Reborn before my betrayal

The Weight of Information

The sapphire crystal wobbled on the razor-thin lip of the volcanic chasm, its inner blue light pulsing faster and faster as it continued to broadcast data back to the main imperial lines.

The wounded commander dragged his mangled leg out of the rusted iron jaws, leaving a smear of thick crimson across the grey sand. He crawled on his elbows, his fingernails clawing at the black stones, his eyes locked on the crystal. He didn't care about his life anymore; his only remaining directive was to ensure the connection stayed alive long enough to map the subterranean leylines.

Kaelen descended the steep canyon wall. He didn't slide or jump like a cultivator; his body was too weak. He literally slid down the jagged shale on his side, using his unbroken left hand to steer his momentum, ignoring the sharp rocks that tore through his silk tunic and sliced his ribs.

He hit the canyon floor twenty feet away from the chasm, coughing violently, the taste of ash filling his mouth.

"Stop... traitor..." the commander gasped through his cracked porcelain mask, his hand shaking as his fingers brushed the edge of the sapphire stone.

Kaelen didn't answer. He didn't waste his remaining oxygen on a dying man. He threw his entire upper body weight forward, launching himself across the wet stones like a feral animal.

His left hand slammed down over the sapphire crystal a millisecond before the commander’s fingers could shatter it.

The moment his skin contacted the cold, polished surface of the communication array, a violent jolt of foreign mana shot up Kaelen’s arm. The crystal wasn't just a transmitter; it was a high-tier tether directly linked to the scrying pool of the Capital’s central strategy room.

A shimmering, two-dimensional projection materialized in the cold air directly above the chasm.

Inside the projection stood Cassian.

His second brother was no longer leaning casually against a pavilion pillar. He was standing in his full warlord regalia, surrounded by maps and high-ranking generals, his face twisted into an expression of raw, icy fury. The projection flickered wildly, distorted by the raw ambient dark energy of the Outlands, but the visual connection was clear.

"Kaelen," Cassian’s voice cut through the howling wind, carrying the crushing authority of a man who commanded legions. "You survived the Siren's Root. You slaughtered my Vanguard. You are a cancer on the bloodline."

Kaelen sat on the black stones, cradling his broken wrist against his chest, his fingers tightly gripping the pulsing blue crystal. He looked up at the projection of his executioner, his burning violet eyes entirely devoid of fear or hatred. There was only an infinite, terrifying emptiness.

"I didn't just survive, Cassian," Kaelen rasped, his voice low, matching the rhythmic hum of the deep chasm beneath him. "I found your map."

"You are a corpse running through a graveyard, little brother," Cassian spat, stepping closer to the scrying pool on his side, his image growing larger. "The entire Western Division has just crossed the border river. Three thousand heavy mages, five thousand vanguard infantry. We will burn every root, every cave, and every lawless rat in that sector until nothing but ash remains. You have nowhere to run."

"Run?" Kaelen’s bloody lips peeled back into a cold, silent grin. He raised his left hand, holding the sapphire crystal directly over the bottomless black void of the chasm. "You think I came here to hide from you."

Cassian’s eyes narrowed as he tracked the position of the crystal. "If you drop that array, the tracking signal will scatter. My mages will simply blanket the entire three-mile radius with high-tier fire storms. You cannot save those rebels."

"I'm not trying to save them," Kaelen whispered. He leaned forward, his violet pupils reflecting the blue glow of the projection. "I know exactly how your heavy mages march, Cassian. I know the exact resonance frequency of your vanguard arrays. By sending them into this valley, you haven't started a hunt."

He paused, his fingers loosening around the stone.

"You've brought me an army to feed to the earth."

Before Cassian could reply, Kaelen squeezed his fingers, channeling the last residual spark of the Obelisk's dark magic straight into the core of the array. The sapphire crystal didn't break—it inverted. The blue light turned into a violent, toxic purple as Kaelen forcefully back-fed the local leyline's volatile energy directly down the transmission line, straight into the Capital's scrying pool.

BOOM!

The projection violently exploded into a shower of harmless purple sparks, the feedback likely shattering the mirrors in the royal palace a thousand miles away. Kaelen let the dead, blackened husk of the stone drop from his hand. It slipped over the edge of the cliff, falling silently into the bottomless dark of the chasm.

Behind him, the sounds of slaughter inside the Whispering Fissure were fading. Vane and Mara stepped through the settling dust, their weapons dripping with imperial blood. Vane’s great-axe was notched, his iron-hard chest breathing heavily as he looked at the dead commander on the floor, then at Kaelen.

"The connection was live," Vane said, his deep voice carrying a rare trace of genuine tension. "The legion is coming, isn't it?"

"Yes," Kaelen said, slowly pulling himself up using a jagged volcanic boulder as a crutch. His ribs groaned, and his core felt like an empty, freezing furnace. "Eight thousand imperial soldiers. They will be at the mouth of the valley by midnight."

Mara wiped a spray of vanguard blood from her scarred cheek, her single good eye fixed on the prince. "We can't fight an entire legion, Vane. We have sixty fighting men in the Iron Root. We need to abandon the tunnels and scatter into the Black Sand expanse."

"If you scatter, their scout ravens will hunt you down within forty-eight hours," Kaelen interrupted, his voice cutting through their panic with absolute, unyielding certainty. He turned his back on the chasm, looking toward the deep, dark heart of the Outlands. "We aren't retreating. We are going to the Ashen Basin."

Vane stepped forward, his fist clenching. "The Basin is suicide, boy! That's where the ancient graveyard of the First Cataclysm lies. The air itself is poison, and the stone there actively suppresses all light and elemental magic."

"Exactly," Kaelen said, a terrifying, absolute confidence radiating from his broken form. "It suppresses their magic. But for what is waiting down there... it's a banquet."