Despite every tactic, the Flare Family and Ember Clan were losing ground.
They had rationed reserves. Forged substitutes for embargoed goods. Redirected trade beneath veils of formation ink and illusion glyphs. But their enemies had been watching for weeks.
Just over four months had passed since the first threads of isolation emerged. What began as whispered sanctions had stretched into suffocating silence. The Flare Family had endured, adapted, resisted—but even resilience frays beneath time.
And eventually, the net was found.
Not in a single stroke—but one thread at a time. A seal intercepted. A ghost shipment exposed. A formation array traced backward through a falsified merchant manifest. One by one, their covert lifelines collapsed.
What had been resistance became vulnerability.
The noose tightened.
Resource flow dropped into scarcity. Spirit ink refiners began rationing by the hour. Formation specialists rotated in silence, their tools dulled and their patience worn. Vault arrays flickered. Storage scrolls came back light—sometimes empty.
Several elders within Ember Clan—stalwart cultivators who had remained through cycles of war and peace—chose to exit quietly. Not out of disloyalty, but out of necessity. Their silence echoed the continent's, but with heartbreak instead of strategy.
Inside the Flare compound, divisions widened. Family branches grew sharp with accusation. Family lines became brittle under stress. No one rebelled—not while Simon stood at the helm. But the tension was visible. Palpable. Like spirit fire pressing against the seams of an ancient scroll, threatening to consume the text beneath.
After one last quiet conversation with Riven and Jana, Simon rose. There was nothing left to debate. Only to act.
The world had forced his hand.
Now, they would force a reckoning.
___
The Ember Pearl capital was a mountain city carved into the spine of a celestial fault line—spirit veins braided beneath its surface like bloodlines beneath a throne.
Simon walked through it without flourish. Eventually he made it to the royal palace, looking as grand as ever. his presence also drawn a lot of attention from spies of Stormveil, Verdant Fang and Ironshore Clan.
The outer guards of the palace faltered, formation detection arrays glitched mid-sequence, and by the time the third tier pavilion confirmed his identity, no one dared block his path.
He was escorted, not invited.
The throne room awaited.
It was a space built to intimidate—arches of deep gold, obsidian tiles veined with stormsteel, and pillars etched with ancestral flame glyphs. At the far tier stood three men, the three pilliars of the royal family.
Phillip Ember Pearl, robed in formal imperial weave, wearing concern like a mask.
Paul Ember Pearl, posture coiled, hand never drifting far from his blade.
Jak Ember Pearl, the younger brother of Paul.
His form was carved from flame-hardened discipline. Broad-shouldered, long-limbed, and robed in martial gold trimmed with layered armor segments shaped like coiled dragon bone. His outer shell bore signs of use—not neglect. Across one forearm, a sealed scar pulsed faintly beneath spirit silk.
Hair the color of cooled iron streaked with ember bronze was tied back with a flame-wrought clasp—the Pearl crest divided in thirds. His skin, pale bronze traced with faint storm patterns, shimmered with restraint. And though his qi was contained, the heat around him pulsed faintly—pressure radiating from his core like a forge sealed behind steel.
Jak's eyes told the rest. Burnt gold, quiet, and still—not from peace, but precision. They didn't react to Simon's presence. They measured it. And behind them was the kind of mind that didn't confront weakness with speech. It confronted it with correction.
His posture declared no interest in the throne, only the preservation of its dominance.
Paul stepped first, voice sharp. "You've got some nerve showing up here uninvited. Achieve the Imperial Realm and suddenly you think you can barge into my royal family as if you belong."
Phillip, meanwhile, had been waiting for this moment. For months, the emperor had backed Stormveil, Verdant Fang, and Ironshore—pressuring the Flare Family until they cracked. Until Simon was forced to come begging. Now, with the throne room as stage, everything appeared to be falling into place. Simon would relent. Hand over the cultivation method. Offer up the boy named Jalen.
But plans often burn when pressed too hard.
Simon didn't bow.
Didn't flinch beneath Paul's aura, now rippling outward to crush him.
"What are you after?" he said.
Phillip tilted his head. "Excuse me?"
"Don't play dumb, Phillip. For months, my Flare Family and Ember Clan have been sanctioned into collapse—and you've done nothing. You ignored every plea for intervention. That makes you complicit."
Phillip's voice was composed. "That's a strong accusation."
"It's not an accusation. It's arithmetic. I'm here for clarity."
Phillip folded his hands. "Oh, and what reason would I have to press your family?"
"That's what I came to discover."
Paul stepped forward, cold and direct. "Let's cut the nonsense. You know exactly what we want.
"That boy, Jalen Hewitt, gave you a technique that accelerates cultivation.
Hand it over.
We'll release our grip.
You're strong, sure—but you're only one man. Don't let pride blind you to reality. If you care about your family, then do what's necessary to save them."
Simon shrugged. "What technique?"
Paul scoffed. "You stubborn brat. Hand it over—or watch your family perish."
Simon stepped forward. "You forget a third option."
Paul narrowed his eyes. "And what's that?"
Simon's aura expanded—silent but suffocating. The obsidian tile beneath his boots cracked, a fracture webbing outward like a spider's thread.
"I wipe out the royal family. Starting with you three."
Jak smiled faintly. "With only you? Reaching the peak of the Imperial Realm in such a short time is impressive—but even so, you're still not enough to take on us alone."
Then the throne room doors split under pressure.
Jana Flare entered, robes smoking at the edges, her Early Imperial Realm aura trailing like coiled silk. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
Behind her came Simar Flare—Simon's uncle.
He looked to be in his forties, but no one believed it.
His aura, veiled behind layered flame resonance, carried the weight of centuries. He wore deep crimson robes edged in obsidian flame trim. No armor. No ceremony. Just cloth infused with spirit arrays refined beyond need for glow.
His hair was short—rust-black streaked with dull gold near the temples, residue from recent marrow refinement.
Simar had reached Peak Imperial Realm.
After centuries stuck at the summit of the Moon Realm, he had tried everything to break through. And then—months ago—his nephew brought him an improved version of the Flare family technique.
He broke through in a month to Imperial Realm early stage.
Now, he stood at a level few dared dream of.
He hadn't met Jalen personally. But he had seen the boy with his grandniece. Seen how he cared for her. That alone earned respect.
The moment he entered, the royal brothers tensed. None had expected this.
Phillip exhaled slowly. "So you've come with leverage."
Simon's face remained calm. "No. I came with truth."
"You and those snakes from the top sects have made my family suffer for far too long. It ends today."
Silence followed.
The kind that doesn't ask for negotiation.
The kind that doesn't end with words.
It ends with war.