When Libinea declared to the Elders that Raiking was her savior, she didn't just speak the words. She acted on them.
With a brightness in her eyes that defied the somber atmosphere, she grabbed Raiking's arm, pulling him forward to stand beside her before Elder Wenya. It was a gesture of intimacy—a natural, unconscious closeness formed over a thousand years of companionship.
But to the Phoenix Tribe, it looked like a death sentence.
Elder Wenya froze. She looked at Libinea, whose face revealed the enthusiasm of a woman who did not treat the man beside her as a mere bodyguard or servant.
Wenya wasn't the only one to notice this. She glanced around at the assembled Phoenix Kin. The whispers became sharp, the glares turned venomous.
The silence seemed to scream that she was repeating the sin of the Ancestor.
Wenya looked at her husband, Elder Mushai. The patriarch gave a barely perceptible nod.
Acting on the signal, Wenya stepped forward. She smoothly interposed herself between Raiking and Libinea, physically separating the two.
"It seems you have quite the story to share," Wenya said, her voice tight yet courteous. "Come. Let us discuss it inside."
She gestured towards the village center, but notably did not lead them to the Queen's Shrine—the rightful abode of a returning monarch. Instead, she directed them to the Main Hall.
The place of politics. The place of judgment.
Raiking followed, his expression inscrutable. Beside him, Ezmelral walked with a rigid posture, her hand instinctively hovering near her hilt.
"Why are they staring at us like that?" Ezmelral whispered, feeling the weight of countless eyes.
"Because we are outsiders," Raiking replied calmly.
Yet the answer wasn't so straightforward. Raiking's insight went beyond appearances. He could perceive the souls of everyone present. When they first passed through the gate, the tribe felt cautious. But the moment Libinea took his arm? That caution flared into volatile hostility.
"Still," Ezmelral muttered, frowning. "We are her saviors. Shouldn't they show us more hospitality?"
"It seems there is a more intricate history to unravel, Ezmelral," Raiking noted, his eyes scanning the rooftops where archers were quietly taking positions. "For now, we observe. If they compel us to act, then we will."
They walked a short distance further until they reached the Main Hall.
It was a grand structure built from ancient iron-wood, dark and imposing. The exterior was decorated with hanging feathers and bleached beast bones, symbols of the tribe's enduring struggle for survival. Above the entrance, carved directly into the wood where a welcoming plaque might have been, was the image of a fierce Phoenix.
Wenya pushed the heavy doors open.
"Please," she said, though it sounded more like a command than an invitation. "Enter."
The interior of the Main Hall was vast, a cathedral of history carved from the heart of the mountain. The ceiling was a mosaic of swaying feathers, and the flanking walls bore ancient carvings of the Phoenix tongue, lit by floating embers that danced in the air like fireflies.
Everyone took their respective seats, arranging themselves according to an unspoken hierarchy.
On the left row, Libinea took the furthest seat. Next to her sat Raiking, silent and observing. Beside him sat Ezmelral, who was gently rocking Faye—the baby thankfully lulled to sleep by the warmth of the room.
The row on the right remained empty—seats reserved for the other Tribe Chieftains who had yet to arrive.
At the center, on a raised dais, sat the two Elders on twin thrones carved from Sun-Wood.
The silence stretched for a long moment, heavy with a thousand years of questions. Finally, Wenya leaned forward, her eyes searching Libinea's face for the little girl she had lost a millennium ago.
"Tell us," Wenya whispered, her voice trembling. "What happened to you?"
Libinea took a deep breath. She did not hide behind titles or pride. She simply began to speak.
She recounted the nights of the Phoenix Festival a thousand years ago. She spoke of how she would sit in the shrine, listening to the weeping prayers of families who had lost kin to the Divine Hunters. She spoke of the anger that had festered in her heart until she could no longer bear the inaction.
"I made a choice," Libinea said softly. "I slipped out of the Shrine. I ventured to the Divine Realm alone to demand answers for their transgressions."
The Elders listened in stunned silence. They had assumed she was killed when she snuck out. They never imagined she had marched on the Heavens themselves.
"I was naive," Libinea admitted, her voice tightening. "I did not expect them to be so powerful."
She omitted the intervention of the Goddess and the gruesome detail of her wings being torn—there was no need to break Wenya's heart further. Instead, she skipped to the aftermath.
"Defeated and broken, I was transported to the Void Realm. That is where I met him."
She gestured to Raiking.
"He found me in the darkness and healed my wounds."
She then spoke of the day before their departure from the Void. How, just as she had fully recovered, they were ambushed by assassins sent by the Divine Realm to finish the job.
"I killed one," Libinea recounted. "And just as I was about to fight the rest, suddenly..."
She looked at Raiking with undisguised reverence.
"He revealed his true power. He did not fight them; he erased them. In mere seconds, the threat was obliterated."
Elder Mushai's eyes widened. He looked at the man in the black robes, who was currently checking his fingernails for dirt. To annihilate Void Assassins in seconds required power that touched the realm of the Demigods.
Who is this human? Mushai thought, a cold sweat forming on his neck.
"After my recovery," Libinea continued, "Raiking offered me a choice. To re-attempt a futile battle against the Heavens and die a martyr... or to follow him into the unknown to gain the power to ensure they could never challenge us again."
She sat up straighter, her Royal Aura flaring.
"I chose to follow. We built a Sect. Then spent the next one thousand years training in the Void, till finally..."
The temperature in the room skyrocketed. The air shimmered as Libinea released a fraction of her true pressure.
"...I advanced from the early Divine Stage to the Peak of the True Divinity Realm."
Gasp.
"True Divinity..." Mushai whispered. "You have surpassed even the Ancestor."
To reach such a realm was not something one could simply achieve by cultivating. One had to be chosen by the elements themselves. It was a seat reserved only for those destined to have their names written in the stars for all eternity.
It forced them to wonder: If the student is this strong, what is the Master?
Libinea allowed the shock to settle before reaching into her chest. She pulled out the Phoenix Pearl.
It was no longer the pure, glowing orb they remembered. The surface was now etched with complex, glowing golden runic symbols that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"What is wrong with your pearl?!" Elder Mushai demanded, leaning forward in horror. To deface a sacred artifact was blasphemy.
"I returned to the Divine Realm recently," Libinea explained calmly. "I fought the Divine General in charge of the Pearl Harvesting and executed him."
The Elders' horror turned to vindictive pride.
"I then used his blood—the blood of a Peak Divine Stage cultivator—to cast a Grand Bloodline Formation upon the Pearl," Libinea declared. "I have rewritten its nature. The Pearl's Nirvana is now exclusively locked to our biology. No human, no gods, no demon can ever use it again."
A chill swept across the room.
The Elders stared at the glowing orb. They couldn't believe the journey she had been on. That little girl they had raised... she had not only survived, she had solved the crisis that had plagued their species for eons. She had brought them salvation.
"We must inform the others," Wenya exclaimed with delight as she started to stand. "We must celebrate! The Queen has returned and she has brought us freedom!"
Elder Mushai reached out, taking hold of his wife's arm and pulling her back into her seat. His expression was far from joyful; it was ominously serious.
"Mushai?" Wenya asked, confused. "What's wrong?"
"While her accomplishments are indeed worthy of celebration," Mushai said, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper, "we cannot overlook the taboo she has violated."
He gestured toward Libinea's companions.
"By bringing a human here, she hasn't truly saved us, Wenya. She may have placed us in far greater peril than the Divine Pearl Hunters ever could."
He looked Libinea in the eye.
"If the Dragon King learns of this... the Pearls won't matter. Because there won't be a tribe left to use them."