The suffocating violet mana of the spatial lock hummed against Ren Sihue's skin. He stood frozen, his right arm submerged up to the elbow inside the barrier, staring at the ancient, white-robed man leaning heavily on a gnarled wooden cane.
Wiious Frous. The current head of the elusive Frous household, and the father of Ren's late wife, Roxana.
For decades, the relationship between the Frous Clan and the Sihue Clan had been notoriously volatile. It wasn't born from territorial disputes or generic underworld rivalries. The bitter, rotting hostility between the two legacy families was entirely personal, and the sole reason for it was the man currently standing with his arm stuck in a barrier.
Ren Sihue.
As the icy wind of the plain howled around them, Ren's mind violently dragged him back to a past he had spent years trying to bury.
