I looked over at Captain Riggs, "Do you have the Black Pearl on you?" He glanced at me reaching into his inside coat pocket, pulling out a black pouch "I want it back after."
reaching out I snatched it, "You'll get it back after" I said rolling my eyes. I proceeded to the registry hall my crimson scales and cerulean fathers with black obsidian claws drew attention. Inside the Registry Hall, the air was thick with the scent of powdered blossom. Scrolls lined every wall—ancestral records, shipping documents, bloodline registries catalogued by family and chi resonance bloom prints.
The clerk behind the desk was tall and pale-skinned, with petals lacquered into her nails. "Purpose?" she asked, barely looking up. "Researching noble lines for a prospective marriage alliance," I lied smoothly, offering a pouch of iron coins. She raised one thin brow and tucked the coins into her sleeve without pause.
"You may view the non-sealed records only." I nodded and stepped into the archive hall.
The place smelled aged. Rows of banners and family glyphs loomed over me—many forgotten, some deliberately buried. I focused on names connected to the Cursed Delta Reaches—an outlying sea province notorious for pirates, now under supposed "reformation."
"Look for a family crest with a cerulean sea dragon," Felicity murmured into my mind. I found it on the fifth scroll.
A minor house—House Virage—once exiled from the Beast Vein Continent three generations ago. Disgraced for harboring "dissident pirates."
But their youngest daughter was listed with a residual dragon blood line—Oria Virage.
Still active. Still unmarried. Currently housed in the Palace of the Ten Blooming Buds.
"We found her."
Meanwhile, the Crimson Typhoon's hold had been transformed into a temporary merchant stall. Tables were laid with slabs of gleaming spire crab meat, the coral-pink muscle marbled and faintly glowing. The crab horn sections—spiraled like enormous ivory tusks—drew the most interest. A crowd of buyers formed quickly—chefs, beast cultivators, qi-smiths—all eager.
Too eager.
Then the rivals showed up. A lean man with inked lips and a court crest on his belt approached with a retinue of red-sashed workers.
"Funny," he said, smiling coldly. "I thought House Baoren had exclusive claim over rare-class aquatic beast sales in the lower city."
Riggs—calm as ever—wiped his knife clean.
"And yet here we are. I didn't see House Baoren out on the reef doing the dying."
The man's smile didn't fade. "Then I'll just have to see whether the Tax Office shares your bold perspective."
He walked off.
The crowd thinned.
Tension buzzed.
Sallow, one of our deckhands, leaned in. "Cap'n, if this goes bad, you want us to get loud or get gone?" Riggs shook his head. "Neither. We hold the line. Sell quiet. Quick. Then vanish." Later that evening, I found Riggs by the damaged starboard keel, speaking with a local shipwright crew. "How long?" he asked. The lead carpenter squinted up at the hull. "Three days minimum. More if the inner rudder's warped."
"You'll be paid in beast meat and gold coin."
"Fair enough," the man said, tapping his knuckles against the wood. "But I want half upfront. City's twitchy these days." Riggs nodded and handed over a folded pouch. As the repair crew set to work, Riggs joined me by the crates.
"Registry go well?"
I passed him a slip of parchment, inside the name Oria Virage underlined.
His eye twitched. "You sure?"
"Royal qi. Pirate line. The signature in the black pearl matched her birth bloom." He exhaled, long and slow. "Then we're dancing with knives, lad."
I looked up at the silken banners flapping from the high bridges.
"Good thing we brought our sharpest."
We leaned over the map crate, sea-salted parchment spread across the wood. Lanternlight cast shadows like tangled roots across the lines of the city. "She's housed here," I said, pointing at a hilltop bloom-shaped structure near the palace's heart. "Palace of the Ten Blooming Buds. Inner ring. Royal guard presence. Symbolic gardens. No clear path for extraction without getting seen."
Riggs narrowed his eyes. "Too many eyes for a clean lift. Especially now that House Baoren's sniffing around." I nodded, tapping a loose thread of the city's sewer channels drawn faintly beneath the ink. "But here—servant tunnels. Outdated. Some may still run under the palace. Maintenance paths."
He gave a slow grunt. "Risky, but less flashy than swinging in on ropes and declarations." I pulled the black pearl from my pouch and let it pulse between my fingers. "She's got pirate blood. She might want out."
Riggs arched a brow. "So what—walk in with roses and a ransom note?"
"No," I said. "I go in alone. spirit man form. Talk first. Gauge her temperament. If she's cooperative, we make a plan together. If not…" I glanced at the faint outline of the palace. "Then we ghost her out before the court knows she's missing."
He folded his arms. "And if she screams?"
"She won't."
"You're sure?"
I looked up, jaw tight. "She's got the blood. She's felt it. She just doesn't know what it means yet."
Riggs scratched his chin, then pulled a small carved stone from his belt pouch—a palm-sized falcon with runes etched beneath the wing.
"Then take this. Whisper into it if things go sideways. I'll move the crew in shadow from the east canal. If she's spooked, we do this loud and fast."
"And burn our cover?"
He met my gaze, hard. "Better ash than capture."
I nodded and pocketed the charm. Below us, the shipwrights hammered against the keel and Felicity's heat rippled in my chest like a second pulse. She was watching too.
Waiting.
Riggs tapped the map once more, voice low. "We've got two, maybe three days max before the court tightens the net. You've got one night to win her."
"Then I'll do it in half," I said, standing. He smirked. "Bring her back alive. And intact."
"No promises" I muttered, slipping into the shadows of the night. Night laid its hush across the Coastal Flower Kingdom—moonlight bleeding through veils of incense smoke and silk pennants.
The palace loomed above the cliffs like a dream. The Palace of the Ten Blooming Buds wasn't a fortress. Not overtly. But every garden was a trap, every blossom likely watched, every servant drilled with etiquette sharp enough to slice open secrets. I cloud stepped over guards in petal-dyed armor, past and above bells designed to chime at motion—I kept my aura low to avoid detection. The interior glowed soft and fragrant—pools of jasmine oil shimmered beside carved stone corridors. Everything was too elegant to be sincere.
I moved deeper.
And then—I felt her.
Oria Virage. Her qi signature was sharp, dragon-coiled and hidden beneath layers of discipline. It didn't roar—it waited. Like a blade in a museum display, longing for its sheath.
I air-dashed through a high chamber window in the outer chamber wall, ignoring the courtly tapestries. My focus narrowed to the inner bloom sanctum, where her qi pulsed slow, in meditation or sleep. I reached the tower marked on the registry map—Oria's sanctum—just as a sharp clang split the night.
I froze.
A grappling hook clattered against the carved edge of her balcony rail.
Rope. Taut.
Then—
A foot.
Then another.
Princess Oria didn't climb. She walked the rope. Balanced. Hair braided tight behind her back, uwagi tucked and belted like a fighter. Below her, a twenty-foot fall onto razor-flowered terraces. Beyond her—open rooftops and chimneys into the palace's east wing.
I blinked.
She was already halfway across. I air-dashed forward landing on the adjacent roof top that she was tight rope walking toward. "Would you believe I came here to kidnap you?" She didn't even flinch, Oria's balance was flawless, arms outstretched, knees flexed to ride the subtle sway. Her breath was calm, but her eyes burned with intention.
She said nothing for a beat, then: "You're late."
"You knew I would come?"
"The Delta Pirate Lords inheritance calls out to me, as his last blood descendant," she replied. "I knew that I wouldn't be the only one that felt the inheritances awakening.
She reached the far balcony and rolled over the edge in one fluid motion, landing in a crouch. I flipped down after her. "I can take you back with me. Safely." She turned, cocking her head. "Why should I believe you?" I held out the Black Pearl, pulsing faintly in my ethereal palm. "Because this dosen't lie."
She stepped forward, her hand brushing the glow—eyes widening just slightly. "It knows me," she murmured. Then her eyes met mine.
"And if I leave with you...what happens to me?"
I looked around. "You live free. And you learn what it means to inherit something bigger than blood." Her lips quirked upward in something between defiance and intrigue.
"Then don't fall behind, ''sky walker." She turned—and bolted across the rooftop tiles toward the rear of the palace. I followed—moonlight dancing on her heels, the night charged with the scent of rebellion. And far below us, the city breathed its secrets. The ship rocked gently, anchored in shallow harbor waters, moonlight glinting across its coral-burnished hull. Below deck, the air was tinged with roasted crab fat and engine grease.
In the private cabin, Felicity sat perched, lounging on a pillow cushion like a mural come to life, her blood-red claws idly drumming against the wood.
That was when she heard it. A wet slap. Then another. Her ears twitched. She turned slowly toward the porthole. Dark water. And movement.
Slimy green limbs, bulbous eyes reflecting the Typhoon's lantern light. Poly Wags. Dozens of them. "Filth," she hissed.
Topside — Main Deck
The first Poly wag crested the rail in a tumble of slick limbs and croaked warbles. Then a second. Then a wave. Felicity erupted from below deck like an armored silver blood-slicked goddess, crimson tendrils spiraling out in all directions. Her shadow writhed with her black and red and boiling. One frogman lunged. She impaled it midair, dragging its squirming corpse into her maw-like spine and draining it dry in seconds. Deckhands screamed. Others fought.
But Felicity was a whirlpool of shrieking flesh—defensive, instinctual, loyal. She wouldn't let them interfere with Ash's plans. Meanwhile atop the Palace Rooftops I and Oria heard the distant gong of alarm echo from the port district just as they vaulted the final palace wall. "What in the Nine Currents—" Oria gasped.
From the high spine of the Coastal Flower Kingdom, we saw them. A wave of green bodies, hundreds of Poly Wags swarming onto the docks. Ships ablaze.
Screams. And, at the center—
The Crimson Typhoon, rocked by boarding frogmen and a blurring storm of Felicity's blood red tendrils, she was surrounded.
I picked Princess Oria up in my arms, " Your highness this will me much faster" I released wisps of intent mixed with the lightening from the storm claw raptor crystal, mixing them to power the lightening cloud step technique. With princess Oria in my arms I shot off through the night rapidly bouncing and air-dashing from rooftop to rooftop. The night was no longer quiet. And the Crimson Typhoon was no longer safe. The ship groaned beneath the weight of the invaders.
Frogmen hissed, croaked, and leapt from mast to rail, their slick limbs glistening in frog oil and sea salt. The frogmen used blow dart guns, hundreds of qi-charged stun darts thudded into the deck from their blowpipes, erupting in clouds of paralyzing spores. Felicity staggered, claws soaked in Poly wag ichor, her jaw slack and trembling with euphoria and fury. The hunger had grown... maddening.
A dart nicked her neck. Then another. Her pupils shrank into pinpricks. Blood wept from her eyes—not in pain, but in birth. She screamed—a shriek like red glass shattering underwater—and her body ruptured open in a spiral silver flesh, her silhouette cracked apart and reformed. She stood taller now, her spine ridged in jagged marrow blades, her silver tendrils congealed behind her back into wings—veined and semi-translucent. She had evolved. No longer just a blood phage. She was a Silver Blooded Phageal now.
"Get off...my ship." The next wave of frogmen didn't make it halfway up the side before her wings launched needles of vibrating bone, tearing through muscle and skull!
Her right arm transformed into a tendril and shot forward impaling a frog man! His form was then crushed down and sucked into the tendril, drinking the frog man in!
Felicity vomited a bath of acid onto a group of frogmen, a cocktail of stomach acids and marrow-churning mist blanketed the deck!
I felt it.
The moment her form cracked open, the bond between us burned with intensity.
I landed on top of the captains cabin, setting Oria to her feet. Felicity was on top deck, radiant with death, snarling as she speared a Poly Wag straight through the gut with a wing-spine and flung the corpse overboard. Intent swirled around my hands, "vorpal retrieve," I growled. One of the frogmen shrieked as its blowpipe vanished—snatched midair—then rammed back through its own throat by an invisible force. I leapt into the fray beside Felicity, fists crackling, bones humming.
"Blazing Tempest Strikes!"
"Hidden Dragon Palm!"
"Thunder Coil Claw!"
I and Felicity fought the Poly Wags like twin storms—one of blood and earth, the other of fire and lightening.
City Edge — Palace Garrison Mobilization
Gongs rang.Silk-armored martial cultivators from the Flower Kingdom flooded into the port district, blades drawn, chi-tech fans unfurling with mechanical clicks. Their leader, a woman with vine tattoos winding up her arm and across her face, shouted: "Protect the Wall! Push the invaders into the tide!" The frogmen howled, caught between toxic wrath and blade discipline. The tide began to turn. Back aboard the Typhoon Felicity's wing trembled. "More coming. I can feel the nests offshore."
I narrowed my gaze.
But then—a thud on the deck.
Oria.
"I'm guessing this is yours?" she said, nodding at the ship.
I raised an eyebrow, "Not quite, but welcome aboard none the less." I stood with arms wide, my qi blazing purple against the soot-streaked sky. My body was a vortex of qi, spiraling through my chakras and into my raised palms. Sparks danced between my fingers, coalescing into a jagged purple lightening qi.
"PURPLE LIGHTENING PALM STRIKE!"
With a roar, I slammed my palm into the air and a bolt of purple chain-lightning erupted outward, snapping through the air like a serpentine whip. It struck one frogman center-mass—then leapt. To another. Then another. Then five more.
Then twenty.
Each hit exploded in purple static; their bodies flung like charred dolls into the sea. The remaining Poly wags screeched, their throats pulsing with flashing glands. They began to retreat—diving off the sides, swimming madly toward the depths from whence they came. The water foamed with their fear. The deck was a mess. Splinters. Burn marks. Puddles of acidic ichor and blood. But the Crimson Typhoon still floated. Still flew its disguised merchant flag. Captain Riggs lit a pipe with a shaky hand, exhaling smoke through clenched teeth. "We took a hit," he muttered, "but we're still breathing, and that's all that matters." Felicity crouched beside me, licking blood from one elongated claw.
She shimmered with residual animus—her new form still stabilizing. Then, Oria stepped forward. "The inheritance," she said, eyes distant, "isn't just a thing. It's a beacon. I feel it now. It's pulling on me like a tether through fog." I raised a brow. "You know where it is?"
She nodded. "I know what sea. And I can guide us." Riggs crossed his arms, eyeing her warily. "And when the rest of the world comes chasing that tether?"
"Then we cut them loose," I answered. Ship Repairs — Aboard the Typhoon Over the next few days, the hired Flower Kingdom shipwrights did their work. The starboard keel was reinforced with coral steel plating. The rudder rebuilt. Even the outer hull was patched with lacquered drift-bone to reduce qi-burn friction. By the fifth day, the Typhoon looked like a beast reborn—sleeker, faster.
Post-invasion, the palace had tightened like a clenched fist. Search parties. Sky-gliders. Court Enforcers scouring streets with bloodhound beetles.
And that morning—
Princess Oria's disappearance was officially announced.
Day of Departure — Crimson Typhoon in Port Channel; I stood near the helm as the crew finished loading final supplies. Felicity leaned on the railing, chewing on a spire crab skewer with alarming crunches. The cross-port guard was a flimsy lattice gate and it was being lowered.
"Routine search," the port officer lied through his teeth. Captain Riggs didn't even blink. "Ram it." The crew didn't hesitate. The rudder creaked, the sails dropped, and the Crimson Typhoon lurched forward, smashing through the gate with a shower of splinters. Port guards shouted. Flags were raised. A trumpet blew. Three royal skiff-ships launched in pursuit—sleek, silver-bladed hulls with petal-sails and harpoons at the ready. But the Typhoon was already gone, red sails snapping like dragon wings against the wind.
At Sea — On Deck
Riggs looked over his shoulder, the city growing small behind them.
"They'll chase for a while."
"Let them," I said.
Oria, standing beside the wheel, placed one hand over her chest.
"Our destination is the Sea of Quatzequatel ," she whispered. "That's where we go next."
I grinned.
"Then let's tear open the map."