“Unprecedented, reckless to the bone,” Gio Robel breathed, his sigh trailing like smoke in winter air.

“Lance, can you tell me why you think you need money?” His gaze probed like a lantern cutting fog.

“And you’re not exactly short on cash right now, are you?” His words tapped like knuckles on a locked door.

He wasn’t wrong; the truth sat there like a stone in clear water.

Lance wasn’t just comfortable; against common folk, even against any knight in Doran, he looked flush like a spring swollen with meltwater.

He’d won the Knight Festival and took the prize—five thousand gold coins, bright as a heap of suns.

Five thousand gold coins—about three hundred and fifty million yuan—numbers stacking like towers against the skyline.

Even in Nordland, where low output makes prices climb like ivy, five thousand gold coins is no speck of dust.

With that sum, Lance could idle through half a lifetime, a hawk above the fields, never bowing to hunger or grinding for tomorrow.

“You’re right, but it’s not enough.” The words came with a chill, and his eyes slid to the window like a tide.

At the horizon, the sun sank like a bleeding coin, its rim biting the earth’s black edge.

“Not enough?” the would-be king blurted, surprise flaring like a match.

“Yeah. Nowhere near enough.” Lance’s sigh curled like a ribbon of wind, half bitter, half amused.

It wasn’t for Lance. For Fulin, five thousand was a handful of sand in a storm.

She wasn’t greedy. She longed for quiet, a still lake—yet the world tossed stones.

Doran would topple. If Doran fell, war from the Northern Republic would pour like wildfire over the coastal palisades.

It would race along the shore and burn across Nordland like a dry grassland in high summer.

Then five thousand gold coins would be a reed boat in a flood.

You couldn’t buy true shelter with it, nor feed a great army long; both are mountains, not pebbles.

In chaos, if you want peace, you must be a warlord, a wall of spears even if you refuse the flame.

“In short, the War-Wolf Knight’s fortune is necessary,” Lance said, voice flat as iron.

“Alright, alright,” the would-be king exhaled, palms up like a man yielding the road. “I knew I couldn’t talk you down.”

“But you said you’d ask the Imperial family. You’re not actually going to demand it, are you?” Worry crept like frost.

“Of course not. I’m planning a trade. Fair to both sides, like scales in balance.”

At that, the would-be king stiffened, unease rising like brackish tide. “In a brother’s name, Lance Morrison, tell me the terms.”

“Even the Celestial Spirit Empire has a soft belly under the armor,” Lance said, voice low as thunder behind clouds.

“They don’t understand the Dark Spirits. To be precise, they don’t know the secret that powers the Shadowspirit Legion.”

Gio Robel’s eyes widened, shock snapping open like a window in a gale. “Brother, don’t tell me you plan—”

“We’ve investigated enough,” Lance said, casual as a cat at the hearth. “She’s useless in our hands. Better to hand her to the Empire.”

“She” meant Shelika, the third princess of the Dark Blood Clan, her name a shard of ice between them.

Too many who should have known happiness became pieces on Shelika’s board, then were buried under her broken mountain of schemes.

Whatever her reasons, she butchered innocents; in name and in fact, her guilt was a black sun.

Worse, she dared to wreck Fulin’s plan for a quiet life; for that, Fulin felt ice-cold right to judge her.

“I’ll sell her to the Empire,” Lance concluded, the words dropping like a hammer on an anvil.

The would-be king nodded, relief loosening his brow like rain easing dust. “Yes. That’s a sound course.”

Then respect flickered, a candle catching. “Still, Lance, you really broke her. She haunted my father and late brother like a night terror.”

“She scorned even Doran’s strongest Earth Rank Knights. Only before you—”

That night, they’d had several Earth Rank Knights in the interrogation room, men like mountains under storm.

Shelika stared through threats and pain like ice under a boot. Only when Lance stepped in did the frost crack.

She bowed and scraped, a wilted flower in winter wind, voice quivering with tears. “Please! This humble woman can’t die.”

“It was wrong to stand in your way. But I acted for my own kind, for the Gaia Empire…”

Lance, for once, went colder than iron in snow. He heard no pleas, no cries, only a drumbeat in his chest.

“Shut up.” After a brutal, one-sided beating, those two words fell like a guillotine.

Thinking back, the would-be king laughed, the sound sharp as a chipped blade. “Brother, for a moment I thought you were the villain.”

“Beating an unarmed woman in public.”

“You really thought that?” Lance’s tone was flat, like a lake before dawn.

“Of course not. I was just…surprised.” His smile faded like smoke in rain.

Fulin, too, was startled by her own cruelty, a mirror misted by breath.

In her past life, she’d been a quiet office worker, a pebble in the city’s stream, slow to anger and slower to strike.

“Did I change?” she asked herself later, the thought circling like a lone hawk. No answer came, so it drifted away.

Once they settled the details of Shelika’s fate, Gio asked, “Alright, it’s decided. How will you hand her to the Empire?”

“Hm…” Lance fell into thought, silence pooling like shade at dusk.

Dusk had already gathered like purple silk. They ate together, and Lance shared the plan with the crew.

They praised the choice, voices like clinking cups, and then hashed out the handover, thread by thread.

Jeremy listened, half-lost, his mind fogging like a window. He slapped his forehead like a drum.

“Boss, I don’t get it. Why not just hand the Blood Clan over to the Celestial Inquisitors?”

Yuna pushed up her rimless glasses, eyes closing like shutters. “True. That’s the most direct way.”

“Right?” Jeremy puffed up, a rooster at dawn.

“And the dumbest,” Yuna said, cutting him off like a north wind.

“What do you mean?!” Jeremy squawked, decorum blowing away like leaves.

“How do I explain this to a monkey?” Yuna’s voice was ice on stone.

Another squall was about to break. Lance only watched, calm as a pine in wind.

Catching Lance’s look, the Mountain Wind Knight sighed and stood straighter, a lazy banner finally lifting.

“First, the Blood Clan matter is seen as the kingdom’s unilateral detention,” he said, words steady as stepping stones.

“If we hand her straight to the Inquisitors, the Empire will credit them as the heroes of the hour.”

“We’ll be painted as helpers who tried to block their arrest, and we’ll eat the Empire’s nameless anger like ash.”

“In short, if we give her to the Inquisitors, we get nothing. We might even get punished.” His shrug fell like a leaf.

Jeremy got it at once. He cursed like a struck kettle. “Those damned Celestials—”

“So the boss has to hand her to the Empire himself!” His voice thudded like a hammer.

“Exactly.” The Mountain Wind Knight spread his hands, then leaned back to the wall, half asleep like a cat.

“Not so fast,” Lance’s knight mentor cut in, his caution drawing lines like a plow.

“The Imperial royals sit above the clouds. Even if it’s a core member of the Shadowspirit Legion, why would they grant a human an audience?”

“No precedent, kid,” Layne added, the words dry as old wood.

Royal authority is a cliff face. Even their own subjects can’t always climb it; why would a human be waved through?

“Without a reason stronger than extradition, you won’t see the royals, kid.” The verdict dropped like a stone in a well.

The new snag pulled them into silence, minds turning like mill wheels.

Lance was ready. “Don’t worry. They’ll see me,” he said, confidence ringing like steel.

He opened a wall cabinet, drew out a long bundle wrapped in oiled cloth, and peeled it back.

Light burst out like lightning splitting a storm, bright enough to sting their eyes.

“I have the Thunderblade, Zoficar,” Lance said, and he raised it high like a thunderhead lifting over the plain.