2025-11-05 20:38:34The moon was bright and offered just enough light to make the shadows of Lord Valgus’s estate look like claws.
Outside its 15-foot perimeter wall, a guard yawned and stretched his arms. He was halfway through a second yawn when a shadow detached itself from the larger darkness of the wall.
The guard’s eyes widened. The shadow was massive, a solid black shape of impossible bulk.
“Who’s th—”
THWACK.
The sound was a dull, wet pop, like a melon dropped on stone.
Boudica ‘Bo’ Ironside, a mountain of a man, lowered the armoured fist that had just caved in the guard's helmet. He caught his body before it slumped and silently dragged him into the bushes. Fast and efficient.
Bo gave two sharp raps on the stone. All clear.
Deeper inside the compound, in the barracks near the stables, the real filth of Valgus's operation was sleeping. A dozen hardened bandits and a slaver crew he used for his dirty work, were snoring in their cots.
A pale, ethereal-looking girl, Lyra Ashwood, slipped through their unlocked door like a phantom.
She didn't draw a weapon. She didn't need to.
Her eyes closed, and the temperature in the room went down. The shadows in the corners thickened, coalescing, rising up behind her. A massive, spectral form of a warrior that was composed of pure darkness and malice, formed at her back with its empty sockets glowing with a violet light that matched Lyra's own.
Just as the wraith, her Echo, raised its spectral blades, one bandit stumbled in from the latrine. He froze, his eyes bulging at the sight of the girl and the shadow-demon. He opened his mouth to shout.
He never made a sound.
A tendril of pure, liquid shadow shot from the Echo's hand, faster than a striking snake. It didn't just cover his mouth, it forced its way inside, solidifying down his throat, choking him instantly.
Lyra just watched, her expression blank, as the man’s eyes rolled back.
Then, the Echo turned to the eleven sleeping men.
Not a single bandit woke up. Not a single scream was uttered. Ten seconds later, Lyra and her Echo were gone, leaving only the sudden, cold silence of a dozen severed souls.
At the main manor, a man, clad in light armour designed for flexibility stood. Pyralis Cinderfall, his silver hair like a beacon in the dark, crouched by the ornate balcony door. Elara flanked him like a shadow.
He drew his Flammard called 'King's Folly', its edges catching the faint moonlight. He held it high, ready to make a grand, dramatic entrance. Taking a deep breath, he prepared his monologue.
I am the ghost of your sins, Valgus. I am the cinder from the fire you—
A sharp, impatient voice snapped inside his head. He forgot about the mental link he and Elara shared.
<Shut up and pick the lock, you drama queen. Bo just knocked out the last patrol. We're on the clock.>
Pyralis’s heroic pose deflated. He sheathed his sword with a pout.
“Fucking rude,” he muttered under his breath.
Elara just rolled her eyes, her lockpicks already in hand. Click. Snick. Thump. The heavy door swung open.
“Showoff,” Pyralis grumbled, stalking in behind her.
The main hall was dark, the moonlight painting sterile white squares on the marble floor. It was too quiet.
“Not very hospitable, is he?” Pyralis whispered, his voice echoing slightly. “Not even a servant to offer us a drink.”
<Shut up. I hear two. Around the corner. Heavy armor, light steps. House guard,> Elara’s voice sent in his mind.
Pyralis grinned. "Finally."
He stepped out from behind a pillar, right into the centre of the hall. “Gentlemen!” he called out. “Awful night for a patrol, isn’t it?”
Two guards in polished breastplates, bearing Valgus’s crest, rounded the corner. They saw Pyralis, his silver hair glowing, and shouted, drawing their swords.
“Intruder! Kill him!”
They charged.
Pyralis didn't move. He just raised his left hand, his expression one of pure, flirty boredom.
The first guard was ten feet away when his own sword was ripped from his grasp. He looked at his empty hand, confused. He looked up just in time to see his own longsword hovering in the air... before it shot forward and buried itself, hilt-deep, in his partner’s chest.
The man gurgled, looking down at the blade, before collapsing.
The now-unarmed guard just stood there, mouth open, his mind completely broken by what he’d just seen.
Pyralis looked at him with a bright and devious smile and asked in a terrifying tone.
"Are you scared?"
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Chapter 59: Bone Marrow Cancer
The Zweihänder whistled through the air. In the narrow space, there was no room for a full follow-through, so Bo used the weight.She didn't slash; she crushed.CRUNCH.The lead Knight’s buckler couldn’t block the blow, so it shattered like glass.The force of the iron slab sent him flying backward into the water, his chest plate caved in like a tin can.The other three split. Two went low, aiming for her hamstrings.One went high, leaping off a pipe to drive his blade into her neck.Bo didn't dodge. She didn't have the space.She shifted her weight. ‘The Mountain's Pivot.’She caught the jumping Knight in her left hand, her fingers crushing his gauntlet.She slammed him into the ceiling with a sickening thud and then used his body as a club to sweep the two below her.CLANG. SNAP.One Knight went down with a broken arm. The other manag
Chapter 58: I am the Stone
The world above was white, magnesium-scorched and loud. The world below was black, sulphur-stinking and silent.Bo Ironside walked with her head bowed, her massive shoulders grazing the slimy, curved ceiling of the Primary Arterial—the largest of the Sunken Serpent’s many veins. Every step she took in the muck was a deliberate act of will.The mud was thick, a cocktail of rainwater, industrial runoff, and the ancient rot of a city that had spent centuries hiding its waste.It pulled at her boots like the hands of the dead.In the darkness, the only light came from the sickly, pulsating green glow of Slimey, who was currently flattened against the ceiling ahead of them, acting as a living lantern.Behind Bo, the line of survivors stretched back into the gloom.Kaelen was there, his white coat now a tattered, crimson rag, helping a limping Lyra. Elara lay unconscious on a stretcher carried by two former ironworkers.And behind them, the orphans—sixty children whose eyes were wide with a
Chapter 57: The Mercy of Monsters
The smell of an apothecary filled the air.It was the scent of lavender to soothe the mind, sage to cleanse the air, and bitter roots to fortify the blood.But in the wine cellar of the Yunis Estate, the promise had been broken.Kaelen Yunis stood over a makeshift operating table—a heavy oak dining table dragged from the lodge above—and felt the precision of his world unravelling.The air was thick with the copper tang of blood, the sour stench of vomit, and the sharp, chemical bite of alchemical cauterants.It was the smell of a machine that had been pushed past its tolerances, grinding metal against metal until it caught fire."Scalpel," Kaelen said. His voice was a flat, dry rasp.A massive, grey-green hand, steady as a mountain, placed the silver tool into his palm."Scalpel," Brog rumbled, his voice a low vibration that seemed to settle the frantic air of the cellar.Kaelen didn't look up. He couldn't.
Chapter 56: The Obsidian Phalanx
The transition was not a roar, but a silence.On the rooftops of the Second Ward, Elara Vance crouched low, her fingers digging into the soot-stained shingles.Her heart, usually a steady, cynical rhythm, was drumming a frantic beat against her ribs.She was a creature of the periphery, a ghost that lived in the corners of other people’s lives, but today, the periphery was being erased.Below her, the Third Knights were retreating. They moved like men waking from a bad dream, their movements sluggish and shamed.Jinto Kyoran was gone, pulled back to the palace to face Theron’s icy judgment.In his place, a different kind of shadow was flooding the streets.The Second Knights did not march like men. They marched like machines."Obsidian," Elara whispered, the word feeling like ash in her mouth.They were known as the Black Phalanx.Five hundred men in black plate armour that seemed to drink the meagre m
Chapter 55: Ghostly Prayer
The tension could cut the maximum pressure of a thin shot of water."Get moving," the Knight finally spat. "Before I decide to impound the whole lot for the Crown."The wagon jerked forward.They moved through the gate.The temperature dropped instantly. The oppressive, stifling air of the city was replaced by the cold, biting wind of the open road.They were out.An hour later, the driver veered off the main road onto a merchant’s track that bypassed the primary checkpoints."You can come up now!" he called out.Aelia threw the latch and pushed the false floor open.She emerged first, her hair a tangled mess of red, her face streaked with dust.She scanned the horizon. To the north, the Capital was a black silhouette against the grey sky, smoke rising from the Common Lands like funeral pyres.She reached down and helped Isolde out.The Princess stood on the wagon bed, coughing and dusting off
Chapter 54: Escape on a Carriage
The interior of the wagon did not smell of freedom.It smelled of ancient, sun-baked wheat dust, the sour tang of damp cedar, and the suffocating proximity of a person who wished you were dead.Aelia Solara, known to the streets as Aris, the weary proprietor of a soup stall, sat in the darkness of the false bottom.Her back was pressed against the rough-hewn floorboards, her legs tucked beneath her in a meditative crouch that her muscles remembered even if her spirit tried to forget.In the lightless void of the compartment, her emerald eyes were useless, but her other senses were hyper-attuned.She felt every jolt of the iron-shod wheels against the uneven cobblestones, every rhythmic "clack-clack" of the horse’s hooves, and the shallow, ragged breathing of the girl sitting three inches across from her.Princess Isolde Valeriana was no longer a vision of silk and starlight.She was "Luna" now—a name Aelia had chosen becau
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