After a long while; Simeon seemed to finally remember where he was and he snapped out of his thoughts; casually looking down toward the fort beneath him; Despite the fact fire power capable of blasting the moon to pieces was trained on him; his expression didn't flicker even a single time; Simeon's hands clapped close in the air as though he was closing an invisible book; Everything about his actions were casual and unhurried; "Where is your Emperor? Why has he not come out to see me yet?" Simeon's words were soft but they spread with an insuppressible might; He didn't seem to take Emperor Fawkes seriously at all, directly asking him to make his presence known; Fury surged in the hearts of the citizens of Earth; Emperor Fawkes was a God in all of their hearts; The prestige he had built up from the Third Dimensional realms into the Seventh Dimensional realms was incomparably solid; As much as the people also had Leonel in their hearts, erasing hundreds of years of near worship in just a handful of years was impossible; In addition; as far as everyone else saw it; Leonel's accomplishments; and Noah's for the matter; were only right; After all; how could Emperor Fawkes have inferior grandchildren? Every time they accomplished something mighty; it was actually only bolstering Emperor Fawkes in the eyes of the people; As a result. in return for his words. Simeon only received nothing but silence. however this sort of silence was harmonious in its symphony; Billions of gazes looked into the skies. their expressions just the same; Simeon suddenly sneered; "A collection of ants; Since your Emperor refuses to give me an explanation for the slaughter of my people, then that makes this matter even simpler; A debt of blood must be repaid with blood; "Wipe out half the population of Earth and imprison the other half; That should be about enough to weigh evenly;" The words of Simeon couldn't have been more demeaning. Not mentioning the sheer number of Earthlings who had died during the first descent of the four families. how could a few dozen or even hundred lives compare to the billions on Earth currently? In the decades Leonel had been gone, the main priority of the Ascension Empire was to increase the population of Earth which had been whittled to strikingly few after the Metamorphosis; To increase from a population of just millions to billions in just a few decades sounded ridiculous, and truly it was; However; under a shocking change; the people of Terrain who should have taken five generations to become true citizens of Earth only took a single one under some mysterious power; Of course, this "mysterious power" was bestowed by Emperor Fawkes himself which was also a large part of the reason the citizens of Earth were so respectful of him; The people of Terrain thought that they would be forced to be enslaved for generations before they got a chance; Some of the more pessimistic among them thought that this was all a lie and they would never gain such a chance; But in a twist of fate; they could see with their own eyes as their children rose up to become paragons and young elites of the human race; Just like this, the vast majority of the former people of Terrain whole heartedly embraced Earth as their home; From the very beginning; it was not their choice to wage war against Earth; it had always been the choice of a few families and organizations; The rewards gained would have never been their own to begin with; But now, their thoughts had long since strayed from Terrain; That barren place wasn't their home, this was their home; They too had fought in the war against the four families. They too had watched their youths die one after another. They too felt the stiling hatred as they stared up into the skies. So when Simenon's voice descended. their fury rose up like a tempest. seemingly wanting to shred Simeon to pieces with nothing more than their eyes. But. even so… With a casual glance. Simeon waved a hand toward the warriors to his back. Without fail. each of them exuded mighty and unprecedented auras. Their strengths caused even the air to quake. However. before they could take action. there was a sudden change atop the blooming Ascension Tree. A mighty golden light shot into the skies. Simeon's sneer returned. "Now your Emperor wants to appear? It's far too late for that. Maybe if the mighty Emperor Fawkes falls to his knees I might consider reducing the punishment by ten percent." The pillar of light shot into the skies, tearing through the clouds and appearing tall and proud. When the lights cleared, Simeon's sneer paused. At that moment, it became clear that it wasn't Emperor Fawkes at all, but rather a young man wielding a saber easily twice the length of his body. Despite not having a flying treasure, he stood in the skies as easily as though it was the earth. With just a single glance, every person of Earth recognized this young man. This was none other than their prince, Noah Fawkes. Noah stood in the air with a violent look in his eyes. He was a man that rarely showed any sort of emotion at all, but hearing the piercing words about the man he respected most, his grandfather, the murderous intent in Noah's heart had reached its absolute peak. Even so, when he saw the state of Raj and Drake's corpses, a fiendish green radiance burst from his body, causing the skies to dark and the clouds to accumulate. Simeon's frozen sneer became an expressionless gaze soon after, his raised hand continuing to descend and point forward. A mere prince of this backwater place? Who the hell cared if he was infuriated? The warriors of the Brazinger family charged forward. What no one expected was that the moment war was about to descend, the situation would change entirely. All sound vanished and the world seemed to lose its color. All those who looked into the skies could see a blinding ray of white light thousands of kilometers across. It was brighter than even the sun itself, burning its image into the minds of all those who saw it. The moment the beam appeared, it collided with the moon and a void seemed to form. The entire Moon was swallowed whole in the blink of an eye. When the beam vanished, there was no lush greenery or gorgeous blue oceans any longer, there was only a land of black and ash, burnt to a crisp with a single strike. The Moon, its resources, its people… Had all been eradicated in a breath. The temperature of Earth began to slowly rise as though a second sun had appeared in the skies, the wild flames pulsing at the hearts of all those who laid eyes on it. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 When the people of the Brazinger family turned back, they couldn't help but freeze in absolute silence. In the skies, a shadow seemed to walk out from those flames, the darkness around him entirely conspicuous as a moon-sized ball of fire flickered to his back.