Peak of Soul Realm

"I guess it's about time."

Around two months after his escape from Silver City, Shui exited the temple in Vale Hills. His body still felt a little tired but he hadn't only put time into recovery. In this time, he had absorbed all of the natural energy inside the Thief God's space, allowing him to reach the peak of Soul Realm. This would surely be seen as unbelievable to others, but the red spirit also wasn't very surprised by it. She wondered how he found that space, but since he was someone with the inheritance of a god she knew that he would probably face no major bottlenecks until King Realm. As long as he got the core material to form his foundation, it wouldn't be long before he reached the Earth Realm.

Rather than his cultivation speed, she was more impressed by his comprehension. Though she didn't have much time to guide him through the natural laws of fire, he was already getting close to making a connection with the heavenly laws of fire and transforming his heart flame into a heavenly flame.

'I really am curious what god he's connected to, but I guess he won't tell me yet.'

After exiting the temple, Shui planned on seeing Kate again before heading off to the nearest deposit of elemental crystals that Miss Spirit told him about. However, he couldn't have imagined what he would see after leaving Vale Hills.

"This..."

"I see, so it made it out."

"Did you know this would happen?"

"No, I'm as shocked as you are."

Even to a mortal, it was obvious that the city had went through something major despite only the outline of the city being visible. Not only did the average height of the buildings fall, the shape of the buildings had also changed. As Shui focused on the image of the city, he easily managed to spot the sleeping giant beast in it. No other creature dared to invade its domain so it was alone, but Shui knew that it had no need for any followers to help defend its territory.

'It's stronger than before.'

The aura of the fallen didn't seem to have touched on the invincibility of Kings, but it was much closer than last time. Against a beast like this, Shui knew that Silver City had no chance.

"Do you think they managed to evacuate?"

"Likely. In its current state it wouldn't be able to hide the tremors caused by breaking into our space. As long as they weren't complete idiots most of them should have been able to get away. Including your little girlfriend."

"I see."

Shui had a feeling that Kate was still alive as well the direction she was in, but any more than that was vague. For now, he could be relieved that she was safe, but that didn't he could ignore his worries.

'I need to find out what happened while I was gone.'

"What was the nearest city again?"

Some time before Shui left the temple, Serina was walking down the streets of Pemacreba. While her entire sect managed to evacuate from Silver City, there was no way for them to support every disciple so only most of the core disciples who were loyal to the sect were still travelling with the elders to make it to one of their allied sects away from the five cities. Furthermore, both Lava Stream Sect and Maiden Academy had similar plans, so there was currently a surplus of youth aiming to join a new sect or wander as vagrants.

Due to these circumstances, none of the remaining cities were in a stable state.

"Haha, dumbass."

"Should have just given it to us from the start."

As she spotted three rowdy men leaving a certain small shop, Serina hastened her steps as her face turned pale.

"Big brother!"

"Oh, Serina."

"Big brother, are you okay?!"

After rushing into the shop, Serina found her brother sitting on the floor of a messy weapon shop with a line of blood running down from his mouth. She quickly took out a potion and gave it to him to drink. He showed a reluctant expression, but he couldn't refuse it in front of her pained face so he obediently drank the potion.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Are you feeling better?"

Her brother nodded his head while attempting to stand up as he relied on a nearby work stool. Serina breathed a sigh of relief as he sat down on the stool, but then her expression darkened once more.

"Did it happen again?"

"..."

Serina knew that her brother didn't want to say anything, but it was too obvious.

With the help of Fatty and his family, she and her brother were able to move here and he managed to find a place to sell his products. However, even if they were just special-rank artifacts, the people they attracted didn't always like to follow the basic rule of paying for the goods. If he was a local blacksmith then he could never be treated like this by any lowborn thugs as the entire association would blacklist them, but for someone without backing like him, incidents where he was forced to 'gift' his products were the norm.

"Big brother, do you have to keep this job? If you just like being a blacksmith then you don't have to sell yourself. You can even do it as a hobby and I'll supp-"

"No, I can't allow you to do that. As your big brother, and as the successor to our father, I can't allow myself to burden you like that," he shook his head and stood with his back turned to Serina, "Sorry, I have to clean up now."

Serina couldn't help feeling hurt by the fact that her brother was rejecting her help, but she didn't push the matter any further.

"I, brought you lunch."

After putting down a box of sandwiches, Serina left his shop. Once she was gone, her brother paused and looked back at the box, his expression still dark.

"I'm sorry, Serina. That your brother is this pathetic."

Serina started walking back to where she had been staying since reaching Pemacreba. This wasn't the first time she ended her talk with her brother on a bad note, but she couldn't figure out what she should do.

'I just don't want to see him get hurt. Why can't he understand that?'

The streets of Pemacreba were more crowded compared to Silver City, and that was before the citizens of Silver City started migrating to other cities or towns. Therefore, there would be occasional impacts which she would feel from bumping into people and they were never something that helped her mood.

As a Soul Realm cultivator she could tell if there were any pickpockets aiming for her, but she still had her guard up since she had gone through many such events. Fortunately, those who she had managed to catch had started to change their ways and were now her friends.

Thinking about this lifted her mood so she tried to lift her head high as she walked, but she happened to bounce into someone again and tripped. Her reflexes were good enough for her to prevent her own fall, but she was still grateful to the person who caught her.

"Thank you, sorry about that."

"Serina?"

Surprised that this supposed stranger knew her name, Serina looked up to see a familiar face.

"Oh, Kane. Thanks for helping me but, did you have any business to attend to?"

"Huh, oh, no."

Kane was a young man in his late teens whose appearance mostly fell in the average territory but it wouldn't be far-fetched to call him handsome either. He was Fatty Zain's older brother as well as an inner sect disciple of the Burning Stampede Sect.