The assassin’s confession settled heavily over the cellar.For a few seconds, Jayden said nothing. The coldness in his face deepened until even the half-conscious assassin stopped breathing loudly, afraid of drawing attention back to himself. Years of questions, anger and unfinished grief had suddenly narrowed into something frighteningly simple.There was proof, this time it wasn't just rumours, Dante’s twisted explanations or memories buried beneath the ruins of House Jian but real proof.Jayden turned and left the cellar without another word.By the time he reached the sitting room, Mira had already put Nia to bed. She looked up the moment she saw him and immediately knew something had changed. There was no wild anger in his expression, but that made it worse. Jayden only became this quiet when his mind had already moved beyond anger and settled on what came next.“What did he say?”Jayden stopped in front of her. “Dante hired them.”Mira’s face hardened, though she had clearly exp

Jayden kept walking through the golden flames as though the burning courtyard belonged to him.That sight finally destroyed what little restraint Asher had left.His ruined face twisted violently, and the unstable Neen inside him surged so hard that the dark veins along his neck became almost black. Everything that had happened since Jayden returned crashed through his mind at once: losing the lordship, being humiliated before Skyreach, getting beaten in front of Mira, and now watching his father’s entire defensive force collapse beneath one technique.He could not accept it, he refused to.With a guttural roar, Asher reached into his sleeve and pulled out a narrow dagger coated in a dark green poison. The weapon had been hidden as a final measure, something meant for an opponent who came too close, and in his maddened state he no longer cared whether the poison killed Jayden slowly or instantly.“I’ll kill you!”He launched himself from the steps.Whatever damage remained in his body

By the following morning, there was hardly a corner of Skyreach where Dante Jian’s death had not become the only subject of conversation. His confession had spread from the Council plaza before the blood on the execution platform had even dried, and copies of the charges were already being posted at major intersections. Officials named in the secret ledger were dragged from their homes before dawn, several old mercenary leaders disappeared from the city entirely, and men who had once laughed at accusations against Dante suddenly appeared at the Council gates carrying documents and begging to testify before someone else named them first. The old political order of Skyreach had been shaken in a single night, and every major family understood the same thing... Jayden Jian had not merely returned to reclaim a title. He had destroyed one of the men who had controlled the city for years and done it publicly, legally, and with enough evidence that no one could challenge the result.House R

Less than half an hour later, twenty elite City Guards assembled outside the administrative compound. Jayden gave them no grand speech. He handed the commander copies of the records, named the twelve guild masters and ordered every warehouse entrance secured before anyone inside could destroy documents or move grain.The force reached the outskirts before midday.From the road, the storage district looked almost abandoned. Several large stone warehouses stood behind high walls, their gates shut and windows covered. There were no merchant signs outside, no workers unloading carts and nothing suggesting enough food to supply half the city was sitting behind those walls.Jayden stopped in front of the largest building.A nervous guard wearing no official crest stepped forward. “Private property. No entry without guild authorisation.”The City Guard commander unfolded a warrant. “By order of the City Lord, this facility is being searched for illegal hoarding and market manipulation.”The

Three days later, the peace that had settled over Skyreach ended with a sound like the heavens splitting apart. A deafening sonic boom rolled across the city just after noon, rattling windows, shaking roof tiles and sending birds exploding from the trees in frightened clouds. Market conversations stopped in the middle of sentences while City Guards instinctively reached for their weapons, and cultivators across the central districts lifted their heads almost at the same moment as an enormous shadow passed over the streets. The clouds above Skyreach parted and a colossal golden airship descended through them. It was nothing like the merchant vessels that occasionally crossed the border provinces. The hull stretched hundreds of feet from bow to stern, plated in polished imperial alloy and decorated with enormous golden wings along both sides. Lines of formation runes glowed beneath its belly, holding the impossible weight in the air while four smaller gunboats flew in formation around