CHAPTER 202: The Unclassifiable Calamity and the Broken Balance
While the Morningstar Clan tallied the immense loot from their hunt in the smoking crater of the Igneous Fault, the outside world began to spiral into absolute chaos.
In the surrounding territories, the silence left by the Purple Cloud Sect and the Iron Blood Alliance was more deafening than any war horn. At first, there were only rumors. Merchants using the nearby aerial routes noticed the skies were strangely clear of the sect's venomous griffin patrols. Then, minor emissaries who had to pay tribute to the Alliance found that the imposing volcanic Bastion no longer blocked the horizon.
Local forces, from Saint-level small clans to mid-sized sects, sent scouts to investigate. What they found paralyzed them with terror.
It was not a defeat. It was not a war of attrition. It was a systematic, surgical, and apocalyptic elimination. An immense force, composed of a Quasi-Saint King, multiple Grand Saints, a score of Saints, and ten thousand disciples, had simply ceased to exist. On the other hand, a Saint King and his army of veteran mercenaries had been wiped off the face of the earth without even managing to send a distress message or light a warning beacon.
Who had been their enemies? Was it the ancient imperial families finally making a move to clear the map? Or had some Supreme Sect from another continent felt offended?
The true superpowers of the world didn't care about the fall of mere local sects and mercenary bands, but for regional forces, this event chilled their blood. The unknown predator had left no traces, claimed no territory, and left no witnesses.
And nowhere was the panic as palpable and cold as in the continent's epicenter of information.
Beneath the luxurious and prosperous districts of Aethelgard, there existed an inverted subterranean city. An abyss of stalactites illuminated by blood-light crystals where morality was a bargaining chip. This place answered neither to the sunlight nor to the laws of the City Lord. The Underworld was a subordinate branch of a much more massive continental entity: The Eclipse Court.
In the heart of this inverted city, inside an immense black marble chamber that simulated an aristocrat's office, stood the Regent of the Underworld.
Known only as "The Tailor."
The Tailor (a Quasi-Saint King) was an impeccably dressed man, whose fingers were adorned with stellar metal thimbles. For him, assassination was "haute couture," executed with invisible threads of spatial Qi.
At that moment, The Tailor was sitting behind his immense fossilized dragon wood desk, sorting through his assassins' reports, when a deafening crash shattered the peace.
The heavy doors of his office were kicked open so violently that the hinges snapped.
The Tailor jumped in his chair, his eyes narrowing with fury. His fingers tensed, preparing a thousand Qi threads to decapitate the insolent fool. But when he saw who had just knocked down his door, the Regent's face went from anger to bewilderment.
It was Zephyr "The False Step."
The "First Needle" of the Underworld. A Stage 9 (Peak) Grand Saint and his right hand. The faceless assassin, always covered in gray bandages, whose spatial domain allowed him to assassinate from kilometers away. Zephyr was the incarnation of coldness.
But now, Zephyr was panting. He leaned against the shattered doorframe, and with a hoarse voice, gave his report.
"Boss... My shadows just returned from the northern routes. Vargas's Igneous Fault Bastion and the Purple Cloud Sect's Valley... they no longer exist."
The Tailor frowned elegantly. "Were they annihilated? Wars happen. Send the scavengers to loot the ruins before the Aethelgard families do."
Zephyr shook his head frantically. "You don't understand, Boss. There are no ruins left. Our scouts didn't find fallen castles or burned valleys... They found craters. They have erased the geography from the maps."
The Tailor was stunned. His brilliant mind completely reset. Craters? Those were not superpowers, but they had Saint-grade formations, a Saint King, a Quasi-Saint King, and dozens of experts. How could they be erased without leaving a single trace? What ancient sect or Empire had moved in secret?
While The Tailor racked his brain looking for a logical explanation, Zephyr interrupted him with a sentence that made the room's temperature plummet.
"Boss... do you remember that black-haired girl? The one with the mask. The one who came twenty days ago."
The Tailor's heart stopped for a beat.
The image assaulted his memory with terrifying clarity. He remembered the young assassin who had entered his office guided by a terrified Noctis (the Third Needle). He remembered her dark, cold, and unfathomable eyes. But above all, he remembered the shadow cast at her feet. That gravitational mass of pure death, inhabited by a Saint King-level entity so archaic and cosmic that it almost made him collapse to his knees.
He remembered how that girl tossed a bag with two thousand Low-Grade Saint Crystals onto his desk as if they were common stones. And the information she had bought with that absurd fortune: exact coordinates and blind spots of the defensive arrays of the Purple Cloud Sect and the Iron Blood Alliance.
In the mind of an information broker, time is the cruelest judge. Twenty days.
The Tailor slumped heavily into his leather chair, cold sweat soaking his fine shirt. Disbelief gave way to pure terror.
Who would have imagined that that girl and the Shinigami inhabiting her shadow would do such a thing in less than three weeks? When The Tailor sent the "Cleaner" (the Second Needle) to investigate their tracks days ago, and he returned saying they existed in no records, he knew they were dangerous.
But now he understood the true scale. He hadn't sold a map to a mercenary group to make a raid! He had sold the coordinates to a natural disaster to execute a total extermination!
The warning words Sela had spoken to him before melting into the shadows echoed in his head like a curse: "Forget we were here, Tailor. If you try to follow us, or if you sell the record of this transaction... I assure you there won't be a single bone in your body that your Sixth Needle can reanimate. Your Underworld will be wiped off the map."
The Tailor felt a knot in his stomach. If they wiped out two entire factions just to leave no witnesses, what stopped them from coming down to Aethelgard and evaporating the Underworld to silence the seller?
"Zephyr..." The Tailor's voice trembled, losing all its composure. "Reiterate my absolute order to the entire network. Elevate the threat level of that girl and her unknown faction to 'Unclassifiable Calamity'. No one is to investigate them. Burn the records of the jades we sold her! Make sure not even ashes remain!"
Zephyr nodded urgently. He had never seen his leader so dominated by panic.
The Tailor rubbed his temples, feeling that the entire city hung by a very fine thread. Even though the Underworld was backed by the colossal power of the Eclipse Court in the Central Continent, those reinforcements would take months to arrive if something went wrong. And the monsters from the shadows waited for no one.
"Prepare the seals of the deep chamber, Zephyr," murmured The Tailor, staring fixedly at the shattered door. "Perhaps... perhaps it is time to wake the Ancestor of this branch."
Waking a Stage 9 Saint King who had been hibernating for decades was a taboo, an absolute last resort. But The Tailor preferred to face his Ancestor's wrath for interrupting his sleep than to face the Red Eye of the Shinigami without a divine shield standing in between.
On the surface, contrasting with the humidity and darkness of the Underworld, stood Aethelgard.
A dazzling metropolis, built upon gigantic terraces of white stone and crossed by crystal-clear water canals that sparkled under the sun. It was the largest neutral trading hub in the northern region.
If Aethelgard was known as the "Cosmic Balance," its entire philosophy was absolute equilibrium. The city prospered because no external force was strong enough to break that balance, and because its internal factions kept each other in check in a calculated stalemate.
At the highest peak of the city, crowning the clouds, stood the imposing Mansion of the City Lord.
In the circular meeting room, carved in marble and obsidian, were gathered the most dangerous minds of the city. An emergency meeting had been called first thing in the morning. The atmosphere in the room was so thick it could be cut with a knife.
Someone had just thrown a gigantic rock, the size of a mountain, into their perfectly balanced pond.
At the head of the immense round table sat the absolute ruler: Lord Valerion "The King of the Balance."
Valerion (Stage 2 Saint King) was a man whose mere presence absorbed the light from the room. Formerly known in the distant Central Continent as the feared Undefeated Star Emperor (Stage 6). His cultivation hadn't stagnated; it was slowly crumbling. Thirty years ago, he suffered a massive ambush orchestrated by unknown forces that irreparably destroyed his Dao foundations. He escaped to the north, broken, forced to seal his own power so as not to die, falling from the Emperor realm to the Saint King realm.
As a result, Valerion was a deeply melancholic, silent, imposing, and absolutely lethal man. He didn't care in the slightest about the petty territorial disputes of the Five Great Families, nor the clandestine assassinations of the Underworld beneath his feet. He only demanded two things: that they pay their taxes and that they do not threaten the structural integrity and peace of Aethelgard.
In front of him, seated around the table, were the leaders of the city's pillars. The heads of the Five Great Families.
Octavian Aurelia (Stage 8 Grand Saint): The Patriarch of the Aurelia Family. A man of immaculately elegant bearing, always dressed in heavy white silks embroidered with spiritual gold threads. He never raised his voice; he spoke with the cadence of a poet. He was the undisputed Master of the "Law of the Contract." If Octavian managed to get an enemy to affirmatively answer a question or accept a deal (even mockingly in the middle of a deathmatch), he bound the opponent's soul to his words. If the enemy broke the imposed rule, their meridians exploded from the inside.
Kaelen Vulcan (Stage 6 Grand Saint): The Patriarch of the Vulcan Family. A burly, middle-aged man. The skin on his arms was bare, revealing grotesque runic burn scars that glowed a dull red. He was rough, direct, spat when he spoke, and deeply despised the politicians at the table. He controlled the city's blacksmith guild.
Morwenna Viridis (Stage 7 Grand Saint): The Matriarch of the Viridis Family. A woman of ethereal and disturbing beauty. She was completely covered by a green silk veil that hid her features. Around her floated a thick, sweet, intoxicating perfume that subtly numbed the senses, hostility, and reflexes of those around her. She controlled the monopoly on botanical formations and medicines.
Tyran Corvus (Stage 6 Grand Saint): The Patriarch of the Corvus Family. A massive warrior, a mountain of muscle covered in the pelts of legendary beasts he had hunted and flayed with his own hands. His voice wasn't human; it was a constant guttural roar. His natal beast was a Bloody Thunderbird. His mastery of the "Law of Predation" made him a scourge on the battlefield: when he marked a target, all allied and wild beasts within a hundred-kilometer radius entered a murderous frenzy, gaining 200% strength and losing all fear of death.
Lady Seraphine Morwen (Stage 5 Grand Saint): The Matriarch of the Morwen Family. The dazzling and public owner of the "Palace of a Thousand Pleasures." A woman of lethal beauty, sinful curves, and hypnotic charisma. She always carried a black feather fan covering the lower half of her face. She was Aethelgard's chief diplomat, but her sweet smile hid a thousand poisoned knives. Her combat style was a tactical nightmare: her fan concealed hundreds of microscopic "Formation Flags." With a single, elegant flick of her wrist, Seraphine could deploy Saint-Grade arrays in microseconds, trapping her enemies in gravity snares or void cages without them even realizing it.
The silence at the table was suffocating. The families, who would normally hurl veiled insults at each other, were restless.
Lord Valerion opened his eyes.
The pressure in the room multiplied. Although he was a fallen Emperor, the residue of his former majesty made even Octavian and Morwenna lower their gaze out of instinctive respect.
"I suppose all of you, with your vast and expensive intelligence networks, already know why I pulled you out of your beds this morning," Valerion's voice was harsh, laden with the authority of someone who has seen worlds die.
Kaelen Vulcan slammed his scarred fist on the obsidian table.
"Purple Cloud and Iron Blood have been wiped off the map," Vulcan barked. "The cowards from my merchant guilds don't dare cross the northern routes. Fear is paralyzing the mineral shipments. It's a logistical disaster!"
Lady Seraphine fanned herself slowly, her eyes shining with lethal curiosity above the black feathers.
"Lord Valerion, with all due respect... erasing Sage Ziyun's sect and the Butcher's fortress in a matter of days is not the work of a simple gang of mercenaries. Whoever did this has the power to challenge the status quo of our beautiful Aethelgard. And what's worse, they left no recognizable Qi signatures. They were professionals."
Tyran Corvus let out a deep growl, crossing his massive hairy arms.
"If it's war they seek, let them come! My beasts are thirsty. I'll tear these invisible cowards apart before they touch the city walls!"
"Shut up, you muscle-bound idiot," Morwenna Viridis whispered from behind her green veil, her voice dripping poison. "If they annihilated Lord Volcanis, who was a first-stage Saint King, sending your little birds to die would only serve to stain their shoes with blood. We need to know who they are before we threaten them."
Octavian Aurelia nodded slowly, adjusting the sleeves of his gold tunic.
"Matriarch Viridis is right. The Cosmic Balance is maintained through mutual ignorance or mutual respect. Currently, we lack both regarding this new faction. Lord Valerion, what are your orders?"
Valerion swept his melancholic, grayish gaze over the five leaders.
"My orders are simple. Put aside your petty border squabbles. Stop your corporate assassination attempts for one damn second. I want the Five Families to work together. Open your coffers, mobilize your spies, use your contracts and your beasts. I want to know what happened in the north. Which family moved, which sect has emerged, or if some new force from the Central Continent has come to claim our territory disguised as ghosts. I want names, faces, and martial capabilities before this plague decides that Aethelgard is the next crater on their map."
Valerion slowly stood up, his crimson cape billowing behind him.
"Do it. And do not disappoint me, or the external threat will be the least of your worries."
The five Patriarchs and Matriarchs rose in unison, gave a slight bow, and left the room in complete silence, their minds already weaving a thousand plans, traps, and calculations to ensure the survival (and dominance) of their own bloodlines.
Once the heavy oak doors closed behind the family leaders, the round room was plunged into shadows.
Lord Valerion slumped back onto his throne, rubbing his temples wearily. He didn't trust any of those five opportunists. He knew Octavian would try to make a deal with the assassins to gain power, that Seraphine would try to seduce or manipulate them, and that Tyran would attack them and die uselessly.
The Five Families were blindly ambitious tools. Valerion needed the truth from men who had no political agendas.
"Step out of the shadows, Kaelthor."
The air behind the obsidian pillars distorted. A tall figure, wrapped in worn, dark armor, stepped forward.
It was Grand Marshal Kaelthor "The Broken Sword."
Kaelthor was a Quasi-Saint King. His presence was plagued by a murderous aura hardened in a thousand hells. He was a veteran of the Central Continent war who was missing his left arm (it had been torn clean off thirty years ago, protecting Valerion's desperate retreat when he fell from his Emperor throne). Instead of using a forged prosthesis or trying to regenerate it with alchemy, Kaelthor condensed his pure Qi and Sword Intent into a phantom limb of yellow destructive energy that crackled in the air.
He was Valerion's personal attack dog and most loyal enforcer.
Behind Kaelthor, marching in perfect, rigid synchrony, appeared five massive figures.
They were the 5 Generals, known as "The Blood Pillars." Each and every one of them possessed a suffocating Grand Saint (Stage 5) cultivation. Wearing identical, heavy armor of dark red and shining silver, they operated with strict, fanatical military discipline, in stark and absolute contrast to the chaotic, rebellious mercenaries of the city or the spoiled guards of the families. Their sole purpose in life was to protect Valerion and secretly watch over each of the Five Great Families.
Valerion looked at his brother-in-arms.
"Kaelthor. The families are blind to their own greed. They will color the information to benefit their own interests. I do not trust their intelligence."
The Grand Marshal nodded rigidly. His energy arm hummed with a lethal frequency.
"Understood, My Lord. Do you wish me to mobilize the Blood Pillars to the north?"
"Not to the craters. You will only find dust there," Valerion replied, his gray eyes sharpening like blades. "I want you to infiltrate the Underworld. The Tailor knows something. I've noticed how the flow of assassins in the lower city has drastically decreased in the last twelve hours. They are scared. Find out what information they sold recently and to whom."
Valerion leaned forward, interlacing his fingers.
"If an unknown force has the power to annihilate Volcanis and Ziyun without leaving traces, it means they possess resources and a level of coordination we haven't seen since the Central Continent. Find these ghosts, Kaelthor. Observe their movements. If they are a threat to the Balance, we will have to prepare Aethelgard's defense. But if they are reasonable..."
Valerion left the sentence hanging. Perhaps, if this new force was monstrous enough, he could use them as the sword he needed to claim his thirty-year-old revenge.
"We will not fail, My Lord," Kaelthor said, giving a perfect military bow before melting into the shadows along with his five generals.
The chessboard was set. And the Morningstar Clan, shrouded in blood and mystery, was about to move its next piece.
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