2025-04-21 09:45:10Ethan Lockwood frowned slightly, the dull throb in his ribs a haunting reminder of their last battle. The encounter with the chimeras had left more than physical wounds—it had etched into his mind the reality of this world: raw, dangerous, and alive.
Beside him, Celestia Draconyx eyed him sidelong, her crimson gaze sharp and laced with concern. "You're more stubborn than a mountain wyrm," she murmured, reaching out with a clawed hand. "At least let me carry the gear."
Ethan chuckled, masking his discomfort with false bravado. "Save your energy. Knowing our luck, something nasty is probably waiting around the next bend."
As if on cue, the sound of careful footsteps echoed ahead.
Ethan instinctively tightened his grip on the hilt of his greatsword. Around the corner appeared a small group of adventurers—guards for the Crimson Caravan. Dusty cloaks hung from their shoulders, and their eyes, seasoned and alert, immediately locked on the gleaming chimera fangs hanging from Ethan's belt.
The tallest among them, a burly man with wind-swept brown hair, stepped forward warily. "You took down a chimera—just the two of you?"
"Barely," Ethan admitted, offering a humble shrug. "Luck was on our side."
"Luck?" said a lean, sharp-eyed woman who approached with amused curiosity. "You look like you eat chimeras for breakfast. I'm Mira. Headed to Avelline?"
"Avelline?" Ethan repeated, intrigued.
"The central city," Mira said brightly. "The Adventurers' Guild there pays well and is always looking for talent. Someone like you? You'd fit right in."
Celestia raised an elegant eyebrow, her expression still tinged with suspicion. "How far?"
"Half a day north," Mira replied. "Stick to the road, and you can't miss the watchtowers."
They shared a few tips and local rumors before parting ways, leaving Ethan in thoughtful silence. The Guild sounded promising—an opportunity to establish a foothold and gather information.
Under the blazing sun, Ethan and Celestia resumed their trek.
By late afternoon, Avelline's walls towered into view. The city's silhouette stood proud and impenetrable, its watchtowers gleaming under the sun.
"Tight security," Celestia muttered, narrowing her eyes. "Tighter than a free city needs."
As they neared the gates, a group of guards blocked their path.
"State your business," barked the captain.
Ethan spoke calmly. "Looking to register at the Adventurers' Guild."
The guard captain eyed his armor, then flicked his gaze to Celestia's inhuman beauty. "Origin?"
Ethan pulled a small pouch of silver from his belt and handed it over. "Let's say I've traveled far. This should cover my entry."
The captain accepted it with a grunt, the coins vanishing into his own coat rather than any toll-box, and motioned them through.
Celestia's voice murmured in Ethan's mind. Bribery isn't noble, but it works.
Better than fighting city guards, Ethan replied. But he'd seen the coins disappear into the captain's pocket too, and it left a sour taste. As they passed under the gate, Celestia leaned close, her voice low and even.
"A city where the gate has a private price," she said, watching a pair of well-dressed officials stride past a beggar without a glance, "usually has other prices too—ones you don't see until you can't afford them. Pretty as it is, keep one hand on your coin here, Ethan. Places this orderly are always orderly for someone."
Ethan filed the thought away, unease flickering beneath the wonder as Avelline unfurled before them—a symphony of stone and magic. Towering buildings lined enchanted avenues. Signs glowed with runes advertising everything from enchanted gloves to basilisk-scale cloaks.
In the main plaza, humans, elves, beastkin, and dwarves mingled freely. Street performers conjured illusions while shopkeepers hawked enchanted trinkets.
Ethan stared in wonder. "It's like a kingdom made by adventurers."
"And every bit as dangerous," Celestia replied. "Stay sharp."
They wandered for hours, collecting rumors and searching for a modest place to stay. With coin running low, they settled on a weathered inn near the west wall.
Their room was cramped—chipped tiles, faded curtains, and a single bed that groaned under its own weight.
Ethan counted his remaining coins. "That bribe nearly bankrupted us."
Celestia sat cross-legged on the bed. "We have goods to sell. Chimera claws. Elemental cores. The Guild will pay."
Moonlight bathed the room as night fell. Ethan sat by the window, staring into the cityscape.
Behind him, Celestia quietly shed her armor. Her silvery hair spilled around her shoulders like moonlight on snow.
She crossed the room and slipped under the blankets, resting against him.
"I'm not used to sharing space," she murmured. "But I want to stay close."
He swallowed, heart hammering. "Same here."
She curled beside him, warm and quiet.
No more words were needed.
Dawn crept through the curtains. Ethan stirred, blinking away sleep. Celestia still rested beside him, head on his chest, her wings folded softly.
He whispered, "Today we claim our place."
Celestia stirred. "And tomorrow, we rise."
They dressed, packed, and stepped out into the awakening city.
The air was brisk, full of promise—and, if Celestia was right, full of quiet prices too.
Ahead lay the Adventurers' Guild.
And beyond that—the next step of their journey.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 195: She Who Reads Walls
Eileen had spent her whole life believing that anything could be understood, given enough time and a sharp enough mind. She was about to be proven right, and it was going to cost her everything she believed.She felt the second skin begin to turn beneath her hands.She was deep in the rune-chamber under the central spire, both palms pressed to the great working-stone, her awareness threaded through every layer of the city's defense like a spider feeling its web—and she felt the moment Velystra's attention closed around the elven ward, the silver-green light Aelinsira had brought from the World Tree. She felt it the way you feel a key turning in a lock you thought was yours. One heartbeat the second skin was theirs, turning Kharvok's fire, holding the line. The next, the mana flowing through it began, impossibly, to run
CHAPTER 194: The Warden at the Gate
The storm broke against Carosso's walls, and for the first hour, it almost looked like a war Ethan could win.The seven thrones came at the city the way armies always came—with fire and fury and the howl of horns—and the triple-skinned ward met them and held. Kharvok led the assault, of course; the Wrath had dug himself free of his mountain grave and come north molten and unbowed, and he threw himself against the western wall with the full weight of a fortress of fire, his cinder-things swarming up the stone in their thousands. Eileen's outer ward flared blue-white where they struck it, and held. Aelinsira's woven elven light turned aside the worst of Kharvok's flame, and held. And over and through it all, Seraphina's golden warmth steadied the stone and the souls upon it, and the defenders of Carosso—human, elf, dwarf, side by side—loosed arrows and spells and dragonfire down into
CHAPTER 193: The Gathering Storm
EthanBy the second dawn after the violet light appeared on the horizon, Carosso had become a fortress of three skins.Ethan walked the inner wall and watched them rise, one over the other, and tried to feel the certainty he'd spoken of at the round table. The first skin was Eileen's—a vast lattice of arcane wards strung between rune-pillars, blue-white and humming, layered deep. The second was the elves'—Queen Aelinsira had come herself, with a column of Illyanfir's warriors and a slip of the World Tree's living wood she carried like a sceptre, and where she walked, silver-green light wove through the human wards and made them something more than either people could have made alone. And the third skin was the one no eye could see: the soft golden warmth of Seraphina's Light, threaded through the whole, blessing every stone, the coal of a dead god b
CHAPTER 192: Trust Reforged
I. EthanCarosso came up white and waiting out of the winter dusk, and for the first time since Ironreach, Ethan felt something in his chest that was not quite hope but was at least its near neighbor.The city was already fortifying. Word had outrun the army—word always did—and the people of Carosso had not fled. They were doing the opposite. As Ethan rode through the gates at the head of his battered, retreating host, he saw scaffolding rising along the walls, saw dwarven sappers from the southern wards working shoulder to shoulder with Carossan masons, saw elven runesmiths carving wards into the white stone beside human priests blessing it, saw children carrying water to the workers and old women sharpening blades they were too old to swing and would swing anyway. The little city of belonging, bracing to be unmade, and refusing to bre
CHAPTER 191: The Second Beacon
In the dark beneath the tree that had once been the only thing she loved, Velystra watched her second beacon learn to choose, and allowed herself, for the first time in ten thousand years, to remember.She did not remember the way mortals did—a thing they reached for and held. She had no need to reach. Memory, for a Warden, was simply a place one could stand, as present as the prison-dark around her, as immediate as the slow violet pulse of her own caged power against the silver-white roots of her jailer's body. She had spent an age refusing to stand in this particular place, because to stand in it was to feel, and to feel was the wound that had made her everything she was. But the boy with the borrowed face had just refused the Sleeping One's mercy. He had stood in a grey dream and chosen a world he could not prove was his, freely, with his eyes open—and the watching of it had made her ancient
CHAPTER 190: Am I Chosen?
Ethan dreamed of a grey country, and knew at once that someone had been waiting in it for him.He had fallen asleep in his command tent on the long, grim march back toward Carosso—the western road lay open since Ironreach, and the army moved with the particular silence of soldiers who knew they were retreating toward the place they would have to make their last stand. He had not slept well in days. He had not slept whole in days, not since the truth of his own dying had come apart in his hands and left him a stranger to himself. So when the grey mist rose around him and the still water spread out at his feet, he was almost grateful. Even a dream was a kind of rest.Then he saw the robed figure at the water's edge, and remembered Seraphina's account of a Sleeping Saint,
You may also like
Monster Hunters
Datdepressedguy 17.4K viewsunparalleled sword sovereign
GCsage28.4K viewsHealing God's Heir: Abandoned Son-in-law
Abysalyounglord39.2K viewsVengeance of The Reborn Heir
Cindy Chen19.7K viewsTo Ashes And Blood
TheATK 22 viewsThe Vampire Crimson Heir
Irewrites251 viewsThe Inverted Pillars
YOUSSEF ELOUIZARI293 viewsTHE DRAGON GOD AGAINST THE HEAVENS
Alendra Danuarta181 views