Vivian''s parting words still pricked Garrick''s eardrums like needles kissed with frost, refusing to soften or fade.


    "Jared carries the Dragon Sovereign Bloodline, the true Draconians have alreadye for him. Crossing him means crossing the entire Draconian race."


    Draconians...


    The two sybles felt light, yet theynded on his chest with the weight of a mountain.


    In the dim, solemn hall, he stared at tablets worshiped for nearly ten thousand years, and a bitter curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.


    For millennia he had climbed from a clueless novice cultivator through realm after realm.


    He had survived ughter, watched sects erased, kingdoms fall, celestials sh, and countless powerhouses crumble to dust while time swept their legacies away. Storms, schemes, dead-end battles-what hadn''t Garrick faced?


    Yet now a coldness rushed up from his soles to his crown, and even this True Immortal body could not stop a faint tremor.


    He had been wrong.


    Worse than wrong—so far off the mark that the road back seemed cut away by his own hand.


    When he made those choices, he kept repeating that everything was for The Janis Family.


    For a thousand years of prosperity, for the estate that had dominated Cloudhaven City, for a seat among the realm''s top ns, safe from swallowing jaws.


    As Patriarch he carried the n''s rise and fall on his back; every step felt like walking a tightrope over countless lives.


    He believed duty guided him.


    Now the shriney silent enough that only his own breathing echoed, and something inside his chest felt scooped out, hollow and icy, offering no strength at all.


    The yawning void hurt worse than any mortal wound he had ever suffered. Eyes closed, he saw again the look Jared wore while leaving Janis Manor.


    It was colder than permafrost, as still as a night buried deep in the Wastnds, showing no twitch of muscle, no tightening of brow-none of the storms Garrick knew he deserved to face.


    Even hatred had deemed them unworthy of notice.


    That unflinching calm in Jared''s gaze cut deeper than any raging hatred ever could.


    In that look he heard a silent verdict: to Jared, everyone in The Janis Family— Garrick himself, the elders who liked to perch on their lofty thrones-were nothing more than inconsequential clowns, hardly worth a second nce.


    Not even hatred was granted to them.


    A crushing force seemed to close around Garrick''s heart, squeezing so hard that the breath stalled in his throat.


    Another picture shoved its way forward—the three envoys who had descended on Janis Manor not long ago.


    At first he had greeted them with reverence, calling them Draconian Envoys and imagining that ancient true-blooded dragons had arrived and tossed The Janis Family a goldendder to climb.


    Looking back now, he could not find the faintest trace of sacred draconic energy on any of them.


    What clung to those three was a chill that seeped into bone, a demonic aura that made souls quiver-Demon Dragons, twisted beings nothing like the orthodox Draconians.


    He had sensed that wrongness.


    The warning flickered in his mind, yet he forced his eyes shut and walked past it— why?


    Was it greed?


    Was it the promise those Demon Dragon Envoys dangled-endless Draconian treasures just waiting to be imed?


    Was it the heavenly materials, ancient techniques, and divine weapons that could let The Janis Family smother Cloudhaven City in the curve of a single hand?


    Or was it the lure of the relics buried inside the Primeval Dragonmere?


    Relics that might break every shackle andunch the family straight into the ranks of true top-tier celestial sects?


    Greed blinded the heart; profit muddied the mind.


    The eight terse words sliced through his conscience again and again, each pass sharper than thest.


    Garrick let his eyes close.


    The weather-edged dignity of his face sagged under a weight no one else could


    carry.


    A long, hoarse breath slipped out-one exhale packed with centuries of struggle and


    the smothering remorse of this very hour.


    Vivian had been right.


    He had been wrong.


    As patriarch he had proved short-sighted and dim, plotting against Jared and his Dragon


    Sovereign Bloodline for phantoms of


    gain, steering The Janis Family


    toward an abyss with no tedge to


    cling to.


    The iron is already cast, the water already spilled every road back has vanished.


    What options were left to him now?


    What options were left to The Janis Family?


    Dragging feet that felt forged from lead, Garrick stepped out of the ancestral hall.


    The night ran deep; no stars marked the ck vault overhead, only a single bloodless crescent moon hung alone, spreading a bleak chill.


    He tipped his head back, stared into that dead sky, and murmured so softly that only


    he could hear, "Please... let there still be time..."


    He could not know that fate''s


    cruelest habit is to wait until the first spark of regret appears, then


    announce without mercy thatevery chance has already slipped away.


    Just then, outside Cloudhaven City, dust boiled across the in.


    A hundred-strong column thundered toward the main gate.


    Hooves pounded the ground, armor chimed cold and clear; themand in that


    sound sent birds and beasts scrambling for cover, afraid even to breathe.