The walk back to the mansion should have been triumphant. The afternoon sun was a bloody smear on the horizon, painting the manicured pathways in shades of orange and long, grasping shadows. The weight of the First Elder's words—"Your soul is unique, child."—should have been a crown on my head. The promise of the World Archeon, a key to every locked door inside me, should have had my mind spinning with possibilities.
But all I felt was a cold stone of dread in my gut.
The high of the ceremony had faded, leaving behind a strange, staticky unease. The mansion grounds were too quiet. Not peaceful, but… hollow. Like a breath held too long. The usual chatter of servants, the distant clang of practice from the guard barracks—it was all muted, swallowed by the evening. The shadows between the topiary didn't just look dark; they felt deep. My skin prickled, a primitive alarm system I'd learned never to ignore.
Selene.
I picked up my pace, my dress shoes crunching too loudly on the gravel. This morning, her absence had been a minor irritation, a puzzle. The attendant's story about her going out with her maid for "important matters" had been flimsy, but plausible. But now? After the finals? There wasn't a force in this world or any other that could have kept her from gloating about my victory, from dissecting every move of my fight with Thaddeus with terrifying, childish precision. She lived for that stuff.
I took the stairs to her wing two at a time, the marble cold and silent. The corridor stretched out, a tunnel of closed doors and watchful portraits of dead Graythorns. Her door was at the end.
I knocked. "Selene? You in there? You missed one hell of a show."
Silence.
A different kind of silence. Not an empty silence, but a waiting one. The air around the doorframe felt thick, charged. My heart started hammering against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure instinct. I didn't think. Thinking was too slow. My body moved before my mind could catch up.
I threw my shoulder into the door. The wood around the lock splintered with a sound like a gunshot in the quiet hall. The door slammed inward, bouncing off the wall.
The room was empty. Neat. Too neat. The window was open, the white curtains fluttering in the breeze like ghostly hands. And on her perfectly made bed, a single, stark white piece of paper.
The world slowed down. My breathing, the flutter of the curtains, the frantic thumping in my chest—it all faded into a high-pitched whine in my ears. I crossed the room in three strides, my hand trembling as I snatched the paper. The words were written in a sharp, cruel hand.
Visit me near the forest at the location marked if you want your sister to live. Play smart or inform your family, and you'll receive her head as a gift. - Leonel Graythorn.
My own name. He'd signed it with my own name. The sheer, mocking arrogance of it. The paper crumpled in my fist, the sound unnaturally loud. The world didn't just narrow; it shattered, then reformed around a single, white-hot point of rage. It was a physical thing, this fury, burning through my veins, scalding away every other thought—fear, strategy, reason. All that was left was a need, an imperative: Get to her.
I was moving before the crumpled ball of paper hit the floor. I tore out of the room, down the stairs, a blur of formal robes and blinding panic. I blew past a pair of guards at the main entrance.
"Young Master Leonel? Is everything—"
Their words were meaningless noise, the buzzing of flies. I was already across the lawn, my dress shoes skidding on the dewy grass as I hit the tree line and plunged into the forest.
The marked location was deep, where the ancient oaks grew so close their branches knitted a canopy that choked out the twilight. It was a place of perpetual dusk, the air heavy with the smell of damp earth and decay. I didn't slow down. Branches whipped at my face, tearing at my fine robes, scratching my skin. I didn't feel them.
"COME OUT!"
The word ripped from my throat, raw and guttural. It wasn't a shout; it was a challenge, a declaration of war. It echoed through the trees, and for a second, the forest itself seemed to hold its breath. Then, the birds—a flock of starlings roosting above—exploded from the branches in a panic of black wings and shrill cries.
Slow, mocking clapping answered me. The sound was wrong here, out of place. "As expected, Leonel." The voice was familiar, dripping with a smugness that made my teeth ache. "You really do come running when your sister calls. Like a well-trained dog."
"Who—" I started, but the question died as a scream cut through the air. A short, sharp sound of pure pain that lanced through me worse than any blade.
There, in a small clearing under the largest oak, was Garic Stormblade. And he had Selene.
He had one hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. The other held a wicked-looking hunting knife, its point pressed into the soft flesh of her upper arm. A thin, bright line of blood welled up around the steel and trickled down her pale skin. Each drop that hit the leaf litter was a hammer blow to my soul.
"Brother!" she sobbed, her voice cracking with terror and pain. Her eyes, wide and swimming with tears, were locked on me. "It hurts... please..."
Something inside me broke. I felt it go, a clean, final snap. It was the last tether holding back the storm. The edges of my vision swam with red, not metaphorically—I felt the tiny blood vessels in my eyes rupture, staining my sight with a bloody haze. My fingers tightened around the hilt of my sword until the leather grip groaned in protest. The voice that came out of me was someone else's, low and vibrating with a promise of murder.
"Let. Her. Go."
Garic's laugh was a ugly, jagged thing. "Oh, does it bother you, seeing her like this?" He twisted the knife slightly, and Selene cried out again, a pathetic whimper that shattered what was left of my control. More blood, brighter now, flowed freely. "Maybe I should leave my mark on her. Something to remember me by? I could carve my name into that pretty skin of hers. Would you like that, little Selene?"
As he spoke, shadows detached themselves from the trees. Ten of them. Men and women clad in matte-black gear that seemed to drink the light. They moved without sound, their eyes flat and dead. Assassins. Adept Realm, every one of them. A killing squad. On any other day, the sight of them would have sent a chill of tactical fear through me. Now? They were just things. Obstacles. Furniture in the room where I was going to kill Garic Stormblade.
"Kill him," Garic waved a lazy hand, his eyes never leaving mine, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "Break him slowly. I want him to watch what comes next. Show him what happens to those who embarrass me in front of the whole city."
The first assassin came in low and fast, a blur of black cloth and gleaming steel. He never even saw it coming. My body moved on an instinct older than thought, older than the Graythorn name itself.
"Graythorn Sword Art: First Form—Skyfall Slash!"
It wasn't a technique. It was an extension of my rage. My sword didn't cut through the air; it ripped through it. There was a wet, tearing sound, and the man came apart. It wasn't clean. It was messy. A spray of blood and viscera painted the ferns beside him. The force of the strike didn't stop; it tore a trench in the earth behind him, sending clods of dirt and splintered wood flying. The two halves of his body slid apart with a sickening, final sound.
The smugness on Garic's face cracked. "What— How did— Kill him! Kill him now!"
They swarmed me then. A symphony of violence. An assassin thrust at my chest; my blade took him through the eye socket. I felt the gritty resistance of bone, the soft, wet pop as it gave way. I twisted and pulled, and the sword came free with a spray of gore and grey matter. The man made a wet, gurgling sound as he collapsed.
Two more came from my flanks. A low sweep took the first one's legs out from under him at the knees. The sound of severed tendons and shattering bone was unmistakable. His scream was cut short as my sword, in the same fluid motion, punched through his partner's chest. I roared—a sound that was more animal than human—and ripped the blade sideways. It wasn't a clean cut; it was a savage tear. I nearly bisected both of them. Their blood, hot and coppery, sprayed across my face, into my mouth. I spat it out.
I was drenched. My fine robes were heavy and sodden with it, my hair plastered to my scalp. I didn't notice. I didn't care. All I could hear was Selene's quiet, hitched sobs, each one pouring fuel on the inferno inside me.
One of them got lucky, or I got sloppy. A blade nicked my shoulder, a searing line of fire. The pain was a distant thing, a mosquito bite. I turned, my movements jerky with rage, and caught the assassin's wrist. I didn't bother with a sword technique. I just drove my blade into his chest. Once. Twice. Again. And again. "Die! DIE!" Each thrust was a punctuation mark to my roar. It was butchery. By the time I was done, there was nothing left in his ribcage but pulp and shattered bone. The remaining assassins, their professional calm finally broken, started to back away. The smell of blood and voided bowels was thick in the air.
The forest floor was a charnel house. These were hardened killers, but they died screaming, learning too late what it meant to stand between a Graythorn and his family. One tried to form a defensive seal, magic crackling between his fingers. My blade shattered the forming energy like glass and kept going, splitting his skull down to his chin. Another turned to run, his nerve gone.
He wouldn't get far.
"Graythorn Sword Art: Black Wind Slash!"
Darkness itself seemed to peel away from the trees and coalesce around my blade. I didn't swing it; I unleashed it. A wave of pure, hungry void shot forward. It didn't just hit the fleeing man; it consumed him at the waist. There was a sizzling sound, like meat on a griddle, and the smell of ozone and burnt flesh. The two halves of his body fell in different directions, the wounds cauterized and smoking, black energy still crackling at the edges.
Silence, except for my ragged breathing and Selene's whimpers.
Garic's face was a mask of pure, undiluted terror. The knife in his hand shook as he pressed it harder against Selene's throat. A thin, red line appeared there.
"Stay back!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "I'll do it! I swear I'll—"
I took a step forward. My boots made a sick, wet sound in the mud. I stared at him through my blood-red eyes. Gore dripped from my sword, my clothes, my face. But my hands were steady. The rage had cooled, hardened into something infinitely more dangerous: a cold, absolute certainty.
"Garic," I said, my voice terrifyingly quiet, the calm at the eye of the hurricane. "I told you what would happen if we met again."
Miles away, through the same tangled woods, Darian Graythorn moved with the lethal precision of a wolf on the hunt. His Ironclad Phalanx, a dozen of the family's deadliest shadows, flanked him, their movements a silent, coordinated dance.
"There," Darian murmured, his eyes, sharp as a hawk's, catching a flicker of movement in the deepening gloom. "Drive them toward the ridge."
They were chasing ghosts—figures in black robes adorned with a symbol he knew all too well, a spiraling vortex that spoke of nihilism and oblivion. The Abyssal Creed. A foulness his family had spent generations stamping out.
"Chase them down!" Darian's voice was steel wrapped in velvet, a command that brooked no argument. "These Creed rats dare infiltrate our territory? Show them why the Graythorn name is feared!"
The robed figures, realizing they were cornered, turned to make their stand. Their leader, a man with a voice like grinding stones, laughed, the sound echoing unnaturally. "Rats? Soon the abyss will swallow your world whole, Darian Graythorn! Your family's time is ending!"
The air grew thick, heavy with the scent of ozone and something older, something rotten. The leader began to chant, his hands weaving patterns in the air that hurt the eyes to look at. A massive, intricate circle of crimson light bloomed in the sky above them, painting the treetops in hellish shades of red.
"Sixth Circle Magic: Meteor Fall!"
The heavens tore open. Not with rain, but with fire and rock. House-sized chunks of burning stone screamed toward the earth, trailing tails of incandescent death. The very air vibrated with the heat and force of the impending impact. It was an extinction-level event summoned in a forest clearing.
Darian didn't flinch. He didn't even look worried. He simply planted his feet, his own aura beginning to glow, a serene, silver light that contrasted sharply with the hellfire above. Power gathered around him, not a storm, but a tide—deep, immense, and inevitable.
"Graythorn Swordship Fifth Form: Tempest of Night!"
He raised his sword, and darkness answered. It wasn't the absence of light; it was a living, hungry entity that poured from his blade. It rose to meet the falling meteors, a wave of absolute black against the crimson fire. The collision was sound and light and force made manifest. Trees within a hundred-yard radius didn't just fall; they vaporized. The ground buckled, fissures snaking out like black lightning, and a shockwave of pure concussive force flattened everything else.
When the light and darkness faded, the leader of the Creed mages stood alone, his chest a ruined mess, his magical barriers shattered. Blood poured from his mouth as he stared at Darian, a mix of terror and grudging awe in his dying eyes. "As expected... of the Graythorn heir... this power..."
"Enough games," Darian said, his voice cold and flat. He took a step forward. "Why are you here? What's your purpose?"
The dying mage's laugh was a wet, bubbling rasp. "Why tell... when you can live it?" His eyes, glowing with fanatical madness, locked with Darian's. "Two deaths in your family... that's my gift to you!"
Before the Ironclad Phalanx could react, the man triggered a hidden seal. Black flame erupted from his eyes, his mouth, consuming him from the inside out. His final scream was a triumphant curse: "For the Abyss!"
The words 'Two deaths in your family' hung in the air, more destructive than any meteor. Darian's composure shattered. His Sword Saint aura exploded outward, a silver sun igniting in the heart of the forest, so bright it cast no shadows.
"IRONCLAD PHALANX, SPREAD OUT! NOW!"
He didn't wait for acknowledgment. He was already moving, a streak of silver light tearing through the woods, a prayer he hadn't uttered since he was a boy repeating in his mind. Not the children. Please, not the children. He followed the distant, fading echoes of combat, the coppery stench of blood carried on the wind, knowing with a sickening certainty that he was racing a clock that had already run out.
Behind him, his warriors scattered into the night, a net of steel and fury cast into the darkness. The air was thick with the promise of vengeance, and somewhere ahead, a brother's love had already curdled into a rage that was painting the ancient trees red.