Meanwhile, the soldiers and cultivators of the Kingdom of Vaelthorn who heard that spiritual stones extracted from Auranveil had successfully been produced came in different ways.Some asked immediately, some waited until someone else had tried them first, and some arrived with skepticism already prepared because they could not believe that something costing that much could provide results worth the price.That skepticism did not last long after the first person tried it.A cultivator at the Star Realm who had been at the upper level of that realm for nearly two years, and who had tried various ordinary spiritual stones without ever managing to close the final gap toward the Sky Realm, walked out of the absorption session differently from the way he had entered. It was not dramatic, nor did he look like someone who had just experienced a great enlightenment, but rather like someone whose meridians had finally found the opening they had been searching for all this time, and no longer n

Lyris did not speak immediately.Her eyes remained on Lein, in a way that showed she was verifying not only his words but also the way they had been spoken.Was there something beneath them?Was there something she needed to take away from their literal meaning before accepting them?But she found nothing.The way Lein had said it was the same as the way he had delivered every other sentence Lyris had heard from him over the past few days. No exaggeration, no ornamentation that made something sound greater than it actually was.He was simply stating what he knew.Lyris took one step toward Lein."Please." Her voice came out in a way that was different from every voice Lyris had ever used in front of anyone in this palace. It was not the voice of a Princess speaking to her ally, nor the voice of a leader expressing a need. It was the voice of someone who was exhausted from carrying something alone and had, for the first time in a very long time, found a reason not to have to carry it a

King Vaelthorn studied his daughter's expression.It did not take long. Even in his condition, having only just awakened from a prolonged slumber, something about the way this man observed the people around him had never completely disappeared, an ability honed until it had become as much a part of him as breathing."Has something bad happened to them?"Lyris did not answer immediately.One breath."It's a very complicated story, Father. Basically, they...""Enough."King Vaelthorn's voice was quiet, but there was something in it that made Lyris stop mid-sentence. Not because she had been ordered to, but because the way he said it conveyed more than any continuation of her sentence could have."You don't need to continue."His eyes turned toward the ceiling, like someone reading something there that no one else could see."I know." His voice grew softer than before. "I know what they're really like. I know what lies beneath everything they've ever shown me." A brief pause. "And I know

Ragnar did not dismount from his horse.His eyes swept across each direction ahead of him. A bustling settlement, houses standing relatively close to one another, and people who had yet to realize that someone at the end of the street, sitting atop a horse, was about to decide the fate of their morning."Bjorn." His gaze settled on the dark-haired man beside him, the one wearing a leather vest. "The row of houses to the east. Destroy the sturdiest-looking ones first. The rest will take care of themselves."Bjorn nodded once. No questions asked."Halvard." He turned to the large man wearing a fur mantle. "There's a horse-drawn cart at the southern end of the road. A merchant with his goods. I can see that everything is arranged very neatly, and it's bothering my eyes."Halvard pulled his hand away from his waist, his weapon already in hand before Ragnar had even finished saying his name."Gunnar. Leif." He turned to the shortest and the oldest among them. "You know what needs to be don

From the dozens of casualties at the beginning, the number had now climbed to nearly a hundred.And this had happened not over the course of minutes, but in an even shorter span of time, because the five people from the Kingdom of Tyranoth did not need much time to produce devastating results.Bjorn had already passed through the eastern row of houses twice.The first time, he destroyed the buildings. The second time, he finished off anyone still trying to stand among the ruins. Not because he had been instructed to do so, but because they were in his path, and he did not deviate from it for anything he considered insignificant.Halvard had moved from the merchant's cart to a storage warehouse, then to a meeting hall at the western end of the street, acting like someone who chose his targets not according to their size or value, but simply according to whatever happened to be in front of him.Gunnar and Leif had already cleared an entire block.What remained of that block was not a dr