2025-09-22 18:07:22
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Chapter 41: Whispers in the Regent's Hall
The Regent’s hall was built to inspire awe. High ceilings arched above like the ribs of some great beast, banners of crimson and gold spilling down the stone walls. The lions stitched into their fabric glared with eternal defiance, their claws sharp, their jaws wide. Torches flared in iron sconces, filling the chamber with warmth and the smoke of pitch. But even here, in the heart of power, the air was thick with unease. The murmurs of fear that had spread through Duskmoor seeped into this hall like smoke through cracks in stone. The Regent sat upon his throne, a massive chair carved of black oak and gilded at its edges. The crown on his head was not large, but it weighed heavily. His hair, streaked with gray, clung damp to his temples. Shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He had not slept since the bells had stopped ringing. At his feet, kneeling on the marble floor, was a courier. The boy’s uniform was torn and muddied, his boots caked in blood and filth from the night’s
Chapter 40: The Fractured City
The silence of the temple bells spread like poison through the veins of Duskmoor. One toll, cut short in the night, was all it took to unravel what little order remained. By dawn, every soul in the western quarter knew: the priests were dead, their temple ruined, their gods silent.Whispers carried the news faster than messengers ever could. In markets, women trading scraps of grain leaned close and muttered of crimson chains that tore stone apart. In taverns, drunkards claimed the gods themselves had abandoned the city. Children, too young to understand, pressed their ears to the walls of their homes and repeated the stories they heard outside until their mothers wept and hushed them.The city did not fall in a single night. It cracked. The fractures spread outward from the ruined temple, reaching into every hall, every alley, every heart.In the barracks, fear stank stronger than sweat. Rows of soldiers sat on their bunks, polishing swords with shaking hands. Some stared at the floo
Chapter 39: Silence of the Bells
Night settled over the western quarter like a funeral shroud. The streets grew empty, doors barred, windows shuttered tight. Even the wind carried no laughter, no songs, only the faint echo of bells tolling from the temple ahead. Each clang trembled as if the bronze itself feared the sound it was forced to make.Kael walked at the head of his chained. His steps were slow, deliberate, each one echoing in the silence. The boy marched just behind, his thin arms tight around the shaft of his spear, his lips moving in a whisper that repeated Kael’s name over and over. The soldier kept her blade bared, her jaw clenched, eyes sharp with purpose. The thief moved light-footed, scanning every shadow, though sweat shone on his brow. Lira strolled at the rear, her humming low and lilting, as though they were on their way to a feast rather than slaughter.The temple rose from the heart of the street like a wounded beast. Its once-white stone was blackened by soot, its roof patched with wood after
Chapter 38: The March West
The ruined square still reeked of blood and smoke. Ash clung to the stones where Broken Men had died, their corpses dragged into the shadows to rot. Yet silence never truly returned. Whispers lingered like an infection, curling through the minds of the chained as if the dead themselves breathed into their ears.Kael sat on the crumbling fountain, unmoving, while his new followers twitched in restless sleep or sat in broken wakefulness. He studied them in turn, measuring how the System’s curse reshaped them.The soldier clenched her fists in her sleep, teeth grinding, shoulders jerking as though she fought invisible battles. Sweat rolled down her scarred brow, and sometimes she muttered, begging comrades long dead to hold the line. When she woke, her eyes were bloodshot, but she still saluted him without hesitation.The thief did not even try to rest. He perched against a broken wall, dagger gleaming in his lap, eyes hollow. Every time he blinked, his hand twitched toward the weapon, a
Chapter 37: Whispers of the Dead
Dawn broke like a dull blade over the ruined square. The first pale light crept across broken stones, glinting off pools of dried blood and the shattered fountain where Kael’s chained had sworn themselves to him. The air was thick with silence, the kind of silence that clings after slaughter, where every shadow seemed to hold a memory of screams.Kael stood at the edge of the fountain, cloak stirring in the faint breeze. His gaze was fixed eastward, where the Broken Men had fallen beneath his hand. His eyes burned crimson still, faintly glowing in the gray light, and deep in his chest the shard pulsed, slow and steady, as though savoring the aftermath.Behind him, his followers collapsed into the square like revenants returning from battle. Their clothes were torn, their faces smeared with grime and blood, their limbs shaking from exhaustion. Yet beneath that weakness was something else. Something raw and unshakable. They had hunted, and in hunting, they had tasted power.The boy stum
Chapter 36: The First Hunt
The night had barely lifted when Kael moved again. Dawn was nothing more than a pale bruise across the horizon, but already the ruins stirred with something that had not existed the day before. His followers—no, his chained—stood taller. The fire of the bond pulsed faintly in their veins, feeding strength into limbs that had known only weakness.The square where they had bent their knees was silent now, empty but for the broken fountain. Yet the air still smelled of scorched stone, as though the oath they had spoken lingered, smoldering in the cracks.Kael stood at the fountain’s edge, cloak dragging across the dust, his gaze fixed toward the eastern quarter of the city. The shard in his chest hummed in rhythm, as though tugging him, guiding him like a compass.He could feel it.Fear.It was not distant, not faint. It pressed against the edge of his mind like the whisper of a crowd just beyond sight. And within that fear… power. The System was waiting. It demanded he claim it.Behind
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