On the other side of the dynasty, near the border, a group of merchants who has made camp for the night stared up at the skies and the forest as a whole with mixed feelings.

"What do you think this means?" One of them asked.

"How do you expect any of us to give you an answer when it happened while we were here with you?" Another replied in irritation.

"This is going to be just like the three moons. Every scholar, astronomer will make predictions about why this night came to be brighter than day without truly grasping why it is so," another commented.

The merchants nodded. That is how the world worked. There was always someone who wanted to explain the impossible to everyone else, trying to make sense of situations that at the end of the day, simply don’t make sense.

Their leader, Kyan Starfire, seated and leaning against a tree at the furthest back hadn’t spoken and didn’t nod to his comrade’s suggestion. Because as he held the glass fish tank in his hand that carried a black fish with a glowing white heart inside, and stared up at the moon, he caught sight of a scene that rendered him speechless.

In the scene, he was tied up in the palace, tortured day and night by the emperor who held his fish hostage and kept pressuring him.

"How does one remove the heart of your fish?" The emperor roared. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

They had tried using a knife forged with phoenix fire, it didn’t work. They tried dragon flame forged weapons but the usually strong and impossible to break weapons shattered upon contact with his tiny fish.

Every tool they brought forth failed to even leave a scratch on the fish let alone pierce it’s skin. Kyan was equally stunned, he had no idea why no weapon could harm it’s ordinary fish or why the emperor wanted it’s heart so much.

He was brutally tortured to the brink of death. Right when he thought he was going to die, alone in a cold dungeon in the middle of the night, the fish leaped out of the fish tank, taking human form and approached him.

The fish knelt down on one knee to meet his gaze and brushed his finger over his wounds and they miraculously healed. The pain that tortured him for days was gone in a blink of an eye.

He looked up and in his view came a violet haired young male with violet-black eyes and ink painted skin. What proved that it was the black fish he’d carried around for years was the red thread around its neck that he had tied on the fish for protection since his fish always looked sickly.

"Who are you?" He looked the fish dead in the eyes and asked.

"Ssoren Noxveil," the fish asked, the name sent shivers down the spine of the Kyan in the scene and the one outside of it.

Noxveil, a name known throughout the beast world to belong to the most vengeful and powerful serpent family in the abyssal coil. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

He spent years raising a member of the Noxveil family. Suspicious overtook his features as he faced the young, cold fish. "Wait, the new generation of the Noxveil family has only one child. How are you..."

"Have you ever heard of a snake beast or ordinary snake that gives rise to one child?" Ssoren asked, his eyes clear and voice carrying the tone instilled in royalty.

"How come you are a fish?"

"How is the Lokiwe form a fish?"

Kyan felt his soul bring torn from his body and put down for the beast Infront of him to stomp on. As a merchant in the beast world who majored in finding the rarest techniques and searching the earth for treasures that have been lost to time to sell for huge profits, he wasn’t uninformed about the world.

The Lokiwe form was a disguise that the serpent clan could use to hide in plain sight. It was a forbidden technique recorded only in the Nox and practised by the Noxveil family but only serpents that had formed their sixth head and above.

He lowered his head and stared at Ssoren’s shadow. His breath caught in his throat as he spotted seven heads staring back at him, calmly.

"You are a seven-headed snake!" Light faded from his eyes.

It was common knowledge that Sseraphis was the genius of their time in the serpent clan, followed by few who had broken through the levels and formed their fifth heads, however, standing before him was a beast that had seven heads which meant the world was wrong.

He looked up and met the violet-black eyes. "How come you never showed yourself all this time. You let me carry you around like a fish. Don’t you have any shame as a high ranking beast?"

"Did I ask you to pick me up in the sacred waters where I was soaking to heal my wounds?" Ssoren asked, his face remaining completely still. "You made that choice by yourself. And I was under no obligation to show myself to you," he added.

"You..."

"I have healed you, I’ll set you free and we are even for the care you gave me in these years."

As he finished taking, he snapped the chains on Kyan without breaking a sweat and created a shadow that teleported them from the palace to the familiar route in the outskirts of the capital Kyan usually used for his trade.

"We are even. Let’s not meet each other again," Ssoren said, and before Kyan could open his mouth and speak, Sseraphis appeared behind Ssoren, took his hand and together they disappeared into the shadows.

Kyan glanced at the scene in the moon with a complicated expression. And just when he thought he’d seen the best of the visions, the Kyan in the moon was dragged into the shadows after a breath. And appeared next to Ssoren in a dimly lit room.

"Why did you..." Ssoren stopped, words swallowed back as a white thread from his heart to Kyan’s heart became visible. "You are my fate?" He asked.

"Your what?" Kyan asked, he wasn’t able to see the thread. "Why did you drag me with you? You just said we go our separate ways, no?"

"I didn’t. It’s the effect of the white thread of fate, we can’t be more than ten feet apart," Ssoren answered coldly and the scene ended.

Kyan stiffened. His eyes cast down to the fish tank, he stared at the ordinary fish swimming around with only extraordinary thing about him being his glowing white heart.

He tapped the glass and spoke, "Are you really Ssoren Noxveil?" He asked, to his surprise, the fish that never reacts to him speak stopped swimming, looked up and locked eyes with him.

He caught those eyes turning violet-black for a split second. The moment instantly passed as the fish continued swimming as though nothing had happened.

Kyan swallowed. Hard. ’I can’t believe I’m keeping a seven-headed snake as a pet!’ he screamed inwardly.