That silence.
The stars shone in the night sky, adorning the three moons that illuminated the city of Abun.
"Is it difficult to sleep at night?" Sarah asked Nero, which rolled over, in the bed of the best inn in the city because an Elder of the Black Sword Sect deserved only the best treatment that the city could offer.
"It's been over two years since Dark Soul Stone took my sun weakness, but I still feel more comfortable at night." Dark Soul Stone has improved Nero's body to the point that he no longer suffers from side effects from the sun and silver, but it is difficult to change his seventeen years of night habits.
"Do you want to go out and hunt for some stress relief?" Sarah asked Nero in a loving tone like a wife wanting the best for her lover. But the fact that she asked if he wanted to 'hunt' broke any climate.
"Don't you mind if I go 'hunting'?" Nero can't help but provoke her.
"You stupid playboy! One day I will beat you until you cry for intimidating me so much." Sarah just wanted to be able to get out of the red world and punch Nero. But in the end, it would be that light punches in the chest that wouldn't hurt a fly.
"Okay, let's get out then." Nero stood up and jumped out the window as he didn't want to alert anyone, especially Elder Xiong, who thought he was tired and wanted to sleep.
"Whooosh," Nero fell in the middle of the street with one knee and one hand resting on the floor. It was the famous 'superhero landing' he saw in movies on Earth.
Nero got new clothes from Zhu Tai, who didn't bother to give him after Xiong Zhelan asked.
Now he was wearing black linen pants. Black social shirt ornamented with flowers in a vintage style. A small red vest over the shirt. Red leather boots with very resistant black metal. And to finish off a black overcoat with gold dragon ornaments.
If any steampunk fan saw Nero like that, they would have an orgasm of such excitement because he was amazing now. But anyone who liked black would also find his look beautiful. Well. In the case of Nero, anything he wore, everyone thought it was beautiful because he left the clothes looking better than it was.
Sarah found the dragon ornaments in the overcoat perfect and felt as if those ornaments were her mark that would tell the world that he already was taken by her the Dragon Princess.
Nero felt he was lucky that Zhu Tai shared his appreciation for black with him. He would cry blood if he had to wear green or yellow. "A vampire has to wear black and look intimidating." Nero thought. After the extinction of his race, he wanted to do more classic vampire things as a way of showing respect for ancient traditions and that he would never forget his family.
"Aww, what an adorable angel!" A woman leaning against the inn's wall sighed when she saw the beautiful Nero fall from the sky. But when Nero gave her an evil smile. She could have sworn she saw a strange shine on his white teeth.
"No... He's the devil!" The woman thought she was drunk and entered the inn before something bad happened. A good decision that saved her life.
"What a pity that the prey fled in fear." Nero shook his head and walked in the opposite direction from the inn.
"Didn't you want to scare her with that demonic smile? Even I would fear you like that." Sarah can't help asking.
"And you didn't want me to scare her?" Nero could also play the same game as Sarah.
"..." And the two were silent as Nero walked around the city being faced by the few people who were on the street so late at night that it must have been a new day.
"Ooh-la-la! What a big mansion." Nero walked until to stop in front of a huge mansion made of stone like a medieval castle.
"Get ready!!! I feel cultivators in Qi Refinement seventh and sixth layer coming towards you." Sarah warned as she could feel those cultivators within a mile with her spiritual sense.
"It can not be! Damn them!!!" Nero's eyes widened in disbelief and anger but not because of the arrival of the cultivators but because he smelled a specific smell that he already knew.
"Yes... I can feel she too even though she is very weak." Sarah understood Nero's reaction and she knew that now was not the time for play and heads were going to roll.
_______________________________
"How many times have I done this? Oh, whatever, I can't complain." Wei Ping thought aloud as he ran to look for Dai Zhi in the forest, and his helpers did not respond because he completed before they could say anything.
Wei Ping was already accustomed to having to rescue the older Miss from Dai Family. Dai Zhi always got into trouble whether they were fighting with other families, going too far north near the mountains to encounter dangerous beasts, or going too far south in the forest.
Wherever she gets into trouble, he was the one who would always be sent because Dai Jingyi and Dai Dong were afraid that no one else could calm her down. The young misses saw Wei Ping as a strong grandfather and respected him a lot.
Wei Ping was a Qi Refinement seventh layer cultivator, and his comrades were in the sixth layer, so they had a speed several times faster than most people in Abun. They did not go to the forest through the town square but on a path that they were already accustomed to using on the east side of the city.
So they didn't know that Dai Zhi had already left the forest and was at home now taking a hot shower and touching her 'little flower' thinking of a white-haired young man.
Wei Ping just wanted to find Dai Zhi fast and get back to the comfort of home, so he ran as fast as his men could follow. But after two hours without finding anyone, he sent one of the men back to check. This man went and came back quickly to say he heard rumors about Dai Zhi and a group in the town square.
"So she is not stupid to stay in the forest at night. Good!" Wei Ping was not angry but happy that nothing had happened to Dai Zhi. Then he and his men began to return to the city.
"Wait!" Wei Ping waved and stopped still in the middle of the forest.
"I can hear your breath you dirty animal!" Wei Ping spoke while looking at the bush less than a hundred meters from him and his men already understood that someone was there.
_________________________________________
Nero's eyes burned with fury, and his already large fangs pierced his skin, staining his mouth with blood.
He couldn't bear to see the brutal way a middle-aged man dragged Marie by the foot. She was already all bruised full of dirt and leaves. She was bleeding through all the holes.
"Do I take any risks by fighting them?" Nero asked Sarah, barely holding back and running to save his little fox.
"They have much higher cultivation than you do, but I believe that if they don't have some absurd martial art, you won't have a hard time killing them," Sarah responded precisely, giving Nero more confidence.
"What chance do I have to beat Elder Xiong?" Nero asked a more important question.
"None." Sarah paused quickly and then continued. "He is a martial warrior. Even though your speed is almost equivalent to his, your strength is much less. And he knows a lot of martial arts unlike you who don't know any."
"Not to mention that you do not know anything about advanced battle techniques, nor do you have full knowledge of your body's capabilities." Sarah shared all her thoughts, neutrally, and realistically.
"What are the chances that Elder Xiong will not consider me hostile if I do a carnage here?" Nero tried to change the perspective.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think he cares much for the people in this city. He came here to find promising disciples. If you show yourself to be a talent, he may even side with you against these men. But I believe he will want a better reason than to save a non-human." Sarah showed a similar thought that Nero had in mind.
Nero's mind works at a thousand per second. When he smelled Marie, he started to think about all the chances he had to fight, but he wanted to confirm everything with Sarah because his life was no longer just his with Sarah being his partner for anything.
"I appreciate your support and understanding, Sarah. I'm sorry for being so impulsive and selfish." Nero knew that Sarah would stay by his side at any time, and he felt even worse why she was so loyal to him even when he does stupid things.
"I wouldn't love you if you weren't like that... Ahem! Go and save her now." Sarah got carried away by the tense situation and spoke more than she wanted to.
"Right now!" Nero stepped out of the shadows and went towards the man carrying Marie to the big mansion.
____________________________________
In a room that smelled of lavender, a girl was walking from side to side with a small teddy bear in her hand. The girl talked to herself about her thoughts and looked at the little bear waiting for answers.
"That family has already taken a lot from us." The girl thought and remembered the first time she knew how bad things were for her family. It was a difficult conversation she had with her father that day.
"You are already big enough, my daughter, to know why we shouldn't go against the Dai family." Xun He spoke to the girl who shifted in the chair across from his.
"Nothing you tell me will change the fact that I hate Dai Zhi, and I will not lose to her!" Xun Lan crossed his arms with a 'hump!' and faced her father.
"I will summarize for you, so do not worry." Xun He began a story of how the Dai and Xun families founded Abun many years ago from forest dwellers. The patriarchs of the two families were like brothers not connected by blood and always promised to make their descendants get married to unite the good with the right.
And so it was for two generations afterward, making two families one. But with the third generation, both families had only women, so there was no marriage, separating one family from the other. Families continued in an alliance but thinking separately.
The couple who were formed by a Xun and a Dai did not like how things were going, but the current generation considered them old bones not useful. So they left the city and went to live their lives in the forest to avoid being disappointed with the family.
That generation thought completely different from each other. Dai Family wanted to explore south of the forest or north in the mountains in search of cultivation resources for themselves, but Xun Family wanted to improve the quality of life in the city and help the common people.
As time went by, a new generation came. The Dai family had two sons and a daughter. Xun Family had only one son. The eldest son of the Dai family was a loyal follower of his mother's convictions. He believed that everything was allowed in the quest for power and soon killed his mother to take over the family faster.
The two other children of the Dai family were very close to each other since they had to defend themselves against their abusive brother and mother. When the oldest brother took over the family, everything got worse, and they had to flee and seek shelter in the Xun Family because they knew about the ancient traditions and alliances.
Xun He was the current generation at that time and, with the same thought that his mother, which was already old, welcomed the Dai Siblings into his home. The head of the Dai Family did not like that his brothers abandoned him, but he did not want to risk fighting the Xun family and left them alone.
Over time Xun He fell in love with Miss Dai, and they married having the blessing of his mother and Dai Dong, who was the youngest son of the Dai family. Everything was going well, but over the years, the Dai Family got out of control and started forcing people to go far south or north, brutalizing everyone who opposed them.
Xun He knew that the Dai Family was already stronger than them, and he didn't want to take any more risks now that he already had two children to raise. But Miss Dai was a woman with a lot of willpower, and Dai Dong would follow his beloved sister wherever she went.
Together the Dai Siblings went to confront their oldest brother, but he didn't like it and attacked them without mercy. Miss Dai died before Xun He arrived with reinforcements and narrowly succeeded in saving Dai Dong's life and kill the head of the Dai Family. That terrible day the city was stained with blood by the struggle between the two largest families in the town, and many died on both sides.
In the end, Dai Dong was able to take control of the Dai family by committing himself to the woman who was the right arm of the former leader of the Dai family and had a lot of influence on the cultivators. She was a very cunning and ambitious woman who would force Dai Dong to fight against Xun He in the future if it weren't for them making a non-aggression pact right after the battle.
And so the families continued to be separated once again. Now with both family heads living in sadness and regret for the death of the former Miss Dai.