While Daimon’s group, the Skelefiends and the pirates were rushing to get to a place where they could contact their respective allies, back at the Warhammer city, the Trident Marshal as well as the other adults had started to find strange that the participants haven’t started to return yet.
“Senior Vincent… shouldn’t those fellows have started to appear, we are only a few minutes away from the time limit?”, asked the patriarch of the Bamboo Forest sect.
Though he didn’t specifically mention it, he was getting worried about his daughter, since he knows how meticulous she is.
‘That lass doesn’t take any unnecessary risk, that’s why lady Aurora trusted her to be the best friend of the little princess… she would have normally been here at this point’, thought Underwood.
Patriarch Skyfire who was drinking some wine, made some underhanded comments at Underwood.
“Why are you so worried, youngsters must venture to become stronger, it’s no surprise that the Bamboo Forest sect had stagnated, the next generation is bound to lack courage if you overprotect them you know?”.
Underwood softly snorted in response, he might like to maintain peace but he isn’t a pushover, so he answered in kind.
“Says the guy whose son threw a fit at his 18th birthday because he was rejected, if I remember correctly, a certain someone asked for an appointment with Lord Shaman with the excuse of discussing the “future” of the Elemental Sea”.
“What did you say you bastard!”, akin to his name, Skyfire got heated up pretty easily, the wine in his glass evaporated and the glass itself melted as he got up from his chair.
But Underwood didn’t cower, his green hair shone with a dim light and a wood pattern appeared on his arm.
The other people stayed as spectators, unfortunately while usually this would have been treated as just a quarrel and be overlooked, Aurora had started to be worried too, the score of her granddaughter’s team stopped increasing some time ago, in fact a lot of people noticed that the current scores were way different to what they expected.
The only ones whose points were increasing at a regular pace, were the princes teams as well as the one of the young spear from the neo noble faction.
“Lord Vincent, would it be possible to end the event a few minutes earlier, I’m starting to miss that little girl and the difference between the first three places and the others is too big, so I don’t see any point in holding back the results”, said Aurora.𝚘𝐕𝒍xt.𝗇𝓔t
The mother of the crowned princess found the old woman Aurora lovely, since the one holding the first place was none other than her son, that being said the son of the Blackfin Duke and the young spear have been exchanging the first place with him every five minutes or so, so if the competition ended right now, then besides some exceptions like the other participants bringing some alive magic beasts with them, her son will be the winner.
The Trident Marshal raised an eyebrow, it was a bit disrespectful for others to ask his event to be ended sooner,
‘Uncle, I have a bad premonition’, said Annete directly to the Trident Marshal.
Ultimately he accepted, the scores weren’t as high as he expected, specially one among them was too low considering it belonged to that silver haired youth, contrary to his expectations.
‘Were this old man’s senses tricked, or could it be…’.
Vincent cleared his throat to get all the present’s attention, his voice was calm but firm.
“By everyone’s petition I will declare the end of the magic beast hunt of this year, let’s go meet those little friends and welcome the winners”.
Having said that, Vincent tapped his foot on the ground and to his relief, the portal to the Wild Tide Reef properly opened, which made the other patriarchs and high ranked nobles let out a sigh of relief.
“Follow me”.
The crowd went through the portal and a couple of seconds later they arrived at the other side, on top of a small hill, since the currents were about to return, there were small streams that have started to appear on the ground.
As Vincent was about to use his mana sense to look for the closest participants, just to calm the others down, he immediately frowned.
The Trident Marshal’s eyes contracted like needles, the isolation array was perfectly hidden within the one deployed by his family many generations ago, so he couldn’t see the difference as he isn’t a Rune Master.
But what he indeed could feel were the waves in the space appearing above them, all the Stellar ranks gain the capacity to feel the waves in space in different proportions, that doesn’t grant them the ability to travel through it though.
“Mm?”, Aurora was the same, she suddenly raised her head to look above, then without any warning a rain of fire fell from within the sky, right where the Trident Marshal and the others were standing.
“Boooom!”.
A large the explosion didn’t raise any fire, but in exchange a large amount of black smoke filled the whole area.
“Whooooosh!”, with a wave of his hand, the Trident Marshal’s who parried the previous attack with his bare hands dispelled the smoke blocking the sight of his group.
“Hurry up prepare your defenses!”, Vincent might have been taken by surprise, but he is still an experienced war veteran, he immediately organized these nobles and guests in a formation, the weaker people and other high-status nobles like the wives of the king with the exception of Daphne’s mother who was a powerhouse by all means.
The Stellar ranks formed a line in front of everyone else, Vincent, Aurora, the patriarchs of the four elemental sects, the general of the neo noble faction Dominic and the Blackfin Minister were forming a solid wall.
At the sides the Half Stellar ranks conformed the flanks, included but not limited to, Annete, the Valas Duchess and a couple of clan heads from the noble families as well as the vice-captains of the royal guard who always followed the king and his wives.
Speaking of the king, Triten was Livid, he was attacked in his own kingdom, and though he was weaker than Vincent, he could still feel some space waves, meaning the enemy was about to make their entrance.
“Lady Delphini, as the queen you are not supposed to be in the frontline, how about you stay with us in the center?”, asked the mother of the twin princes from the Keran family.
The king looked at his wife from the corner of his eyes and gave her thumbs up in his mind, unfortunately Annete’s answer wasn’t what he expected.
“I appreciate Lady Norma’s intentions, but I refuse, spears in the daylight are easy for me to deal with”, said Annete with a slightly cold but playful voice.
The high ranked nobles would have normally found joy in the sharp tongue of the queen, in a single sentence, she disrespected the wife of the king directly calling her by her name, and also referred to her as a backstabber without directly saying it.
Of course, it’s not like Annete simply verbally attacked her without any reason, in terms of rank the twin princes are the youngest and practically have no chance of inheriting the throne, so their mother has been looking for a way to get them Archduke titles, for when the crown prince ascends, they would have enough authority to be on par with him, with a few exceptions that are exclusive to the king.
But for that, she needs the approval not only of the king, but the recommendation of a current Archduke and… the approval of the queen too, so she’s been doing everything to please the king which include trying to act as a bridge between Triten and Annete, the Archduke’s recommendation is more on the monetary/achievements side, so the hardest nut to crack was the queen.
‘Arrogant bitch… just you wait’, thought Norma with a bitter expression as she said.
“I see, certainly the queen is formidable considering her connections with the army, I leave my safety in your hands”.
Annete unnoticeably snorted as she called one of the two royal guards.
“You, take this flank, I need to talk with the Trident Marshal”.
The royal guard frowned, he was trained to obey the king and his wives exclusively, the queen’s authority was indeed at the same level as the king, but he didn’t owe her his loyalty.
“Do it”, Triten graciously lent Annete a hand in this matter, making the royal guard nod.
“Understood”.
Annete didn’t even wait for the previous to happen, by the time Triten showed his “support”, she was already standing at the side of the Trident Marshal.
“Uncle, I can count ten… how many are there and who is the one behind all this?”, she asked in a low voice.
Though calm, Vincent was inwardly really angry right now, someone corrupted the barrier array of one of the legacies of his family, and the ones in Neptune with that kind of ability could be counted with the fingers of a hand, now the ones who could do it without him noticing were even more limited, accounting to only two people.
One of them wasn’t an option due to an agreement reached a few thousands of years ago, in one of the many battles that made his name reverberate through Neptune, so the only other option is, one of the most despicable persons that has ever existed in the Maelstrom Sea.
“The space here isn’t too stable, due to the mix of the mana from the four seas, so the limit is about fifteen, the problem is the old bastard who opened this breach… Black Beard Commodore, but he isn’t alone, just one Stellar rank isn’t enough to force so many portals here”.
Aurora heard Vincent’s words and she frowned, but she didn’t wait for anything else to happen, she clapped her hands together in front of her and tried to summon the de-attachable part of the Flying Citadel, the legacy treasure of her family, just to realize it was taking more than normal.
“Humph, break for me”, with a soft snort, a breach on the isolation formation opened and the platform in which the people from the Elemental Sea descended appeared above all the present people.
With a snap of Aurora’s fingers, the platform lit up in white light and a transparent cube as projected around them, then they ascended into the sky where the biggest space waves were appearing.
Just in time for the space waves to finish their job, as a series of portals appeared in front of them, from which war ships came, there were two themes, the ones on the left half were made out of black wood, lead by an old eerie black ship, the ones of the right half were completely white made out of bones, lead by a creepy ship which was created using a couple of magic beast’s carcasses.
The sound of steps came from the black warship as a tall man in his early thirties came from the captain’s cabin of the ship.
“Yo, what a sight to behold, the mighty Trident Marshal and the Matriarch of the Light Palace waiting for my great self to appear, isn’t it funny Claw?”.
A hoarse voice could be heard from the carcass ship as a three-meter tall, mummified guy came out of a red sack, it was different to any of the Skelefiends Daimon has ever seen, he had skin and “flesh” but it was stuck to his bones, unlike other Skelefiends it wasn’t just a cover, but a part of his real body now.
“Stop it Commodore we aren’t here to play, also my name is Horrorclaw”, said the mummified Skelefiend.
Vincent and Aurora nodded at each other, they took a few steps ahead of the rest and left the protection of the Flying Citadel platform.
The pirate and the Skelefiend did the same and the four of them found face to face with only a couple of meters of distance between each other.
“We haven’t attacked neither of you, the treatment stands for the rest of this year at least”, said Vincent.
Black Beard laughed in response before saying.
“You should have read the small letters old bastard, the treatment was nullified from the moment events such as the Trident of promise breaking happened, not to mention I only accepted not directly attacking the ships from your forces”.
Aurora snorted.
“So, what do you want here?”, she added.
“Now that is the correct question, I need to borrow your granddaughter for a bit”, said Horroclaw with a sinister smile.
The formerly calm and gentle aura that surrounded Aurora disappeared before the pirate could finish his sentence, in exchange the air started trembling as white sparks leaked out of Aurora’s body.
“If you want to die, just say so, why beat around the bush”, said the old woman whose body was radiating heat right now.
Horrorclaw snorted as he used some acid mana to protect himself from Aurora’s mana, then Black Beard’s annoying voice drew all the present’s attention.
“Don’t be so grumpy, I would hate to have to order my subordinates to punish the princesses because of you bad attitude”.
This time it was Vincent whose mana exploded out of his body, the clouds blackened and wind gusts started blowing around him.
“What did you say bastard!”, he yelled.
Black Beard’s face twisted as he pointed at his eye patch.
“Do you remember this, I told you you’ll pay with flesh and blood for my eye, and if I remember correctly don’t you treat the little Delphini sister as your niece, two birds one stone, don’t you agree?”.
“Boooom!”, the auras of the four Stellar ranks exploded at the same time, forcing both the lead ships and the platform backwards, the tension was palpable and the smell of powder floated in the air.
The other ships aimed their cannons at the nobles and people from the Elemental Sea, while the latter took out their respective weapons and started casting their spells, at the slight sign of anyone interfering hell would rain down on both groups.
Without them noticing a few kilometers away, the ground started trembling as if something was about to burst out of it, at the same time a large wave appeared on the horizon, as the four currents were returning to the reef.