Akash and Zaltarish leapt to the grey ground along with their family members, spreading out their arms in unison as they began to flow a deep red.

‘The Sigebryht family manifestation… An ultimate defense.’ Thought Dyon.

Blood red seals appeared above the head of each and every Sigebryht, tainting the dark the sky with an eerie glow.

Their manifestation was special – they were experts in a martial path Dyon knew little about: Sealing. .

Depending on talent, the Sigebryht could form these blood red seals over their life time and slowly learn to control more. They looked almost like complex arrays, blotting out the skies domineeringly.

And then, they did something that made the very earth shake. “SEAL!”

Almost immediately, the grey ground changed to a healthier brown – if you looked closely, you could even see the faint hints of green as well. The Sigebryht family had sealed the death qi!

‘I don’t know if they can keep this up for long… The next phase needs to be executed quickly.’ Dyon stood tall, his brows creased in concentration, ready to step in should it not work out.

Luckily, there didn’t end up being a need. The Nodin family played their parts perfectly. 𝑖𝘦.𝑐𝘰𝘮

Instead of trying to change the direction of the winds, they instead flew high into the sky to begin sending compact bursts of air into the eye of the storm.

As Dyon had thought, low pressure was a massive problem with storms like these. So, how would you fix them? Simple. Increase the pressure.

And that was that. With the stifling of the death qi, the storm had little else to sustain itself when the cold ground and high pressure bursts of wind were taken into account. The plan and execution were quite simply perfect.

Soon, the storm was completely and cleanly eliminated. Aside from a few injured beasts and bruised foot soldiers, the problems were miniscule.

Dyon sighed in relief, settling back down into the vessel. They’d be at Lotus Tower soon, so it was unlikely to matter that he and Ri had lost their roof.

**

Hours later, the Elvin troops had made it to the base of Lotus Tower.

Unlike the Earth Tower, the surroundings of this area were completely barren except for defensive structures that took the form of ditches, walls, and spikes. This of course made sense, although there were a few lookout stations in the distance, the idea of keeping large amounts of people outside when there was no battle was much too dangerous.

In fact, the death qi was a lot of what dealt with the defense of the tower. The only reason the Elvin Troops made it here safely was because of the laws of the tower, or, more specifically, the laws the tower allowed you to control when you gained ownership of it.

When he had read about this, Dyon couldn’t help but shake his head. This really was too much like a game. It made him feel more uncomfortable than anything else. With this sort of design, it made him feel as though someone was pulling at him like a puppet on a string.

The possessors of the Lotus Tower, although they were subject to the same dangerous storms as everyone else, also had the ability to ignore the death qi and the troubles brought along with it. Which meant that although the territory was flat, ownership of the tower itself was like an ultimate defense in and of itself.

In the end, attackers would have to spend undo energy constantly purging themselves of death qi while they attacked. All while the defenders only had to hold out for longer. The only real problem for the defenders were the storms. But, they had learned a new method of dealing with that thanks to Dyon.

Entering the ground floor of the Lotus Tower, they were greeted with a completely different scene than what they had seen outside.

Lush gardens filled the space as green grasses coated the entirety of the floor. It was more like entering a new world as opposed to entering a building.

Dyon walked in beside Ri, Delia, Akash and Zaltarish. The two siblings were in high spirits after so easily dealing with the storm.

“Tell me, Dyon. Is there a human world profession that specializes in storms?” Akash asked eagerly, hoping to pick Dyon’s brain about a few things.

Dyon smiled. “There is now that I think about it. A lot of their job is about predicting storms and the weather based on patterns and data. You could say that a lot of what I know about storms is because their profession exists, yes.”

Akash nodded enthusiastically, listening as Dyon spoke about the human world. But then she froze, suddenly thinking of something.

“We all need to be aware that the Elves aren’t the only ones who defend this tower,” she said seriously.

Dyon nodded. It made sense. After all, there were so many clans and sects yet only three towers worth defending. It was a truly rare case that the earth tower was ever attacked, and much the same went for the Guatama Tower.

Why? Because you could see attacks toward them coming from a mile away. If you didn’t have all of your forces trained on the attack, it simply didn’t make sense to attack at all. This was a large part of the reason the Phantus clan’s attack was so surprising. Not only did they bring their beasts across the unpredictable lands of the gates, they had also decided to attack with such a small group!

As a result, the defense of Lotus Tower was shared.

The Royal God Clan and Sicarius family usually remained posted at Earth Tower unless they leveraged an attack. The Ragnor Clan took hold of Rod Tower along with the Cavositas clan. The Pakal clan held onto the Looming Tower along with the Sapientia clan. And the Elves had Lotus Tower along with the Niveus sect…

And unfortunately, almost as soon as Dyon thought of this, the familiar sound of a not so friendly person entered his ears.

.𝒎