Chapter 244: Start of The Attack
Ti passed. It had been a few months since Ben’s eting with the Nephirid prince.
Deep within the city of Gravenhold, a Nephirid lounged on an ornately gilded sofa, its fra engraved with sigils of authority and excess. Three Velmora slaves danced before him, their movents slow and practiced, more chanical than graceful. The Nephirid took a slow sip of wine from a golden goblet, his eyes half-lidded as he watched the performance with bored amusent.
At a glance, anyone could see he was an elite. But there was sothing… off.
Most Nephirid elites bore marks of war, scars that hadn’t fully healed despite their insane regenerative abilities, weapons kept close at hand, the cold authority of soone who had clawed their way through blood and fla. Muscles honed for battle. Eyes sharpened by violence.
But this one? He had none of that.
This was Malvek.
His strength didn’t co from combat. It ca from what most Nephirid despised, sches, alliances, collusion with enemies, and the slow poison of politics. He’d risen not through battles, but by selling secrets, playing rivals against each other, and always standing just far enough from the blade to avoid getting cut.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
The chamber doors burst open. A tall Nephirid warrior stord in, ignoring the dancers entirely. His tone was sharp with fury.
“What’s the aning of this? The Nephirid prince ca to my city and I only learn of it now?”
Malvek didn’t flinch. He swirled his wine, looking mildly amused.
“Calm down, Varnak. That wasn’t under my control. You should know by now, I didn’t climb to this position alone.
Soone’s been supporting all along. The artifacts. The favors. That wasn’t my doing. It’s their will.”
Varnak’s brow furrowed. “They? Wait… you an those three mages? They’re the ones backing you? Not the prince?”
Malvek chuckled. “Not exactly. But the organization behind them? Yes. That’s who truly backs .”
Varnak’s face twisted with rage and disbelief. “You… You’re insane. You’re colluding with the surface, and not even trying to hide it! The royal family knows!”
Treason. That’s what it was. And from what Varnak knew, it was a miracle the Ashking hadn’t already sent an Ashborn purge squad to raze Gravenhold to the ground.
But Malvek remained calm, even smug. Seeing Varnak’s reaction only made him grin wider.
“You don’t need to worry, Varnak. Who do you think helped make contact with the surface in the first place? You know how my family operates. Always in public view.”
Varnak stepped forward, incredulous. “Are you saying… this was all intentional? That you’re so kind of double agent?”
“Think about it,” Malvek said smoothly, eyes glinting.
“Most Nephirid have forgotten the last war. We fought with everything we had… and we lost. To those cunning surface dwellers whose strength wasn’t in power, but in deceit. This, ” he tapped his chest, “, is part of the Ashking’s contingency. We need information before the next war. One more defeat, and we’ll be wiped out for good.”
Varnak opened his mouth to speak, but then, the ground trembled.
The chandelier above them rattled. A low rumble echoed through the stone halls.
BOOM!
An explosion rocked the building. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The Velmora dancers scread.
Then another blast, louder, closer. Malvek shot to his feet, wine forgotten. His smirk vanished. He turned toward the shattered balcony windows, and saw it.
Smoke. Black fire rising from the eastern district.
BOOM!
Another explosion, this one so close it shattered every window in the hall, sending shards of glass raining like razors through the air. The chandelier above snapped from its chain and crashed to the floor with a deafening clang, narrowly missing one of the Velmora dancers, who fell screaming.
Malvek stumbled, arms raised, wine-soaked robes fluttering in the sudden blast of hot wind. His smugness was gone.
“What in the Hell!!!” he shouted, but another blast cut him off.
BOOM! BOOM!
The entire structure convulsed as the floor buckled beneath their feet. Cracks spiderwebbed across the golden tiles, racing up the marble columns like living veins. Varnak leapt back just in ti as a support pillar ca crashing down between them, splitting the chamber in two.
“The foundation! It’s collapsing!” Varnak roared.
He wasn’t wrong. The next explosion didn’t hit the outside. It hit directly beneath them.
A monstrous whump sent a shockwave through the entire building. The floor dropped half a ter in an instant, groaning like a beast in its death throes. Dust and debris filled the air, choking the room in blinding gray.
Malvek fell flat, coughing, his limbs flailing like a broken puppet. “NO!!! My Dancer!!!”
But it was too late.
The structure gave out. With a roar of splintering stone and tal, the entire upper floor tilted, then caved in. Screams echoed through the halls as walls split and beams snapped like twigs.
One of the Velmora dancers was swallowed whole by a collapsing balcony. The others fled, but rubble crashed down around them, silencing them one by one.
Varnak grabbed a steel beam jutting from the floor, holding himself steady as the ground beneath cracked open.
“Malvek! MOVE!”
But the scher could only crawl, dazed, toward the seat he’d just been lounging on, now lying on its side like a discarded relic. The golden ceiling finally tore free. And the sky ca down.
He was a scher who always planned ahead, and he was very good at it. This was the first ti sothing like this had ever happened, sothing outside his contingency plan. His face twisted in rage as he activated the artifact bound to his soul, shielding his body from the crushing weight of the rubble.
BAM!!!
A shockwave burst out, pushing all the debris away in a radius of violent wind and mana.
‘Just who’s doing this!?’
His mind churned through possibilities. He had many enemies, but based on his intel, none of them were capable of pulling this off.
anwhile, Varnak had already drawn his weapon, a halberd. Every swing sent out a shockwave, clearing debris like swatting away dust. Ti passed. Finally, the chaos settled. But what greeted them next was even worse: the streets were in disarray.
Dozens of golems, ones they had recently purchased, lay scattered, inactive, malfunctioning.
“Is it those golems? I knew those things were suspicious,” Malvek muttered, gritting his teeth.
But Varnak didn’t share the sa thought. “Look again. If it were the golems, they would’ve already exploded. And we still don’t even know who the creator is. Not like we haven’t tried figuring it out ourselves.”
They had tried. They had tinkered, dissected, tested, only to hit wall after wall. The golems acted smarter than normal constructs, and they couldn’t figure out what powered them. Worse, tampering too much triggered a failsafe that caused the magic circuits to collapse, erasing all trace of the chanism inside.
Then, just as their eyes swept the streets again, sothing shifted.
BAM!!!
A punch ca out of nowhere, aid directly at Malvek’s head.
He barely managed to block it, thanks to yet another artifact he had hidden away.
“Oooh, that artifact’s pretty sturdy,” said a voice, mocking and familiar.
They both turned, and their expressions instantly changed.
“YOU! T’Zarek?! Do you have a death wish?!”
T’Zarek stepped forward, his cloak billowing from the force of his own punch. In a flash, two daggers appeared in his hands, curved, and faintly glowing with heat.
“You should’ve known I’d co,” he growled, his voice cold and steady. “After what you did to my city, Malvek… Varnak… did you really think I’d let it slide?”
Malvek scowled, dust clinging to his silk robe. “You’re delusional if you think we were behind that. You don’t understand how things work here.”
“I understand enough,” T’Zarek snapped back. “And you should know better than try to bullshit your way with .”
Varnak’s expression turned sharp. He raised his hand high. A flare exploded in the cavern ceiling, the red light bursting like blood across the stone roof. From every shadowed alley and tunnel, armored footsteps began to echo.
The response was imdiate. hundreds of Nephirid soldiers started erging, clad in hardened armor and bearing heavy blades, war hamrs, and pikes.
“You want war?!” Varnak barked. “You’ll get one!”
But T’Zarek didn’t flinch. Instead, he laughed, loud, sharp, and filled with disdain.
“You think I’m not prepared?” he said, grinning like a madman.
“Yes, this is war. And guess what?” His daggers spun once in his hands. “The Fire Temple already agreed to it. I just did what you cowards never had the spine for…”
His foot slamd down. A pulse of energy burst outward, and from beneath the cobbled street, multiple explosive runes ignited in succession, tearing through the ranks of soldiers that had just arrived. Dust and fla spewed into the air.
As the flas died down and the smoke cleared, the Nephirid soldiers stood firm, shields raised, armor humming with faint light.
Protective artifacts shimred over their bodies, cracking slightly from the pressure, but holding strong.
Varnak scoffed. “You thought that little trick would work on us? These aren’t just footsoldiers, they’re our elites!”
But T’Zarek didn’t look concerned. In fact, his grin widened.
“That wasn’t ant to kill you,” he said, gesturing with one dagger. “Just to open the stage.”
The ground rumbled.
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