He saw a glimpse of dragonfire before he noticed the exit was blocked. When he saw who it was, his heart sank. Cultivators could not resist a tournament. When you passed core formation and entered the higher realms, you became too much of a combat asset to reveal your strengths in a mock fight, but for the youths of the Martial alliance who never got real combat experience the only fights worth having were at tournaments. He had to hand it to the Martial Alliance: they organized the only tournament worth going to for someone like him. The Young Sovereign tournament took a small kingdom's worth of resources to run and cost a king's ransom to watch in person. The afterparty was a who's who of the legends of the last century meeting their successors. But the tournament. Combat till incapacitation, activation of one of the many life saving treasures used in the arena, or surrender. Group stages and individual contests, and the world's strongest teenagers fighting as if to the death. What more could Sev ask for? He lost, the first three times he entered. Mostly to those as old as he currently was, but still. When he finally won it was without a doubt the greatest day of his life. He broke from late to peak stage mid fight, and won by the skin of his teeth. He hadn't advanced since. Had been solidifying himself at the peak.

His opponent from that day stood before him. Vilex of the Crashing Wave was not a water user, despite her name. She was a summoner, who bound wild spirits to themselves for use in battle. It was the kind of specialty that was too close to the forbidden to get away with in the Martial Alliance, unless you had connections. Last he had seen Vilex, she had been one of the favorite to win the tournament despite being only sixteen, the same age as he had been. They had met each other twice in the tournament, first in an arena in which they wiped the floor with everyone else too quickly to have a proper fight and again in the finals. He had won by the skin of his teeth, his right arm broken and an hour from death by blood loss. It was one of the greatest days of his life. The closest victory he had ever won.

He had grown stronger since that day, but he had not taken a great leap. He had not broken his foundation down and formed a core.

Vilex had. The power of it radiated out of her freely now, perfect and even and making the air feel like soup. He might be able to defeat a weak core formation cultivator, but Vilex had never been a weak anything.

There were more changes to her form. Last time he had seen her arms the forearms were inhuman, one covered in blue scales and the other in jet black feathers. Those changes now had stretched down to her palm and up to her tricep. But what was most striking was her eyes: they no longer had pupils, but were completely white and glowing.

He would probably lose. But he needed to get out there, to lead his sect in their hour of most desperate need.

No words were needed, and they were both smiling despite it all. The second her fingers twitched he sprinted at her. A blue serpent appeared in front of her and lunged to meet him, but he sidestepped out of the way. It expected that and moved back to block any strike against its benefactor, but that wasn't what Sev was going for. He ran past both of them to the exit.

He saw it only a moment before it barreled into him. A giant eagle tackled him, knocking him off balance. Talons stabbed his shoulders. As he tried to break free the serpent landed on him and coiled around him.

Vilex stood there, staring at him with those blank eyes.

"Wait till I form my core. I will give you a better match then." Sev gasped out.

"A core is the dream of most cultivators. With enough practice almost anyone can form a foundation, but cores require talent, hard work, and luck. " "You have all three. Why haven't you formed one?" She stepped closer, and Sev knew she was feeling out his qi. "You could easily form a perfect core as we speak. What's your mother trying to do with you?"

"Why are you bringing up my mother?"

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"Your mother is still discussed often. The last scion of House Violet. The bloody thorn in the martial alliance, or the Violet Witch or Nightmare. Her family's deeds catalyzed the last intra alliance war, and she's still wandering free with a weapon borne of that slaughter. In a new sect outside the Alliance, plotting her revenge. The material of a scary bedtime story, isn't it?"

She walked up closer, and those blank eyes stared up at him with a sly little grin.

"And two decades after the war, her progeny shows up at the Young Sovereign. Only thirteen years old, but a genius with a spear whose qi can compete those years older than him. Arrogant and capable in a way that's cute given his age but terrifying given his parents."

"Loses only to the Seaheart genius when he's fifteen, vanquishes her to win the entire tourny at sixteen. Does not return, allowing that loser to reign over two hollow victories. A seventeen year old reaching core should have been the story of ages, but what is the story of a hero without a villain?" The most fake of frowns danced across her face.

"You've won. Let me go." Vilex raised an eyebrow, and Sev continued. "I need to protect this sect. I've spent the past two years fighting vampires and taking over the weapon training regimens for the outer disciples." Her eyebrows furrowed, which looked weird without pupils. "My mother told me to form a core when I felt I couldn't but do it."

Vilex twisted her hand, and the snake squeezed his chest till he could barely breath. "Your desire burns so brightly it hurts. Well, Severum. Should you wish to save your sect and your ribcage it is time for you to start forming your core."

"I want to. But I could choose not to. I could wait for you to kill me."

"I shall take you to Seaheart." Vilex replied. "You'll be treated fairly. I'm know that whatever noxious ideas your family has in store you have nothing to do with it. You don't even cultivate death qi, do you?"

He flared his power and pushed against the serpent. He made some headway, but he was still stuck. Accursed thing.

"I'm not my mother. The sect is filled with good people, ignoring my family. Fighting for what they believe in, free to do what they want, given a chance to grow stronger. They don't deserve to die today due to the schemes of my parents or the brutality of the martial alliance."

He felt it, then. Power flowing into him, power overflowing, power that threatened to, wanted to collapse his foundation.

Vilex's grinned or grimaced, Sev couldn't quite tell. "They'll be decimated. You think a dragon is enough? We've made ourselves weak on the entire eastern border and drained every free practitioner in Seaheart, Franaross, Julibee, and Kalendar. This is an army to fight dragonflights."

Rage flowed through him. He needed to be there with them, those who looked up to him. To give them courage as they defended their way of life.

"You'll bleed for it. Mount Venom has fought the Vampire lords tooth and nail while you lot have been meditating most your lives. And for what? Franarossi greed?"

Vilex sighed. "Franarossi greed indeed, but not just that. Fear from the rest of us. That your mother's family would once again plunge the entire continent into war, but this time with the dragons at her side."

She looked at him, expression carefully calm. "You don't deserve to die. No one there does. But your father must be captured, for dealing with humanity's mortal enemy. Your mother too, for the crimes she has committed."

Sev's heart beat through his chest. Logically, he should betray his parents. They wouldn't even disapprove. He secured his future for something that would have happened anyway.

But Sev was not them. And he was not his sister. He was a not a traitor to the sect. But was he a traitor to his family?

"I won't fight them."

"That's fine. Lead us to them. They are hidden at the moment."

Sev thought about it for a second, but he had never been one to second guess himself. His parents had betrayed the sect first, and they could handle themselves. They - or his mother, at least - would be angry at him for not taking this deal.

"I'll tell them that I'm being tracked. They will be prepared. And for this, promise me that you will spare the sect."

"Not the elders. None who made a deal with dragons." Vilex easily replied.

The sect would be crippled. But he could hear the roar of great beasts, Franarossi fireballs exploding, and the bedlam of thousands of weapon strikes. He needed to protect them. To lead them.

"What if you lie to me? Or you can't convince your sect?"

She took out a speaking stone and fed some power into it.

"I swear, on my cultivation and the name of the Crashing Wave, that if Severum Kraitchild reveals the location of his mother, Sanguina Violet, to the Academy of Seaheart, our army shall spare the Kraitchild clan. Should I fail, may all my summons leave me and the spirits know me as an oathbreaker."

Someone started to swear at her through the speaking stone, but she cut it off. She tossed a tracking stone to him.

"Now they - and I - don't have a choice. Next time I see you, you will have a core. I'm looking forward to it."