When the Skyshark came to a stop up in the sky, Leinor infused it with enough energy that it would stay there for a few hours. They left it quickly, out of sight of prying eyes, and continued on foot towards the city.

  "Put up your hoods; the silver hair of yours is telling, same for your blond crown, LeiLei." Ren giggled, pulling up hers while they arrived at the city gates.

  The city of Famra was built in the middle of the Empire, next to a few hundred-kilometer-long mountain range, right at its starting point. The city's origin was simple: around 700 years ago, gold and silver were discovered in a cave opened by an earthquake. The news spread quickly, telling the people where the spot was where riches could be made, and people flocked to it in an instant. But... nothing sts forever, and by now, the city itself was only half of its original size, as most of the mining had ended, and what could be excavated had been dug out. It left behind a dwindling popution and a city that slowly degraded over the centuries. The ruling family, namely the Doxon family, still tried to cling to the old ways, hoping to find a new vein in the now byrinth-like tunnels inside the mountain. Those tunnels were going who knows how far and how deep, housing maybe thousands of lost spirits, homeless people, or the scum of the earth hiding in the darkness.

  The current leader of the family, Gorgan Doxon, was someone at the 9th Body Refinement realm. He held the family's head position and, with that, the City Lord's seat for exactly the past 99 years. He made it his mission to improve their and the city's status at all costs. In the previous 50 years, he managed to achieve something no one had done in the city for more than 300 years: improve everyone's lives.

  As for Gorgan, he himself looked like any other middle-aged man who could vanish in a sea of people if he wanted. His features were what the dictionary depicted next to the word 'average'. Average in height and physique, with short bck hair and brown eyes. Yet, sitting on the City Lord's chair, he was seen by the family as a potential savior, and maybe the only chance to return the city to glory and prevent it from falling into ruin.

  It wasn't an easy mission, as Famra has already been the pce of extreme poverty and crime in the past two centuries. If it was not stopped, the end was coming for them sooner or ter. Since he became the City Lord, a steady stream of deals has been reached, revitalizing Famra's dying economy and setting it on the right track, while he also made sure to crack down on crime as hard as he could.

  “This freaking headache… won’t go away…” Gorgan grumbled as he sat before a giant, tinted window, sitting behind a huge desk. It was filled with documents, almost giving out under their weight, as he had been working since dawn, going through the new city budget for the next month.

  Just around a day ago, he felt dizzy and even bcked out once, and others found him on the floor of his office, causing a little panic in the City Hall. Since then, he felt a throbbing headache, and even as his people told him to take it easy, too much work needed to be done for him to consider resting.

  "Let me finish this, and maybe I'll take the rest of the day off…" Gorgan moaned, rubbing his eyes, flipping over another stack of papers, and going through some inventory when his brows started to furrow. "What… how?"

  Checking again and again, it was still… correct. He finally called up one of his clerks, and when confirming with him, too, that the thing on the paper was real, he leaned back, confused.

  "City Lord… you should really rest!" the clerk answered, who was a thin young man named Jelt, only in his twenties. He was a sharp-minded official from a low background, working his way up the dder in the past years. He earned his pce through his wit and hardworking attitude, and at that moment, he served as one of Gorgan's personal clerks. He wore a worried expression, checking out his Lord again and again. "You are overworking yourself, Sir. You don't even remember what brought us this profit! That is not good; please, take care of yourself. You are our brightest hope!"

  "I will; I may really need to rest a little more… go, go, for now, Jelt, and thank you for your work." He sent him away, looking at the numbers that showed their gold reserves. He did not remember where they came from, yet here they were. The documents stated they were from the mines. A lucky strike at precious ores and from successful trade agreements… Yet he remembered none of that… but his signatures were clearly on all of it, and as he checked back year after year, he became even more perplexed. A simir influx of gold appeared like a yearly payment coming from the Gods, as he had no recollection of them. None at all.

  He was almost convinced that fainting the other day was the cause of his confusion when the door opened to his office.

  "I told you, I am fine-" he answered reflexively, but it was not Jelt who was coming back or any other underlings coming in to check on him. Instead, it was four hooded figures. "Who are you people?" He stood right up, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

  "Is it him?" Leinor asked, watching Gorgan from under his hood as he released his aura, sealing the room completely from the outside world.

  "No," Ren answered calmly.

  "Master," 01 whispered, "you feel it too, don't you?"

  "Mm." Ren nodded. "We are te. He has been wiped!" she sighed, admiring the quickness of her maternal side of her family.

  "Wiped?" asked not just Leinor but Gorgan too at the same time.

  "His presence still has some lingering feeling of someone else. Someone way stronger than he is because he is still alive and fine and not a broken mess on the floor." 02 expined.

  "Yes." 01 nodded. "It was the work of someone proficient in using their eyes. Meaning... it must be a cultivator from the main family, with a pure ancestry."

  "Let me check." Ren stepped forward, and before Gorgan could scream or escape, she was already before him, pushing him back to his chair and pcing her hand on his head. The next moment, Gorgan only saw glowing, violet eyes looking into his, taking over his mind in a fsh. As it assaulted his consciousness, searing pain flowed through every fiber of his body, making his nose bleed before passing out. When Ren let go of him, she just shook her head while Gorgan spasmed in his chair.

  "Gone." Ren bit into the end of her thumb. "No memories remain that could link him to anybody! I can't recover anything, only those thoughts and feelings that are prevalent here." She looked towards the city from the tinted window. "Like bming the Empire for the city's and his family's decline."

  "No wonder he has worked with an outside force, fanning the fmes," Leinor spoke, reading the papers on the desk and going through them while Ren had examined Gorgan. "What should we do?"

  "This is a problem…" Ren sighed as she walked to the tinted window, watching the mountain range. "This must mean the other names we got may already be dealt with. Even if we capture them, we may not gain anything." She added as she clicked her tongue. "I need to change my approach."

  "You have an idea?" Leinor asked as he walked next to her.

  "Yes. Lucky for us, we still have some prisoners back at the Sect."

  "Are you going to use them?" 01 asked with a surprised voice.

  "Is there a problem?" Ren turned towards him questioningly.

  "Not with the two women. But the one named Batku is useless." 01 continued quickly. "After learning all of his tribesmen were killed, he broke down and had no will to live. He is unresponsive to any stimuli."

  "Two is enough. LeiLei, heal him." Ren sighed, shaking her head.

  "Are you sure?" He asked, looking back at Gorgan's body, foaming a little from the mouth.

  "Yeah." Ren nodded. "We'll report this to Feynor; let him deal with it! We shouldn't intervene too much in the Empire's politics and problems, not until we are asked to do so. We are now Sect members and not part of the Empire."

  Leinor just nodded in the end, pcing his hand on the fainted Gorgan's head, healing him before they left, unnoticed, just as they had arrived.

  It was hours ter when Jelt came in, checking on Gorgat, finding the still-fainted man with dried blood on his face. After the initial panic, he arrived next to him and checked him carefully... Still, when he felt the remaining, lingering trace of Ren's energy around him, the clerk's eye suddenly turned violet... Then... His hair turned silvery, looking a little dazed before he regained his composure. His mortal aura from before was completely gone, repced by something much, much stronger, rivaling Xendar's aura… and it was still climbing.

  "Oh… what a surprise, that something brings me out of my self-hypnotism. Mmm… self-cultivated, huh? Different from how the family uses it… still, it has a ton of simirities… yet a different approach. Crude and violent… mixed with lightning. Ohh, how barbaric! Ahaha~!" He giggled like a child, holding Gorgan's face with a gentle yet weird smile. As he was inspecting his mind, Jelt's grin became more and more weird. "I must report this back soon... See? Leaving you alive did bring forward a decent surprise!" He chuckled, patting his face while Gorgan was still out cold.

  After writing down his report, which, if others were to read, just seemed like an order for supplies, he sealed it up and stamped it with Gorgan's crest. Soon, it would be sent to their other secret fronts in the region, along with dozens of other letters that would leave the City Hall daily. When finished, he transformed himself back into the image of a mortal clerk, forcing his mind to behave and believe everything once again until the next trigger would wake him up. Just as he did, once again, real panic took over him, finding Gorgan in such bad shape. It made him run for help, and nobody, not even himself, would ever know he was an agent pnted here...

  …….…..

  While this was going on in the Empire, on the other side, far away, in Elroth's territory, Lulu was visiting one of her favorite restaurants. She always frequented it when she was a little girl. Only this time, she had to order and pay for another round of delicacy after delicacy was pced before the gluttonous Kyu.

  "This is great! Kyu likes it! Another one!" She ughed, emptying a bowl, while a crowd gathered around their tables, watching and even cheering the chubby little girl to eat more. Of course, she just threw the bowl onto the others she already licked clean, towering almost as high as a grown man.

  "It's enough, no?" Lulu moaned, feeling like she was about to cry, as all of her savings were used up already.

  "No! You made Kyu wait!" She puffed out her cheeks.

  "Then the news was right, it was really you." Suddenly, a familiar voice interrupted Lulu as Werebor appeared, immediately parting the crowd, who dared not look at him. For civilians, it was rare to meet with someone from a Royal family, and it happened right here, just now...

  "I knew one of you would show up. Honestly, I expected one of my brothers, not you..." Lulu sighed, ignoring him. She had just bought another bowl of spicy chicken soup for Kyu, who was happily cpping and receiving it, only focusing on eating.

  "You never visited in the past years, and if not for others, I wouldn't know you are back. Receiving only letters is not the same thing as seeing your daughter!" Her father sighed, walking up to the table and sitting down.

  "Who 'dis?" Kyu asked, her mouth full of pasta, slurping it out from the soup.

  "My father," Lulu replied, inclining her head.

  "Oh… food is Kyu's! You get none!" She said quickly, pulling the other, still waiting to be eaten, hot dishes closer to herself, continuing to gobble them down hurriedly.

  “I-in… interesting little fellow…” Werebor twitched his mouth, feeling the strange aura from Kyu, realizing quickly she was not human.

  "Yeah, I lost a bet, so I am her servant for a day. Why are you here?" Lulu grumbled, gncing at her father with one eye.

  "Can't I just come up to my daughter and say hello after not seeing her for 6 years?"

  "It is not like you." She smiled at him for a brief moment.

  "Haahh… Why not come back to my pce for now?"

  "Is there good food?" Kyu's ears immediately perked up at his words.

  "Many," Werebor answered before Lulu could.

  "Yey! Go!" She ughed, gulping down everything like an endless sinkhole, even eating the tableware, before burping loudly, spitting them back up onto the table in a clean, spotless form.

  "Damn…" Lulu and Werebore said it at the same time, echoed by the, until now, deadly silent crowd.

  "Kyu, we should-" Lulu tried to regain her composure and reason with her, yet Kyu immediately shut her down.

  "Kyu wants to taste more tasty things! Let's go!" She jumped up from her chair.

  "You always knew how to gain an advantage, huh?" Lulu asked, looking at her father with snted eyes.

  "Don't bme me, I am your father… Come, let's catch up a little." Werebor added as he smiled, standing up, and was soon followed by a happily humming Kyu and a suspicious Lulu.