The carriage veered from the main road at mid-noon, turning northeast into tangled paths long reclaimed by wilderness. Fifteen kilometers of rutted tracks and overgrown trails later, as the sun bled crimson across the horizon, the ruins materialized from thinning mist—like an ancient wound scarred upon the earth.

  They were old. Older than the Kingdom itself.

  Stone arches collapsed into jagged ribs, half-swallowed by moss and creeping roots. The air smelled of damp earth and rot, heavy with a stillness that pressed against the senses.

  No one spoke.

  Alastor rode at the head, hood drawn low, his attention sharp. This time, there would be no mistakes. That was why he was here. That was why no one questioned him.

  No ambush came. No delay.

  The ruins accepted them in silence.

  Several men—his hired shadows—unloaded the children with rough efficiency, herding them toward a concealed dungeon entrance beside the main ruins. Iron-bound doors groaned open, revealing steep stone steps descending into chill darkness. Torchlight flickered from below, painting the walls in dancing orange.

  Other children were already there.

  They huddled together instinctively as the door opened, thin arms wrapped around smaller bodies, eyes reflecting torchlight with dull, exhausted fear. Some bore marks—faded welts, healing cuts, the quiet evidence of discipline already learned.

  Once, they had screamed. Once, they had begged.

  That had ended quickly.

  Those who cried had been beaten. Those who resisted had gone without food. The lesson had spread faster than any kindness ever could.

  Silence, now, was survival.

  Among them were two familiar faces.

  Joel’s children.

  They looked up when the newcomers were shoved inside, recognition flickering briefly—then dying just as fast. Hope was a luxury none of them could afford anymore.

  The six new captives were forced into the cell. The iron door slammed shut.

  The men did not linger.

  They never did.

  They did not know what the children were for, and they did not care. Coin had changed hands. Orders had been given. Questions were dangerous things, and knowledge carried weight that could drown a man.

  Too much knowledge, after all, was its own kind of sin.

  Evelin sat among the children, her hands bound, posture relaxed in a way that did not belong.

  She did not tremble.

  She did not cry.

  Her dark eyes moved calmly across the room, counting exits, measuring distances, listening. When her gaze reached the narrow ventilation slit high in the wall, she allowed herself the faintest smile.

  Outside, perched upon a broken stone post, a small emerald bird watched the ruins in perfect stillness.

  Evelin caught its eye and winked.

  The bird dipped its head once.

  Far beyond the ruins—

  HOWWWWL.

  The sound tore through the fading daylight, raw and powerful, sending flocks of lesser birds screaming into the sky. The forest answered with rustling leaves and startled wings.

  No one noticed the emerald flash lifting silently into the air.

  No one saw it veer away from the ruins, flying low and fast toward the distant treeline.

  The trap was set.

  The long night was just around the corner.

  The night before, after parting from Alastor, Sombra melted into the night, slipping from Siracusa's walls like ink dispersing in water. He arrived at another manor in the affluent district—a fortified estate of dark stone and iron gates, belonging to House Cortina.

  The manor of House Cortina stood apart from its neighbours.

  Its walls were thicker. Its windows were narrower. Its gardens were trimmed for visibility rather than beauty.

  The Cortinas were nouveau nobility, forged from mercenary steel rather than ancient blood. Decades ago, their ancestors had parlayed battlefield merits and cunning coin into a title, clawing their way from sellswords to low-ranked lords. Staunch allies of House Salinas, they ruled Siracusa's underbelly: smuggling rings, black-market enforcers, deals sealed in blood and shadow.

  Sombra slipped inside without sound.

  Shadows welcomed him.

  From an alley across the street, a dirty-looking blue-furred pup watched, motionless, eyes reflecting faint moonlight. It did not follow. Not yet.

  Sombra ghosted through the manor's defenses, his prized Shadow Step rendering him unseen, unheard—a wraith in the corridors.

  Inside, Milos De Cortina sat alone in his study, papers spread across the desk before him. Stocky. Broad-shouldered. A man built for war, not courtly patience. An axe rested against the wall within arm’s reach.

  Sombra materialized behind him without a whisper of sound, a shadow given form.

  He waited, motionless.

  Minutes ticked by.

  Milos spoke first, without turning. "I dislike unannounced visits. Speak. Is the Basil fool's mess cleaned?"

  Sombra said nothing.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  A moment passed.

  Then Milos exhaled. “Good. I assume the Vainilla girl failed.”

  “She chased a shadow,” Sombra said. “As Monarchs often do.”

  His tone dripped pride. Escaping a TAO Monarch like Serena—barely thirty, with Emperor potential—fed his ego. Though merely a Praetorian on the surface, his arts let him evade or delay far stronger foes. She scarcely registered in his estimation.

  “…When can we proceed?” Milos asked.

  “Tomorrow night,” Sombra answered. “The moon will be full. The preparations are sufficient.”

  Milos’s fingers tightened on the desk.

  “And afterwards?”

  “Afterwards,” Sombra said, “you will have what you paid for.”

  Power.

  Not the kind earned through years of refinement. Not the kind sanctioned by Templo or the Crown. Something older. Something that did not care about bloodlines or approval.

  Milos swallowed.

  “Just remember your oaths to us. Our organization... dislikes broken promises," said the masked man.

  Milos rose slowly, turning to fix Sombra with a ferocious glare. "Threatening me, boy?"

  His Qi surged instinctively, the room tightening under his Will. For an instant, something vast stirred behind him — a phantom-like racoon head, red-eyed and snarling, born of his cultivated spirit.

  Sombra did not move.

  The carved grin on his mask seemed to widen.

  “Careful,” Sombra said mildly. “You’ll crack your own ceiling.”

  Milos’s jaw clenched. Slowly, he reined his power in.

  He knew the truth: the shadowy syndicate behind Sombra dwarfed his meager Legate strength and low nobility. This gnawing inferiority only sharpened his hunger.

  “And Serena De Vainilla?” he asked.

  Sombra tilted his head slightly.

  “If she follows the trail,” he said, “she dies.”

  A pause.

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  Sombra shrugged. “Then Ansara will bleed a little longer.”

  The temperature in the room dipped.

  Milos looked away.

  He knew better than to ask more.

  When Sombra turned to leave, Milos spoke once more.

  “You’ll keep your word?”

  Sombra stopped at the doorway.

  “Our organization,” he said, “keeps results.”

  Then he vanished.

  Outside the city, the ruins waited.

  Stone older than kingdoms. Symbols worn thin by centuries of deliberate erasure.

  Sombra had departed silently, bound for the ruins to oversee final rites. Success here promised rich rewards from his masters.

  he mused, shadows carrying him swiftly.

  As the ruins loomed, he froze.

  HOWWWWL!

  A wolf's howl pierced the afternoon, raw and distant, scattering birds into frantic flight as the leaves trembled.

  Sombra paused.

  He scanned the ruins, senses flaring, shadows answering his call. Nothing revealed itself.

  “…Filthy beast,” he muttered.

  He stepped forward.

  The ruins swallowed him whole.

  Behind him, unseen, the hunter adjusted its distance.

  And far below the surface of the land, something ancient stirred — not awakened, but .

  By tomorrow, the world would remember a name it was never meant to speak again. And what happened afterwards in Siracusa would have nothing to do with Sombra.

  In a small forest not far from the ruins, Nerion knelt beside a fallen log, writing by the faint light filtering through the canopy. His hand moved steadily, without haste.

  When he finished, he folded the letter once, sealed it, and tied it carefully to the leg of the emerald bird.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  The bird took flight at once, a streak of green slipping between branches, rising toward the distant lights of Siracusa—toward the small army post hidden within the city’s heart.

  Nerion watched until it vanished from sight.

  Everything was in place now.

  Both the net and the fishes.

  The day had unfolded exactly as Milos De Cortina had anticipated. Perhaps better.

  Siracusa’s avenues filled early, not with celebration, but with agitation. Merchants gathered in clusters near the Governor’s manor, voices low but sharp, counting losses aloud. Noble envoys arrived in lacquered carriages, banners discreetly displayed, patience worn thin by stalled profits and closed routes.

  Pressure mounted by the hour.

  What had begun as irritation over halted caravans soon curdled into accusation. Whispers of grew bolder. Then came the word . By midday, even that was no longer spoken quietly.

  Milos ensured he was present when the tension broke.

  He stood among a carefully selected crowd of allies and “concerned citizens” within the Governor’s outer hall, his voice measured but cutting as he addressed Saras De Vainilla directly. He spoke of economic paralysis. Of merchants ruined by indecision. Of a ruling house that claimed moral high ground while delivering nothing but fear and silence.

  It delighted him more than he cared to admit.

  Normally, he would never have dared such a display. House Vainilla had ruled Siracusa for generations—respected, entrenched, feared even when not formally seated as governors. Their allies were many. Their reach long.

  But today, those allies were quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Even families traditionally loyal to the Vainillas avoided open defence, watching instead to see which way the wind would turn. That silence emboldened their rivals. Led openly by Rodolfo De Salinas—and quietly by Milos himself—letters of complaint were drafted and dispatched in quick succession, addressed not only to the Governor’s manor but to sympathetic ears in the House of Lords and among the Army’s High Brass.

  By afternoon, Rodolfo struck while the iron was hot.

  An emergency meeting of the City Council was called, invoking rarely used provisions meant for extraordinary failure of governance. Deposing a ruling house was almost unthinkable—something that had occurred only once or twice since the Kingdom’s founding.

  Milos tasted blood in the air.

  He regretted, briefly, that he would not be present to witness the Vainillas’ humiliation in full. But his absence served a greater purpose. Power did not only rise in the halls of debate.

  Some power was born elsewhere.

  Before dusk, he left the city with a small, trusted retinue, turning northeast toward land most citizens preferred not to name aloud.

  Toward the ruins.

  They rose from the mist like the bones of something too large to bury.

  The remnants of the old duchy lay half-swallowed by moss and root, stone arches collapsed into jagged ribs, carvings eroded so thoroughly that their meanings had become guesswork. The air itself felt heavier here, laden with damp earth, rot, and a pressure that lingered just shy of discomfort.

  Milos felt it as soon as he dismounted—the faint prickle along his skin, the way Natural Energy pooled unevenly, as if the land itself remembered different rules.

  Sombra and Alastor awaited him inside one of the few structures still standing, its walls thick and scarred, sigils long since defaced by deliberate hands.

  “Is everything ready?” Milos asked, wasting no time.

  Alastor nodded immediately, a flicker of nervous excitement passing through his eyes. “Yes. We have more than enough now. One extra child, even.” He hesitated, then continued, eager to prove himself. “Each has already given a drop of blood. That binds them. When the ritual begins, Dagon will be able to answer.”

  Milos frowned slightly. “Answer?”

  Sombra spoke then, voice calm, edged with faint disdain.

  “Send an avatar,” he corrected. “The god does not . It receives.”

  Alastor swallowed and nodded quickly. “Yes. An avatar. It will oversee the rite once the first step is complete. After that… immolation.” He forced the word out. “Then the blessing.”

  Milos closed his eyes briefly.

  Power.

  Not the slow, grinding ascent of cultivation. Not the suffocating oversight of Templo, nor the Crown’s endless approvals. This was something older. Something raw.

  Sombra had never taught them the ritual outright.

  Instead, he had lent them a partial copy of a book—its origin unknown, its pages warped and stained with age. Even that fragment had been enough to shake Milos to his core.

  The book spoke of a land erased from sanctioned history.

  Of the Pentapolis of Philistia.

  Five duchies bound together in ambition and blood, their cities rich, their armies formidable. Ashdod had been one of them—this very place. Before AEON’s name carried weight. Before Ansara’s banners unified the land.

  They had worshipped Dagon, a god of prosperity and dominion, a being that demanded payment not in faith, but in flesh.

  Children.

  The book did not soften the truth. It did not justify it either. It simply .

  It spoke of rituals where hundreds—sometimes thousands—were offered to fuel ascensions that defied natural limits. Of Dukes who rose to Legendary ranks not through centuries of refinement, but through singular nights of fire and screaming.

  What it failed to mention was the fall.

  Templo’s rise. Ansara’s consolidation. The systematic erasure of Philistia’s memory. Cities razed. Texts burned. Names forbidden.

  History, rewritten by those who survived.

  Reading even the incomplete copy had nearly driven Milos mad. The knowledge pressed against his mind like a blade, demanding reverence or surrender.

  And yet—

  Instead of recoiling, he had leaned closer.

  When Sombra turned away, shadows folding around him like obedient servants, Milos felt both relief and unease. He knew he was gambling with forces far beyond his station—but he also knew this was his only path forward.

  Power did not wait for permission.

  Outside, unseen, a small emerald bird cut through the sky at reckless speed, wings silent, heading straight for Siracusa.