In the dining room of the White family.

Rose, Thorn and the entire White family were eating and drinking cheerfully.

In one corner of the dining room, on a platform, there was the corpse of the rose plant monster. Its beauty and durability made it an excellent trophy.

"That was a really big surprise! I didn't know there was such a powerful martial art in the world!" Lobup White laughed as he held up a glass of grape juice.

"I didn't know that either! Rose, why didn't you tell me you were an amazing hand-to-hand fighter?!" Thorn asked, seriously curious about that.

Rose took a sip from a cup filled with Thorn's blood, then said, chest puffed out: "What can I say? The subject simply didn't come out. Hahaha... And of course it's a powerful martial art. I invented it! Hahaha..."

"You invented it?!" Thorn and Lobup White exclaimed spitting out their drinks.

"Hahahahaha... Your faces are so funny! Hahahaha…" Rose laughed so hard she began to clutch her stomach.

They spent a good time celebrating and laughing.

Later, when they finished having lunch, Lobup White gave Rose a pouch that contained twenty blue coins, and thanked her deeply for her hard work.

Having finished everything they had to do here, Rose and Thorn said goodbye to the White family.

Rose rode Thorn's back, and he began to fly toward Lurep Village.

Tearing down the sky, wholeheartedly pleased, they appreciate the beautiful landscape of mountains, meadows, and lakes for quite some time.

Until they saw in the distance another flying being approaching them. Soon, they caught sight of it, it was a dullahan whose pitch-black smoke had the shape of three horizontal little rods, he was wearing black armor with white and red patterns, and he released a Third Level Full Awaken Aura.

The dullahan stopped in front of them; Thorn, frowning, stopped as well.

Quite surprised, Rose exclaimed: "You are Dani Zelu, aren't you?! What are you doing in a place like this?!"

"Mmm? Is he an acquaintance of yours?" Thorn asked tilting his head.

She explained: "He's someone I saw a couple of times in the castle, he's a member of the Zelu family, the blacksmith family, one of the Four Great Families of the Broken Earth Kingdom."

Although Dani Zelu found it strange that Rose needed to explain what the Zelu family was, he just said courteously: "It is a real honor for a minor figure like me to be remembered by Princess Rose. That's right, I am Dani Zelu. And this friend here is...?"

"I'm not a princess anymore. And she's Thorn, just Thorn, a broken human." Rose's voice sounded lazy.

*Clap!*

Dani Zelu clapped once. "Oh! That's why she has an Elemental Awakened Skill even though she's human…"

"Yeah… Anyway, what brings you here?" Rose asked as several possibilities came into her mind.

Dani Zelu answered patiently: "I've been asked by the queen to search for you. Investigating, I found out that you had taken a ship to Lurep Village. Very early today, I arrived at the village, and then I inquired around its entrances and heard that yesterday you had left the village and that you went in this direction. I didn't know how long it would take you to return to Lurep Village or if you were actually going to return, so I decided to fly in the direction you left... and here I am, it seems I'm quite lucky to be able to find you this quickly."

"Oh, interesting. Have you brought a message from my mother or something?" Rose asked, a strange light flashing through her eyes.

"Yes, she told me to tell you: I need to talk to you, come to Nedu Lake. Dani Zelu is a faithful secret pawn of mine, he will escort you safely to Nedu Lake." Dani Zelu said looking very proud of himself for being called 'faithful secret pawn' by the queen.

"I see!" Rose said smiling with a nod. She then slapped gently Thorn's head: "Hey Thorn, follow Dani."

"Sure, but how far is that Nedu Lake? You know, I've eaten a lot so I probably will need a toilet later." Thorn replied casually.

When Dani Zelu heard this, he felt that Thorn was very bizarre: (She has a lovely and sweet voice... but her demeanor is totally manly...)

Rose replied: "At your usual speed, it'll take us almost twenty days to arrive there. But don't worry, we'll make some stops on the way..."

"Ugh... Rose, would you mind it if I just fly a hundred times faster?" Thorn asked as if what he had just said were the easiest thing to do.

"Mmm... I think that if one of these days you tell me you can become a hundred-meter-tall giant, I will not be surprised by it." Rose responded somewhat tired, and nodded. "If you protect me from the wind, I'll be fine." Afterward, she pointed with one of her fingers toward the southeast: "Nedu Lake is over there."

Meanwhile, Dani Zelu realized: (... What did they just say? Twenty days, a hundred times faster, that would be a speed to get to Nedu Lake in a fifth of a day… What a ridicul–! Eeh?!)

*BOOOOOM!!!*

Before Dani Zelu could react, Thorn grabbed his hand with his left hand and used his Awakened Skill to wrap the three of them in a layer of air, immediately afterward, he flew at more than ten times the speed of sound! Such sudden action created a dreadful air explosion that shook the mountain below them.

This made Dani Zelu utterly speechless, and his pitch-black smoke, which had the shape of three horizontal little rods, deformed in shock. Fear invaded his heart: (To display this power having that cultivation, has he surpassed the Control of the Skill understanding degree?! Such a height actually exists?!)

The fact that Thorn could fly much faster than him in spite of the great disparity between their cultivation bases made Dani Zelu think about a distant legend that hinted at the existence of a higher understanding degree than Control of the Skill.

It was common knowledge that the world only had seen two understanding degrees.

Use of the Skill and Control of the Skill.

One reached First-Star Use of the Skill the instant one stepped into the First Level Basic Awaken stage and acquired an Awakened Skill. The understanding degree star could only be upgraded through studying, experimenting, and training one's Awakened Skill. The stars were First-Star, Second-Star… Ninth-Star, and Final-Star. At Use of the Skill, one developed the efficiency and expertise of using one's Awakened Skill, but the basic strength of the skill did not change.

Breaking through the Final-Star Use of the Skill one reached the First-Star Control of the Skill. At Control of the Skill, one's Awakened Skill could transcend the strength of the cultivator. At Final-Star Control of the Skill, one's Awakened Skill could exert ten times one's strength.

However, reaching Control of the Skill was not easy. Even Dani Zelu was only at Seventh-Star Use of the Skill. Control of the Skill was an understanding degree that separated the strong from the weak in this world.

This is also why even an old monster like Thorn had spitted his drink in shock the moment he discovered that Rose had invented a martial art capable of increasing her basic strength more than tenfold. It was indeed an accomplishment worthy of the adjective 'legendary'.

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Seeing Thorn surmounting two entire cultivation stages, meaning exerting a strength a hundred times superior to his cultivation base, would naturally confuse and shock others. It had even dazed Rose back then.

Now Dani Zelu was experiencing such shocker. And the only explanation he could come up with was that Thorn had surpassed the Control of the Skill.

But Dani Zelu completely misunderstood what was going on. Thorn's strength came from his dual cultivation, and in actually was inferior to Dani Zelu's; it was only comparable to the Second Level Full Awaken stage. Thorn was capable of flying faster than Dani Zelu because he was using a Wind Technique, Wind Glide to be specific.

Until now, Thorn had yet to show an understanding degree other than Use of the Skill.

He kept dragging Dani Zelu leisurely, as though touring with an old friend.

But then, after only five seconds of having been traveling at supersonic speed, Thorn, all of a sudden, used his index finger of his right hand to create a wind bullet, which in an instant he shot into the throat of the confused, and off-guard Dani Zelu. The wind bullet then pierced through Dani Zelu's liver, kidney, and intestines.

*Puuunnmmm!!!*

The sound of the impact of Dani Zelu's body against a prairie reverberated loudly as Thorn stopped in midair.

Rose saw how all of this happened without showing any surprise on her face. Obviously, she had already deduced that something like this was going to happen.

Trembling, the startled Dani Zelu slowly stood up while thinking at top speed: (Damn! They have discovered my facade too fast! I don't have even the time to think about how they did it! Right now, I need to focus on searching a way out of this situation...!) At this moment, he has discovered to his dismay that Thorn was much stronger and much more cunning than himself, so he understood that his only chance to get out alive was by escaping, of course, conventional methods would not work. If it turned into a race, he would have no chance. If he tried to negotiate, the other party would not believe him because he had lied to them before. (There are no other options then, I'll have to put my life at stake!) Dani Zelu determined, unyielding resolution filling his heart.

"Tsk! He is still alive... It seems I'm in desperate need of training, I am too rusty..." Thorn groaned in a bad mood.

Dani Zelu lifted his arms up and pointed his palms toward Thorn. In the next instant, from his palms burst out an immense column of scorching fire that enveloped Thorn and Rose! This technique was a combination of two Awakened Skills: The Wind Element and the Fire Element. It happened that the dullahan's Racial Skill, Double Essence, was the passive power of awakening two skills!

While furiously spending all of his Complex Energy to maintain such column of fire, Dani Zelu used the ankle of his right leg to kick a compartment of his belt armor. Immediately after, a thumb-sized capsule came out of the compartment. The capsule rose slightly, and it then began to fall, he took a step back and gave it a blow with his left knee. This caused the capsule to travel a parabolic trajectory which ended into Dani Zelu's throat.

Inside the burning column of fire, Thorn was squatted down and had both of his palms in front of him, which were creating a complex and dense barrier of air. Being crouched he reduced the area he had to protect, and the reason why he didn't try to dodge the attack was that he knew that although he could easily achieve it, his opponent could simply change the trajectory of the fire column as easy as moving his palms. Thus, he had decided to concentrate his efforts on defense.

Rose, who was holding herself onto Thorn's back and had her legs around his waist, looked left and right impressed. She was really fascinated. Even though she was surrounded by blazing bright crimson flames, she was not feeling as if she were being roasted alive, but, on the contrary, she felt a refreshing breeze caressing her whole body. This breeze made her beautiful red hair flutter, and caused it to seem fiery and fiercer than the flames themselves.

Almost half a minute after the fire column appeared, it began to fade away little by little.

Thorn's slightly burned palms appeared in Dani Zelu's field of vision, but those palms didn't remain burned for too long. They started to heal, and in the blink of an eye, returned to their unharmed state.

Dani Zelu had been surprised immensely twice in this short span of time, but this third surprise, the surprise he was getting when seeing the scene of Thorn's palms healing, was the biggest one: (Did he just use Mystical Energy to heal himself??!!)

While Dani Zelu was feeling the greatest shock he had ever felt in his life, Thorn, who had deliberately cured his palms and even took the trouble of making the usage of Mystical Energy visible at that moment to distract Dani Zelu, flew at supersonic speed, and in a third of the time it takes to blink, he stopped just over Dani Zelu. Without wasting time, Thorn fired a second wind bullet into Dani Zelu's neck.

This time, the bullet pierced through Dani Zelu's heart.

*Punm*

The lifeless body of Dani Zelu fell to the ground, and without further surprises, blood began to flow out of his neck.

Weakly, Rose got off Thorn's back, landed on the prairie, and held her head with both hands to try to stop the world from spinning. She complained: "T-that abrupt movement just now had shaken my brains and my other internal organs quite a bit..."

"Ah! I'm so sorry! I got carried away…" Thorn apologized blushing.

After a few seconds, Rose recovered from the bout of dizziness, and said: "Well, don't worry, I think I'll be alright… Oh! Hehehehe…" Suddenly, she recalled something and approached Dani Zelu's dead body. A big smile crept up on her now flushed face and her eyes burned with desire. Then, without shame or hesitation, she began to strip his corpse. Of course, she was not into the necrophilia thing. She was just excitedly picking up their spoils of war. It could not be helped, she really needed a lot of money.

While she was doing that, she said: "When you gave such a silly reason to show off your strength, I deduced you had noticed that Dani Zelu was lying and you wanted to shock and ambush him. But I didn't see you using your Racial Skill, so how did you realize that he was lying? It was easy for me to figure it out because I understand very well my mother's character, on the other hand you know nothing about my mother's personality nor you know how things work in Cloud Cutter Castle... I am very curious about how you have discovered that Dani Zelu was an enemy…"

Thorn explained as his blush deepened: "Yesterday when we arrived at Lurep Village, although I looked calm and relaxed on the surface, I was actually very excited inside, so much so that my eyes couldn't help but look around earnestly, and I even carefully memorized all the details of what I saw. At that moment, for just an instant, in the distance, I saw Dani Zelu. However, he has just told us that he arrived at Lurep Village today, so I assumed he wanted to hide the fact that he had been following you."

Thorn paused for a moment, put on a serious look on his face, and continued: "Besides, it's irrational for your mother to have asked him to secretly protect you and to hide from you the fact that he was doing so, because firstly, he showed us his Wind Element Awakened Skill, which meant his other skill was also an Elemental Awakened Skill, in other words, he didn't have an Awakened Skill suitable for such a mission, secondly, his behavior wasn't that of someone who was protecting you from the shadows... but rather it was the behavior of someone watching you from afar, just watching, not protecting you."

Thorn raised his right index finger as he smiled, and said proudly: "So I came to the conclusion that he was following and watching you, investigating whether or not you have someone protecting you from the shadows, and when he discovered that you didn't, he tried to kidnap you. In any case, you were once a princess, so it would not be a surprise if a few criminals pop up to try to take advantage of the powerless you."

When Thorn finished his explanation, Rose also finished collecting everything of value from Dani Zelu's body. She literally only spared his underwear. At that moment, she said calmly: "Oh, yes, thanks for the long speech, but… you just needed to tell me that yesterday you saw him. I would have understood everything with that single sentence…"

Thorn folded his arms across his chest and shot an indignant look at Rose for her unmotivated response.

Seeing this, Rose realized that she had just hurt his feelings, so, in a hurry, she raised her thumb and said smiling nervously: "B-but you are really amazing! Your speed to think has left me completely impressed!" An instant later, a thought struck her mind: That was not a good compliment at all. She immediately exclaimed, her hands shaking in front of her: "But! I mean, I'm not that impressed by it! After all, I always knew that you were super smart!"

With his mouth slightly opened, Thorn looked at Rose as she was justifying herself; after an awkward silence, he said resigned: "Yes, yes... let's just get out of here, okay?"

"No. Wait a moment. We should at least hide his corpse." Rose said pointing at Dani Zelu's body.

Thorn nodded. "Well, probably."

He then used his wind blades to dig a ten-meter-deep hole, in which he buried the corpse.

"Mmm... if Dani didn't plan this on his own, and instead was sent by someone else to kidnap me; when that someone finds out that Dani has disappeared, he or she will not have the guts to try to kidnap me again because that person will assume that I actually have someone who is protecting me from the shadows..." Rose thought out loud.

After Rose climbed onto Thorn's back, they flew toward Lurep Village with no further worries.

Dani Zelu's body was, without doubt, dead. But his Third Level Full Awaken aura could still be felt. This was because his Complex Energy body wasn't dead yet. Since he was at the Full Awaken stage, for his Complex Energy body to die, first his mental body had to die. And for his mental body to die, a certain period of time must have elapsed since his body of flesh had died. This period of time depended on how strong the mental body was, the weak ones lasted only about five seconds, the strong ones, on the other hand, could last up to ten minutes.

It had only been six minutes since Dani Zelu's body of flesh had died when the capsule he had swallowed a while ago began to leak out some black liquid. It was a top-level medicine. The medicine ran through Dani Zelu's body as if it were alive, and in just a minute, it managed to heal all his internal wounds. Soon, his heart started to beat once again. And finally, he woke up.

Dani Zelu crawled out of the hole in which he had been buried, got to his feet, and murmured emotionally: "I can't just die… Right? … Lucile?"