The silence of the Core Hall, broken only by the low pulse of the fortress’s blood heart, was filled by the final echo of Dong Zhen’s words.
Five pairs of eyes were fixed on the chosen leader.
Kyrian picked up the map that Dong Zhen had thrown earlier. He looked at it and engraved it into his mind before Dong Zhen had completely disappeared from his sight. The order had been given. The ti to depart was now.
He turned, his movent fluid and deliberate, breaking the silence and the group’s paralysis. For the first ti since the tournant, Kyrian’s crimsom eyes swept over each of the five disciples, truly observing them.
In front of him stood Bai Zhu, a young man who looked like a human colossus, with broad shoulders that almost tore the seams of his military red robe. His black hair, cut short, looked like steel barbs.
His face, marked by a prominent forehead and a square jaw, was congested with an impotent scowl. His eyes, the color of dirty amber, burned with a certain resentnt, but his fists were clenched at his sides with determination.
Kyrian defined him as brute force personified, strong and stupid. But still soone who would follow the orders of his superiors.
Beside him, Li Fen possessed a faint presence. His jet-black hair, similar to Kyrian’s, fell straight to his shoulders, framing a sharp, pale, almost sickly face.
His features were crisp, almost sharp, and his eyes were extrely dark. No emotion. He seed rely a faint presence, but vigilant and cold.
A step behind, Yan Ling maintained a perfect posture. Her dark brown hair, the color of damp earth, was tied in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her face was serious, with regular and precise features. A functional beauty.
Her eyes were light brown and piercing, never stopping, analyzing Kyrian, then the others, then the hall, then Kyrian again.
She seed to want to say sothing, her fingers interlaced in front of her body.
At her side, Kai seed out of place, like an ordinary man among prodigies. His hair was faded brown and unkempt. A scar crossed his chin, the only distinct mark on an otherwise common, weathered face.
His eyes, a dull gray, observed everything with a hint of weariness. Despite that, he was relaxed, his shoulders slightly slouched.
And finally, i Li. She looked like a crimsom flower in a field of war. Her hair was black with reddish tips that fell in perfect waves over her shoulders.
Her face, among the five, was like a work of art, perfectly symtrical and delicate, with thin lips always curved in a polished smile that never reached her eyes.
Those eyes, a reddish-brown hue, studied Kyrian with interest.
"Prepare everything you need for the journey." Kyrian’s voice cut through the air, clear and flat, leaving zero room for questioning.
It was not a request. But a repetition of Dong Zhen’s orders; now Kyrian possessed new authority, and he would act as such.
"And gather here again in fifteen minutes. Then we depart."
He did not wait for confirmations. He simply turned again, his main branch robes fluttering lightly, and left the hall with firm steps that echoed against the black stone.
The fifteen minutes passed quickly as the five left for their quarters.
Kyrian did little; his possessions were already in his spatial ring. He spent the final minutes in the inner courtyard, looking at the dark clouds surrounding the fortress, feeling the limit of his eyes as a constant marker of ti.
Precisely fifteen minutes later, the six were gathered in the sa place. No delays.
Without a word, Kyrian gestured with his head and led the group toward the stables.
In the enclosure of his black horse, the creature already seed to sense him. Its large, intelligent eyes glead in the dimness, and it stomped a hoof on the ground, looking impatient.
Kyrian approached, running his hand along the beast’s velvety neck.
"I’ll speak with Dong Zhen for you to be my official mount," Kyrian murmured, more to himself than to the animal.
The horse turned its head, its nostrils snorting a cloud of warm vapor into the cold stable air as if saying ’finally.’
"I’ll give you a na." Kyrian paused, his crimsom eyes eting the beast’s deep, black gaze.
"Your na will be... Arcon."
The winged horse neighed, a clear, almost musical sound that echoed off the stone, lifting its head with sudden dignity. It stomped its hoof again, once, an obvious acceptance.
Kyrian mounted it fluidly. When he turned, he saw the other five already atop their mounts.
They were Crimsom War Ravens, majestic and deadly birds twice the size of Kyrian’s horse.
Their feathers were as black as a starless night, with a tallic bluish sheen. Their beaks and talons, however, were the color of coagulated blood. A dark, threatening red.
Beasts at the early stage of the Core Formation realm were granted only to the most promising of the Court, symbols of status.
Each of the beasts seed to reflect its owner. Bai Zhu’s was larger, with an aggressive gaze. Li Fen’s was silent, with smooth movents. Yan Ling’s was alert, with piercing eyes. Kai’s was discreet but bore old battle scars on its claws. i Li appeared graceful, with delicate feathers and a smaller size.
Without a verbal command, just a light press of his heels and a clear intent, Kyrian made Arcon take flight.
The black beast took off with a powerful beat of its wings that kicked dust from the ground. One by one, the five Crimsom War Ravens followed, their hoarse caws forming a sinister chorus that dissipated as they broke into the gray sky above the fortress, passing through the formation barrier with ease.
The journey settled into a moderate rhythm, perfect for long-distance flight.
Kyrian led, a dark silhouette against darker clouds, the map of the Cloud Empire rising in his mind.
He ordered descents every two days in hidden clearings or rocky lake shores.
Then he fed the beasts with spirit stones, Kyrian providing them from his reserves without hesitation; it was an investnt in the mission’s speed.
Conversation among the five floated through the air, projected with threads of Qi to overco the howling wind. They spoke of techniques, of rumors about the empire, and of past auctions. Kyrian remained an island of silence the entire ti, but he was listening, observing, and evaluating, his attention more focused on commanding the path.
It was on the third day, during a particularly foggy morning, that a sensation crystallized in Kyrian’s mind.
A strange weight arose. The unmistakable sensation of a fixed gaze, laden with an attention so intense it crossed kiloters. His soul, now polished and far more sensitive, vibrated in alarm.
"A guardian?" he murmured, his words torn away by the wind.
His head turned, not with a sudden movent that would betray alarm, but slowly as he calculated where the sensation ca from.
His crimsom eyes narrowed, sweeping the blanket of clouds and the empty sky behind them.
And then, he saw it. Not with ordinary eyes like the others, but with his vision that perceived blood flow.
At a distance, that would be an invisible dot to any of the others present, a silhouette. A man wrapped in a cloak of such dark red that it was almost black, forming a flaw in the texture of the sky.
Below him was another flying beast that moved silently like a shadow, a ghost.
Kyrian focused. Blood flow. That was what differentiated Blood Eyes from the rest. And what he saw surprised him. The flow in that man’s body was... minimal. Slow, weak, and ticulously controlled in a state close to hibernation or death.
Kyrian also could not sense his strength. It was a level of bodily and spiritual control that was terrifying. A concealnt technique of the shadow branch taken to its utmost extre.
An almost imperceptible smile touched Kyrian’s lips. Of course. Dong Zhen was no fool. Sending six of the most promising disciples without insurance? That was the guardian. The safety net that would only appear if sothing truly serious happened.
At the exact mont Kyrian’s analysis fixed on him, the silhouette moved its head. Its eyes crossed the distance and t Kyrian’s gaze.
And then, Kyrian noticed it, the guardian’s perfectly controlled blood flow trembled. A tiny vibration of pure surprise.
’He... that little monster sensed . He actually saw .’
Kyrian turned forward again, a cold satisfaction settling in.
"Sothing wrong, leader?" Yan Ling’s voice, clear and projected, reached his ears. She, who watched him more than the others, had noticed his movent.
"Nothing," Kyrian replied without turning.
"Maintain formation. Do not slow the pace."
Bai Zhu, who also glanced back and saw only the vast emptiness, grumbled sothing that was lost to the wind.
...
At the end of the fourth day, Kyrian ordered everyone to land again.
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