Celebration in Cyrus

A few minutes after Lily took Shui away, Henry's barrier was broken and the invaders screamed once they realised that Shui had disappeared. One of the elders pulled Henry by the neck and shouted, "Where is he?!"

"Fu,fu, do you really think, I would tell you?"

"Ahh!"

The elder then started pounding his face with his full strength, but none of the other elders stopped him. They also shared his frustration and even if Henry died, they could just search his memories before his soul scattered.

"What should we do?"

"..."

No one responded though majority were considering their chances at escape. Getting away as a group would be hard with one supreme elder dead and the other two in worrying conditions, but individually their prospects weren't too low. However, the first one to act would be immediately branded as a traitor so they remained quiet.

The sound that put an end to this silence was the coughing of the eldest supreme elder.

"Supreme elder, you're awake!"

The invader force quickly gathered around the eldest supreme elder as he got up. His eyes seemed dull and his atmosphere was lifeless, but in their rush they weren't able to see what was odd about this.

One disciple reached out to help the supreme elder up, but before his finger could even make contact, a spike from the ground skewered his body.

"Eh?"

As blood spilt from his mouth and dripped on the spike in his chest, everyone quickly backed away in horror.

"Who did th-?"

The next victim was an elder who was retreating, but this time they knew who killed him. With a cauldron in hand, the eldest supreme elder broke the elder's impromptu barrier with one spell and killed him with the other.

"Supreme elder, what are you-"

"Please sto-"

"Everyone ru-!"

Some were killed by earth-attribute spells, some by his bare fists, some crushed by the cauldron which could expand at will. No one could tell why the eldest supreme elder started killing his juniors, but the spectators started to notice how expressionless he had become. Almost like a puppet, he moved on the orders given by his master without any supportive or unsupportive thoughts of his own.

Although he was also only in the Sky Realm, even together the elders were no match for him with the Thousand Flames Cauldron in hand. Luckily, the other supreme elder who was still alive finally woke up and rushed to the scene.

"Senior brother, stop!"

This supreme elder flew up to forcefully stop his senior brother from continuing the slaughter, but after a few exchanges it was clear that he would lose. The three supreme elders were equal in power, but not only was he injured, his senior brother also had the Thousand Flames Cauldron.

Looking at their battle, anyone could tell that the eldest supreme elder would win and continue the massacre, and so finally, the first traitor appeared.

"Ahh!"

A disciple ran away at full speed screaming in hysteria, but it was only after he left the martial academy that others went after him.

"Stop right there!"

"Don't let him get away!"

"Go after him!"

Several other disciples and elders chased after him, but whether or not they would actually return was a mystery. While watching them leave, the rest also had thoughts of following after them, but then everyone that ran away was flung back inside the martial academy with shock and horror on their faces.

Meanwhile, the fight between the two supreme elders was reaching its conclusion. As the eldest supreme elder slammed the cauldron against his junior brother for the umpteenth time, the other supreme elder was frothing blood at the mouth with his eyes rolled back. Unable to hold himself in the air any longer, he began to lose altitude, but the eldest supreme grabbed him by the neck. He then squeezed with a powerful force until he heard a clear cracking sound.

When the other supreme elder turned limp in his hand, the remaining elders and disciples turned pale as they knew that they would be next.

The eldest and only remaining supreme elder allowed the corpse of his junior to fall to the ground and then swept his gaze over those down below. Henry, who was among them, had fear in his eyes but there was also a bit of hope.

'Please, let me be right.'

The supreme elder approached slowly, while everyone else was stiff in place. Of course they wanted to run, but in addition to whatever had sent the earlier group flying back, the fear that the next one to make any sudden movements would die left them paralyzed. The supreme elder raised his palm and began preparing to cast another spell, but a calm voice stopped him.

"That's enough, Slave. I still have use for the rest of them."

Looking at the supreme elder who obediently listened to this voice, the disciples and elders who had predicted their deaths turned towards the voice in curiosity and bewilderment, but their confusion only grew when they saw who it was. Shui stood there with his mask on, and took his time making it towards their group with his hands behind his back. Not too long ago they had tried to kill him, but now they were too afraid to speak, much less move. However, even with no communication between them, they were all stunned by that one thought.

'No, it couldn't be...'

Every disciple and elder stayed in position, but their eyes followed Shui as he made his way to the eldest supreme elder. Despite how much they feared the slaughterer that the supreme elder had become, all of them desperately wished that he remained that way. Unfortunately, their luck was gone and their prayers were useless.

When Shui was within ten feet of him, the supreme elder went down on one knee and asked reverently, "Master, how may I serve you?"

At that moment, everyone gasped in surprise but then the spectators split into two main groups. One group was simply in awe, while the other was in despair.

"It's over."

"We're done for."

The group in despair didn't know the full story, but it was easy to guess that through some means, the masked man had taken control of their supreme elder. In chess terms, their king had been taken, and so it was their loss.

There were more than a few who still tried to run, but after making an example out of them, Shui was able to force the rest to surrender. He would maintain ownership of the eldest supreme elder and the corpse of the other supreme elder, but he allowed Henry to handle the rest. He would be the one staying in the city after all.

Naturally the elders were dissatisfied with signing slave contracts with Henry as their master, but as they would only be forced to work for two decades and they didn't want to die, they reluctantly accepted Henry's conditions. Shui would have made them slaves for life but he commended Henry for not biting off more than he could chew. Henry likely had other plans for when the contract was over, but Shui was okay since he knew that Lily and her siblings would be strong enough to protect themselves by that time.

After taking care of the invaders, Shui planned on spending some time with his family for a few days before checking up on Cin and then leaving for the elemental crystal deposit. However, before that, Henry suggested a grand celebration to relieve the people of the stress that they had built up.