______________________________________________________
"You… Do you have any idea what the Thousand Kingdom Alliance truly is?"
The voice was thin and raspy, belonging to an old vendor who had crawled out from behind a pile of crates.
His eyes were wide with a terror that surpassed the fear of Dreleon's needles.
And instead of looking at the dead Sky Tiger; he was looking at the sky.
"No matter who they are," Dreleon spoke, his voice vibrating with a killing intent so dense it felt like a physical weight pressing down on the market.
"Anyone who dares to insult the Princess will find only death."
ROAR!
Suddenly there was a sonic shockwave.
The sound wasn't a mere animal cry; it was more like the sky itself breaking and dropping on people.
It tore through the stone streets, shattering glass bottles and making the nerves of every low to high level animal in the city go numb.
"You would dare to spill blood in the presence of the Alliance?
Beg for mercy, or perish where you stand."
From the crimson-stained clouds, a nightmare descended.
It was a winged tiger, his fur the color of drying blood, surrounded by a swirling red aura that radiated a sickening heat.
He didn't fly so much as he plummeted, landing with a force that cracked the stone road for fifty meters in every direction.
"It's over," a voice whispered from a high-rise balcony.
"That's the Red Sun Tiger.
The Alliance's most ruthless executioner."
"I heard his 'Blood Fire' skill is a curse," another terrified witness added, pulling their shutters closed.
"Any wound he inflicts burns like an eternal pyre.
There is no healing from his touch."
The vendor who had spoken before pointed a trembling finger at Dreleon.
"Holy Lord, these are the imbeciles!
They killed a member of the Sky Tiger clan in broad daylight!"
"Die!" the Red Sun Tiger bellowed.
He swiped a massive paw through the air.
A titanic claw made of solidified red energy manifested in the sky, three stories tall and wreathed in dark flames.
It dropped like a guillotine.
"Heh," Dreleon scoffed, his voice laced with a terrifying heaviness.
He stepped in front of Vanessa, his eyes glowing with the cold light of the Void.
"As I said, whoever makes the Princess sad… will die."
With a flick of his wrist, Dreleon activated his Space Telekinesis.
A shimmering dome of distorted reality erupted around them—a spatial shield that completely blocked the attack after force destroying everything in the surrounding.
The massive red claw struck the shield and vanished, unable to bridge the gap between dimensions.
Dreleon didn't wait for the Tiger's next move.
In a blur of motion, he manifested his sword from his soul.
The blade as it was in seeing, just a normal wooden sword made no ripple in hearts.
Dreleon stood his ground, a simple, unassuming wooden sword appearing in his grip.
To the Red Sun Tiger, it looked like a child's toy.
With a guttural snarl of contempt, the Tiger didn't even bother to dodge.
He ignored the wooden blade entirely, tucking his massive wings and launching himself across the stone road like a crimson meteor.
His target was Dreleon's throat.
But as the Tiger closed the distance, the air around the wooden sword started to move — then suddenly it screamed.
Instanously, the Tiger's instincts, honed through a thousand bloody battles, tingled; and shrieked in terror.
Mid-dash! he performed a violent, desperate bank, snapping his wings to rotate his massive body sideways.
A split second later, the wooden sword grazed past his fur.
There was no sound of a strike, only a silent, terrifying ripple in the air.
A clump of the Tiger's red fur vanished into a spatial speed, and a thin line of blood appeared on his shoulder.
Had he been a millisecond slower, his head would have been erased from existence.
Dreleon let out a soft, cold sigh.
He didn't even look at the Tiger.
He was staring at the wooden blade.
"As expected… The First Pillar is still incomplete.
The spatial speed was too slow."
The Red Sun Tiger skidded across the stones, his breathing heavy and ragged.
He looked at the "toy" sword with newfound horror.
He had never seen a weapon that moved like that.
"Who… who are you?" he demanded, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear.
"I have traveled to thousands of Kingdoms.
I have seen every breed of warrior.
Yet there is no race that looks like you."
"Your ignorance is foolish," Dreleon replied.
His eyes drifted to the Tiger, and for the first time, he released the full pressure of his Space Isolation.
"But the dead need not know."
With a microscopic gesture, the air around the Tiger began to solidify.
It was as if the vacuum of space itself had descended upon the market.
The Tiger felt his movements turn to sludge, the oxygen being squeezed from his lungs.
Dreleon flicked his wrist, and the wooden sword hummed, accelerating toward the trapped Tiger's heart with the speed of a falling star.
Just as the tip of the wood was about to pierce his chest, the Tiger roared—a sound of pure, desperate survival.
"RED SUN AEGIS!"
A flash of blinding crimson light erupted.
A heavy, jagged set of armor, forged from blood-iron and wreathed in his 'Blood Fire,' manifested around his body.
The wooden sword struck the breastplate with the sound of a mountain cracking.
"You," the Red Sun Tiger growled, his eyes glowing with a murderous, insane light from behind his helmet.
"Are.
Dead."
______________________________________________________