The crew stood frozen at the rails, wide-eyed, wind whipping at their cloaks and hair. Not a word. Just awe. The cloud rising in the distance glowed like a second sun.
I had spiked a divine-level energy sphere into the ocean. And then, as if that wasn't enough—I'd fired a light-beam through a skyscraper-sized desert worm and walked away with its vital essence feeding my bloodline power. "What… what even was that move?" one crewman whispered. "Did he speak Beast Tongue just now? What tier is he even on?!"
Hammerhead blinked and leaned forward, scarred arms folded across the railing. " What did he say again? '' Xun'dral ? ''" Hammerhead murmured to himself. Marla stood with arms folded, eyes slitted behind her green veil, hovering a foot above the deck. Her snakes were still. "Let him cultivate," she had said with a knowing grin, but behind that cool smirk, even she was stunned. Ash's bloodline hadn't just reacted—it had revealed something. Something even she hadn't sensed in their months together. Something primordial.
I approached the fallen titan, Felicity shimmered in the blood vessels of my former wound, softly chuckling while she knitted my flesh from deep within. The smoke cleared like mourning veils lifting. I hovered above the cratered dunes, golden qi trailing behind me in ragged wisps. The worm's collapsed corpse stretched like a fallen mountain.
I floated down, my bare feet kicking sand as I approached the creature's cracked, still-glowing core. And then—I froze. Someone was there. Perched casually on a boulder of shattered quartz and bone—a woman. No—not just a woman. A presence. She looked like a dream. She wore white silks and a silver diadem; her hair was blonde and fine as star-thread. Her skin glowed faintly in the moonlight.
No sand touched her robe. No blood had the nerve to stain her. Aquamarine eyes of lunatic clarity regarded me—not with malice, but with an expression that was far, far deeper than mere curiosity. Her aura was mysterious and hard to define.
I stopped walking. My body still throbbed with battle high. "Wait...did you see all of that?" I asked, voice quiet. She smiled slightly. Then—a flicker of surprise crossed her perfect face. Her turquoise eyes narrowed, scanning me again. "This boy his aura" She thought to herself as a memory from long ago began to materialize in the Moon Seraphs mind. A silhouette from long ago…
Armor of howling bronze. Eyes like setting suns. Laughter before battle. War-songs over burning skies. The Moon Seraph inhaled sharply.
"No… it cannot be."
I tilted my head. "Who are you?"
But she said nothing. She just studied me in silence. And in her mind, a single name echoed from the archives of her divine memory. "Descendant… of Rhaedon the Unbound. The War King of the Ten Heavens."
But she didn't say it aloud. The Moon Seraph smiled faintly and stood, brushing her hair back from her Asymmetrical face. Her gaze drifted skyward—toward the pale, cratered moon, her silver dominion. "You have grown strong, warrior. But strength… invites danger."
Her voice was soft, yet it carried a message. A breeze lifted her silken hair as she tilted her head slightly, as if listening to some distant, divine whisper.
"I wonder…what will you do with all of your strength?"
She turned, walking across the sand as if the dunes parted for her.
"We will meet again."
And with that, her body dissolved into star light—rising skyward and vanishing into the clouds as quickly as she'd arrived.
I stared after her, heart still pounding, mind spinning. Behind me, the worm steamed. The world was quiet once more. But above, the moon was watching. I had barely blinked, and the woman was gone. As far as I was concerned it had been some kind of bizarre desert apparition.
I stood there for a breath—scorched sand swirling around my feet, the desert quiet again except for the distant groan of the worm's cooling corpse.
Then I looked up.
High above, the Star bite hovered like a floating palace, its wind tree gleaming in the moonlight. The ship had stopped moving, hovering three thousand feet above the impact site, waiting for its monster-slayer to return. I cracked my neck.
"Well," I muttered to myself, "Looks like I'm walking."
I circulated tempest breath and took off. At first, it was just a run, but I decided to test my bodies newfound strength. at 300 miles per hour, the desert terrain around me blurred. I had speed induced tunnel vision, guided by my new raptor speed circuits. Each step shattered dunes, kicked up shockwaves, left behind molten footprints that hissed into glass. I easily bounded over canyons and spun through sandstone arches.
My laughter echoed across the desert as lizards fled in terror. I took a small leap testing thing's out—thirty feet. Then again—seventy-five feet roughly. Then again—two hundred feet. And Again— five hundred feet.
And then circulating tempest breath and the cloud step technique, I slammed both feet into the ground like a spring-loaded meteor.
The earth cracked!
A pulse of force exploded outward! And I launched skyward—a single god-tier leap that carried me fifteen hundred feet into the air. Wind howled around me! The stars spun.
Then—FWUMP!
I activated my azure flight feathers! They flared to life, shimmering with compressed wind essence. They bent the jet streams, folded the sky, and shot me forward like a raptor chasing lightning. Within seconds, I was level with the Star bite. Marla was leaning over the railing with Faeluxe, Hammerhead, and the rest of the crew, casually sipping tea. I glided in and landed in a crouch, exhaling tempest mist from my nose as my feathers along my arms and shoulders settled down.
"Sorry I'm late," I said, brushing sand from my shoulders. "Got into a conversation." Faeluxe blinked. "With what? The desert?" "Something like that." Marla didn't speak. She just smirked—she'd seen it all. The crew burst into cheers. I rubbed my growling belly.
"I'm starving." I headed below deck to the galley to see what they had. Three days remained before the Meeting of the Thousand Clans.
Plenty of time…
For one more breakthrough.