White River City.

Outside the northern docks lay a stretch of water where every unusable vessel in the city ended up — from massive cruise liners down to fishing boats and rotting wooden rafts, nothing was missing from the collection.

Thousands of derelict ships had accumulated here over the years into a ruin-like graveyard of sunken hulls. Rarely visited, the area had become an unlikely paradise for every kind of fish. Occasionally a few of White River City’s elderly would arrange to come fish here together, usually returning with a modest catch. Young people avoided the place — the endless rust and rot of the sunken ships gave off an unpleasant stench that lingered everywhere.

The old folks might not mind, but the young couldn’t stand a place so thick with decay and the smell of decline.

Today, oddly enough, two young women had come to the sunken ship graveyard.

One dressed in white, pale as snow.

One in black, dark as ink.

Their arrival cut clean through the stagnant water’s surface, bringing a rare breath of fresh air to the rot-soaked wreckage field.

“Well, would you look at that — not bad, picking a burial site like this. Straight to a sea burial, simple and convenient, real efficient of you!” The woman in black was, naturally, Water Spider — acknowledged by White River City’s younger generation as the most vicious and venomous among them. The one in white was her target: Liuye. Water Spider had no real reason to want this harmless human woman dead; by any measure, killing Liuye served no purpose of her own. But Water Spider didn’t need a reason to kill.

She never needed a reason.

If there was one, the only candidate was probably that Water Spider couldn’t stand anyone being prettier than her.

“Let me confirm this one last time — if there’s a way to avoid fighting, I’d rather not stake life and death on this. No matter who wins or loses, someone is fated to fall here.” Liuye’s small face remained calm, her gaze steady as she watched the formidable Water Spider — fearless and unflinching in a way that broke from her usual demeanor. “But if you insist there’s no avoiding it, then I won’t back down either. If you want a fight, I’ll give you one.”

“Big talk, for someone as feeble as an insect. What gives you the right to fight me? What a joke.” Water Spider sneered.

Her figure shot skyward.

Climbing to a height of several hundred meters, she unleashed a ferocious burst of pressure.

Then she dropped back down like a meteor, and everything within a dozen meters of her landing point was instantly pulverized to dust.

Liuye narrowly dodged clear, but the shockwave from Water Spider’s impact nearly blew apart the entire sunken-ship graveyard. Towering waves erupted with a deafening roar, spray exploding outward as if a storm had swept through the whole stretch of water. Massive sunken hulls were wrenched up from the depths, their rotted frames exposed; countless fragments spun chaotically through the air, twisting together with the wildly churning spray to form an eerie waterspout.

The waterspout’s force was immense. Liuye, who had only barely cleared the initial shockwave, found herself helplessly drawn upward into it.

Water Spider’s body, having landed on the water’s surface, suddenly reversed — flipping back skyward.

Her speed.

Simply put, it was faster than lightning.

That single surge forward and violent reversal — two opposing bursts of terrifying force — created two linked yet distinct shockwaves in the space above the water.

Though they didn’t shatter space itself, the combination successfully sealed the waterspout and everything inside it — sunken debris, spray, even the air — into one enormous pocket of contained space, shaped unmistakably like a bubble underwater. This bubble, woven from the cutting force of the waterspout, sat entirely under Water Spider’s will. This was her own original, singular technique: the Reverse-Surge Bubble.

Once an enemy was trapped inside this bubble, even someone of formidable Sky-rank strength would find it nearly impossible to break free.

The fight against Water Spider could very well end right there, with her opponent’s life entirely in her hands.

Lose without even fighting.

The moment Liuye entered the Reverse-Surge Bubble, she realized just how serious the problem was.

Not only could she not maneuver freely, even the breath in her own lungs was gradually slipping under the enemy’s control. At this rate, how could this battle end in anything but defeat?

Before she had time to so much as think, Water Spider’s second killing move was already arriving on its heels.

The Reverse-Surge Bubble alone was more than enough to defeat someone as weak as Liuye, but Water Spider felt that finishing things that way just wouldn’t be satisfying enough. She was, after all, the vicious and venomous Water Spider — how could she let an enemy die so easily?

By the time Water Spider’s figure had gracefully threaded its way back out through the bubble, Liuye discovered that, without her even noticing, a dozen-some translucent spider threads now clung to her body.

The threads grew, lengthening on the wind.

Weaving and shifting, they formed an unbelievably resilient capture net.

It hauled Liuye’s entire body into its grasp and dragged her onto the wreckage of an exposed steel-hulled deck jutting up from the water.

If falling victim to Water Spider’s first killing technique, the Reverse-Surge Bubble, still left some chance of escaping with one’s life — then falling victim to her second, the Dragon-Binding Net, meant certain death. As the name suggested, this was a net so powerful it could bind even a true dragon. Liuye had no idea whether Water Spider’s net could really hold a dragon, but she could feel the sheer terror radiating from it.

Danger!

“Hahahahaha!” In Water Spider’s eyes, Liuye was already a corpse — just one being kept breathing a little longer so she could enjoy the kill.

Across town in White River City, Old Iron Anchor stood at the entrance of the little iron-thorn cottage, his expression outwardly unreadable, though deep in his eyes a flicker of grief was impossible to hide entirely. This had been his disciple Fuping’s home. That disciple had been clever since childhood — anything she set her mind to learning, she picked up with ease, and she’d always been so well-behaved that teaching her had been far less trouble than teaching anyone else. Time and again, Fuping would have already finished her assigned lessons while others were just getting started. If she’d had real backing behind her, with her talent and intelligence, becoming White River City’s master herself — woman or not — wouldn’t have been out of the question.

A pity. Someone so exceptional, and she’d chosen the path of betrayal.

In all of White River City’s history, its descendants had never once faced this kind of total, irreversible defection. Whether back at the Sky Tower or in the Heavenly Realm today, the cursed clan could never be accepted by outsiders, could never live alongside them.

So no matter how foolish, how idiotic someone might be, they would never betray their own clan and flee.

And yet it was this brilliant, peerless Fuping who had done something even a fool wouldn’t have done…

“Goodbye, my daughter.” Once Old Iron Anchor finished saying those words in his heart, the grief in his eyes vanished completely, replaced by hardened resolve. He swept his great hand through the air and gave the order: “Someone — raze the traitor Fuping’s cottage to the ground. Confiscate her belongings for the city’s use. Mark every personal item of hers with the traitor’s label and distribute them to every guild and school in the city, so people may spit on them — and so they serve as a cautionary lesson to our own people. We will proclaim it throughout the city: this is how we nail traitors to history’s pillar of shame, for good. And write her name into the city’s Curse Blood Tower, so she becomes an eternal target of our curse, her soul never to rest, never to be reborn. I want everyone to see — this is what becomes of a traitor!”

“Understood.” The guards standing behind Old Iron Anchor answered with respectful obedience.

As the guards began their work of clearing the place out—

A flicker of something like a sigh passed swiftly through Old Iron Anchor’s eyes, then vanished just as quickly.

Though dressed as a ship’s first mate, the presence radiating from him was unmistakably that of a high-ranking, powerful marshal. The White River City warriors who recognized him bowed in unison. The merchants and mercenaries who’d lived in the city for years, meanwhile, stared at him with no small shock — they could hardly recognize that this towering man, carrying himself with the bearing of a lion, was the same drunken dockhand who spent his days getting plastered at the eastern pier.

Who would dare show him even a shred of disrespect now?

As he strode down the street, it was as if a faint breeze had swept past him.

Old Iron Anchor, who had been walking with long, purposeful strides, suddenly stopped in his tracks, gazing thoughtfully toward the northern part of the city, brow furrowing slightly.

The squad of guards trailing some distance behind him hurried forward at once — in their understanding, if the Marshal had stopped walking, an order was surely coming. Old Iron Anchor slowly raised his hand and swept it downward: “All of you, head to the sunken-ship graveyard by the northern docks immediately. If Water Spider is there, tell her to return to headquarters at once — not a second’s delay. If she dares disobey the order, seize her on the spot. If she resists, execute her where she stands!”

The harshness of that tone sent a chill down the spine of the duty captain leading the squad. The Marshal had always carried himself with authority, but never anything like this. Could it be that Water Spider, too, harbored thoughts of betrayal, just like Fuping?

The guards, having received their orders, moved out at top speed toward the northern sunken-ship graveyard in perfect unison, the duty captain leading from the front. Though he held only a minor command rank, he was no slouch himself — the quiet type whose real strength could catch you completely off guard.

His orders given, Old Iron Anchor’s expression darkened, and he continued forward.

Then, suddenly, like an old lion who’d spotted an enemy, he charged forward with savage, almost feral speed — in an instant he’d crossed two city blocks and arrived at the platform of a tram station.

This was the very platform where Fuping had first crossed paths with that pretty-faced little punk.

If not for that pretty boy, Fuping never would have walked the unforgivable road of betrayal. If he could go back and choose again, he would never have let Fuping near that little punk — who could have imagined that in the span of a few short days, that boy would corrupt her so completely? If not for him, Fuping never would have betrayed her own clan… By the time Old Iron Anchor reached the platform, his fury wasn’t only over losing a daughter — it was over discovering someone who shouldn’t have been able to appear at all: that same pretty boy, the one who’d supposedly died in the Wave-Mist Sea.

How could that pretty-faced punk possibly still be alive?

Old Iron Anchor looked up toward the tram pulling away from the platform, and through an open window, he spotted the pretty boy — smiling, waving at him.

In that moment, Old Iron Anchor felt a fury fierce enough to want to obliterate the entire tram car.

And alongside it, a chill ran straight through his heart.

An enemy who shouldn’t have been able to survive had not only made it back to White River City alive, but had done so without anyone the wiser. What did that mean? If the boy hadn’t just deliberately let his presence show, allowing himself to be discovered, Old Iron Anchor would still be in the dark right now.

An enemy like that was terrifying.

Was that pretty-faced punk really just some ordinary human boy — was it really that simple?

Even in his fury, Old Iron Anchor felt with cold clarity that some vast net, set in place who knew how long ago, was steadily drawing tighter — closing in around White River City itself. Danger. This time, what they stood to lose was clearly far more than just one Fuping. The entire city might well be facing a disaster unlike any before it.

That pretty boy. His companions. And that mysterious pair of sisters.

All the baffling, unexplained pieces from before were starting to make sense now. These people probably hadn’t come for the spark-flower ore at all — they’d come for White River City itself. Was this, finally, the Sky Tower warriors’ long-feared hunt against the cursed clan, arriving at last?

Old Iron Anchor didn’t bother chasing after the tram pulling away with its target, nor did he rush to the Steel Guild to spread the nightmare of this news.

He did neither.

Instead, he raced back to his own cottage at the greatest speed of his life, triggered the hidden mechanism, slipped into the secret passage, and sped back toward headquarters at full speed… Compared to the lives of hundreds of thousands of his people, what mattered more to Old Iron Anchor was the underwater headquarters and the elite warriors currently in the process of reviving their distant ancestor. As long as the elites could be preserved, the cursed clan still had hope. But if even hundreds of thousands of clansmen fled, the Sky Tower’s warriors would simply come hunting again next time. No matter what, the elites at headquarters and the ancestor being revived through blood sacrifice — neither of these could be allowed to be lost.

By the time Old Iron Anchor arrived at the great steel fortress at top speed, passing through the exit and reaching the iron gate before the hall where the ancestor’s revival was underway—

He froze in shock.

That same pretty boy — the one who’d just ridden off on the tram, the one Old Iron Anchor had spent all this time looking down on — stood right there, smiling, waiting quietly for him. The boy even waved at him, casual as an old friend reuniting after years apart.

What?

Old Iron Anchor felt a jolt of shock — and found that his heart, which he’d thought as unshakable as a mountain,

was now trembling, uncontrollably, despite himself.

(End of Chapter)