Mihr glared at Shang Kui. There was tightness in his facial expressions. He pursed his lips and stomped to Shang Kui. "You may be the king of your realm, but you need to follow the instructions of my Queen in her Kingdom," he said as though threatening him with dire consequences.

Shang Kui returned the favor of staring him hard with a lethal glare through the slit of his dark green eyes. A vein twitched his neck and in a deep, intimidating tone he said, "You think you can stop me with whatever wizardry you know? Are you challenging me?" His dragon blood boiled. After all he had done for these people, they come and defy his intentions?

​​

Mihr's body tensed. He knew that Shang Kui was no ordinary wizard. "Stop being impetuous. I am asking you to refrain from going out of the kingdom unless you have orders from our Queen."

"I think he is right. You shouldn't go," supported Enya. She was standing at a distance from them watching the two as they argued. "There must be a reason why she has put us all on hold. We don't have any outside support for now. All the werewolves have been shifted to a safe location," she pointed. "We are on our own."

Shang Kui laughed with an edge. "So do we just stand here and watch them bombard us? Huh?" he asked with sarcasm dripping in his voice and his hands on his waist. "I can easily go out and wipe them off with one damn swish of my tail." His chest was beginning to explode. He wanted action. He wanted termination of those pests.

"I am sorry but I will not let you leave," said Mihr in an agitated tone giving his final order as the General of the Wizard Kingdom. Then he looked at the Mozias who were all standing in a neat line some fifty meters away from the boundary. In the next moment five Mozias came around Shang Kui to prevent him from going out of the wizard realm.

"These are going to make sure that you don't leave," snarled Mihr and turned around to walk away.

Shang Kui's nostrils flared on this dismissal. "How dare you?" he shouted. How dare he even thought of constraining a wizard like him.

Mihr ignored his anger and continued to walk when suddenly he heard a loud thud. One of the Mozias was flung in the air and had crash-landed right in front of him stopping him in his tracks. Fury raged inside his stomach. He closed his fists and turned around with a grunt. He ran to him with rage. "Shang Kui!" he exploded. After that it was all muscles and teeth and fists flying, and then they were rolling on the ground. It was not long before Shang Kui could take control over Mihr. He roared and kicked Mihr so hard that he flew across and landed in between the Mozias.

Seeing trouble brewing up, Enya moved her hands forward and a ring of electricity formed on each hand. She went to stand in front of Shang Kui. "Stop it! We are fighting amongst ourselves. This is not done." She tried to reason with Shang Kui.

He gave her an angered look and in an instant his body was all smoke. He had gone.

"Stop!" she shouted but to no avail.

Enya's eyes became wide with unknown fear.

---

"What do you mean booby traps?" asked Adrianna, horror running through her veins. This was going to be disastrous. In a way she couldn't let her army go out because they wouldn't know where to even step on the battlefield outside the kingdom. At the same time, the soldiers would keep hurling their bombs towards the wall. Although even she didn't know how the spells would be able to withstand the bombing.

"Ziu has laid some very high-tech booby traps. Anyone can get murdered," replied Inyanga in a worried voice.

"Where are they?"

"I don't know."

"Try and find out," said Adrianna.

"Okay, but I would rather find out about his other plans," said Inyanga. "Since we know that they all are outside the Wizard Kingdom, you should prevent going there."

"Yes," Adrianna nodded.

Inyanga continued to walk to the next door. Communicating with Adrianna from within the General's cell was very difficult. She had to keep her voice low, almost in whispers so that her sound frequency didn't affect the nearby nerves. Every time she spoke, a nerve twitched inside. She couldn't even communicate mentally, as that would simply blast his brain since telepathic communication needed a lot of energy.

---

Enya looked around with wide eyes. The smoke dissipated.

However, the next instant, a loud clash boomed. Everyone's eyes turned up to the sky.

---

Adrianna left Dr. Tanaka's house leaving behind Inyanga and Haldir. Niiya's mother came from the inside. When she saw her husband, she was aghast to notice that he was holding a revolver against his chest.

Niiya's mother was a wise woman. She had seen how he had changed over the years. Only she knew his truth and had never conveyed it to Niiya. Her intentions were not to hurt her kids or make them go against their father. She kept things to herself. But today after she had watched the whole incident from the corner of the living room standing in the shades of the curtains, she thought how wrong she was to withhold information from her kids. She longed to meet Ookashi but it was Dr. Tanaka who had stopped her from meeting.

She ignored her husband who was staring at her and went straight to Niiya. "When all this is over, we will go and meet Ookashi," she said softly as she stroked his hair.

Niiya turned his face up to look at her. She wiped his tears. "Yes mother. I want to meet her too."

---

Adrianna got sucked into the vortex to come back to her kingdom when she observed a trail of smoke and energy flying to the border. She snarled and rushed to follow the trail. "Shang Kui!" she called him. She had caught him while he was getting sucked in the vortex.

Shang Kui heard her and increased his speed of traveling through the vortex. Adrianna matched him and caught up soon. "What are you doing?" she shouted. "You cannot go out!"

"Stay away Adrianna!" he gnarled back.

She didn't have the time to explain to him anything, so she caught his hand. She saw the edge in his eyes. She pulled him back. He resisted and fought with her. In an attempt to stop him she slammed a fist into his face. He spitted blood. Panting, he retaliated, but Adrianna ducked.

In the sky, wizards could see two comets of smoke trailing after each other. It was a sight to behold—two wizards fighting in a trail of black smoke and fire and shadows. The clouds roared with thunder and lightning that Isidorus was creating on the western frontiers.

On a quick decision, Adrianna cast a spell and Shang Kui was caught in a spiral of white light. Before he could break it, she pulled him to the ground, landing him with a blasting sound.