The Dark Blade: Return Of The General.

Chapter 15: Ashes and Revelations

Jacob's body acted on pure instinct. He twisted in mid-air as the explosion's shockwave hurled them across the warehouse, positioning himself beneath Anna so his body would absorb the impact when they hit the ground. They slammed into the concrete floor with bone-jarring force, then tumbled end over end as secondary explosions tore through what remained of the building's structure.

The world became a nightmare of fire, smoke, and screaming metal. Massive steel beams crashed down around them, missing Jacob's head by inches. Burning debris rained from the collapsing roof like hellfire. The heat was so intense that Jacob felt his exposed skin beginning to blister.

Then everything went dark.

Jacob did not know how long he was unconscious. It could have been seconds or hours. When awareness finally returned, his first sensation was pain—a deep, throbbing ache that radiated from every part of his body. His ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out all other sounds.

He opened his eyes slowly, squinting against the smoke that filled his lungs with every breath. The warehouse was barely recognizable. The roof had collapsed completely, and fires burned in scattered pockets among the rubble. Twisted metal and shattered concrete surrounded him like the aftermath of a war zone.

Anna lay unconscious beside him, covered in dust and small cuts but miraculously alive. Jacob reached out with a trembling hand to check her pulse, nearly sobbing with relief when he felt the steady beat beneath his fingers.

Movement in the corner of his vision made Jacob freeze. Through the smoke and flames, he could see figures approaching—armed men in tactical gear moving carefully through the wreckage. They were searching for something. Searching for them.

Jacob forced his body to go completely limp, slowing his breathing to barely perceptible levels. It was a technique he had learned during his military training—how to appear dead even while remaining fully conscious and aware.

The footsteps drew closer. Jacob could hear voices now, though his damaged hearing made them sound distant and muffled.

"Spread out. Find the bodies." A man's voice, cold and professional. "Command wants confirmation on all targets."

"Sir, over here!" Another voice, younger and less controlled. "I found the old man."

Through slitted eyes, Jacob watched as two assassins stood over what remained of Ben Tate. A massive steel beam had crushed the old man's chest, killing him instantly. His eyes stared sightlessly at the burning sky, his face frozen in an expression of terror.

"The old fool served his purpose," the first voice said dismissively. "Delivered the girl and the artifact exactly where we needed them. Shame about the timing, but acceptable casualties."

Jacob's blood turned to ice as the implications sank in. Ben Tate had not been trying to help them—he had been working with the conspiracy all along, luring them to this warehouse specifically so they could be killed together.

The assassins moved closer to where Jacob and Anna lay among the debris. Jacob remained perfectly still, every muscle in his body coiled and ready to explode into action.

"There's the girl," one assassin said, his boots stopping just inches from Anna's unconscious form. "Still breathing. Good. We need her alive."

The second assassin knelt beside Anna, pulling out a medical kit. "Once we get her blood, the ritual can finally be completed. Twenty years of planning, and we are hours away from success."

Jacob's mind raced even as he maintained his death-like stillness. They needed Anna's blood for some kind of ritual. That meant they would not kill her immediately. That gave him an advantage—they had to be careful with her, but they thought he was already dead.

"What about the Krigg boy?" the first assassin asked.

"Probably dead under all this rubble. If not, he will be soon enough. The building is still collapsing." The kneeling assassin withdrew a large syringe from his kit. "Let me just extract the blood sample, and we can get out of here before—"

Jacob moved.

His hand shot out and grabbed the assassin's wrist with crushing force, twisting the arm backward until bones snapped with audible cracks. The man's scream was cut short as Jacob drove his other fist into the assassin's throat, collapsing his windpipe.

The second assassin reached for his weapon, but Jacob was already moving. He swept the dying man's body up and used it as a shield against the gunfire that erupted from the second assassin's rifle. Bullets tore through the corpse as Jacob charged forward, closing the distance in three powerful strides.

Jacob released the body and ducked under the assassin's gun barrel, coming up inside his guard. A precise strike to the elbow disarmed the man. A knee to the stomach doubled him over. A brutal elbow to the back of the head sent him crashing face-first into the concrete.

"Contact! He is alive! Krigg is alive!" The assassin's radio crackled with desperate warnings before Jacob crushed it beneath his boot.

More footsteps approached from multiple directions. Jacob counted at least six more hostiles converging on his position. He was injured, exhausted, and trapped in a collapsing building with an unconscious woman to protect against trained killers.

In other words, it was just another Tuesday for the Dark Blade.

The first two assassins came around a pile of burning debris together, moving with textbook tactical coordination. Jacob grabbed a length of twisted rebar from the rubble and met their charge head-on. The improvised weapon whistled through the air, deflecting gunfire and striking with devastating precision.

Jacob fought with the cold efficiency of someone who had survived a thousand battles more dangerous than this. Every movement was calculated to maximize damage while conserving energy. He used the terrain to his advantage, forcing enemies into choke points where their numbers could not overwhelm him.

A third assassin tried to flank him from the left. Jacob spun and hurled the rebar like a spear, impaling the man through his chest armor. The assassin dropped his weapon and fell backward, dead before he hit the ground.

But Jacob's exhaustion was catching up to him. His injured body was running on adrenaline and willpower alone. When two more assassins rushed him simultaneously, he barely managed to defeat them, taking a knife wound to his ribs in the process.

The last assassin, seeing his entire team decimated, made the smart choice and ran. Jacob considered pursuing but immediately dismissed the idea. Anna's safety was more important than catching one fleeing enemy.

He stumbled back to where Anna lay, dropping to his knees beside her. His hands shook as he checked her for injuries, terrified that she might have been hurt while he was fighting.

"Anna," he whispered hoarsely, his damaged throat making speech painful. "Anna, wake up. We need to go."

Anna's eyes fluttered open slowly. For a moment, she looked confused, unable to process the destruction surrounding them. Then memory returned, and her gaze locked onto Ben Tate's crushed body visible through the smoke.

"Grandfather," she breathed, tears immediately streaming down her dust-covered face. "No. No, no, no."

She tried to crawl toward him, but Jacob held her back. "Anna, he is gone. I am sorry, but we need to—"

"Let me go!" Anna screamed, fighting against his grip with surprising strength. "He is my grandfather! He is all the family I had left!"

"Anna, listen to me—"

But Anna was not listening. Her grief was too overwhelming, too raw and immediate. She tore herself from Jacob's grasp and crawled across the burning debris toward Ben's body, sobbing uncontrollably.

The moment her hands touched her dead grandfather's arm, something changed.

The sixth artifact, still clutched in Anna's other hand, suddenly blazed with blinding light. Energy erupted from the crystal pendant, spreading through Anna's body like liquid fire. Her entire form began to glow with the same blue light that had opened her mother's box.

"Anna, what is happening?" Jacob shouted over the sudden roar of power that filled the warehouse.

Anna looked up at him, and Jacob's blood ran cold. Her eyes had turned completely white—no pupils, no irises, just pure luminous whiteness that seemed to see through him and beyond him into dimensions he could not perceive.

"Anna, you need to calm down!" Jacob reached for her but was thrown backward by an invisible wave of force. He crashed into a pile of rubble, the wind knocked from his lungs.

The artifact in Anna's hand pulsed with increasing intensity, and the light surrounding her began to take shape. Jacob watched in awe and terror as the energy coalesced into images—visions projected into the air like some impossible hologram.

He saw an army. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers marching in perfect formation across a barren landscape. War machines rolled alongside them—tanks and artillery that looked both ancient and impossibly advanced. Banners fluttered above the army, displaying a symbol Jacob had never seen before: a crimson sun rising over a field of bones.

The Crimson Dawn.

But it was the figure at the head of the army that made Jacob's heart stop.

A man rode a black horse at the front of the endless ranks, and he wore armor that seemed to absorb light itself. Most chillingly, his face was hidden behind a mask—a mask identical to the one Jacob had worn as the Dark Blade. Same design, same materials, same everything.

The masked figure turned in the vision, as if sensing Jacob's presence across time and space. When he reached up and removed the mask, Jacob felt reality itself seem to crack and shatter.

The face beneath was his own. Or rather, a twisted reflection of his own face—harder, crueler, marked by a jagged scar that ran from temple to jaw.

Anna's voice cut through the vision, trembling with confusion and fear. "Jacob, who is that? Why does he look exactly like you?"

Jacob could not breathe. Could not think. Could not process what he was seeing. It was impossible. Completely impossible.

"That cannot be real," he whispered, but even as he spoke, he knew the vision was true. The artifacts did not lie.

Anna turned her white, glowing eyes toward him, the sixth artifact blazing so brightly now that it hurt to look at directly. "Jacob, tell me. Who is that man leading the army?"

Jacob's voice came out as barely a whisper, crushed beneath the weight of a truth he had thought buried and forgotten fifteen years ago.

"That is impossible. That is my brother."