The Ruhe Brand Reclaimed by God

The Sele Kingdom, Deep Water Port

High in the sky drifted something vast and terrible, its shape faintly resembling a jellyfish. A translucent membrane spread from its body like a colossal umbrella blotting out the heavens, while countless tendrils streamed behind it like the vines of an ancient tree.

With each breath, it swallowed the layered clouds from the sky, then poured them back into the air.

The Star Luo Queen stood atop the great beast, surrounded by her Priest Corps. Their power joined with the beast's to unleash an even more immense force. This was the mightiest battle formation the Xilong family could field.

The Xilong family had plainly staked everything on restoring the glory of Yinsai.

"Sele family, submission or annihilation. No other choice remains to you."

From the river encircling the deep water port, a terrifying beast a hundred meters long slowly emerged. Its head resembled a steel helmet.

Thick, supple tentacles trailed behind it. A single sweep carried the beast hundreds, even thousands, of meters, offering only a glimpse of the speed it could reach once it truly drove itself through the sea.

This was the Sele Sea Spirit, the Ruhe Beast raised by the Sele family.

That helmeted head had once rammed an offshore island beneath the waves. A single charge had also destroyed a coastal city that dared rebel against the Sele family.

The great beast raised its head and roared at the Sky Beast. As the roar steadied, it resolved into the voice of a trilobite man.

"Star Luo Queen, we have favored neither side. The Sele family has every right to remain neutral."

"The Xilong family holds no authority over us. The Sele family is free and shall answer to no one."

The Star Luo Kingdom demanded that the Sele family surrender its royal power, a price the Sele family could never accept.

Without royal power or the Sele Kingdom, could they still call themselves an exalted house of the Royal Bloodline?

The Sele family knew they could not match them in strength, yet clung to the hope of wresting the slightest chance from the confrontation.

The Samo Kingdom was that hope, the last straw within their grasp.

Atop the Sky Beast, the Star Luo Queen raised her scepter. The Ruhe brand upon her forehead blazed with light.

"King of the Sele family, I offered you a chance. I even offered to share the grace of the divine with you."

"A pity!"

"You wavered. You were even ready to accept our enemies' terms and turn your armies against the Star Luo Kingdom."

"The Star Luo Kingdom and the Xilong family shall never permit the likes of you to remain at our side."

With those words, war became inevitable. The battle began.

Before her words had faded, the Sky Temple's Priest Corps sent massive stones hurtling from the heavens to batter the deep water port.

Boulders fell one after another, streaking toward the earth like meteors.

Impacts thundered in rapid succession. Dust and smoke erupted throughout the deep water port as whole stretches of the city wall collapsed in an instant.

That first volley alone dealt the entire deep water port a devastating blow.

Howling down from the sky on a gale of its own making, the great beast scattered the smoke and dust above the deep water port. Without slowing, it hurled itself at the Sele Sea Spirit in the river beyond the walls.

BOOM!

The two great beasts collided with such force that the earth itself shook.

Below, thousands upon thousands of trilobite men charged the breaches in the deep water port's walls. The true siege had begun.

The Ruhe Beasts might decide the outcome of a war, but people still had to seize the cities and hold them.

No kingdom, therefore, entered a great battle without a vast host of soldiers.

The fighting raged from midday until dusk. Still the Sele family held on through bitter effort, waiting for rescue and word from the Samo Kingdom.

Locked together, the two great beasts tore at each other as they rolled from the river onto the shore, then from the shore into the sea.

Even then, neither gained the upper hand.

Under the siege of the Star Luo host, however, the deep water port was slowly giving way.

Star Luo soldiers poured into the city, carrying the battle into its streets. The deep water port's fall was now only a matter of time.

Far out at sea, the tide slowly receded beneath the setting sun.

A road to the City of Sea Spirits emerged along the shore.

The Star Luo Queen saw it and could no longer contain her excitement. She shouted to the being commanding the Sele Sea Spirit.

"Sele family, you have lost!"

The entire Sele Kingdom yielded ground step by step. The scales of victory had tipped entirely toward the Star Luo Kingdom.

Amid the fury of battle, she failed to notice the Ruhe brand upon her forehead fading rapidly.

The Sky Beast beneath her feet was also growing restless, becoming less obedient with every passing moment.

Then, before every watching eye, the Sky Beast that had served the Xilong family for centuries suddenly grew violently agitated and gave a muffled roar.

Roar!

The Sky Beast was out of control.

It had cast off the Star Luo Queen's command, along with centuries of bondage and enslavement under the Xilong family.

In a frenzy, the Sky Beast plunged straight from the air into the sea. Abandoning every advantage it possessed, it grappled with the Sele Sea Spirit, and the two tore into each other like maddened animals.

It also ceased sheltering the Star Luo Queen and the Sky Priest Corps within its body.

More than that, it felt wretched and frantic. No creature enjoyed having insects crawling about inside its body.

The first thing it did after coming to itself was try to kill the insects causing its torment.

Disaster struck the Star Luo Queen and the Sky Priest Corps hidden inside the Sky Beast's gas bladder.

The Star Luo Queen and the Sky Temple's Priest Corps descended into panic. The bladder emptied completely of air as the Sky Beast's flesh closed around them from every direction like contracting walls.

No path of escape remained. They had sealed themselves inside a cage of death.

The place that had once been safest had become their burial ground.

"Your Majesty, how can this be happening?!"

"Save me! Save me!"

"Your Majesty, make the Sky Beast stop! Quickly!"

The contracting wall of flesh caught one Sky Temple priest after another, crushing each to pulp in the blink of an eye.

Panic seized the Star Luo Queen. Utterly helpless, she could do nothing but cry out.

"Why is this happening?"

"How can this be?"

"It will not stop. It will not stop!"

"It no longer obeys me."

Suddenly, the Star Luo Queen understood why the Sky Beast no longer obeyed her. One of the two Ruhe brands upon her forehead had disappeared entirely.

Only then did the truth become clear.

The Xilong family's Ruhe brand had vanished. The divine had reclaimed the gift once bestowed upon Redlichia.

In an instant, the light vanished from the Star Luo Queen's eyes. Even the strength for one last struggle drained completely from her.

"God, is this... punishment because I was not devout enough?"

The air had been sucked dry. First, breathing became difficult. Then the membrane of flesh closed around her like a wall of stone.

Gulp!

She even heard the Sky Beast swallow. To it, they were nothing more than vermin gulped down without a thought.

They could not even fill the gaps between its teeth.

Only at the end did the Star Luo Queen understand that they had never been the masters of the Ruhe Beasts at all.

Without the grace of the divine, before a mythical creation such as this, they were no more than a swarm of insects, too feeble even to be worth eating.