A twitch in Macos's jaw. A whisper in the air.
[Viksana: Conceal].
Ashan's gone.
"Did you see that?" Damara's voice sharp exhale. "Ashan—just vanished."
"We saw." Helma's eyes never left the clearing where Ashan had been.
Seven of them watched, suspended in horrified fascination, as the beast that was once Macos roared fury at empty air.
"Father…"
Word a breath from Cloe. New resolve hardened features—something breaking, something reforming. Laid Ballio's unconscious form gently against the earth, movements almost tender.
Then ran.
"What doing?" Dris asked, voice hollow.
Roderic's shrug gesture of utter exhaustion.
Nothing left—not words, not strength, not even energy to care.
Imla watched in silence.
Mind ledger of cold calculations, probabilities and outcomes spinning behind green eyes.
Ashan. Thought quiet, absolute. Better win.
Or continued breathing was merely a technicality.
Cloe stumbled to a halt before the monster.
His eyes are pools of bloody light—crimson pools with no recognition, no awareness, no humanity left. Face grotesque mask of feral rage, features twisted beyond recognition.
"Father, stop!"
Plea tore from her, raw and desperate.
Hand clenched over heart, as if it could physically hold together.
"Look!" Gestured wildly at the carnage around.
"Our tribe ash! Your son is dead! Vrkuka gone! No one left!"
Tears traced clean lines through grime on the face.
The last—final tears of her people, her family, everything ever known.
Seven humans watched. Stood alone before the monster. Field of corpses, their audience.
Macos's snout twitched. Turned, slow and predatory, bloody gaze fixing on the small figure before.
"CLOE!"
Roar physical force—shook trees, rattled teeth, pressed against eardrums like a weight.
Clawed hand snapped out.
Massive. Unforgiving.
Seized her, lifting her into the air like a doll, like a child's toy, like nothing at all.
Tear-filled eyes met his.
Final, silent plea against madness.
Daughter begging father to remember.
"Disappointment."
Voice guttural snarl.
"Like your brother."
Grip tightened. Bone creaked.
Did not struggle.
"Father—"
Word ended in a wet crunch.
Single, brutal swipe of another claw sent the head tumbling.
Blood arced—hot, crimson rain that splashed across Macos's face, blinding, painting him in daughter's life.
Roared again.
Sound different now—pure, undiluted frenzy, cry of mind finally, completely shattered.
Ashan materialised from nothing.
Blood catalyst. Thought cold, clinical, even as heart hammered.
In eyes, in mind. Unmakes completely.
Gaze flicked to Cloe's headless corpse, crumpled on the ground.
Sacrifice recorded. May it be a footnote in future peace races that will never be seen.
Macos no longer a warrior. Storm of instinct—blind, raging, mindless.
Mindless beast makes fatal errors. Became blur of motion.
But not the man who grants extensions.
Steel hissed.
Horizontal slash opened a gash across the beast's chest.
Frontal thrust pierced the thick shoulder.
The vertical cleave bit deep into the swinging arm.
Macos flailed, dying embers on claws sputtering out.
Couldn't see—blood in eyes, her blood, daughter's blood—struck at nothing, at shadows, at ghosts.
Ashan spat a mouthful of his own blood onto the beast's snout—dark red mixing with crimson.
"RAWR!!!"
Roar final, agonised crescendo.
Went on and on, sound of pure animal anguish, until it cracked and died.
Frenzy shattered.
Macos collapsed to his knees.
Arms waved weakly, aimlessly.
Tail lay still in the mud.
Bloody light in eyes faded, replaced by vacant darkness—empty stare of something already dead, even if the body hadn't realised.
Ashan limped forward.
Sword scored a line through blood-soaked mud behind.
Each step agony—body symphony of pain, lungs burning, vision swimming.
Placed the tip against the thick neck.
Clean stroke. Final silence.
Massive body thudded to earth.
Reverse pentagram on altar blazed to life.
Swirled, drinking blood pooling beneath the corpse, sucking the body dry with an audible slurping sound.
Flesh withered. Bones crumbled. Fur turned to dust.
When done, only shrivelled husk remained—and four wooden keys, clattering onto stone.
Ashan collected payment.
Fingers closed around keys—warm, almost alive.
Walked to Serge's body, stepping over corpses, ignoring the moans of dying.
Four more keys waited there, tied to a leather cord around Vrkuka Chief's neck.
Not even caring about the vestigies.
Nine keys. The sum of all these deaths.
Finally allowed himself to see it—world leaving.
Canvas of fallen, painted in red and black.
Air thick soup of iron and decay.
Bodies stretched in every direction—human, Manuga, Ganshka—united in final silence.
Team 7 moved toward him.
Procession of the damned.
Roderic dragged Ballio's unconscious form.
Dris limped beside, one arm hanging uselessly.
Helma supported Damara, who could barely walk.
Imla brought up rear, green eyes scanning for threats no longer existed.
No one spoke. No words left.
Ashan turned back on them and faced the staircase.
Ascent began.
Each step is agony.
Muscles screamed. Wounds wept. Vision swam at the edges. But climbed.
Dead watched climb—human and Manuga alike, glassy eyes reflecting moonlight.
Shafts of defiant light pierced the eternal canopy, illuminating the path like a grim procession.
With each step, memory.
Reincarnated soul, hoping for a cheat, system, blessing.
Finding only pain.
Mysterious Order, offering power at a price, only begins to understand.
Bloody bargain: immortality, purchased in currency of other lives.
"Immortality." Word ghost on lips.
Faces of fallen flickered behind eyes.
Korus, confused and betrayed.
A girl with long hair, whose name I never knew.
Ganshka's child, used and discarded.
Lash, reaching for the throne, never claims.
Serge, torn apart by his oldest enemy.
Cloe, pleading with her father, couldn't hear.
All of them. All died for this moment.
They gladly died for moments.
He agreed.
Their fleeting lives were well spent.
They built the bridge that carries only me.
And I am all their dying ever meant.
Their desperate clinging, their verminous breath,
Their hopes and dreams—all converted into power.
I walked across the tragic bridge of death
To claim this unforgiving, final hour.
They saw a shared and desperate, fleeting cause.
I saw the grim arithmetic of worth.
Their faith became my key and their dreams my claws
That tore me from the clinging, common earth.
So let them fall. Let silence be their song.
The monument outlives the setting sun.
I am what they were desperate for all along—
The lonely one, the living one, the dreaded one.
The chapter ends. The balance sheet is clear.
I am. Because they are not.
I am here.
The altar awaited.
A great circular disc of dark rock, its surface marked with nine keyholes arranged in a pattern that hurts to look at.
Stone seemed to breathe, to pulse with a slow, malevolent rhythm.
Ashan inserted keys.
One after another. Each clicked into place with a sound that resonated in bones.
With the eighth key placed, I looked back.
His team stood at the base of the staircase—seven final survivors of a thousand.
Broken. Bloody. Alive.
Gave them a single, slight nod.
Then inserted the ninth key.
Silence.
Dris grimaced. "What the fu—"
Stone screamed.
The disc rotated—slowly at first, then faster, a spinning vortex of dark rock that hurt to watch.
The platform beneath the feet ignited with oppressive dark light.
Esoteric symbols flared to life—one, two, three—circling, surrounding, consuming.
Darkness surged.
And left behind only cold, silent dead people.
Consciousness returned as a low hum in the skull.
Ashan's eyes opened.
Temple of Sins.
Altar of Asuras stood before them—familiar and terrifying, seven blasphemous emblems watching with painted eyes.
The air was thick with incense and something else, something that tasted like old blood and older power.
"Hmm."
Voice dry rustle from shadows.
Elder Zarah observed from darkness, ancient eyes gleaming.
One by one, seven survivors stirred around Ashan—Dris, Roderic, Ballio, Helma, Damara, and Imla.
All alive. All present.
"Held no hope for any of you." Zarah stepped into the light, a faint, chilling smile on his lips.
"To see all seven survive the final test…" Paused. "Is novelty."
The smile widened.
"Congratulations. Now you all are true members of the Order."
A thousand children began this journey.
Seven stood at the end.
Ashan's lips curled in a faint, cynical smile.
Home, wherever you can eat and sleep.
Even a devil's lair will do.
Released soft, inward sigh.
I am here.
And I am alive.
Volume 1: Lobha—Seed of Greed: Complete