The low, guttural rumble of the engine was the only steady sound against the desolate hum of the wilderness.
The van Jasper had provided was an archaic, boxy machine, retrofitted with reinforced steel plating and subtle warding runes etched into the undercarriage to dampen demonic vibrations. Through the rain-streaked windshield, the familiar greenery of the outer provinces had long since begun to rot away, giving way to twisted, petrified groves and soil stained an unnerving shade of iron-grey.
They were approaching the frontier of the Km Lands.
Mith sat in the passenger seat, his fingers lightly brushing the fabric of his coat where the Slate rested quiet and warm. A full month under Jasper's relentless, unforgiving regimen had reshaped him. His posture was locked, his breathing measured, and his kinetic focus honed down to a needle's point.
To his right, Jis handled the wheel with quiet mastery. The frantic, reactive tension that used to define his fighting style had vanished completely. The azure aura that had awakened after the ashes of Harrow's Creek now slept just beneath his skin—placid, crystalline, and immovable.
"The mist is turning dense," Jis noted, his voice flat and steady. "The mana signature ahead is completely twisted. Exactly what Rovette was talking about."
"Stay sharp," Mith replied, leaning forward against the dashboard. "Selene made it sound like an exile disguised as an assignment, but Willon's warning was clear: someone inside is hunting Zoh. And whatever took Aldrein is waiting across this border."
Before Jis could answer, the van's front axle groaned.
A razor-thin line of pure, white-hot magical luminescence snapped violently across the cracked asphalt like an invisible tripwire.
"Brakes!" Mith called out.
Jis didn't panic. He slammed his boots down, channeling a clean surge of azure mana into the vehicle's braking runes. The tires locked, rubber shrieking against gravel as the van skidded, tearing smoking trenches through the dirt before grinding to a halt barely an inch from a smoking crevasse carved deep into the road.
Standing twenty paces ahead in the dead center of the highway, haloed by the swirling grey fog, was a lone figure.
He wore a tailored, high-collared duster the color of dark slate, trimmed with gold thread along the cuffs. At his hip hung an ornate, straight-edged broadsword, its heavy pommel cast in the shape of an upright pair of balanced scales. Unlike the ravenous beasts of the King's Murder Squad or the brutal masked figures who left trails of ash across the realm, this man radiated an aura of immaculate, oppressive order.
The stranger slowly adjusted a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, then flicked open the lapel of his coat to reveal a silver emblem.
"Turn the engine off," the man commanded. His voice cut through the damp air with the unnatural weight of a struck anvil. "Step out slowly. Hands visible."
Jis exchanged a brief glance with Mith. Without a word of protest, both pushed their doors open and stepped onto the gravel, keeping their centers of gravity low.
"We're traveling on official SGN clearance," Jis said, his hand resting near his hilt without drawing. "We have orders to cross the border."
"Orders mean nothing in the Dead Verge," the man replied coldly, closing the distance with slow, deliberate steps. "My name is Elvin. I am the Arbiter—the Judge of Character—stationed at the border bastion of Oakhaven's sister jurisdiction, answering to the High Court of the SGN perimeter. And right now, boys, your souls reek of slaughter and borrowed power."
Mith's eyes narrowed. "Borrowed power? We barely made it out of Oakhaven alive. We're here to investigate what's corrupting the Km border, not pick a fight with local authorities."
"Many who crawl out of fallen zones claim victimhood while carrying the seed of the King's Murder Squad within their marrow," Elvin retorted. His grip tightened on his hilt, and in a single, fluid arc, the broadsword cleared its scabbard. Behind his shoulders, a brilliant golden mandala—the Sigil of Pure Judgment—flared into radiant life. "I don't weigh men by their words. I weigh truth by steel. Defend yourselves!"
Before Mith could even reach for the Slate, Elvin moved.
There was no tell, no shift in stance; his stride simply folded thirty paces of distance in the blink of an eye. The gravel beneath his boots didn't even kick up before he was already overhead, his heavy blade descending in a vertical executioner's cleave.
CLANG!
The collision sounded like a church bell detonating under a hammer. Jis had drawn his broadsword in a fraction of an instant, catching the descending edge crosswise. Where a month ago the raw kinetic impact would have broken Jis's stance and sent him tumbling, his boots remained fused to the road. The azure aura wrapped around his steel like tempered ice, absorbing the concussive force and redirecting it straight down through his legs into the earth, blowing spiderweb fractures across the asphalt.
Elvin's eyes narrowed behind his lenses. "A defensive root this deep... at your age?"
"I don't have time to be judged by someone jumping to conclusions," Jis said with chilling composure.
With a sharp flick of his forearms, Jis parried the golden blade outward, sliding his edge along Elvin's flat before stepping in to drive an azure-infused shoulder ram directly toward the judge's chest.
Elvin shifted mid-air with uncanny grace, his off-hand snapping down to deflect the bash with an armored gauntlet. The clash threw them three paces apart, but Elvin landed without shedding an ounce of momentum.
"Scale of Guilt: Heavensward!" Elvin barked.
He surged forward with blinding thrusts, his broadsword trailing streaks of incandescent gold through the grey mist. Three rapid strikes hammered toward Jis's vital lines—throat, sternum, liver.
Jis did not give ground. Moving with quiet, ruthless efficiency, he parried the high strike with the flat of his blade, swayed his torso to let the second pass within a hair's breadth of his ribs, and drove the third into the gravel with a downward sweep. Every motion was quiet, precise, and completely devoid of panic.
Mith saw the window. Dropping low, he swept his hands across the damp road, feeding a spike of raw intent into the earth.
"Grip the earth!" Mith chanted.
Two dense bands of compressed grey mana erupted from the ground beneath Elvin's boots, clamping shut around his ankles like iron vices. In the same breath, Mith thrust his right palm forward, launching three pressurized kinetic spheres that hummed violently, curving through the air to box Elvin in from his blind side.
Elvin didn't flinch. The golden mandala behind him flared into a blinding halo.
"Order's Mandate: Sever!"
Instead of pulling against the bindings, Elvin drove the heavy pommel of his broadsword straight down into his own shadow. A ring of pressurized, razor-sharp judicial force detonated outward in a complete circle. The shockwave pulverized Mith's stone traps into dust and sliced through the incoming mana spheres, dispersing them into harmless sparks.
The concussive backlash blew Mith backward, but Jis was already moving, planting his sword to split the golden shockwave cleanly in half before it could hit his partner.
Elvin drew his broadsword back above his shoulder, the golden glow intensifying into an executioner's pillar of light, poised to unleash a devastating downward strike to crush their defenses once and for all.
Across from him, Jis's azure runes burned with steady, crystalline brilliance, channeling the ambient mana of the clearing into a resolute, counter-thrusting stance. Behind him, Mith's fingers gripped the Slate, ready to trigger its ancient pulse and disrupt the judge's spell at its root.
The air thrummed violently—two master-level currents on the verge of tearing the highway to shreds.
Then, without warning, the pressure died.
Elvin checked his blade a single inch from the release point. With effortless control, he reversed his grip and drove the tip of his sword into the cracked asphalt. He crossed his arms over his chest, letting the golden sigil dissolve into the fog.
Jis maintained his guard, the azure light still flowing like liquid across his steel, while Mith remained poised to strike.
"Stand down," Elvin ordered, raising an open palm.
"You ambushed us," Jis said, his blade perfectly level.
"A necessary trial of weight," Elvin answered smoothly, using one finger to nudge his glasses back into place. "The corruption of the King's Murder Squad carries a distinct taint. It leaves mana jagged, voracious, and erratic. When you blocked my strikes, there was no bloodlust in your steel. Only silence and discipline."
He shifted his piercing gaze toward Mith, locking onto the faint blue-grey resonance leaking from under the boy's coat.
"And you... you fought to restrain, not to slaughter. You hold the Slate, don't you?"
Mith stiffened, keeping his hand tight against his pocket. "How do you know about the Slate?"
"Because I was stationed in the adjacent district directly under SGN jurisdiction," Elvin said, drawing his sword from the earth and sliding it back into its scabbard with a crisp click. "I was the chief arbiter assigned to oversee the northern perimeter courts under Master Zoh's direct commission. Or at least... I was, until three days ago."
Jis lowered his blade slightly, his brow furrowing. "What happened three days ago?"
"A silent purge," Elvin said, his voice tightening. "The courier networks went dead overnight. Word reached my post that Master Zoh and the founding vanguard were ambushed—not by stray beasts from the wilds, but by a coordinated internal faction wielding classified SGN clearance. Then Selene stepped into the vacuum and declared complete operational control."
Mith exchanged a grim look with Jis. "Selene claimed Zoh was dispatched to handle an external crisis. She told us to stay out of the politics and sent us straight into the Km Lands."
Elvin let out a dry, scornful chuckle. "Of course she did. Sending two witnesses into the mouth of the Dead Verge accomplishes two things: it removes inconvenient questions from her doorstep, and it leaves whatever you're carrying to be consumed by the Km border. She never expected you to make it through."
Mith looked past the roadblock toward the black, jagged treeline of the Km forests sprawling across the horizon. Rovette's last shout echoed in his memory, accompanied by the chilling image of the masked squad leaving scorpion cards in the ruins of fallen kingdoms: They are overwriting our reality.
"If Zoh has been betrayed," Mith said, his voice dropping into hard resolve, "and the KmS is gathering on the other side of this border, then SGN isn't just dealing with political friction. The rot goes all the way to the top."
Elvin walked toward them, extending a gloved hand through the settling dust.
"I abandoned my post to reach the border and uncover the truth behind the disappearances," Elvin said evenly. "It appears our paths converge. Whatever is crawling out of the Km Lands is linked directly to the traitors inside the high council."
Jis dismissed his aura, sheathing his broadsword, and took Elvin's hand in a firm grip.
"Then we don't just clear the border," Jis said. "We find Master Zoh, and we tear the mask off the SGN together."