Southern Sea Sun Palace III

Why were the cults so dangerous in this world? 

Was it because they could lure followers into their grasp with honeyed words and corrupt them from within? Undoubtedly.

Was it because, when joined with the black magic species, they wielded power to rival even the entire world combined? Absolutely.

But what made them truly terrifying was something far simpler—and far more insidious.

They were masters of concealment.

Cults, and the black magic species they often allied with, were unnervingly skilled at suppressing their black mana and blending into the very fabric of society. After undergoing the first body metamorphosis and reaching Ascendant-rank, they became almost undetectable. With no telltale signs to betray them, they could walk among us unnoticed.

That anonymity was their greatest weapon. It made moments like this possible.

A vampire—and not just any vampire, but a son of the Vampire Monarch—stood calmly beside the Lord of the Southern Sea Sun Palace. And behind him loomed another figure: the Cult Leader of the Red Chalice.

Magnus Draykar, the Martial King himself, remained none the wiser. 

Sure, if either of them unleashed their power, even for a moment, Magnus would know. But as long as they withheld themselves, even he was blind to their presence.

The only reason I recognized them was thanks to the novel's illustrations—the fine details of their faces etched into my memory like a curse.

Cassius von Noctis, the Immortal-rank heir of the Vampire Monarch, radiated an unnerving calm as he stood at the Lord's right hand. And just behind him, poised like a dancer in the moments before a performance, was the Crimson Dancer herself: Alyssara Velcroix, Cult Leader of the Red Chalice.

Alyssara Velcroix. Radiant-rank. An utterly insane, unpredictable force of chaos.

And right now, she stood only a few feet away, her presence hidden behind a mask of utter normalcy.

It was enough to make my blood run cold.

Neither of them bothered to conceal their appearances. Why would they? It wouldn't fool someone like Magnus Draykar, and no one else here had the faintest clue what they looked like anyway. Their audacity was almost as unsettling as their presence.

But their lack of disguise confirmed one critical fact. 

'So, the vampires are tied to the Southern Sea Sun Palace,' I thought grimly.

With Alyssara Velcroix and Cassius von Noctis here, the balance of power shifted dramatically—and not in our favor. The opposing force now had the capability to obliterate us entirely, though no one on our side seemed even remotely aware of the danger.

Magnus Draykar was stronger than Alyssara, that much was certain. But he couldn't simply dismiss her as an insect to be crushed. As the most powerful of the current Cult Leaders, she was no pushover. She could hold her ground against him for a time, perhaps even match him blow for blow in a prolonged battle. Of course, Magnus would prevail in the end—he always did—but victory wouldn't come easily.

Cassius, on the other hand, was an enigma. His power was expertly concealed, leaving me guessing at his true strength. Still, I felt confident that Li and Nero would surpass him and the Lord of the Palace in raw ability. That wasn't the issue.

The issue was the sheer number of Ascendant-rankers standing against us.

Two dozen Ascendant-rankers flanked their side, each one a walking catastrophe in their own right. Against them, our ten Ascendant-rankers were outnumbered more than two to one. Beyond that, there was no one else among our group capable of standing against them except for me. The students? Integration-rankers at best. They'd be swept away like leaves in a gale.

The situation was dire, and the implications churned in my mind. None of their Ascendant-rankers were vampires—that much was clear. They made no effort to hide their power, unlike Cassius and Alyssara, who cloaked themselves in a veil of normalcy. 

And the worst part? No one else except me had pieced it together.

"Greetings, Lord of the Southern Sea Sun Palace," Li Zenith said, stepping forward with the easy confidence of a storm ready to break. A tempest of mana rippled from him, sharp and unmistakable, a quiet warning to the opposing force.

The Ascendant-rankers shifted uneasily in response, their disciplined formation betraying faint cracks of tension. But the Lord of the Palace remained impassive, his fiery red eyes fixed firmly on Li, as though trying to gauge the measure of the man standing before him.

"Mount Hua sect," the Lord said at last, his gaze flicking to the plum blossom insignia embroidered into Li's robes.

"Yes," Li replied with a faint smile, "I am the Lightning Dragon, a Master of Mount Hua."

The Lord's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, emotions flickering across them like shadows cast by a flickering flame. Suspicion? Curiosity? Perhaps even a trace of unease.

"I was not aware Mount Hua had grown so strong," the Lord said, his voice carefully measured. But his words carried the weight of something deeper—a quiet disbelief borne of outdated expectations.

And that made sense. The Southern Sea Sun Palace had been absent from the world stage for centuries, retreating into isolation after the chaos wrought by the Heavenly Demon sect. Back then, the Namgung family had been the East's dominant force, and the Wudang sect had held the mantle of the strongest among the great sects. Mount Hua had been formidable, yes, but incomplete—its arts powerful but flawed, its influence diminished in comparison.

But time had worked its quiet revolution.

The rise of the Celestial Blossom Swordsman had transformed Mount Hua, perfecting its once-incomplete Grade 6 art. That single elevation had catapulted the sect to supremacy in the East, especially after the Namgung family lost their own Grade 6 art to the annals of history. Mount Hua now stood unchallenged, and the Southern Sea Sun Palace, still nursing wounds inflicted by the Heavenly Demon, had remained blind to this shift in power.

The Lord's knowledge of Mount Hua was frozen in the past—a past where the current strength of someone like Li Zenith would have been unthinkable.

"Times have changed," Li said smoothly, his faint smile carrying the weight of understated triumph.

"Indeed they have," the Lord replied, his tone neutral, though the shifting light in his eyes betrayed his thoughts. "So tell me—why have you come here?" 

It was a simple question, but the air hung heavy with the tension of unspoken challenges, as if the very island itself waited for the answer.

"Investigation," Li replied, his tone as steady as the mountains his sect called home. "The East has long respected the Southern Sea Sun Palace's wish to remain isolated. But it was the Palace that stepped out of that isolation, spreading its tendrils back into the world. Thus, the East has decided it is time to investigate."

"Investigate?" the Lord repeated, his voice low and cold, the word coiling like a serpent in the air. "And what, pray tell, gives you the belief that you can simply do that?"

Li's smile didn't falter. If anything, it grew sharper, like the edge of a blade unsheathing. "Because the world is no longer as it was. The world may not yet be united, but at the very least, the East is."

The Lord's fiery gaze swept over the gathering, his expression unreadable. "And you brought children?" he asked, the faintest note of derision curling his lips as he looked past the three of them at us. 

"Children more than capable of doing their job," Nero interjected smoothly, his voice carrying the confidence of someone utterly unbothered by the tension.

The Lord's attention shifted, his eyes narrowing slightly as he regarded Nero with new interest. "And you are?"

"Nero Astrellan," he said, inclining his head with a touch of formal politeness. "From the Northern Continent, though you might know me better by my epithet—Constellation Sorcerer."

The words landed with a weight that wasn't entirely due to the title. Nero's presence, understated yet unyielding, seemed to fill the space between them. For a moment, the Lord said nothing, his expression inscrutable, though the flicker in his crimson eyes suggested his feelings towards Nero.

The air between them was taut, like the drawn string of a bow.

Suddenly, Alyssara stepped forward, her movements as fluid and deliberate as a dancer's, and leaned close to the Lord of the Southern Sea Sun Palace. She whispered something, her voice too low to hear but carrying a serpentine weight that seemed to ripple through the air. The Lord didn't flinch or even shift—clearly accustomed to such proximity and her counsel.

After a moment, he straightened, his expression as impassive as ever. "Very well," he said at last. "We will permit your investigation."

His fiery red eyes swept across our group, assessing and calculating. "My name is Daedric Solaryn, Lord of the Southern Sea Sun Palace. This," he gestured with a faint movement of his hand toward the crimson-clad figure beside him, "is Alyssara, my advisor. And the man next to her is Cassius, her disciple."

Cassius inclined his head slightly, his crimson eyes flashing briefly under his dark lashes. He said nothing, but his presence was like a coiled spring—silent, but brimming with tension.

"However," Daedric continued, his voice tightening just enough to hint at steel beneath his calm exterior, "we expect compensation from the East when your investigation inevitably uncovers nothing."

Li inclined his head in a gesture of respect, his expression unruffled. "Such compensation will be provided. I give you my word as a Master of the Mount Hua sect."

I couldn't ignore the unease prickling at the back of my mind. 'What are they planning?' I thought, the wheels in my head spinning faster than I liked.

It was a calculated move, to be sure. Rejecting our request outright would risk revealing too much—after all, the Red Chalice was hiding in plain sight. Allowing the investigation, however, would not only give them time to cover their tracks but also set the stage for something else. Perhaps they intended to orchestrate our failure, to twist this into a demand for resources or reparations, bolstering their strength while we scrambled to make sense of the web they'd spun.