Within the clear cry of a dragon, the power of Permanence burst forth in an instant.
The moment that vast strength bloomed, it stirred almost half the Vidyadhara on the Xianzhou Luofu, along with Jing Yuan, far away in the Seat of Divine Foresight.
"The High Elder's returned to their seat?"
"The High Elder?!"
Some Vidyadhara who were close enough even saw the huge dragon rise into the sky from afar, and their eyes went wide on the spot.
The Luofu's High Elder had been absent for so long. Had Lady Bailu finally awakened?
But that wasn't the direction of the Alchemy Commission. It looked more like... Fyxestroll Garden.
Plenty of Vidyadhara kept looking back and forth between the Alchemy Commission and Fyxestroll Garden, as if they could figure out the truth by staring hard enough. A few with nothing better to do ran straight toward Fyxestroll Garden.
The ones with just as strong a reaction were the Vidyadhara Preceptors.
"That's impossible! I just saw the Dragon Lady treating patients at the Alchemy Commission. It can't be Lady Bailu!"
"Then what're you saying? That dragon shadow was fake? With Cloudhymn magic that strong, who else but a High Elder could fake it?"
"Couldn't it be the one who was exiled?"
"Bullshit! You know Imbibitor Lunae didn't have wings, right?"
The gathered Preceptors fell into chaos. Some rushed off to the Alchemy Commission to confirm things, while others thought Dan Feng had made a fierce return.
Sure, the color had changed, and there was an extra pair of wings, but who'd made a rule saying a High Elder couldn't change colors?
Others had already slipped into action, heading for Fyxestroll Garden at once. If it truly wasn't either of those two, all the better. One was guilty, and the other wouldn't grow up. Anyone could tell neither was fit for great responsibility.
It was time for the Luofu Vidyadhara to welcome a new High Elder!
Who cared whether that dragon was Vidyadhara or not? As long as they were willing to become the High Elder, then they'd be Vidyadhara!
In the Seat of Divine Foresight, Jing Yuan paused just as he was about to lower his head and drink his tea. He looked up toward the window.
"Hmm? This aura... no, it's not Dan Feng. He wouldn't make such a show of himself."
Jing Yuan's first thought was that Dan Heng had slipped back again and gotten into a fight somewhere. But he rejected the idea right away. This aura was strong too, but it wasn't restrained at all, which clashed with Dan Heng's nature.
"Bailu? No, that's not right either. Her power's sealed, and it isn't this fierce. Could it be young friend Sylvia?"
Jing Yuan rubbed his chin and thought it over. No matter how he looked at it, Sylvia seemed like the only person who fit the situation.
"Young friend, young friend... when you make this much noise, you can't blame me for not holding the Vidyadhara back for you."
Jing Yuan chuckled and finally drank the tea he'd missed earlier. Beside him, Yanqing volunteered at once.
"General, should I go investigate?"
"No need. In that direction, the Ten-Lords Commission is handling business. We don't have to get involved."
--+--
Sylvia had no mind to care what attention she might draw. Right now, she was throwing herself into Cloudhymn magic with great interest.
Many spells she hadn't been able to use before could now be forced through sheer power after she'd taken dragon form.
Her nearly hundred-meter-long dragon body moved with sharp grace as it circled Cirrus. Illusory flames traced a huge three-dimensional formation through the air, locking Cirrus in place.
Cirrus kept releasing flames, trying to break free, but it was a shame she wasn't even a complete Ignamar anymore. On top of that, Sylvia had long since learned to control Phantylia's power with ease, so Cirrus's special abilities as a Heliobus were all but useless in front of her.
With raw strength suppressing her and Sylvia's power countering her, Cirrus had nowhere to run once Sylvia cast a sealing formation built to target Heliobi.
"You damned bastard! Let me go—!"
Sylvia ignored Cirrus's screams. Her long, massive dragon tail burst with a brilliant glow and dragged a trail of flame behind it. With a terrifying sonic boom, it slammed down hard on the huge eye.
BOOM!
"Aaaaaah—!"
The violent explosion, mixed with Cirrus's shrill scream, swallowed all of Fyxestroll Garden. Sylvia hadn't held anything back. The blow, filled with the power of Destruction, almost cleaved Cirrus apart on the spot.
What truly made Cirrus doubt her life was the feeling that she wasn't fighting a person at all. It felt more like she was fighting someone possessed by a Heliobus.
With a hum, Sylvia beat her wings and appeared above Cirrus as if she'd teleported. Layer upon layer of formations locked onto Cirrus like targeting sights.
A Subspace Lance woven from water and fire stretched taut like an arrow drawn on a bow.
Then—
WHOOSH!
The Subspace Lance shot out at high speed, and with the support of several formations, its power surged as it flew. Its speed rose even higher.
This special Subspace Lance, formed from pure energy, pierced into Cirrus's body, and in that instant, the balance broke.
The powers of Permanence and Destruction erupted inside Cirrus. Worse, the Heliobus power soaked in the aura of Destruction mixed in too. Not only did Cirrus's aura plunge, but the clash of power inside her body caused her inner balance to collapse.
The final result was simple.
The huge Heliobus fell apart again.
Scattered Heliobi fell across Fyxestroll Garden like fireworks. Sylvia's seal had targeted only one individual, and in the moment Cirrus collapsed, Sylvia wasn't skilled enough yet to adjust the formation all at once. Because of that, the still-active seal trapped only one Heliobus inside it: Cirrus herself.
With a low rumble, Sylvia shook out her wings and landed in Fyxestroll Garden's plaza while maintaining her dragon form.
At first, she'd thought she might feel unused to this body, but in truth, she adapted to it far better than she'd expected.
"B-Big sis?"
Huohuo and the others stared at the dragon that had landed in front of them, dumbstruck. They clearly hadn't recovered from the absurd turn of events. A perfectly normal living person had turned into a nearly hundred-meter dragon right before their eyes.
"It's me."
Sylvia didn't keep the form for long. As she answered Huohuo, she released the transformation on her own. Her body shrank within white light and returned to the form of the Herrscher of the Void.
As Sylvia felt the "emptiness" that came with the fading power, she looked around. "Are you all right?"
"I'm okay. I'll be fine after some rest. Thank you for saving my life, Master Sylvia." Guinaifen hung weakly off Sushang's shoulder, looking like she was about to pass out at any second.
Xueyi spoke next. "I'm fine. After this, Huohuo, you and those two should all get checked. Don't leave any aftereffects behind."
When Cirrus had released her power earlier, Sushang and Guinaifen had been hit the hardest. They needed a careful examination.
"Huh? R-right!" Huohuo had just edged over to Sylvia's side and wrapped her arms around Sylvia's arm. Her face turned red as she nodded, like a child caught doing something bad by a teacher.
"Thank you for your timely rescue, Miss Sylvia. Otherwise, the consequences would've been beyond measure." Xueyi lowered her head with open gratitude. If Cirrus had rushed out of Fyxestroll Garden and blended into the rest of the Xianzhou, that would've been a real disaster.
Fortunately, only the Ten-Lords Commission had been affected so far, and the only ordinary civilian involved was Guinaifen. It was a blessing within misfortune.
"It's nothing, really. I did promise Huohuo, so I had to keep my word." As Sylvia spoke, she rubbed Huohuo's head again.
As for Tail...
"Well, well, look who it is. Isn't that, uh, what's-her-name? Cirrus? Gah-ha-ha—how'd you get caught?"
"You damned bastard! You traitor who bowed to humans has no right to shout in front of me!"
Tail was taunting Cirrus like mad off to the side, as if settling the score from earlier. He didn't even talk to Sylvia or Huohuo. Cirrus looked like she was about to explode with rage.
She'd already hated Tail for siding with humans. Now she'd been captured by a human herself, and she still had to endure Tail running his mouth in front of her.
Cirrus's words turned so sweet they could peel paint, and she nearly threw every curse she knew at Tail.
Sylvia had wanted to chat with Tail for a bit, but seeing this, she pulled her gaze back in silence. Huohuo did call out to Tail in a small voice, but Tail, who was basking in victory, only glanced at Huohuo and ignored her.
"What're you planning to do with these Heliobi?" Sylvia asked.
"Once support from the Ten-Lords Commission arrives, we'll establish a large seal here in Fyxestroll Garden," Xueyi said.
Before this, they'd only used Fyxestroll Garden as a temporary foothold. But now, with Heliobi scattered everywhere, Xueyi looked around and knew cleaning them all up wouldn't be easy. Running back and forth between the Artisanship Commission and Fyxestroll Garden wouldn't make sense anymore.
"Oh..." Sylvia nodded. That was about the same as the game. At first, Fyxestroll Garden had only been used as a temporary base because there weren't many people there. Then it had been upgraded straight into a Heliobi sealing site.
Sylvia had no plan to absorb all the Heliobi either. After all, while Heliobi were dangerous, they could still be used. Before this, they'd been kept in the Artisanship Commission's furnace, and once everything was handled, they'd have to be stuffed back in.
"Compared to the Ten-Lords Commission, the power Miss Sylvia displayed just now may draw tests from petty people. Please be careful," Xueyi said.
She didn't say it outright and used "petty people" as a stand-in. Sylvia understood at once. She was talking about the Vidyadhara.
"There're plenty of dragonkin in the universe. It shouldn't go that far, right?"
But Xueyi shook her head. "There may be many dragonkin, but you used Cloudhymn magic, Miss Sylvia. And forgive my poor eye, but your display just now truly resembled a Vidyadhara High Elder."
If the Ten-Lords Commission hadn't kept records on the High Elders, Xueyi would've mistaken Sylvia for a new Vidyadhara High Elder the moment she saw that sealing spell.
If the dragon form alone had looked similar, that would've been one thing, but knowing Cloudhymn magic too made it hard not to think too much.
Sylvia nodded. Fine, then. She just didn't know what kind of reaction the Vidyadhara could have.
After thinking it over, it'd be no more than welcoming the High Elder back to their seat, or calling her an impostor from nowhere. After all, nobody else knew Sylvia could still keep reproducing.
No matter how strong their reaction was, it couldn't go that far.
They chatted for a while, and Sylvia asked Xueyi plenty of questions about the Ten-Lords Commission. After Hanya arrived with reinforcements, the sealed Cirrus was left in Xueyi's care, and Sylvia led Huohuo and the others away first. Huohuo and the others still needed to see a doctor.
At the port outside Fyxestroll Garden, several richly dressed Vidyadhara hurried off a starskiff and rushed into the garden.
As they passed, one of them frowned and looked over Sylvia's group, seeming about to ask something. But another seemed to recognize Huohuo's identity, tugged his companion's arm, whispered a few words, and left in a rush.
Sylvia couldn't help smiling. With that dragon-like bearing, they looked far too much like the Preceptors she'd seen in the Light Cone. She hadn't expected the Vidyadhara to arrive so fast.
Too bad Fyxestroll Garden was now Ten-Lords Commission territory. If they went in now, they'd most likely just get driven back out.
"Come on. I'll take you to the Alchemy Commission first and have you checked over." Sylvia didn't bother with the Preceptors behind her. Instead, she urged Guinaifen and Sushang to get onto the starskiff.
Speaking of it, Sylvia had taught those two a few petty sleight-of-hand tricks online from time to time.
Guinaifen learned them well enough, but Sushang couldn't pick them up at all. So even now, only Guinaifen still liked calling her "Master."
"Master, where're you going next? Are you busy?"
"I'm not busy, but whether you two are busy is another matter." Sylvia spread her hands. Beside her, Huohuo gripped her banner and nodded hard.
"Y-yes, Miss Guinaifen. You were controlled by Cirrus today, so you still need proper treatment."
"Uh, well..."
"Ha ha ha, Lil Gui, be a good girl and see the doctor. I'll host Sylvia for you."
"Miss Sushang, you're the same!"
"Gah—"
--+--
Not long before this, on Penacony, inside the Alfalfa Family's stronghold, a blue-haired Masked Fool was chatting with Old Oti.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho. Your experience in business is quite interesting. It makes me think of how I built my fortune bit by bit when I was young."
"Oh, come on, Family Head, you flatter me. Old Sampo just runs a few small trades here and there. If I were the head of a Family like you, of course I'd have much more to think about." Sampo rubbed his hands together, looking every bit like a small-time merchant.
"Oh-ho-ho. The business you brought today isn't small at all."
"That's all thanks to the goodwill Old Sampo's built up over the years. Now that there's a good chance to make money, someone was willing to give me a hand. That's what business is about, isn't it? When there's money to be made, everyone makes it together."
"Well said, well said. If that mask is real, then I, Old Oti, of course won't refuse such a sincere gift."
As the head of a Family rooted in finance, Old Oti had accepted Sampo's plan in his heart almost as soon as he finished hearing the Masked Fool's proposal.
Even if Old Oti didn't think Robin would truly give up her actions against The Family, that was one thing, and this was another.
Besides, weren't the Oak Family and Bloodhound Family still here? One had her own brother as Family Head, and the other was The Family's military force. If Robin showed her hand and they still couldn't take her down, then they deserved to get cleaned up by her.
As the head of the Alfalfa Family, he only needed to consider how to maximize Penacony's interests.
If Robin truly had that much skill, Old Oti would be willing to recommend her as the next Dreammaster instead. Only by following a capable lead sheep could he earn more money.
This auction, along with the excuse Sampo had mentioned of presenting the item "as an apology gift," was a powerful weapon that could reverse the current direction of public opinion in an instant.
Old Oti didn't care about the opinions of ordinary visitors, of course, but he cared about the views of other powers.
The IPC, in particular, had contacted him almost as soon as something happened in Penacony.
Their meaning, spoken and unspoken, was clear: they wanted to reach their hands into Penacony. Penacony needed something like this to turn its image around.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL