The capital had fallen into a tense silence.
Hours had passed since the thunderous roar from the south shook the sky, but the survivors’ minds still trembled with its mory.
No one knew what exactly happened. But everyone knew sothing, or soone terrifying, was out there.
Adventurers and knights moved through the wreckage of the city, retrieving civilian bodies and evacuating survivors. The stench of fire, blood, and death hung in the air.
Every alley had at least one corpse lying down.
Because of the chaos, the adventurers had relocated to a reinforced hospital outside the castle walls. It was too dangerous now to let anyone enter the castle.
Inside a crowded ward, nurses and healers moved urgently from patient to patient. The magical energy used for healing was being rationed; there were too many wounded, too many dying.
Like many healers, Lyraen had volunteered to help there while her team was in another room, louder than the others.
"I told you! I don’t need healing!" Airi shouted, pushing a nurse away.
Crest tried to help, gently holding her shoulders.
"Airi, just let them—"
She smacked his hands off and stood, fiery and wild-eyed.
"I’m telling you I’m fine! Look!"
With zero sha, she tore open her shirt, revealing her upper body.
"See?! Not a scratch!"
She still wore a tight-pressed black bra, but her body was indeed flawless. The nurse gasped. Crest spun around, hands clamped over his face, face burning red.
Arkel coughed awkwardly.
"Airi, seriously, put sothing on."
Cassandra facepald and sighed.
"Why are you like this?"
Airi rolled her eyes.
"Crybabies. We don’t have ti for modesty now. I need to get out, now!"
"Actually," a calm voice interjected, "I agree."
Everyone turned. At the doorway stood Astros, with Gaia at his side.
It was their second ti seeing them, but the first ti without chaos surrounding them.
Astros stepped in, his hands relaxed at his sides. Gaia followed him silently, her sharp eyes scanning the room.
"I just wanted to say..." Astros looked at Airi, offering a hand, "You impressed back there."
Airi arched a brow, clearly annoyed.
But praise was praise.
"Took you long enough to say it. Good taste, though, I can forgive you for interrupting my battle."
She grabbed his hand, but the second their hands touched, her expression shifted. Her eyes narrowed.
Sothing pulsed under her skin.
She felt it. A staggering presence, a universe behind his calm eyes.
When she wasn’t touching him, he was a nobody.
But on contact?
It was like brushing the edge of a storm too big to na.
She released his hand, studying him curiously.
The others were less subtle.
Crest stepped forward, tense. Arkel blinked. Cassandra tilted her head.
"Who... are you two exactly?" Arkel asked.
Astros turned toward the group.
"We are just two Sacred. Like your friend."
Everyone was surprised. Crest lowered his head, and for a second, he felt like sothing heavy pressed on his chest.
These two weren’t just strong, they were people who could stand next to Airi.
Airi tilted her head, grinning just slightly.
"Yeah... Though so. You guys... you look like two jokes, but you could actually stand next to ."
She said it with her usual bite, but there was sothing proud in her voice.
The weight of Astros’ words was slowly settling in everyone’s mind. Sacred warriors. Real legends. There was a beat of silence, then the exclamations began.
Arkel crossed his arms, impressed.
"Didn’t think I’d ever et another one of you so easily."
Cassandra nodded, more cautious but clearly intrigued.
"It really wasn’t easy..."
They were all relieved and slightly impressed. After Airi’s performance, the word Sacred had increased in value.
Only Crest said nothing, his gaze staying low.
But not everyone was impressed in the sa way.
"If you two were here all along... why didn’t you step in sooner? I an, sure, you saved a lot of lives, but if you had acted earlier, maybe fewer people would’ve died."
The room tensed at Ronan’s words.
Cassandra turned to him.
"Ronan, don’t talk like that. We owe them our lives."
Ronan didn’t budge.
"I’m just saying what everyone else should be thinking. If you guys are the heroes, if everything you do is allowed, then how co we can’t at least expect you to be there in ti?"
They tried to calm him down so as not to offend literal legends, but to everyone’s surprise, Astros nodded.
"He’s not wrong. As sacred, we must be there for every living being. But you’re mistaken, we weren’t here," he said, glancing at Gaia. "We left right after the eting in the castle. It was our master who sent us a ssage, telling us to co back to the capital imdiately."
Airi narrowed her eyes.
"Your master?"
Astros nodded.
"Yes, Sylphera, the Celestial Mage. She felt sothing powerful in the city and asked us to co back. We ca as fast as we could, but we couldn’t save the people. I would like to apologize for that, but I would like to do it for every person who lost soone."
Everyone in the room exchanged worried glances. Astros took a step forward. His face was more serious now.
"Sothing terrible is happening in this city. And if we don’t act soon... our world might not survive."
Astros looked at everyone and added.
"Soon, the entire Kingdom will hear of it. During the past night, right before the attack, an event happened. The death of another sacred warrior from Sir Aurus’ party."
No one breathed.
As the sun rose over the recovering capital, the streets slowly ca back to life. Shops remained closed, but survivors helped one another, clearing rubble and lighting lanterns.
A special team of adventurers and knights had already been sent south, toward the source of the roar from the night before.
The second prince, Edward, led them himself, and Sienna, Arkel, and Logan were among the mbers.
For those who remained behind, the task was different. They had to identify the dead.
So corpses were easy to place. But others... others wore insignias from distant guilds.
They had been summoned here.
To help identify them and notify the right branches, the guild used a new tool, a magical mirror, shaped like a small polished disk. It was known as a "Starling Mirror," a rare communication device that once only nobles could afford.
Recently, with the help of the Kingdom, the Adventurers’ Guild had acquired several across their regional branches.
Now, those mirrors shone with soft blue light as nas were exchanged.
One by one, families were contacted.
One by one, tears were shed.
anwhile , in another room, the atmosphere was quiet and tense.
Sylphera stood at the center of the makeshift morgue, a place repurposed from an old archive hall.
The dim glow of magical lamps hovered near the ceiling, casting long, unnatural shadows over the rows of covered corpses.
Clerics and knights moved softly in the background, whispering or staying completely silent, not daring to interrupt the examination.
Despite the tension around, she was calm and clinical.
"Their bodies were moving," Sylphera said. "But there was no magical energy within them."
She turned toward the king and Aurus.
"That alone disproves necromancy. These were not summoned undead. They were... reanimated. chanically. But not conscious. Rather... Like puppets."
Aurus frowned.
"Puppets?"
"Yes," Sylphera replied. "These corpses had no lingering mana signatures. No threads of control. They were moving through a different force altogether. And we believe that sa force might’ve corrupted their bodies post-mortem."
The king, pale and sleepless, nodded slowly.
"So this is sothing new."
"Yes," Sylphera confird. She set her notes down and looked at them more seriously. "But there’s more. I need you both to follow . This might interest you."
Aurus exchanged a glance with the king.
Then the three of them walked quietly down a short corridor lined with sealed body bags and torn armor fragnts.
At the far end of the room, two larger knights were guarding the door. They saluted and stepped aside.
The second room was colder.
Two bodies lay on tal tables, each covered by a thick white sheet.
Sylphera stood beside the bed on the right.
"This one might be the key," she began. "The key to understanding Midas’ immortality, and the mystery above this city."
She pulled back the sheet, revealing the pale, sunken face of a nobleman. His mouth was open, his eyes glassy.
Aurus and the king both froze.
"Viscount Margrave?" Aurus said, eyes narrowing. "He was in the capital?"
"M... Margrave..." the King murmured in shock. "So knights... ntioned he had been seen at the gates, but I assud it was just a routine visit."
Sylphera nodded toward the corpse.
"This explain his presence I suppose. But his case his special, he is the only corpse that had been confird dead before awakening as a puppet. He was found dead in his guestroom by a maid. And the way he died... is the important part."
The viscount’s body showed no wounds. But his face was twisted in a silent cry, his lips blue, and the skin around his eyes sunken.
"He suffocated," Sylphera said. "No marks. No magic. Just a man who couldn’t breathe."
She looked back at them.
"I was delayed coming here because I was investigating. Piecing together a trail of inconsistencies. And when I learned about the final battle between Midas and Lloyd... it all clicked."
There was a long silence.
"Lloyd’s final spell," she said quietly, "was a transfer spell. A fate-exchange. He gave his own death to Midas. And in doing so, revealed sothing."
She nodded toward the corpse again.
"Buried. Asphyxiated. Midas died. But not completely. Because he passed that death on... to soone else."
The king stared, stunned. Aurus’ mouth was slightly open.
"That," Sylphera concluded, "is the secret to Midas’ so-called immortality. Not his nature as a demon... but an ability. One that lets him escape death by making soone else pay the price."
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