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A cool breeze blew by but did little to calm the girl. Instead, thoughts raced through her mind about what she had witnessed at the base of Red Vine peak. This was a genuine disaster. She should have accelerated her plans and come to visit by herself as Stella Crestfallen, one of the few cultivators of noble birth that were also free to be used as a pill furnace, was now a realm higher than her.

An untouchable existence, except to the Grand Elders.

Elenor clenched her fist as green flames roared around her and helped empower her speed.

Unfortunately, Evergreen cultivators weren\'t known for their movement techniques, so she could only empower her legs with Qi and press on.

The palace seemed so far—had the mountain always been this tall? She had spent the last half an hour rampaging up the mountain but still had a ways to go.

Her head tilted to the right, and she looked at Red Vine peak in the distance. Only now—as she squinted and empowered her eyes with Qi—did she notice the massive tree lording over the pavilion.

It looked like a red roof from afar, but it was undoubtedly a tree upon closer scrutiny. "Since when did trees even grow that big around here?" Elenor wondered.

She had left the sect several times on various missions out into the wilderness on behalf of her family, and she had never seen such an impressively massive tree.

"That has to be a spirit tree of some kind." Elenor muttered aloud as the wind roared passed her ears, "But why? Was it a guardian spirit left behind by the Crestfallen family?"

The more Elenor investigated and discovered about Red Vine peak today, the more her head hurt. Nothing made sense.

"How many more secrets and allies can you hide..." Elenor sneered and continued up the peak.

She still had no idea why those lazy elders hadn\'t made a move yet, as their juniors died from Tristan and Stella\'s joint efforts, but she would change that.

"I bet they went into secluded cultivation, and nobody dared to wake them." Elenor stopped muttering to herself as her long journey up the mountain path finally drew to a close.

The white palace, built to house the relocated Evergreen and Winterwrath families bound together by marriage between the two heirs, dominated the skyline. It was magnificent and a testament to the family\'s combined majesty.

So what if the beast tide was coming, and this would all be abandoned and destroyed in due time? Were they supposed to live in wooden huts like peasant mortals? Would any other noble families of the Blood Lotus sect or Darklight city take them seriously if they didn\'t flaunt their wealth?

Elenor shook her head as she passed through the open gateway and into the courtyard, surrounded by smooth white walls and windows. She knew it was all a facade—a way to trick the blind into believing in the prosperity of their family. The dark truth was even with their combined strength, their victory over the Ravenborne family hadn\'t come without a high cost.

Thousands of cultivators from both families had perished in the war, and many more died when their old locations were raided faster than expected.

As they were now, the family\'s combined strength hardly matched that of a lower-tier family. It was why all the cultivators surrounding Red Vine peak were so weak—the strong had already perished in the war, and it was taking too long to raise new talent.

Elenor knew things were looking grim. With the beast tide on the way and the great move on the horizon, how would the Evergreen family compete with the other families for land at the new sect location? She refused to be a part of a lower-tier family for another cycle.

It was too embarrassing... humiliating even. The way the other families sneered at them in tournaments and bickered and laughed behind folding fans.

Before Elenor even realized it, she was stomping through the silent hallways of the stone palace. Her walking slowed as she looked around. There was no one. Not a soul in these expansive halls.

"Where did everyone go?" Elenor cursed while looking left and right as she passed empty dark rooms. It was like the place had been abandoned, but she had been here only hours ago, and it had been bustling with activity.

A sudden scream made Elenor jolt. It echoed down the hallway and was accompanied by heavy footsteps. She dipped into a nearby empty room and felt something sticky on her shoe. Despite the screams, she looked down and saw a puddle of blood and the tip of a finger in the dim moonlight sneaking through the window.

Her heart tightened in her chest, and she struggled to control her breathing to stay hidden. It was hard to focus on the bloody finger when the screaming and footsteps quickly approached where she was hiding.

"M-monster!" A man—likely the one running—shouted, and Elenor felt the whole palace shake and saw ripples on the puddle of blood she was inspecting.

Elenor got closer, allowing her sickly green flame to illuminate the scene. She almost jumped back like a terrified cat at the sight of a woman with empty eye sockets, dried blood cascading down her cheeks, and drenching messy black hair.

"Maria?" Elenor stammered as she reached out a hand and felt the corpse\'s cold cheek. "W-what happened to you? Who did this... what..." It was one of Elenors sisters—one of the few she loved and respected in this accursed family.

The palace shook again, and Elenor had to rip her eyes away from her sister and look over her shoulder as a screaming man ran past.

"Grand Elder Winterwrath?" Elenor blinked in confusion. The man running for his life was the Star Core Grand Elder everyone had been waiting for. Was he fighting the person responsible for the death of her sister?

The man didn\'t even acknowledge her presence. Instead, he paused outside her doorway and focused on something down the corridor. Elenor noticed his eyes were scarily wide open, blood brimming at the sides.

He raised his hands with white flames roaring to life at his fingertips, "Bastion of the last winter!" He cried, and a wall of mystical ice manifested before him.

Like the Evergreen family—the Winterwraths excelled in point defense and standing their ground against a foe rather than movement techniques like the Crestfallen\'s or raw damage output like the Redclaws.

So both the Grand Elder and Elenor were shocked to their core as a four-fingered paw, the height of the hallway ending in claws of pure darkness, barreled through the ice wall like it was glass and grasped the Grand Elder like an ant.

Elenor stumbled back, ignoring the blood of her dead sister that sullied her shoes. The scene was too mind-warping. She didn\'t even want to know what kind of creature was residing within these walls with her that could possess such a paw.

"You devilish creature! Spawn of the lower realm!" The Grand Elder hollered as the hand encircled him. "Take this, you vile—" Blood spewed from the white-haired old man\'s mouth like a fountain, and his head rolled to the side. Dead.

His white flames died down, but Elenor could feel the beginnings of a supernova. Once started, it was a process that was hard to stop. Qi, from the surroundings, poured toward the elderly corpse without restriction, and Elenor could see his skin begin to melt.

She looked around the dark room—now that she breathed in the air, the scent of death was unmistakable. In the darkness, there were likely many other corpses in here. Why and how? Did that creature do all this?

The paw of pure shadows released the melting man—letting the sack of molten skin flop to the stone and begin to melt the tiles. Then there was a crackle of ancient power, one Elenor couldn\'t even begin to fathom, and the burning white corpse was gone. Just a molten hole in the stone remained.

Elenor held her breath, her flames extinguished, and sat in the cold, dark room. The scent of death and blood tickled her nose, but she didn\'t dare breathe in fear of that monster finding her—whatever it was, she had no chance of defeating something that could kill a Star Core Grand Elder in such a way.

A while passed, and she spluttered for breath. Her lungs burned, and her eyes watered as she breathed in deeply. There hadn\'t been a movement or any sign of the monster.

Had it left? Surely not...

Elenor found it hard to believe a powerful creature wouldn\'t have the sensory capabilities to match, considering that nobody remained alive in this stone prison.

Had it just... let her live? Why?

She stood up, brushed herself off, and tried to not even give a glance at her sister\'s corpse on the way out. Her curiosity may be the death of her, but she needed to know—to see—what had transpired here.

With cautious steps, she approached the doorframe and peeked around.

Nothing.

Just an empty hallway with an icy chill—a likely leftover from the Grand Elder\'s failed defensive spell. She wanted to run—escape from here and never look back. But she knew that cowardice would make convincing the Patriarch for help a tall order.

Her head raced with solutions to her predicament. Her family had already been on the back foot, and now it was wiped out. The Winterwrath Grand Elder—half of the family\'s Star Core fighting power—is gone.

She had to confirm one thing. Was the Evergreen Grand Elder dead as well? If so, it was all over. The family had no chance to recover, with Tristan switching sides and both Grand Elders dead.

Hardening her resolve, she ventured down the hallway, searching for the Evergreen Grand Elder\'s body. If the man had perished, her life was over anyway. The Blood Lotus sect didn\'t need a noble family outcast in the new land.

She would become a pill furnace for the Patriarch—the same fate she had decided for Stella Crestfallen only months ago. It made her feel sick to her stomach and made her legs shake.

Did the world hate her? Why was it so cruel? Her steps felt heavy as she walked the length of the cold corridor and turned right into the main hall. There as she had expected, in the pit of her stomach was the Evergreen Grand Elder.

His head was torn from his broad shoulders, and his muscular arms were twisted and broken as if they had been made from twigs.

He was dead.

Elenor followed the trail of blood and looked up from the corpse to a balcony at the far end of the hall. To her surprise, she saw a fluffy white squirrel perched on the banister.

With nothing but despair gnawing at her mind and the harrowing sight of those she had loved and depended on now cold corpses at her feet. Yet, the appearance of such an adorable squirrel was so intriguing and soul-warming.

She walked forward, enthralled by its golden eyes that seemed to wink at her.

As she pushed open the doors made from crystal clear ice, she looked away momentarily, and the squirrel was gone. As if it had been a figment of her imagination all along.

"What a weird but cute-looking squirrel."

Elenor leaned on the banister with a sour heart and looked out into the distance at Red Vine peak, surrounded by twinkling stars and bathed in moonlight. It looks so beautiful and peaceful with its scarlet-leaved tree lording over the white-walled pavilion overrun with red vines.

She wanted to scream as her hands tightened around the banister. If only she had moved faster with her plans. She could be on that mountain peak right now, under the shade of that magnificent tree, and working with Tristan Evergreen.

She should be the one embraced by the power of the Star Core realm. Not Stella. Why did that bitch seem to receive all the blessings under the nine realms?

But then her heart seemingly froze in her chest as tremendous pressure overcame her, as if something was coming. Was that devilish creature back?

A cold sweat and a shiver ran down her spine. Was it finally time for her to die?

Then the heavens opened above Red Vine peak—a crack so vast as if a god was pulling the sky apart to gaze upon its subjects formed. Then through the gap, a dense cloud of grey poured down like sand.

Or at least it acted like sand, but as Elenor empowered her eyes, she confirmed it was ash. It descended and enveloped the entire Red Vine peak like a floating blanket. Golden lightning flashed throughout the ash cloud. Focused around the epicenter—the mountain\'s peak.

The weirdest part of it all was how the scarlet-leaved tree peaked through the ash cloud without a problem, and Elenor could see two dots that were likely people standing on its branches, looking down at the swarming ash below.

A while passed, and Elenor was enchanted by the once-in-a-lifetime event displaying heaven\'s power.

However, she had to wonder what cataclysmic event could have triggered it.

But her stupor was vanquished by an earth-shattering roar from an awakened beast. One reborn from the ashes, and even from so far away, Elenor could tell it may be on par with the Patriarch from its sheer presence.

She turned on her heel and ran through the hallway without hesitation.

If she could be the first to inform the Patriarch to run for the hills, her fate as a pill furnace may not be sealed.

The Blood Lotus sect was doomed in her eyes, and it was time to leave.