"A cell?"

Juwaira was incredulous. "Even as a runaway, my father isn't going to take this lightly, you know? You better change your mind if you are thinking of doing anything nasty."

Prince Nimu shook his head with a sly smile before he turned to look at the other unconscious inmates.

Juwaira immediately recognized most of them. Only about three people were strangers to her. And all of them were Royals, the highest nobility on the continent. They were the children of the remaining four monarchs on the continent.

"Shurein, Biyakis, Dadiyan, Ura, and even the Fallen Dikan." Nimu shrugged. "All of us are here, detained. Do you think my little Ura has the power to capture and imprison all of these people? And even if we are that powerful, why dig our graves with our own hands?"

Prince Nimu was from Ura. He was the crown prince of his empire. The Ura empire was the last on the western border, and Shurein was the last on the eastern border. Dikan and Biyakis were close to each other in the center, while Dadiyan was in the southeast.

Each empire was far away from the other due to the land mass. It would be difficult for a single person to capture and imprison them here all at one time.

Especially as most of them were in their respective empires, under the utmost security available on the continent.

And some of them like Juwaira weren't home, on the run.

But that was exactly what seemed to have happened. Here they were, all captured and in bindings. What was happening here?

At that moment, the others began to stir, and soon the cell was filled with noises.

Two girls burst out crying and shaking a yet unconscious man while screaming his name.

They were from the Dadiyan empire. Juwaira knew the man but had never met the girls before now, probably because of their age differences.

There was a time she heard a rumor in her father's court, that her father wanted to betroth her brother, the crown prince, to one of the two girls.

Seeing them now made her curious as to whether her brother would even agree to that, as none of the girls was more than ten years old, or at least possessed some special quality to attract the stubborn older brother she knew.

She laughed inwardly, imagining her father's reaction if her brother refused.

She pushed the thought of home away and focused on her situation in the cell.

They were still suspicious of each other, but eventually, after about twenty minutes, they realized that they needed to cooperate.

Prince Nimu cleared his throat and took the initiative by telling them how he was kidnapped. On hearing that, the others followed suit. Soon everyone awake had spoken.

Unlike Juwaira who was brought awake to Enula, the others all arrived unconscious. None of them could remember what transpired after leaving home.

But each of them spoke of a young petite and fair woman. She was the last person they remembered seeing.

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After a series of inquiries, Juwaira deduced that the said young woman looked a lot like the woman who brought her there.

But she always came with a different identity, each time. She came to her as a slave girl called Laluri, while she appeared to Nimu as a messenger from the head of the Ura council.

Could it be the same woman who brought them all here?

They stayed like that in the cell for a long time. There were chandeliers in the room up at the ceiling, but no sunlight sifted through and they had lost count of time.

Moreover, their wristwatches, bags of holding, and all their belongings were confiscated. Only the clothes they wore were left on them.

"They have changed my clothes," said prince Jubu. He was lying down on the floor with closed eyes. He had not spoken or moved since the beginning, so Juwaira thought he hadn't been awake all this time.

Jubu was the crown prince of Biyakis. They were betrothed, but Juwaira had refused the political marriage and they hadn't seen each other for long. It was probably the beginning of her estrangement from her father.

"My clothes were green and give protection. My eyes are healing and can't be opened in the next few hours, so, correct me if I am wrong, but these here are white and have not a jot of pol in them."

"Haha." laughed Nimu. "How did they manage to capture someone like you?"

Jubu had the strongest pol among them. He had attained Pseudo-Deva a long time ago, and was expected to reach Deva in a few hundred years - he would be the first to attain such in the whole continent.

He was the most brilliant among the upcoming generation on the continent, so it was only fair to wonder how he was captured.

Jubu didn't reply, and after a while, Nimu looked away from him. Juwaira also looked up at the ceiling. And the other inmates also didn't speak after that. Everyone was aware of the competition between Nimu and Jubu, and no one wanted to be caught in it.

Despite all these, the Royal children weren't much worried. Most of them vowed inwardly to take their revenge as soon as they regained their freedom.

They knew that even the most insane person wouldn't try to kill them. Who would dare to implore the wrath of a whole continent?

Were anything to befall them, the five empires would unite for the first time in history to show their wrath.

And no one would dare to hurt them as their empires and all the tribes within them were under the level 6 empire of Yusta'Diyum.

In short, the highest-rank empire was on their side. Even the ancient cultivation sects and the famous religious clerics wouldn't dare hurt them.

That thought made them feel relaxed. The most their captors would do would be to seek their parents to pay a ransom before they were released. But this would be the last thing their captors would ever do.

The children, especially the girls, talked about the type of revenge they would take.

But Juwaira didn't say anything about that. Nimu and Jubu both stayed silent as well and listened. These three people could be said to lack the enthusiasm shown by the others.

Juwaira believed that whoever their captor was had already planned against any backlash from their actions. They weren't even properly bound, to show that there wasn't any fear that they might escape.

One thing the girls were yet to notice was that their pol was sealed. A person without the ability to wield their pol couldn't escape from this cell.

Juwaira turned her head from side to side, studying the room again. There wasn't a window or a door, and they saw no one up till now. There wasn't even a sound coming from the outside. It was as if they had been isolated and placed in a vacuum.

The only consolation was the fact that cultivators could spend a month without the need to relieve themselves or eat.

But the air in the room had already soured from their breath.

Forget about being imprisoned with others, Juwaira had never been imprisoned in her entire life. Not even in her room.

And she could say the same of her fellow cellmates.

"Assuming they never intend to set us free," said Nimu after a while. "How are we going to escape?"

He was having the same thoughts as Juwaira, but he beat her to say it first.

The others stared at him as if he had gone crazy. Who in the world would dare not set them free?

Only Juwaira watched him with worried eyes.

The prince just sighed at their reactions and shook his head as he glanced at Jubu, before closing his eyes in meditation.

Sometimes, it was better to let fate take its path.

Juwaira, like Jubu, found a spot and lay down. She needed to preserve her remaining strength in case of emergency.

She didn't know why, but at that moment, the thought of a certain man she met weeks ago on their way to Biyakis suddenly came to her mind.