[100 Years Later - The Festival Night]
The Festival was approaching its sacred conclusion.
The drums had fallen silent. The dancers had come to a halt. The Phoenix Kin were now kneeling outside the Queen's Shrine, their eyes brimming with anticipation for the Nirvana Ritual.
The silence was profound and reverent.
Until a scream shattered it.
"Help! I need a healer! Please, someone!"
The voice was ragged, fractured by exhaustion and fear.
From the window of her shrine, Libinea observed the serene assembly of her people disrupted by a man stumbling up the stone steps.
She instantly recognized his leather feathered armor. He was a Lieutenant of the Border Patrol.
On his back, he carried the limp body of a Lower-Rank Patroller. The Lieutenant's legs gave way as he reached the plaza, and he collapsed, gently laying the unconscious man onto the cold stone.
"Healer!" the Lieutenant gasped, his chest heaving. "We need a Healer!"
The crowd parted immediately. A woman in white robes rushed forward, her hands already glowing with the soft green light of Restorative Magic. She knelt beside the patient, her eyes scanning his pale, clammy skin.
"What happened?" she demanded, her voice slicing through the murmurs of the crowd.
"We're not sure..." the Lieutenant stammered, wiping sweat from his eyes. "We were patrolling the lower half of the mountain. Suddenly, the Commander ordered us to regroup. When we arrived... we found this man unconscious on the path leading up to the village."
The Healer didn't respond. She commenced her examination without delay.
"It is not mana deficiency," she murmured, placing a hand over his lower abdomen, where the Dantian resided. The energy there was stable, albeit weak.
Her glowing hands moved upward, checking his liver, his lungs, his heart rate. Everything seemed physically intact, yet the man's life force was fading rapidly.
Finally, her hand reached the center of his chest.
She froze.
The green light in her palms flickered and extinguished.
"It can't be..." she whispered, her face losing all color.
"What is it?" the Lieutenant asked, leaning in. "Is it poison?"
The Healer didn't answer him. She looked up, her eyes wide with a terror that went beyond medical concern. She scanned the faces of the gathered Phoenix Kin, searching for an answer she dared not voice aloud.
To reveal this truth to the public would shatter the tribe.
"Summon the Elders," she commanded.
The Lieutenant didn't move right away; instead, he took a moment to study her face, which was marked by a deadly seriousness.
Clearly, something disastrous was unfolding, he thought.
His conclusion was based on years of experience; he had defended the borders, battled demons, and fought mountain beasts. Yet, whenever injuries occurred, the Elders were never called upon.
Calling them now indicated that this was no mere injury. It was a disaster.
He nodded decisively, quickly got to his feet, and raced toward the main hall, leaving the Healer behind to tend to the lifeless remains of what was once a Phoenix.
---
Above the Village - The Veil of Time
High above the village, while the Phoenix Tribe desperately sought to unravel the mystery of the stolen pearl, Raiking, Faye, Ezmelral, and Libinea remained hidden among the clouds. From their vantage point, they observed invisibly as the calamity unfolded below.
"This is where everything went astray," Libinea murmured, her voice resonating with a hollow tone.
"The Pearl Hunters," Raiking affirmed.
This was the root cause, the singular reason Libinea eventually reached her breaking point, leaving the village to pursue vengeance against the Divine Realm. She remembered the powerlessness of this moment all too well, merely nodding solemnly in response to Raiking.
Ezmelral, who had been scrutinizing the tactical configuration of the land below, finally voiced the question that had been troubling her.
"Why didn't the Dragon Clan offer any aid?" she asked. "They are the rulers of the Skyward Region. Surely an intrusion by the Divine Realm challenges their sovereignty?"
"You are overlooking the nature of the adversary," Raiking responded calmly. "The inhabitants of the Divine Realm are not deities by birth. They are humans who have ascended to the Immortal Stage."
The explanation was simple, yet its implications were profoundly insidious.
When the ancient history was pieced together—how the Dragon King had been humiliated by the Ancestral Phoenix, who chose to love a mortal human over him—the layers of strategy began to reveal themselves.
Ezmelral's eyes widened. She surveyed the Five Mountains and the border. As a Spirit Sword who had witnessed countless battlefields, the realization dawned on her.
"The frontline bears the brunt of the enemy," Ezmelral muttered. "The Dragon King didn't just punish the Phoenixes by assigning them to guard the border; he turned them into a human shield."
She gestured toward the geography below.
"If the Human Clan, the Demon Clan, or even the pacifist Dwarven Clan sought to invade the Skyward Region, the first tactical point they would need to seize is these Five Mountains. The Dragon King ensured that if war ever erupted, the Phoenix Tribe would be the first to fall."
It was a brilliant yet ruthless strategy—using the tribe of the woman who rejected him to safeguard the realm he governed.
With that theory solidified, another question formed in Ezmelral's mind.
"Libinea," Ezmelral asked, turning to the Queen. "Did these mountains exist before your exile?"
"No," Libinea replied, shaking her head. "The legends say the border was flatlands until the Decree."
Ezmelral glanced at Raiking, the only one capable of confirming the nature of a Demigod's power.
"Master... The Dragon King is a Demigod. That means he possesses a True Divinity. Is it... Earth Magic?"
Libinea tightened her grip on her fan, the wood creaking under the pressure. She understood precisely what Ezmelral was implying.
"Yes," Raiking confirmed. "He is the Lord of the Earth."
The realization struck Libinea like a physical blow.
If the Dragon King controlled the Earth, then he hadn't merely assigned them to the mountains. He had constructed the mountains.
He crafted a gilded cage, raised it high to isolate them, and then left the door unlocked for the hunters. He knew that the Divine Realm was populated by ascended humans, and he understood that humans had one fatal, unchangeable flaw: Greed.
Even as Immortals, that nature persisted. It was a masterstroke of cruelty—to pit the two races he despised the most against one another, allowing the "Greedy Humans" to hunt the "Traitorous Birds" while he watched from his throne.
WHOOSH.
A burst of azure flames erupted from Libinea's body, instantly vaporizing the clouds around them. Her eyes blazed with terrifying fury.
"So they were the ones who revealed the Pearl's secret to the Divine Realm!?" Libinea hissed, the air around her trembling with heat. "He built the cage, and then he invited the poachers!"
It made perfect, sickening sense. How would the Divine Realm have known about the specific immortality properties of the Phoenix Pearl if someone from the Skyward Region hadn't whispered it to them?
She was about to scream, ready to unleash her fury on the sky, when a hand touched her shoulder.
It was Raiking.
His touch was cool, instantly quelling the flames.
"We are speculating," Raiking said, his voice steady. "And whether it is true or not... anger without the strength to confirm it is a futile endeavor."
Libinea froze.
He was right. The Dragon King was a Demigod. She was at True Divinity. Even if she knew the truth, what could she do? Confront him and demand an apology? She would be crushed, just as she had been a thousand years ago.
It was wiser to channel that anger as fuel rather than let it consume her.
She took a deep breath, forcing the scorching flames to withdraw back into her meridians. She smoothed her robes, regaining the composure of a Queen.
"You are correct," she said calmly, though her eyes remained cold.
She looked back down at the village, where the panic was spreading like wildfire.
"Let us proceed. There is still much to show."
She waved her fan through the air. The scene below blurred. The sun raced across the sky, days turning into years, as time accelerated toward the breaking point.