Leonid evaporated from where he stood with a gust of hurricane wind, one that shocked many of those who passed near us, as their hair and clothes were sharply blown in the other direction.

Though, due to the constant looming of thunderheads above, they didn't bother much about the sudden tempest beyond a casual exclaim and a muttered prediction of the coming of a particularly frigid storm tonight.

Meanwhile we, still dressed and hooded in our disguising garbs, quickly clutched a handful of mud from the ground and smeared it haphazardly across our wear, before we then swiftly made our way to the city gates, abandoning both our previous identity of novice merchants and our goods ladened wagon, instead taking on the impression of a gaggle of downtrodden vagrants, people the city guard were more than glad to see going.

Thus, we manged to slip by with even less detection than if we were just ordinary traders, while simultaneously ridding ourselves from the added weight of the now useless wagon.

We then quickly veered off to the southern stretch of the city's wall, where the mighty grey stone palisades press against a small grove of trees, allowing proper cover for us to await my Deathless Champion.

Which is exactly when Horus took the chance to ask in a grim tone of voice "A third raid, sire?"

"No." I answered, my voice a hair raising fusion of dour sternness and cold-hearted calculations, that all but injected the surrounding air with a suffocating chill, before I then recounted for verbatim the letter's simple phrase of seven, silencing words "Murathicus military activity has been winding down."

Only a few of the junior members of our retinue, ever so slightly tilted their heads in bafflement at my words, blinking bewilderedly their innocent eyes at me, as their unstained hands daftly clung to their sides, while their pure minds thought to question the functionality of their ears, having neither yet seen, conceived, nor bathed in enough barbarous conflicts or diplomatic discourses to fully understand the sheer extent of the implications of my age shifting words.

Meanwhile all the rest of them, even the relatively still green horned, Horus and Yara, grew as silent as graves, their minds a shifting storm of a shattered mess, cluttered with the washed up wreckage of preconceived notions and the future intimations it could imply.

This silence was only then broken, by the utterance of this newfound fact and future by nonother than the proud tongue of Eve, as she coldly stated "The Murathicus civil war is coming to an end."

As though her words gave both life and clarity to their most horrid thoughts, thus by making it a visceral reality before them, forced to face it head on, they were all then finally compelled to awaken from their trance, as Horus exclaimed with a voice laced in utter indignant shock "How?!"

A question I did not answer aloud, but privately had to admit to myself with a simple 'I don't know.'

'Could those gnats of Rathunas have already managed to unite the many divided and unyielding patriarchs and tribes under their banner? Did another clan, one whom I am not familiar with in my memories, and thus had no precautions against, manage to beat and replace the house of the God of Prosperity in forming the fifth great Empire? Or did they simply stop warring in fear of my growing armies in the north? Did the looming threat of my power crashing down upon them when they're at their weakest wake them from their foolish, self destructive, familicide induced trance and they somehow managed to forge a clandestine agreement to deal with the outsider first, before then dealing with their internal matters in private? And if that is true, then were those raids previously truly only the product of a desperate rogue general, or were they the initial probing attacks of the forming alliance?!' Theory after theory raced through my mind, each one growing more extreme than the last, yet it was all beginning to prove to be an exercise in fatuous thought, as nothing could be proven for the moment, and the anchor of my thoughts was quickly shifting from known reality to rough estimation, conjecture, superstition and pure paranoia.

"What do you plan to do?" It was then Eve once again, who broke me free of my spiralling thoughts, as she asked me with a sombre tone, as she came to stand by my side.

But I didn't reply, for I had no words to offer her at the moment, something she understood and then acknowledged with the slightest of nods, appreciating my honest silence more than some boastful words of hollow confidence.

And so we all remained, with the sounds of rustling trees, chirping birds and cawing crows interlacing dominantly with the ear scratching flapping and buzzing of insects, whose sounds boomed in the oppressive silence that now haunted us, while our minds ran amok with similar thoughts, as we all awaited Leonid's return with baited breaths.

Yet once reunited a few moments later, we again resumed our march from the city, making sure to remain as invisible and unrememberable as possible, until we finally distanced ourselves enough from the sprawling metropolis, which is when we unabashedly unleashed our powers, and began to fly across the well paved grey roads of the Astrapi Kingdom.

Our first priority was to regroup with the rest of our imperial delegation, but in lieu of them having more than a days lead on us, we ruthlessly pushed our bodies to the brink, relinquishing all rests and pauses, even abandoning those of lesser strength when they couldn't keep up, as I determined it necessary to advance at the speed of my middle ranked Palace Guards, which were at the fifth level of martial arts.

Those who fell behind were left with the command to catch up with us later.

But of course there were two who were incapable of keeping up with our mad pace, that I would never deem appropriate to simply leave behind, and those two were Eve and Yara, as they both only possessed the power of someone around the rank of a second martial artist.

So without hesitation I had commanded for one of the female Shade Corps members to carry Yara, something that wouldn't even inconvenience the fifth ranked assassin, meanwhile my ever proud Eve, refused such an offer, and simply took shelter within my shadow, allowing her to remain with us with little effort.

And so, with the usage of all these measures, we were able to bridge the gap of more than a day's head start with the rest of our delegation in less than half the duration, having reached them by the time the sun had barely crested past it's zenith; wherein we promptly explained the situation to my utterly flabbergasted brothers, and a supremely grim Darius, who instantly understood that something had gone terribly array, when the report of the accompanying Chimera Knights told him of our spotting a mere hour before.

Knowing that time was of the greatest essence, we confiscated a dozen chimeras from the knights, and took flight at once, our heading unchanged, only now our numbers were again replenished by the joining of Darius, of course, but with the surprising addition of my brothers as well, who demanded I allow them to follow me too.

Something I accepted without much hassle.

Now it ordinarily requires a full month to complete the trek from the Astrapi Kingdom heartlands to my own lands, but I was determined to slash that period by more than two thirds, and conclude the same journey in a mere ten days.

Something we did by riding hard across the celestial canopy without a single pause, and chimeras were fast and nimble creatures by nature, we crossed through ordinarily difficult terrain with the ease of a sweeping tempest, affording us a pace that was not much faster if we continued running at our previous pace of a fifth rank martial artist, while sparing us the exhaustion of it.

Yet like any beast, the chimeras too would eventually tire, which they did on the third day, as their wings finally could no longer beat against the winds, landing us with an exhausted gait upon the ground.

Though exhausted, the beasts had still done us a great service, as they delivered us beyond the borders of the Strom King's domain and a mere few leagues from the barracks fortress of the Fourth Army, where we'd briefly met Hasdrubal before continuing our voyage north a mere month and a half ago by now.

So without any further ado, we rushed to our next milestone, where after days of restless hurrying, I finally allowed my followers an hour's respite, something those like my brothers, Yara and even my Eve desperately needed by now.

"My liege! What happened?!" A worried Hasdrubal then arrived before us, his eyes almost bulging in disbelief as he beheld our sorry states, undoubtedly thinking that we were somehow assaulted on the road by a terrible enemy that left us with no choice but to flee in such a horrid manner.

And so I wasted no time in clearing his misunderstanding, before ending my words with a solemn command "Go and make whatever preparations you need, you depart with us in an hour."

"By your command, sire." Hasdrubal saluted, as he blitzed away from me with a crackle of black lightning like aura, planning to transfer his duties to his aids, and ready his arms and armour for the coming fight.

And though it was slightly risky of me to leave the northern border without it's highest commanding general and barren of any truly high ranked martial artists that could quickly halt a sudden tide of war from the north, I believed it a calculated gamble of meagre worry, as the only power which could threaten our northern border will be too preoccupied with the western nations in the coming few years, and I had a sinking suspicion that I would need every skilled blade I have in this coming challenge in the south.

An hour later, we were again on the move, like a pack of dust devils we glided through the desert dunes, making our way down the road that would lead us directly to the capital, yet we had no intention of actually stopping there, as once we were within eyesight of the ancient city, I fought the whooshing sound of the winds and called out while empowering my words "Darius. Isaac." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Sire." The two responded back with frightening vigour, despite the slight tiredness beginning to take it's toll around their eyes.

"Return to the capital, and command my uncle to immediately depart for his ducal seat of Bathisma, to maintain a proper eye on the situation of the western nations. Also have him ready our western armada to be combat ready at a moment's notice." I instantly decreed without pause, my mind a maze of interweaving conspiracies.

"Of course, my liege." Darius quickly acknowledged, probably already having planned to do just that once he was back as well.

"Isaac, you must double the Shade Corps efforts on the western peninsula without delay, and our surveillance within both the Luminous Empire and it's northern counterpart are to be reinforced and expanded upon post haste." I then turned to my Shade Corps Commander, and gave him his next set of nearly impossible tasks, an occurrence he had grown long since accustomed to.

"And the eastern empire, sire?" Isaac asked coolly in return, and though it sounded like an ordinary query on his part, it was anything but, as he was essentially asking if he must maintain the current objectives and capabilities in the Yue Dynasty, or if he can transfer our idle strength to more essential theatres.

After all, no organization has the requisite power and basic manpower to competently operate, let alone maintain and supply a covert web of espionage across the whole globe, bar my Eve's house of course.

"...It is at your discretion, Corps Commander." Was my answer a moment later, deciding to trust the ancient assassin's judgement.

And "It shall be done, my liege." was Isaac's resolute response.

Afterwards, I turned my attention to my brothers, and ordered "Nizam, Cyrus you go with the Grand Vizier and Shade Corps Commander as well."

Yet they did not heed my command, instead Nizam determinedly retorted, despite the obvious weariness clawing at his voice, making it strained and weak "Brother, we wish to follow you."

I said nothing in return for a moment, before I then coldly asked, with a tone ever so slightly laced with fraternal worry and clemency "This will not be like the last you followed me to war little brothers, are you certain you wish to follow me still?"

The two seemed stunned by what I had said, but like stubborn bulls they remained unyielding in their decision to follow me, as Cyrus confidently answered with a bright smile "We're not leaving brother."

They only saw the back of my head nod in reply, but a small smile drew itself upon my features for the first time in days, before I then ever so slightly tilted my eyes to gaze upon my shadow and ask "And you love?"

Her response too came a second later, with that same overly prideful and cold voice "I doubt a few months would prove to be such a hindrance to me."

A trace of a chuckle escaped my lips at her response, for I knew how desperately she had planned, toiled and waited to begin the construction of her empire, and the subsequent fulfilment of her father's challenge; I knew the sacrifice her seemingly nonchalant words signified.

I then momentarily turned my gaze upon the capital's curtain walls, "I truly am an unfilial son." I muttered to myself, before then ruthlessly whipping my head around.