"You don’t know this?" he tilted his head and asked, almost confused that I even needed to question him.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I let my eyes drift toward the ice platform beneath him. It was melting faster now, the temperature had spiked, steam rising into the air as water hissed and evaporated.
Every second that passed, the platform grew thinner, less stable. He noticed too, and his face turned pale.
"Ahh—yes, yes, I will answer. Wait, wait. Don’t let me fall. Uhmm... the emblem belongs to the faction I come from," he stammered, words tumbling out in panic.
"The Half Moon faction. There are three factions based on the three moons in our sky. Full Moon, Dark Moon, and Half Moon.
Each has a leader, but above them all sits the emperor, Staurn Max of the Max family. The emperor’s bloodline is... it’s like a bridge, a mixture of all three factions. It keeps balance. None of the factions dare to overthrow him."
I gave a slow nod. It was a simple but effective system, divide power, then unite it under one throne. It made rebellion harder, control easier.
"Why weren’t you helping the group fighting the abomination earlier?" I asked. "I saw you watching, but you didn’t lift a hand."
His lips trembled. "Because each faction has quotas to meet. If we don’t... punishments are given."
I narrowed my eyes. "What kind of punishments?"
"Anything," he blurted out. "Monetary fines, prison time, death... even being sold as slaves."
I raised an eyebrow. "For everyone?"
He hesitated. "Maybe... not for the Max family. Or for families who have grandmasters. They’re above such punishments."
My tone sharpened. "How many grandmasters do you have?"
The man swallowed hard. "I don’t know for sure. Rumors say thirty... maybe forty."
"Where is the closest one I can find?"
"Umm... maybe in the city of Kilo. That’s what I heard."
I was about to ask him more, but my perception stirred. Something moved across the skies, sharp and fast. My eyes turned, zooming in until I saw a woman streaking toward the forest like a falling star.
Her name floated into my vision.
[Kim Kuzi – Level 264]
A smile tugged at my lips. Finally. She was the one I’d been waiting for.
She crossed the distance in moments, stopping right where the unconscious space-using abomination lay. Her gaze swept the area, sharp and cautious. She circled once, searching for threats, then returned to the beast.
Her hand lifted, and space itself rippled. A razor-thin wave cut across space. The abomination’s head slid from its shoulders.
"Ohh," I muttered.
Her level spiked instantly, leaping to 268.
"So, she uses space too," I thought, eyes narrowing.
Without hesitation, she turned and began flying back the way she came.
I shifted my gaze back to the prisoner. "Alright, man. We’re done." I raised a finger, and a beam of light pierced straight through his forehead. His body slumped forward as the platform beneath him finally gave way, crashing into nothingness.
Then I turned upward, accelerating higher until I was above Kim’s path. My body blurred forward as I tailed her quietly through the skies.
As I flew, my thoughts returned to the original plan I had proposed, to use the realm as a base to strike both Peanu and Sukra. At the time, I believed everyone had agreed. But their agreement wasn’t with the how of my plan. It was only with the idea of invasion itself.
Dante, in particular, had rejected my method. He said the realm could never be used without alerting both worlds.
I exhaled slowly, pushing the thought aside. For now, I simply followed Kim.
She soared over stretches of land, past forests and rivers, then over cities. I took in everything, every detail.
The smaller cities looked miserable.
As I followed Kim across the sky, I let my perception spread downward, brushing across the smaller cities we passed. From above, everything looked normal—walls standing, streets aligned, houses intact. But as I focused deeper, the truth bled through.
In the first city, I saw lines of people walking with iron collars around their necks, thick chains binding groups together as if they were herded animals. Some carried loads on their backs, their shoulders bruised and raw. The guards wore Full Moon emblems on their armor.
Further down another street, I caught sight of two bodies lying in the open. No one stopped. No one cared.
People simply stepped over them, eyes averted, as though death in the street was as normal as passing dust.
In another quarter, men fought openly in the alleys, fists and blades clashing while bystanders cheered or bet on who would fall first.
None of the people interfered. They only watched, amused, as though violence was another form of entertainment.
And around nearly everyone’s chest or sleeve was the mark of allegiance—an embroidered emblem. Full Moon was dominant here, stamped on rags and fine cloth alike.
Those without any emblem at all were rare, so rare that when I spotted one or two, they were either crouched in the shadows or beaten against walls, as if simply existing without a faction was an offense.
The next city wasn’t much different. Children with collars scrubbed the streets while merchants in clean robes with emblems shouted prices at passersby. I saw a mother dragging her son hurriedly away from soldiers who inspected the crowd like hunters choosing prey.
She carried no emblem, but the fear in her eyes showed she knew exactly what that meant.
But when Kim flew over a larger city, the contrast was striking.
The central plaza shone with gold-trimmed towers, markets overflowing with goods, laughter ringing from brightly dressed nobles. Wealth was here, plenty of it. Yet all of it was concentrated in that glowing core.
Outside the main plaza, the rest of the city was a maze of slums—smaller homes, cramped alleys, and filth. Children begged at the gates of the inner district, but guards shoved them away with the blunt ends of their spears.
I noticed the pattern clearly now. The bigger the city, the sharper the division. Wealth for the few, chains for the rest. And always, always, the emblems stitched into their clothes, symbols of belonging, or perhaps submission. Without them, one was nothing.
I kept following Kim in silence.
She slowed down considerably as we passed over a city. My perception spread across it in an instant. This one was called Zeula, and it looked far better than the ones we had flown over earlier. Cleaner streets, sturdier walls, and order in the way the city moved.
Kim descended straight toward the palace at its center, a sprawling structure that glimmered with polished stone and guarded gates. I swept my senses through it, and my lips curled slightly when I discovered something unexpected, another grandmaster was inside.
"Oh, I like that," I murmured.
"[Phantom Dive]." I activated the skill.
My body vanished from the air and, in the next heartbeat, I stepped out of the shadow beneath one of the palace pillars, silent and unseen.