All Chapters of The Thirteen Knight: Chapter 21
- Chapter 26
26 chapters
Chapter 21- The Art of Stumbling
I spent the entire night relearning how to walk.It was 3:00 AM. My dorm room was dark, lit only by the streetlights filtering through the blinds. Tal was snoring softly in his bunk, muttering something about card tricks in his sleep.I stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door.Step. Pivot. Shift weight.I watched myself. My natural instinct was to lead with my left shoulder—a defensive habit from using the Apostate Bracer. My weight naturally settled on the balls of my feet, ready to spring. That was the Knight’s stance. That was the stance Commander Vane was hunting.I needed to break it.I took a roll of duct tape from my tool bag. I wrapped it tight around my left knee, restricting the joint just enough to be annoying. Then, I took a small, sharp pebble from the potted plant on the windowsill and shoved it into my left boot, right under the heel.I took a step.Wince.I favored my right leg immediately. My shoulder slumped. The fluid grace of the Knight was
Last Updated : 2025-12-15
Chapter 22- The Lure
The North Woods were not silent. They whispered.I sat in the back of the armored transport crawler, my boots ankle-deep in mud that had leaked through the floor grates. Rain lashed against the reinforced viewports, turning the world outside into a gray smear of twisted trees and fog.Behind our vehicle, on a massive flatbed sled pulled by four steam-golems, lay the Aethelgard Chassis. It was covered in a heavy tarp, but the orange glow of the Wrathguard heart pulsed through the fabric like a fever. Thump. Thump."Estimated time to Rift Zone: five minutes," the driver announced, his voice cracking with nerves.I adjusted the strap of my tool belt. My left foot throbbed. The pebble I had taped into my boot was grinding a hole in my heel, but the pain was a grounding anchor. Every wince was a reminder: You are Chase Royce. You are clumsy. You are weak."Check the stabilizers again, Royce," Professor Kael barked from the front seat. He was staring at a monitor, watching the energy readin
Last Updated : 2025-12-15
Chapter 23- Echoes in the Blood
The ride back to the Academy was a blur of gray rain and silence.I sat in the corner of the transport crawler, gripping my knee. The vibration of the engine traveled up through the floor grates, rattling my teeth, but I barely felt it.All I could feel was the echo.Brother.The word wasn't fading. It was ringing in my skull like a struck bell. It hadn't been spoken with vocal cords; it had been a psychic transmission, a frequency that bypassed my ears and went straight to the Apostate Drive embedded in my arm.My left arm was twitching under my jacket. The black fibers were agitated, writhing beneath the skin like worms trying to escape wet earth. They sensed him. The other one. The Violet Knight."You're shaking, Royce," Commander Vane said.I snapped my head up. She was watching me, her face illuminated by the pale blue light of the dashboard."Shock, I think," I stammered, leaning into the lie. "I've never seen a Void-Stalker up close before. And my foot...""Pain is a good teach
Last Updated : 2025-12-16
Chapter 24- The Iron Wall
The mind is a house. If you leave the windows open, anything can fly in.That was the first line of the book Randar had given me: The Fortress of Will: A Dwarven Guide to Stubbornness.I sat cross-legged on my bunk, the heavy tome resting on my knees. It was 2:00 AM. Tal was asleep, his breathing a rhythmic counterpoint to the storm of static in my head.I closed my eyes and visualized a brick. A grey, boring, heavy brick.Focus on the brick, the book instructed. Be the brick.It sounded stupid. But every time my concentration wavered, I felt him. The Violet Knight. A cold, oily sensation pressing against the back of my skull, like a draft in a sealed room. He was scratching at the door, testing the lock.Brother... where are you hiding?The whisper wasn't words; it was a feeling of amusement, a predator playing with a mouse.I gritted my teeth. Brick. Grey brick. Stone wall.I imagined mortar slapping onto the brick, sealing it to another. I built a wall in my mind, layer by layer, b
Last Updated : 2025-12-16
Chapter 25- Fuel for the Fire
The lab was never truly dark. Even at 0300, the ambient glow from the Aethelgard Chassis painted the walls in sickly hues of pulsating orange.I was on "Sanitation Duty." It was the perfect cover. No one questions a janitor with a mop bucket and a spray bottle, even in a top-secret research facility.I pushed my cart across the hangar floor, the wheels squeaking rhythmically. My destination was the gantry. My objective was the cockpit.I had to get that shard back.Professor Kael was still in his office, a glass box suspended above the lab floor. I could see his silhouette hunched over a bank of monitors, frantically typing. He hadn't gone home. He was obsessed with the data from Sylvia’s failure, trying to find the "noise" that had disrupted the sync. If he decided to strip the pilot’s seat for a physical inspection before I got there, I was dead.I reached the base of the mech. I parked the cleaning cart."Just cleaning the vomit," I muttered to no one, grabbing a rag and a bottle o
Last Updated : 2025-12-17
Chapter 26- The Twelfth House
The transport crawler rumbled over the cratered earth, shaking my bones. We had left the safety of the Academy far behind. We were in the Deadlands now, the scarred gray zone that separated humanity from the encroaching dark.I sat on a crate of ammo, staring at the floor. My arm—the Apostate Drive—was burning. It wasn't just a physical heat; it was a spiritual itch, deep in the marrow.He is near, the voice in my head whispered. The Scorpion is hunting.I closed my eyes and focused on the lore Randar had forced me to memorize, the history I had tried so hard to forget.The Concordat wasn't just a group of knights. They were the Zodiacs.Centuries ago, twelve Demon Kings had descended. Twelve Kings for twelve constellations. They sought hosts—humans strong enough to contain their essence. The Aries, the Taurus, the Gemini... they became the Concordat, the ruling caste of the demon armies. They were the generals of the apocalypse.But there was a legend of a Thirteenth. A sign that had
Last Updated : 2025-12-17