In plain sight of all, a woman clad in white robes plummeted suddenly from the skies. Until that moment, she had been hovering silently several meters above the heads of the four, yet no one—not even Bailongjia—had sensed her presence!
She was a woman of delicate yet unreadable features, whose age could not be discerned. Draped in the classic attire of the nobles of the Empire, with crossed collar, tight waist, and wide sleeves, she was distinguished by an unusually plain appearance. The only detail that stood out was a jade pendant hanging from a silk sash tied at her waist. Her hair, loosely gathered with a silken ribbon, simply trailed at her back.
Her face was fairly delicate—except for a short, crossing scar on the left cheek that slightly marred perfection. Yet, beyond this, nothing about her stood out; she appeared as an ordinary, even thoroughly unremarkable, woman who would vanish the moment she stepped into any crowd.
Luojianyi and Generals Yang and Du did not recognize her, yet that did not prevent them understanding her danger. Anyone capable of appearing soundlessly above their heads would find ending their lives an effortless task.
The moment Bailongjia caught sight of her, he lost control of the shifting expressions across his face and blurted out: “Sister!”
“I heard a devilkin held a blood ritual feast here as bait. As it turned out, I just so happened be passing this way,” she muttered with dispassion. Her voice matched her facial plainness perfectly, leaving no imprint on the ears after being heard.
Bailongjia urged hastily, “Such a mere devil’s bloodline—a mere errand not even worth you gracing us with your esteemed efforts. I alone will be fully sufficient.”
“Think you’re not also merely the bait?”
“If I was bait, surely I’d be mighty fish bait!”
Bailongjia, still eager to argue, was interrupted as she gestured sharply for quiet, stating, “Mighty fish is ultimately still fish.”
Bailongjia recognized her silent command signaling the debate was finished—never open to objection. Despite being flushed with frustration, desiring to argue further about how such big ‘bait’ cannot merely be fish, his upbringing cautioned that such a choice would border dangerously upon suicide.
The woman drifted through the chamber in silence; no single step ever touching the stone floor with sound.
“All right. Let me go see the ‘fisherman’ for myself,” she spoke, as if to no one in particular. Then—calm in appearance yet swiftly vanishing—the moment she stepped, so seamlessly, she disappeared beyond the edge of the wasteland, into a blur.
Only after she had left did the trio from An’xue city dare breathe once again.
With care, Lieutenant Yang queried, “Baigeneral… was she—was she really—”
“Rhetorical nonsense! I have only the one true sister. Of course it’s her.”
Having their silent speculation on her identity substantiated, each of the war lords involuntarily shuddered slightly in recognition simultaneously. The realization left Bailongjia morose, almost lethargic now. With weary gesture, he simply waved for return: “Return—let’s return now.”
Though his relative’s disdain had frustrated Bailongjia deeply, he acknowledged the iron truth of her battlefield judgment—one never to have erred yet. Because of this, sorrow deepened across Bailongjia’s once bright mood.
Not long afterwards, their airship slowly ascended skyward and turned homewards, leaving the darkness of the battlefield in their wake for Anx’ue City.
Somewhere deep within that darkness lay Madsfeld’s younger lineage—seated in an outdoor patio absent-mindedly shaking a tall goblet with rich red wine as red as spilled heart blood.
He stared at the colossal full moon above as though musing, yet not merely conversing with solitude: “Big fish should soon arrive now I wonder… The famous human known as Bailongjia is close by apparently skilled—perhaps even slightly deadly. Ending his life shall provide my reputation more than adequate wings to soar into legends—memorializing more than a surname now long recognized, yet somehow still dragging behind the shadow cast by its towering prestige.”
Amid these quiet murmurings, he tilted his glass ready for a deep sip only to notice rippling across the vined red surface strangely, unnaturally.
His moment froze instantly as vibrations now coursed rhythmically through the Earth directly beneath the feet—the kind evocative exclusively of giant, ancient beasts awakening to step forth into the world.
Something inexplicable surged into being, prickling his scalp so that his very hair floated. Suddenly, a single, eerie eye opened center-middle across Madsfeld’s furrowed brow—an eye lacking both iris structure completely, entirely black and utterly monstrous.
Instantly upon this strange third sight emerging, waves of darkness poured backward forming above like some ethereal, ancient beast head reaching the skyline with deep, resonant growls aimed directly toward an invisible, approaching menace.
The monstrous shape resembled an impossible tiger beast—a terrifying form nearly ten meters of snarling height from the ground alone—its elongated ivory fangs vanishing mysteriously like ancient relics whispered only of in mythic legend and terror.
Confused. Even prior to glimpsing the enemy itself, his opponent’s presence and spiritual might have forced out his hidden ancestral bloodline beast?
Such terrifying strength—whose arrival could only be hers?
Heart now racing beyond stillness, Madsfeld bounded skyward in an instant’s movement, taking post beside his outpost. Gazing hard into a horizon which now revealed something in white slowly approaching—step by step perfectly syncopated with tremors of Earth shaking underneath.
Unbelieving. Could one lone woman possibly trigger Earth-shaking tremulously with such might?
“Reveal yourself!” Madsfeld called out forcefully; a tremor betraying sudden rising panic creeping into his cry. Unbidden within memory’s recess echoed one feared name. It couldn’t—must not—it couldn’t actually be this being though.
The white-garbed form sauntered—each movement accompanied by slight glows of shimmer—then with each stride transcending more than the mere measure of one hundred long paces in time enough measured by no heart thumps, until—sundered seconds—she stood directly upon horizon and vanished space both beside Madsfeld in mid-air herself!
Her gaze lifted slightly past the airborne ancestral spirit-behind, and then—pronunciation precise though slow with calm control—the voice spoke.
“From Changping. White family. Bai’ Ao’tu.”
The Madsfeld scion gasped aloud first in sheer terror, barely managing to stammer through forced restraint a retort—“You should kn—
Before completing utterance she replied cuttingly:
“Talks way too much!”
With merely a single advancing step forwards Bai’ Ao’tu launched into Madsfeld. A single punch aimed cleanly forward toward Madsfeld’s center mass—nothing further, nothing more.
Her strike was no flourish of art but a direct essence—purity manifesting destruction. As her punch struck at air itself, the skies and lands simultaneously distorted!
Madsfeld crossed his hands into defensive positioning, meeting directly in impact that single strike.
Silence. Stillness. As though all cosmic forces stood collectively breathless within still frame.
Behind the Madsfeld figure a thunderously echoing roar grew into endless cacophony—building until every structure across that encampment crumbled one behind another in unstoppable succession. Dust rose dark and swirling, blotting the heavens as half the sky disappeared in choking debris.
Strange as that scene was, within the crumbling ruin arose not a sound—the sounds normally carried by dozens strong dark race warriors and a hundred common folk completely absent. Moments more and thousands of souls found dwelling reduced instantly to dust in memory’s eye—save only half a crumbling tower left far beyond as the lone remnant of life.
Behold. That single punch’s might reshaped an occupied landscape.
Yet at the center point within forcefield of that cosmic quake, Madsfeld still held his block position motionless—one step stillness against unstoppable tempests. His place unchanged despite shockwaves that reduced a whole base collapsing outward.
Long seconds after that roaring subsidered came his whispered breath: “I AM GREAT MADSFELD…”
Bai’ Ao’tu retrieved her hand casually. Then, gently, she patted the youth on top affectionately and said coolly: “When all is playtime still too far beyond grasp of children, better to not yet cast lures in water for monstrous catches.”
Upon speaking thus, she turned sharply around walking—dissolving within moment into night’s farthest shadows fading completely from view. Stripped now entirely of those earlier sky-covering pressures, she reverted entirely unremarkably into forgetfulness once more—a woman ordinary, and destined immediately to be forgotten, always meant to vanish beyond vision’s memory.
“I AM GREAT MADSFELD…” This whisper persisted echoing endlessly. His mantra like record playing infinitely in repetition as sound on scratched cylinder, failing forward.
The body of the young devil scion at last crumbled gradually forward to earth below—where on impact with ground contact it erupted suddenly into pale white dust. The wind took his final form. Just ended like that. Without having earned recognition from a single soul ever more—the only proof perhaps that his bloodline once had pulsed—laid only in his inherited, towering family name.
Merely seeking some giant fish, his bait had tempted instead upon the tooth of a Great White Shark.
From ruins of that outpost, one single remaining half tower, disturbed suddenly—a stone turned over, and from where emerged a small child—girl barely grown. Robes discoloured beyond white into mottled gray with layers of grime and torn—fresh cuts marked across limbs. Her little angel face, smeared with mud beyond easy recognition; yet still, her eyes remained clear. Not a trace in those eyes of fear.
She dragged forward painfully toward pile tops. Rising carefully into standing still, surveying a landscape where no other lived remained now alive. Every darkling warrior; every soul once calling it home—they had all faded utterly into nothingness at that singular strike. Hidden within that ancient wine cellars at her instinctive pre-punched timing had been her sanctuary—escaping calamitous fate only through that mad sprint deep toward furthest corners of wine cellar.
From that ruin’s broken stones she selected direction forward; limping slowly outward.
The left knee trailed behind bleeding. Down the thigh trickled drops of lifeblood; she glanced downward at wound briefly; with grit clenched she snapped the slivering wood out, bound her thigh tight with fabric torn from hem of white gown, and stood again walking.
She stepped forth forward… and froze.
Before her, not a far step ahead, Bai’ Ao’tu stood in silence watching.
Bai’ Ao’tu tilted eyes slightly as in thought, then softly asked with expressionless voice: “Humans, you think you are?”
The child gave slight nodding.
“Nothing impressive by natural talent standard. Yet possessed strange instincts warning of dangers… Somehow survived the punch’s full range impact? Extremely rare…”
Holding breath hesitation still for heartbeats; then, taking step slowly near, she stretched out a small hand trembling—forcing a whisper: “Take me. Come along… please.”
Bai’ Ao’tu gazed into wide eyes of that tiny orphan as if seeing something long lost.
“If you truly follow me you shall become the sharp blade of White family. Are you sure of the path ahead?”
With water-clear eyes she answered clearly, firm and quick. “If I may survive…” her next whisper fading gently— “…I’d walk it.”
“Your name…?”
“None given… only.”
After moments watching silently in that gaze—an eternity perhaps—then slowly extending her hand to take that small blood-wounded hand into a soft grip gently clasping warm trust; Bai’ Ao’tu gave the briefest curlings that might count as something resembling… a very nearly smiling. And thus they walked—towards human lands, one adult and one child, their small shadows vanashing slowly into the horizon where wilderness melted into endless midnight blue.
In distant lands of eternal shadow lie twin metropolis—Yinghui and Black Obsidian cities. These twin seats lie locked in a mirrored design with their very walls bisected straight by towering, equal in height, spired connecting towers, defensive bastions, arrow lined fortifications separating dual territories entirely.
On the western flank stood Fenwol city, capital of Wolkind, ruled by Kael Magtooth—descendant of great werewolves, backed by four leading wolf clans. Yet upon opposite half, Xue堡—Bloode堡, reigned as seat of vampire nobility headed by noble lord Welde.
Since ages since—eternally cursed by blood feud, werewolf bloodlines could find no shelter or safety among Bloode堡’s marble streets any more than blood-draining Welde could seek respite beyond vampire spire sanctum within Wolkind’s savage alleys. Between those hostile halves—except for shared southern public district—only mutual tolerance governed this shared marketplace open freely to all creatures of darkness; an economic zone jointly administered.
Rulership over these cities passes rhythmically between the leaders every three years in shared rule by bloodbound oath between Magtooth and Welde. Across all lands extending hundreds leagues around, between this balance no single ruler could challenge—neither Welde the noble nor Magtooth the bloodclaw dared contest the other—supremacy bound through fragile shared pact of ancient necessity.
Current era lay approaching culmination—final year of Count Welde’s reigning term was drawing swiftly toward close.
Even so, this vampire Lord’s disposition had been increasingly sour; as though a cruel cosmic jester played trick after prank upon him.
No—not trick merely… situation had passed way beyond “discomfort” into something far worse: in the centuries-spanning existence which his ancient life span could recall—not even once in all that time had chaos erupted greater than current.
Within study room of his grand castle, back and forth walked Welde as eyes periodically shot dagger glances toward several paper scrolls atop the study. Upon rereceiving that cursed information again, frustration flared deeper with each read; until with explosive roar—whose force vibrated entire citadel foundations—he seized the entire floor-shelved bookcase, hurling it hard crashing against opposite marble stone.
Finally allowing the fury inside a measure—a cathartic exhaled breath.
Outside library’s door kneeling in fearful silence, lay several vampire aides.
Upon sight of that servile huddle—the rage inside reigniting with explosive wrath—welld known hatred pouring forth uncontrollably:
“You can’t solve a single matter correctly…! Can’t discover answers worth discovering?! To me—you’re of no more worth than rotting bones on floor!!”
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