Cadin — Palace Gates

  Isaac and Yu advanced toward the palace.

  No guards.

  No archers.

  No shouting. No horns.

  Just empty stone and wind.

  Yu’s voice came low. “I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I.” Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Yu.”

  Yu transformed into the blade and hovered at his back, the weight of her presence settling into place like armor. Isaac reached the massive doors and shoved.

  The gates groaned open.

  A cold breeze crawled out of the darkness and slid over his skin like a warning.

  Inside, the palace was unlit — black hallways, high ceilings, silent banners. Isaac stepped in slowly, cautious. His eyes glowed faint blue in the gloom, scanning corners, pillars, balconies.

  Nothing.

  Then a voice echoed from somewhere deep.

  “You won’t find anything here… fallen king.”

  Isaac stopped. His jaw tightened.

  “Show yourself,” he said. “Coward.”

  The shadows shifted.

  A shape peeled off the darkness like it had been part of the wall a second ago — solidifying into a man in armor that looked made of night. A commander. Helmeted. Still.

  They faced each other in the empty hall.

  Isaac’s gaze sharpened. “Commander Valerius…”

  The title tasted bitter.

  Isaac drew Yu.

  Steel whispered. Blue light bled into the dark.

  Valerius’s voice carried amusement. “I’m glad you remember me.”

  “How could I forget?” Isaac replied coldly. “The Midnight Assassin.” His eyes narrowed. “Fall’s right hand.”

  Valerius smiled beneath the helmet — Isaac could hear it.

  Isaac’s mind tightened around old knowledge.

  Valerius isn’t the strongest… but he’s fast. Shadow-step. In and out. One mistake and he’s behind you.

  Isaac exhaled once.

  “Where’s Fall?” Isaac asked, voice sharp. “Hiding while he sends idiots to die for him?”

  Valerius tilted his head. “You’ll meet him very soon… child.” The last word was deliberate. Then Valerius lifted something and tossed it to the floor.

  Thud.

  A wet, heavy sound.

  A blood-soaked sack rolled across the stone and stopped at Isaac’s feet.

  Isaac didn’t flinch, but his eyes narrowed.

  “And what is that?” he asked. “A cheap scare?”

  Valerius’s smile widened.

  “No,” he said softly. “Not a scare.”

  He stepped forward a fraction, voice turning cruelly calm.

  “Motivation.”

  Isaac didn’t move at first.

  Yu was in his hand, blade up, ready for Valerius to blink into existence. His eyes stayed locked on the commander — because that was how Valerius killed people. With distraction. With timing.

  Still, Isaac lowered the tip of the sword and sliced the sack open.

  Wet cloth split.

  Something rolled out onto the stone.

  An arm.

  Isaac’s breath stopped.

  For a heartbeat his mind refused to name it.

  Then instinct forced his eyes to the finger.

  A ring caught the faint light and glinted.

  Isaac’s pupils shrank.

  “No…”

  He dropped to one knee, hand shaking as he turned the arm slightly — just enough to see the ring clearly.

  Selene.

  The world went silent.

  Then Isaac’s chest expanded like it was going to tear open and his scream detonated through the palace.

  “NOOOOO—!”

  The sound wasn’t just loud. It was violent — an impact you could feel in your bones. Torches flickered. Dust fell from ceilings. Somewhere deeper in the castle, stone groaned.

  At the exact same moment —

  A dagger shot toward Isaac’s eye.

  Fast. Precise. Deadly.

  Isaac barely moved in time, twisting his head and dropping hard. The blade shaved past his face and buried itself in the wall with a metallic scream.

  Isaac hit the ground awkwardly, alive.

  He rolled to his feet instantly.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Valerius was gone.

  Only shadow.

  Only silence.

  Isaac stared at the dagger in the wall, then back at the severed arm in front of him.

  His hands trembled.

  And the scream came again — bigger.

  “NOOOOOOOOO!”

  Valerius lunged from the darkness with another dagger, aiming for Isaac’s throat —

  And got thrown back.

  Not by a strike.

  By the force of Isaac’s voice.

  The shockwave slammed into Valerius mid-step and smashed him across the hall like he’d run into a wall of air. He crashed and slid, armor scraping stone.

  Isaac wasn’t looking at him anymore.

  He was looking at the arm.

  His breathing turned into something animal.

  [Fury Berserk]

  The air around Isaac changed.

  Pressure. Heat. Ozone.

  Yu tore free from his grip, the blade snapping into humanoid form and stumbling back, eyes wide.

  “Isaac—!”

  But he wasn’t listening.

  His body expelled a savage energy that felt wrong for a human to hold. The skin on his face split down the middle with a brutal rip — like something underneath was forcing its way out.

  Bone.

  His skull emerged, exposed, glowing.

  Isaac wasn’t a man anymore.

  He was a weapon with a heartbeat.

  His scream rose again, even louder, and his bones ignited — violent and sudden — like a match struck inside him. Light burned from beneath what was left of his skin, crawling through the cracks.

  His armor began to melt.

  Metal sagged and dripped off him in glowing lines, exposing his chest as black smoke poured from his body, thick and poisonous. The heat around him turned the hallway into a furnace.

  Stone sweated.

  Wood dried and cracked.

  Air shimmered.

  Isaac started walking.

  Not running. Not chasing.

  Marching.

  Everything around him began to soften under the invisible aura — like the palace itself couldn’t survive his presence.

  Guards saw him coming and charged, thinking numbers mattered.

  They got close —

  And melted.

  Armor warped like wax. Skin blistered and slid off bone. Metal and flesh collapsed together into screaming piles that didn’t stay upright long enough to fall.

  The others ran.

  Isaac kept walking through corridors that were warping under his heat, toward the throne room, toward the source.

  His hand lifted.

  Electricity snapped around his fingers.

  Then the magnetism hit.

  Helmets yanked sideways. Breastplates folded inward. Weapons ripped from hands. Soldiers were dragged together by their own armor, crushed into each other in a brutal, twisting pile of metal and meat — heads snapping, ribs collapsing, bodies squeezed until they stopped moving.

  Isaac didn’t slow down.

  He didn’t blink.

  He just kept walking — furious, burning, hunting — while the palace melted behind him.

  Throne Hall

  A guard burst into the throne room, stumbling on his own boots.

  Fall sat on the throne, waiting, smiling like a man about to watch his favorite scene unfold.

  “My sovereign…!” the soldier gasped, out of breath. “The human—he’s unstoppable!”

  Fall’s smile widened. He leaned forward, eyes bright with dark satisfaction.

  “Good.” He let out a low, pleased laugh. “Bring the prisoners. Leave them here.”

  Outside, the palace had become a furnace.

  Isaac marched through the corridors with melted armor hanging off him like dead skin. His exposed chest glowed under thick black smoke. Heat shimmered around him — an invisible aura that warped stone and made torches flicker and die.

  Soldiers formed a desperate ring in front of him, shields up, bows drawn, hands shaking.

  “FIRE!” one screamed.

  A storm of arrows flew.

  They never reached him.

  Every shaft softened mid-air, bending, blackening — then dripping down as molten wood and metal before touching his body. The soldiers stared, horrified.

  Isaac opened his mouth.

  And screamed.

  The roar carried heat and electricity at once — an explosive wave that swallowed the entire circle and turned it into ash and screaming silence. The ring vanished.

  He didn’t slow.

  He slammed into the iron doors —

  They melted like wax.

  And the throne room opened before him.

  Fall was waiting.

  Still smiling.

  One hand held a chain.

  At the end of it — Selene, on her knees, blood-soaked, one arm missing. Beside her, Anabelle lay unconscious, barely breathing.

  Fall’s eyes gleamed. “The fallen king…”

  Isaac’s skull-face turned toward him.

  A feral, electric growl crawled out of his throat.

  Fall didn’t flinch.

  “Now,” he said, almost cheerful.

  The shadows behind the throne twisted.

  Orion stepped out like she’d been there the whole time, smiling.

  She raised her hand.

  A golden collar flashed into existence around Isaac’s neck.

  Orion snapped her fingers.

  “Goodbye, cursed thing.”

  Isaac’s head detonated.

  A violent burst — bone, light, smoke — and he dropped to his knees.

  Headless.

  Selene’s eyes widened through pain. Fall laughed. The guards laughed too, like the universe had finally corrected itself.

  Yu arrived at the doorway.

  She saw it.

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “No…” she choked, eyes filling. “No…”

  Then Isaac’s fingers twitched.

  The laughter died.

  Smoke crawled up from the neck stump, thick and black, spiraling like it had a mind. The body rose — slow, deliberate.

  And the head returned.

  Not human.

  A burning, electric skull — alive, furious, smiling like madness.

  Orion’s smile broke. “Impossible…”

  Isaac laughed.

  Not relief.

  Not joy.

  A manic, broken sound that made the room feel smaller.

  He lifted his hand.

  Yu’s eyes turned white for a heartbeat — blank, obedient.

  She didn’t resist. She transformed.

  Not into her normal blade —

  A colossal sword slammed into Isaac’s palm like it belonged there.

  He drove it into the floor with a violent impact.

  Stone cracked outward.

  Isaac threw his head back and roared at the ceiling — an earth-shaking, sky-challenging roar that made banners rip and torches collapse.

  Then he looked at Fall.

  “My turn.”

  He vanished.

  A lightning-fast step —

  Fall barely dodged, but the strike cleaved the throne in half like it was cardboard.

  Fall’s smile was gone now. “Orion — do something!”

  Orion raised her hand again, desperate, chanting fast — trying to bind him, trying to crush him, trying to end him.

  Isaac turned his skull slowly.

  Then moved.

  He appeared in front of her and drove the colossal blade into her stomach.

  Orion’s eyes bulged. Blood spilled down the sword in thick streams.

  Isaac laughed again, louder, as if the pain of a goddess meant nothing to him.

  He ripped the blade free and threw her aside like trash.

  Orion’s body hit the floor… then broke into darkness, unraveling into shadow and smoke until nothing remained.

  Fall stumbled back, pale. “No — no… how are you still alive? You should be —”

  Isaac walked toward him, dragging the colossal blade behind him.

  The sword’s edge carved sparks across stone, leaving a burning trail. Each step sounded like a sentence being written.

  Fall snapped his hand toward the floor and activated the throne room runes.

  The air thickened.

  Gravity slammed down, trying to crush Isaac to his knees.

  Isaac bent slightly —

  But he didn’t fall.

  His growl turned into a low, angry hum.

  Fall turned and ran.

  “Stop him!” Fall shouted as he fled. “STOP HIM!”

  Soldiers rushed in, terrified but obedient.

  They found…

  Nothing.

  Isaac wasn’t there.

  Fall took the back stairs, desperate, breath ragged. He reached the bottom —

  And froze.

  Isaac stood at the end of the stairwell, waiting, body wrapped in electric flame.

  Fall collapsed backward, scrambling like prey.

  “Wait — I —”

  Isaac didn’t speak.

  He swung once.

  Fall’s legs were cut out from under him.

  Fall screamed, clutching his stumps, crying hard now, humiliation mixing with pain.

  “Please — no —”

  Isaac stepped forward and planted his foot on Fall’s head.

  He pressed.

  Fall’s hands clawed at Isaac’s ankle.

  Isaac pressed harder.

  One final, brutal crunch —

  Silence.

  From a distance, Arcadia saw everything.

  She stood half-hidden behind a broken archway, shaking so badly she could barely stay upright. Tears ran down her face — silent, stunned — grieving the man who had raised her. Her father.

  She turned to run.

  Isaac’s head snapped toward her.

  Yu reacted instantly — no words, no hesitation. She shifted in midair, metal reshaping, her body compressing into a long, black spear that hummed with heat and electricity.

  Isaac caught her by the shaft.

  And threw.

  The spear tore through the wall like it was paper — stone exploding outward in a violent spray — and crossed the room in a single black line.

  Arcadia didn’t even have time to scream.

  The spear hit her from behind and pinned her to the ground with a sickening finality.

  Silence.

  Then Isaac walked over, the heat around him making the air shimmer. He looked down at her body without expression, reached for the weapon, and ripped the spear free in one sharp motion.

  Blood spread across cracked stone.

  Yu reformed in his hand for a split second — still dark, still hungry — then stilled again.

  Isaac lifted his head.

  And roared at the ceiling like he was challenging the sky itself.

  He stepped out of the castle into open air.

  Looked up.

  And something about what he saw above — something unseen to everyone else — made his fury deepen.

  His eyes burned brighter.

  “Paradise…” he growled, voice distorted by heat and lightning.

  Then he launched into the sky.

  A violent sonic crack followed him as he flew — straight toward Paradise — faster than any soldier could track, faster than fear could spread.