Dawn had yet to break, but Black Reef Post was violently awakened by a rumbling that made the earth tremble.It wasn't a monster stampede, but hundreds of heavily armored warhorses thundering through the muddy streets. Atop these steeds sat the Lunaris Inquisition Force—an elite military unit acting directly under the orders of the Clan Elders. Their polished silver armor reflected the light of their magical torches, creating the illusion of a river of light slicing through the dark slums.Riding at the very front, mounted on a massive Snow Bear, was Captain Kaelen. His face was flushed with absolute fury.Just hours ago, he had received an emergency magical transmission from Silver Peak. Elder Jaxon was in a blind rage, having destroyed half his own manor. His secret vault, holding millions of gold coins beneath Black Reef, had been breached and emptied. Furthermore, Commander Varg—one of Jaxon’s strongest combat assets—was found dead, headless.Jaxon’s orders were explicit: Burn Bla

The Deadwood seemed to hold its breath as the one hundred warriors of The Hollowed free-fell from the forest canopy.There were no battle cries, no shouted threats. Led by Gael, the hundred shadows descended in absolute, lethal silence. Their dark leather armor blended seamlessly with the gloom, while their claws and weapons gleamed, reflecting the fiery light of the Solari Knights’ blazing swords."Shield form—AARRGHH!"Captain Kael’s order was abruptly cut off by the horrified screams of his men. A Shadow Direwolf the size of a lion pounced on the knight in the vanguard, phasing straight through the knight's flaming sword as if the fire were merely an illusion. The monster's icy shadow fangs instantly ripped the knight’s throat out. Simultaneously, a Hollowed warrior landed squarely on the shoulders of another Solari knight, brutally twisting the enemy's neck until a sickening crack echoed through the trees.In just the first ten seconds, half of the Solari Knights—the highly vaunt

The western sector of the Deadwood was a quarantine zone completely avoided by all sentient creatures. The towering pine trees here were no longer blanketed in pristine snow; instead, they were suffocated by thick, purplish-black spider webs that exuded the nauseating stench of decay. The air was heavy, choking the lungs with a dense, hallucinogenic miasma.The warriors of The Hollowed advanced in a tight, disciplined formation. Their swords and shadow claws were drawn, gleaming with lethal intent. In the absolute center of the vanguard, Lyra walked with her raven wings folded tightly against her back. Her wings emitted a pure Void aura that acted as a localized shield, neutralizing the hallucinatory miasma for the entire army. Without her, half of The Hollowed would have likely succumbed to madness and slaughtered each other by now.Aroan led the formation at the very front. His glowing purple eyes meticulously scanned every detail of the purple webs hanging from the canopy above."D

The darkness generated by Nyx’s Abyssal Domain was not merely an absence of light. It was a spatial anomaly that devoured all forms of hope. Within a one-kilometer radius of the Deadwood, the physical laws of the surface world ceased to exist, entirely replaced by the absolute, oppressive laws of the Velmora abyss.For the fifty Sun-Eater Assassins of the Solari Kingdom, this was a hell they had never fathomed in their worst nightmares.They were an elite suicide squad trained in the heart of lethal deserts, taught to seamlessly blend into the shadows of sand dunes, and conditioned to use fire magic to blind their enemies before slitting their throats. But now, their fire magic sputtered and died the instant a spark was formed. The air within the domain was so saturated with miasma that every breath felt like inhaling crushed glass coated in neurotoxin."Maintain formation! Back to back!" shouted the Assassin Commander, a slender man clad in desert-dragon scale armor that emitted a fa

The Under-City of Silver Peak was a colossal, sunless labyrinth. These damp, winding stone corridors were once the economic lifeblood of the clan—a sprawling Moonlight Crystal mine that had long since run dry and been abandoned.Aroan followed Gael through puddles of foul-smelling water, dodging stalactites that dripped murky fluid. Behind them, a dozen elite warriors of The Hollowed moved in absolute silence, flanked closely by their massive Shadow Direwolves. In this subterranean world, a Tamer and their Beast moved as one inseparable shadow.Whenever they crossed paths with the local denizens of the Under-City—beggars, fugitives, and low-level thugs—the people immediately scrambled out of the way, pressing their bodies flat against the wet cavern walls. The oppressive aura radiating from Aroan and the ferocious shadow beasts stalking beside his men was far too terrifying to ignore.After descending a spiral tunnel for nearly half an hour, reaching the deepest sector of the abandone