When Eamon came back to his senses, his vision was blurry and dust filled the air. Most of his men were down, and he himself was only standing because something was protecting him, and those very close to him.

He blinked to get his senses working again. "Chen?"

"I’m here! Father, what happened?"

The room had been half destroyed, and some of Garran’s men were dead.

"I....don’t know," Eamon admitted as he swallowed, his gaze going down to the ring in his right hand. The ring was made of normal metal, but it was worn with age, and the one green gem on it was dull and lifeless.

"What is this? Something that can block my attack?" WaterLord Freya sounded genuinely shocked. "Garran, you did not tell me that you have something that interesting here."

Garran was looking quite surprised as well. The half shield of ice he had conjured earlier disappeared. "Well...."

Just then, the dust in the room settled, and they all saw what blocked her attack.

It was a head.

A head that must once belong to a great beast. It was a furred beast with fangs as big as fingers, and eyes that burned with dull green energy.

"Necromancy!" Garran shouted. "The Rikon has a Necromancer in their service?"

The gigantic head acted as a shield to block the earlier attack.

Eamon took a deep breath as he smiled tightly with relief. He got his trembling body to produce a sound. "I said I’m here to kill you. Do you doubt me?"

WaterLord Freya shook her head. "There’s no Necromancer here. None of them have the essence, unless they’re operating outside of this room, which I doubt.....how is this possible?"

Chen moved closer. "Father....what’s...." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"Didn’t I tell you, son? The reason why our Clan has held our position for years, even with our history of not having that many outstanding Knights. It’s because of this! This artifact that’s found in the Chasm...."

Everyone zeroed in on his raised hand and the ring. The ring was unremarkable, but the power flowing from it left no doubt as to its capacity.

A named artifact.

Chen was the most shocked out of everyone. "I don’t even know about this..."

"A secret is not a secret if it’s turned into a bedtime story."

Commander Garran sneered. "And yet you brought it here to show off."

High Chief Eamon Rikon shrugged. "It’s time it remained a secret no longer. It’s a Chained Artifact, one of the strongest kinds. It’s called, Three Bounds."

WaterLord Freya raised her brows and took a step forward. "Is that so? You have an artifact of such power? Interesting!"

Her hand raised quickly. A rope of water blasted out, a whip that cut like flexible blades, straight at Eamon and his son! But the beast head was even faster—it blurred and appeared in front of them, directly taking the hit for them.

Eamon chuckled. "This one is a defensive bound. It’s there to protect the user of the Artifact. You can’t.....!!"

The WaterLord moved. Fog of cold ice appeared around her as she shot forward, the ground she stepped on freezing from her passing. She appeared directly in front of the beast head and punched it with a force that cracked the ground she was standing on.

The attack hit the beast head solidly on the face, and it was shoved back, its nose cracking as it broke. But that wasn’t the extent of her attack—the place where the punch hit began to freeze!

"Shit...she’s going to...." Chen panicked when he saw that their new defense was getting beaten, but he didn’t have time to finish his words.

Eamon didn’t seem concerned, and the next instant he was proven right as a flash of bright green light flared around the head. The ice stopped spreading and disappeared, same as the crooked nose.

But what shocked Chen was that at that moment, the WaterLord suddenly flinched and jumped back from the head, her face fixed in a frown. "What was that?"

Eamon slapped the beast head. "It’s not that simple. The beast can control a wave of power that makes everyone that comes near it slow down. That’s mainly how it protects from Knights. The Artifact is a good counter."

"So that’s what happened—to be able to heal and slow people down. But does it also protect like that from magical attacks? I’m guessing not!"

Immediately she said that, she went for an attack again. But this time, she went differently. By now, her ice fog had frozen nearly the entire room—the walls and the ceiling.

She attacked from the top.

Blue light flashed directly above, and ice swords began to appear, dozens of them enhanced by essence. And they all came down at once, and not all in a straight line. The swords scattered, moving like a storm with no sense of direction.

No matter how the beast head decided to block, they would get hit.

But that didn’t exactly happen as anyone anticipated because, at that moment, the beast head turned on Eamon and Chen. The beast head turned swiftly, powerful jaws opening to rows of gleaming yellowed fangs. Then it came down in a powerful chop, swallowing Eamon and his son in a single bite.

Just as the storm of swords hit like a hurricane, battering the ground so strongly that a crater directly formed, and the beast head had to heal itself.

WaterLord Freya and Commander Garran were left stunned by the swift and sudden turn of events. "What just.....did his undead just turn on him?"

Garran frowned, his dark eyes appearing darker. "I do not think that’s an undead in the sense of undead. I think it was made by that Artifact....and they’re still alive."

Just then, a voice came from the beast head. "I came to kill Commander Garran, but to think I’ll meet the WaterLord here. I can only do my best now!"

The beast head didn’t actually kill Eamon and his son. It just swallowed them and kept them locked in its mouth, like a prison or a shield—depending on how one looks at it.

WaterLord Freya looked at the beast head flatly. "I’m getting really tired of this. I’ll kill you guys now."

She raised her two hands. On her right side, waterfalls and rivers of water appeared, turning into a small ball of water. Again and again, the water she conjured was compressed.

And on her left hand, chunks of ice appeared, all of them enhanced by blue light. Then the ice was compressed by essence, time and time again.

Then her two hands came together, her essence combining them into a single thing. A small blue and silver light hovered above her right hand.

It was the technique that made her feared and earned her the title of WaterLord. It was her strongest technique, and what made it truly terrifying was the fact that she could use it several times as if she were using a simple technique.

Silver Fall.

That’s the name of the technique. A jet of compressed water and ice, tempered by essence and pushed out under incredible pressure.

She raised her right hand and gently pushed forward. A flash of silver lightning appeared. Everything and everyone in the room felt the same thing at the same time—a shared sense of something sharp cutting them.

Eamon, an ordinary human, actually felt as if he had been cut up from the waist down, and he fell into the dry, fleshy ground in the beast head.

"What?" Eamon said, looking up at part of the iced ceiling and the blue sky as his chest screamed in pain. His son was shouting beside him, but he could feel that something was wrong.

Something was wrong. Part of the ceiling and the sky? What? No, no.... he shouldn’t be seeing the sky or the ceiling. He was inside the beast’s mouth, right?

The WaterLord’s attack had actually cut off part of the ceiling and the beast.

Eamon’s eyes widened. "How? This beast is surely enhancing itself with essence, and the beast itself is said to be strong and at the Master Knight level! This means....this.... the WaterLord can kill a Master Knight... just like that?"

Just then, the flow of power in the room was disturbed again. Even an ordinary person like Eamon Rikon felt its rush of power. It was the same he felt when Freya first used that technique just now.

He didn’t even think twice. He slapped his ring into the ground just as the world was consumed by silver lightning once again, and everything turned upside down.

Eamon knew he was still alive when he felt several throbbing pains in his body, as if he’d been sliced open—the side effects of being near Freya’s technique.

"Father....did you do something?" Chen asked with curiosity.

Indeed. The attack just now did not hit the beast head, even though the rest of the ceiling and roof had been blown to bits.