanced spatial flight talisman, left the tablet behind, and shot backward into the sky together with the fleeing sect elders.
On stage the executioner dropped his dagger and ran away, his heavy boot knocking into Old Han's shoulder and causing the thin, blind old man to fall sideways. The shock and terror were more than his weak, mortal heart could stand; as a result the old man lost consciousness and collapsed limply onto the blood-stained floorboards.
Between the screaming crowds rushing about in blind terror, the dust, and the wailing sirens, a single person in spotless white robes simply pushed open the doors of the tea house.
I put my gold-rimmed spectacles on as I stepped onto the cobbles, and with Pushpa dozing peacefully around my neck, showing no concern at all about the apocalypse coming down, I strolled along the empty central aisle of the plaza just as if I were taking a leisurely morning walk through a botanical garden.
I told the system while I was walking, "System, please play that song."
The host said, "I believe that we should concentrate on our present objective since carrying out unnecessary tasks will only impede our progress."
Vik said to the system, "Play that song."
Sigh! You never do understand, so I'll play the song. Off you go and carry out your Aura farming.
He stated that he had bugged all the speakers at the auction and then began playing a song.
"IF THE SKY FALL"
"AND WE WILL CRUMBLE"
"WE STAND AND FACE IT ALL TOGETHER"
"IF THE SKY FALL"
As I walked slowly towards the main auction stage, the song continued to play in the background, charging my aura to its maximum.
I climbed onto the deserted wooden platform, casually stepped over a clipboard that had fallen on the ground, and picked up the black jade tablet from its velvet cushion.
I directed a soft strand of Prana from my fingertips towards the elderly man; at once the heavy iron chains which had been suppressing his soul cut loose and the brittle metal turned into harmless rust that drifted away in the wind. A pleasant warmth then entered Han's chest, calmed his rapid pulse and enclosed his delicate meridians in a protective spiritual cocoon.
Roman and Noah were on the platform a second later.
"Uncle Han!" Noah gasped, his heart rising so sharply that it seemed to push its way into his throat as he fell to his knees by the side of the frail retainer.
"I'm just unconscious, worn out from fear and the suppression runes," I said in a soft voice and moved out of the way. "Roman, take him and keep his neck supported."
"I've got him, Master," Roman grunted. Taking the unconscious old man in his arms with great care, which was remarkable considering his huge size, he covered the man with the thick burlap of the Ivory Cleaver against his chest.
Noah looked up towards the sky, in which the six gigantic missiles were now only about five hundred metres above his head, descending with thunderous noise and ripping the clouds to pieces.
"Master!" Noah shouted against the hurricane-force winds blowing around them. "We must get out now! Those warheads—they're going to vaporize the whole district!"
"Didn't I teach you to appreciate art, Noah?" I asked, lifting my eyes with a carefree and undisturbed smile.
The spiritual warheads reached their terminal detonation altimeters fifty meters above the grand plaza.
POP. POP. POP.
No earth-shattering blast occurred and no catastrophic shockwave took place.
Rather, the six ballistic missiles broke apart smoothly into countless harmless, radiant, multicoloured sparks of spiritual starlight, falling across the sky above West Oak City in what can be described as the most magnificent and spectacular fireworks display ever seen on the Western Continent. Beautiful pastel ribbons of pink, gold and azure drifted down through the air, entirely harmless and spreading a soft, sparkling light over the city.
The nobles who were escaping and the elders of the sect froze in the middle of their flight, hanging suspended by their swords and their flight talismans, and stared in complete astonishment at the huge, sparkling sky-show.
"Lina giggled and clicked the brass latch on her monocle shut," she said.
I whispered "Anonymous Gate: Recall," at the same time tapping my spatial ring.
A spatial distortion enveloped our group, plucking our presence from the chaos of the plaza before a single person could.
Whoosh.
We materialized inside the quiet, climate-controlled medical bay of the Great White, thousands of miles away beneath the quiet glacial lake.
Roman gently laid the unconscious Old Han onto a soft recovery cot. Lina immediately stepped forward with a scanner, applying a restorative herbal patch to his temples and pulling a warm thermal blanket over his frail frame.
"His life force is stable, Master," Lina reported softly, checking her diagnostics. "The Prana you fed him repaired his internal bruising. He's just resting now. He'll wake in a few hours."
Noah stood beside the bed, looking at the peaceful face of the old servant who had tended his family's stables since he was a toddler. In his hands, he held the heavy black jade dragon tablet retrieved from the stage.
His fingers traced the intricate coiled carvings, his crimson eyes clouded with heavy, suffocating melancholy. This stone had absorbed the blood of his father, the sweat of his ancestors, and the legacy of a proud clan that had been wiped out by deceit. To him, this tablet was the final shackle to who he used to be.
I walked over, standing beside him.
"Looking at it with longing, Noah?" I asked softly.
"It is... everything my father died to protect, Master," Noah whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "Our bloodline. The ancient power of the Bloodborn..."
"And that is precisely why you are still bound by it," I said.
Before Noah could react, I reached out my right hand and touched the center of the tablet.
FWOOSH!
A flame erupted from my palm, sinking deep into the porous stone. Noah gasped, instinctively tensing, but forced himself to remain still.
Inside the jade, the ancient, preserved drops of ancestral bloodline Qi hissed violently as the fire washed over them. In less than three seconds, every trace of the dormant, inherited bloodline essence was utterly incinerated, vaporized into thin grey smoke that drifted harmlessly into the submarine's air filters.
The glowing red spirit stones set in the dragon's eyes faded, leaving behind an ordinary, albeit beautifully carved, slab of dark-green jade.
I pulled my hand back and patted the cool stone.
"Master..." Noah stared at the inert tablet, his breath trembling. "You... you destroyed the bloodline..."
"A man who walks looking backward will always trip over the stones in front of him," I said gently, looking into his crimson eyes with an unyielding, steady gaze. "That bloodline was the glory of your ancestors, Noah. It belonged to dead men who fought their own battles in a bygone era. If you lean on their power to reclaim your dignity, you are merely a child hiding behind his father's armor."
I pushed the jade tablet back against his chest.
"Let the old Bloodborn clan rest in peace. You cultivate the Nirvana technique. You forge your marrow with the Chaos Titan method. Your path is forward, not backward. Do not strive to inherit your ancestors' strength—strive to make your own blood so terrifyingly powerful that future generations will build shrines to you."
I adjusted my spectacles and smiled warmly.
"Keep the jade, Noah. Not as a source of power, but as a memento. A reminder of where you came from, and a promise of what you will surpass."
Noah held the cool, empty jade tightly against his chest. He glanced at the sleeping Old Han, then back down at the memento in his hands. The heavy melancholy that had weighed on his shoulders for months finally melted away, replaced by an unshakable, diamond-hard resolve.
He dropped to one knee, bowing his head to the deck plates.
"This disciple... understands. Thank you, Master."
Pushpa jumped down from my shoulder, padded over, and tapped Noah's bowed forehead with a soft black paw, letting out an approving, gentle purr.