ELARION : The Echo Breaker

CHAPTER 15: Black Lotus

The world above prepared for war, but true death had already crawled underground.

It took three days for Ganda, Elara, and Niko to crawl out of the Aurellian city's intestines. They breached the Sector 7 drainage lines that smelled of foul waste, slipped under the shadows of military blockades mobilizing troops, then walked across the rocky desert at the border.

When they finally arrived at General Arok's forward base in the border territory, the camp was in organized chaos.

Tents were being dismantled. Logistics carts were loaded in a rush. The sky on the eastern horizon glowed red, reflecting the fires from Sector 4 still burning in the distance. Kaijin soldiers ran past them with tense faces. Total war had begun, and everyone knew who started it.

Ganda walked through the camp in tattered clothes stiff with dried mud. He entered Arok's command tent without knocking. Niko and Elara trailed behind him, looking dwarfed by the giant war map dominating the room.

Arok stood behind the table. He wore his luxurious silk robes, contrasting sharply with the battle-ready armor of the officers surrounding him.

Ganda reached into his vest pocket and pulled out Elara's cracked and dusty engineer goggles.

He threw the goggles onto the map right over the drawing of Sector 4.

"Its legs are crippled," Ganda's voice was hoarse from thirst. "And its brain is now yours."

Arok stared at the goggles, then at Ganda. No cunning smile this time. Only an incredibly dangerous exhaustion.

"I told you to break a finger," Arok said quietly, his eyes as cold as ice. "You decapitated it instead."

Arok poured wine into his glass with a slightly trembling hand.

"Varian declared total war an hour ago. He didn't ask for negotiations. He sent the Sun Guard Legion to burn our borders. You were too efficient, Ganda."

"I finished your job," Ganda cut in flatly. "Where is my medicine?"

"Medicine?" Arok snorted softly. "You think we are still in a standard trade transaction? We are in the middle of a disaster you created, Boy."

Kaida, standing beside Arok, stepped forward. The aide's face was pale.

"This is not just a territorial war," Kaida explained coldly. "Varian used your explosion to take full command from Emperor Cassian. He is purging Aurellian internally. Anyone suspected of having ties to Kaijin is being hanged in the square as we speak."

Ganda didn't care about the Empire's high-level politics. He reached into his pants pocket again.

"Before you talk about our deaths, look at this."

Ganda threw the shards of the wooden crow skull mask onto the map table.

The foul stench of fermenting meat and fungi immediately spread in the enclosed room. Several officers took a step back and covered their noses.

Arok frowned in disgust. "A Ruzkai mask? What do these beasts from the western desert have to do with us?"

"I killed a Plague Sower in the Sector 4 sewers," Ganda said flatly. He pointed to a spot on the map, a thin line connecting Aurellian Sector 4 to the no-man's-land beyond the giant wall.

Arok laughed dismissively. "Impossible. Sector 4 is a closed industrial fortress. No intruder can enter without permission."

"Except through the back door," Ganda cut in sharply.

Ganda glanced at Niko behind him. "While we were running in the sewers, Niko recognized an ancient carving on the brick wall. A lotus flower symbol with inverted petals. Niko said that is the mark of the most slippery smuggling cartel on the border."

Arok's face tensed instantly, but he tried to maintain control. His eyes darted sharply toward Niko. The petty smuggler looked down in fear and tried to hide behind Ganda's back.

Ganda smirked. He pieced the puzzle together with his street instinct. He started to bluff.

"A border General letting a smuggling cartel operate right under his nose?" Ganda tilted his head. "Or perhaps that shadow unit belongs to the General himself? What are you hoarding out there, Arok? Stolen weapons? Gold? Something you are hiding from the ears of Emperor Cassian and Shogun Masayori?"

The room fell silent. The air felt frozen.

Arok stared intensely at Ganda, then turned toward his officers.

"Everyone out," Arok ordered with a forced tone of boredom. "This is just low-level intelligence business. I will interrogate him alone."

The officers bowed respectfully and left the tent. After the cloth door closed tightly, Arok leaned forward. Ganda's bluff had hit a nerve.

"Do you know exactly what you are talking about, Ganda?"

"I know you are corrupt," Ganda replied without blinking. "You are hoarding weapons and gold in that underground route as preparation for a future military coup, maybe?"

Arok's jaw hardened.

"The Ruzkai bring a deadly plague," Ganda continued, pressing the general's political wound. "If Varian's troops find their nest while sweeping the underground tunnels, they will burn it. And they will definitely find your secret stash."

Arok fell silent. He was caught between two blades.

He couldn't report to Varian, who was now his absolute enemy. He also couldn't report to Shogun Masayori, because his highest superior would surely behead him as a traitor if he knew there was gold hoarding in the middle of a war.

Arok had to clean up that route himself without leaving a trace.

The general opened a desk drawer with a rough motion. He took out a small green glass bottle and threw it.

Ganda caught the bottle with his left hand. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and poured the thick, sulfur-smelling liquid onto his left palm.

He rubbed it vigorously into his severely trembling right arm. The liquid seeped into his pores and burned his nerves like fire. Instantly, the tremor in his hand stopped. Ganda closed his eyes and savored the silence in his muscles.

"You win this time, Ganda," Arok said with a voice full of suppressed hatred. "That route must be permanently sealed from the outside."

Arok pointed to the empty no-man's-land on the map.

"The Ruzkai enter from here. From the mouth of an old cave in the dead zone. You must go there. Collapse the cave mouth. Bury the Ruzkai inside along with their plague, and make sure no one knows that the tunnel connects to my stash."

"That is outside the jurisdiction of the border wall," Ganda said. "That is the territory of ghosts and exiles."

"Exactly," Arok answered coldly. "The most fitting place for you."

Arok picked up a pen and wrote a travel pass on parchment.

"You have three days to prepare before this military camp is dismantled and we make a total retreat. Go to the blacksmith's tent. Fix that scrap sword of yours and gather logistics."

"I need a team," Ganda said. He pointed at Elara and Niko. "They come with me."

"Taking a crazy Architect and a cowardly Merchant into the dead zone? Be my guest." Arok waved his hand dismissively.

But Arok stopped writing. He looked at Ganda with a thin, deadly smile.

"But you need a field overseer, Ganda. Someone to make sure you don't run away with the secret of my smuggling route."

Arok called someone from behind the back curtain.

"Lieutenant!"

A soldier stepped in slowly. He wore full pitch-black Kaijin combat armor. His face was covered by a sharp-angled combat helmet, except for the eyes. His right eye was covered by a thick, slightly dirty white bandage.

Ganda immediately recognized that posture. The soldier he humiliated in the training arena.

"Lieutenant Sora," Arok introduced with a mocking tone. "You didn't gouge his eyeball out in the arena that time. But the pressure of your rough thumb, full of mud and dirt, tore his cornea and infected it severely. That eye rotted and is permanently blind now."

Arok patted Sora's shoulder. "And because of a humiliating defeat by an outcast like you, he lost his honor in the eyes of the war council."

Sora stood straight with his hands gripping tightly the hilt of the katana at his waist. He didn't speak a single word. An aura of hatred radiated from him as sharp as a razor. He was no longer an elite troop commander. He was now just a masterless ronin given one last chance to redeem his pride.

"Sora will lead the Carrion Unit with you," Arok said in satisfaction. "His first task is to ensure the cave mouth collapses. And his second task..."

Arok stared intensely at Ganda.

"...is to sever your head if you try to betray me out there."

Arok threw four rusty iron badges onto the map table. Punishment badges.

CARRION UNIT.

"You leave in three days. Now get out of my tent."

***

Three Days Later.

On the outskirts of Arok's emptying camp stood a blacksmith's tent, hot from the furnace fire.

Ganda lifted his Dao sword from the cooling water tub. White steam billowed into the air with a loud hissing sound.

The blade had been reforged. It was no longer just a brittle piece of scrap railway iron. Arok's blacksmith had alloyed it with high-carbon steel from the remains of destroyed Aurellian artillery. The blade was now dark gray and felt heavier, but possessed a deadly balance. The back of the sword was thickened to withstand structural impacts, while the edge was sharpened as keen as a bone-cutting razor.

The object was just like Ganda. A mixture of street trash and military violence forged by pain.

In the corner of the tent, Elara sat cross-legged cleaning the remaining dust from her cracked glasses. She hadn't spoken much since the tragedy in Aurellian, but her hands kept busy assembling something out of scrap metal into a mechanical arm guard.

Niko was sorting dry rations on the wooden table. His face was still pale but he worked deftly. His merchant instincts worked perfectly. He knew that in the dead zone a piece of dry bread was far more valuable than a chunk of pure gold.

The cloth tent door opened.

Sora stepped inside. He was still wearing his full armor, but his helmet was tucked under his left arm.

For the first time Ganda saw the soldier's face clearly. His jaw was firm and rigid. His short black hair was cut roughly. A thick bandage covered his right eye, hiding the permanent deformity caused by Ganda's dirty tactic.

Sora refused to look at Ganda's face. He just placed a worn map scroll onto the workbench.

"We leave at sunset," his voice was flat, hoarse, and emotionless. "Do not become a burden, Dog."

Sora turned and left the tent in silence.

Niko swallowed hard and whispered in horror. "He is terrifying, Boss. He really will kill you when we drop our guard."

Ganda watched the one-eyed soldier's back disappear into the dust. He slowly sheathed his new sword across his back.

"Let him try," Ganda muttered.

He stepped out of the tent and looked around.

On the Northern horizon the Aurellian sky was still covered in gray from the ash of their fallen tower of pride.

On the Western horizon the Ruzkai's toxic black clouds began rolling closer to swallow the border.

And right in front of them lay an expanse of empty land blanketed in eternal fog.

Ganda was no longer prisoner Number Seven waiting for execution. He was now the leader of the Carrion Unit. A pack of scavengers walking together toward the vortex of death.