THE MAKING OF ARCHFIELD!
Archfield rose from blood and resolve. Five months after the battlefield where Gaal and Isse fell, the Hakusari clan—led by Mizuto Hakusari—put the last of their strength into one final, living monument. They named the city for the warrior spirit it would shelter: Archfield, a bastion meant to hold back whatever darkness the world might throw at Azunne.
Its districts told the story of that purpose.
Noemi, the first district, was a marketplace and living museum: travelers could buy woven armor, trade battle-song memories, and speak with OMEN veterans who would teach them a fragment of the order's history.
Kyamia, the second district, was the heart—housing barracks, training rings, ritual halls, and the private lanes of the order. Only OMEN warriors moved freely there. Above Kyamia rose Skyline Ascent: a single obsidian tower, the Pinnacle Lookout, capped with a watch-plate the first Warden of OMEN had consecrated decades ago—Mizuto himself. From that tower the eye of Azunne watched the continent's sleep and stir; it was where missions were given and oaths were weighed. And around all of it, the Hakusari left their last gift: the Living Wall. A ring of ancient timbers grown with rune-wood and iron-blooded root—wounds on it would knit closed as if the wall itself were a living sentinel. Archfield was not merely a city; it was a vow made to the land—a vow that would be tested.
A KNOCK rattled the shutters like a fist.
"Grim'Lok! Wake up!" Nay's voice cut through the haze of sleep and sunlight, sharp and relentless.
Grim'Lok muttered from beneath his blankets. "Unlock."
The room recognized the command and the latch sighed open. Nay stood in the doorway, hands on hips, barefoot and impatient. Her ponytail swung like a metronome accusing him of cowardice.
"Grim'Lok, we've got our first mission. Get up."
"Five more minutes." He kept his eyes closed and pretended the world could be stalled by will.
Before he could argue, her hand found his hair and dragged him to the edge of the mattress. "Let's go."
The walk to the gate smelled of iron, sweat and old dust—Archfield's morning. Warriors came and went in a steady stream: triads tying packs, veterans checking blades, applied seals shimmering faintly on leather. At the smith's near the gate, Juzu and Mizaka were talking in low tones. Juzu's boots scuffed a rhythm; Mizaka nodded as if weighing words.
"Morning," Mizaka said, polite and measured. The courtesy had softened since initiation—politeness between blades.
"Morning!" Nay answered, bright as a strike.
Juzu checked the road and tapped his foot. "We're waiting for one more."
Grim'Lok blinked. "Who? Isse said this was four." He held up four fingers, then realized the name felt hollow in his mouth. His Warden was not Isse; Archfield's first Warden——was the name carved into the foundation stones. The instruction had come from the current command, Erik Storkbreaker, but it carried the weight of those first promises.
Mizaka's eyes flicked to Grim'Lok. "I'll stand this one down. You're a new Sentinel now—take my place. Juzu will show you the ropes."
"Passed the exam clean," Juzu added, watching the road. "You'll be fine."
Footsteps answered on the lane. Ilija moved like shadow, all controlled motion. He ignored Grim'Lok on approach, a narrow face set in thought. "Let's go," he said, and walked straight through the gate.
Nay laughed. "He's weird."
"Good luck," Mizaka called, and waved. Juzu returned the gesture and then fell into step beside Ilija, the formation now set.
The road to Gomen curved away from cultivated fields and into thinning trees. The further they rode, the more the land remembered fire. Scorched trunks rose like blackened spears. A line cut through the earth–an unnatural scar nearly a meter across that ran toward the heart of the forest. The squad halted. Juzu's jaw clenched as he surveyed it.
"We're getting close to the battlefield," he said. "Hold."
Grim'Lok stepped to the edge of the line. His fingers closed into fists at the sight of ash and root. The feeling of loss tightened his chest until the memory of Erik's announcement of Risaki's death spun in his mind like a reel. The thought burned like salt.
"Is he even in the right state to be here?" Nay whispered, voice soft with worry.
Ilija had already leapt the scar and sprinted toward the clearing beyond. Juzu called for him to wait. Grim'Lok didn't. He ran to keep up, Nay at his heels.
The clearing opened on a hollow the land had not forgiven. Charred trunks ringed a bare center; the sky looked paler there, like the light itself had been cauterized. Where once Risaki's dojo had stood proud—coming up in summers of smoke and song—now the ground waited like an unmade bed.
"Woah," Nay breathed. "Looks different with the dojo not up."
Grim'Lok smiled, the old memory bright and raw. He knew the place as a pupil knows a master's face: the way risaki's footsteps lined the tatami, the breath before a kata. He moved to the spot where Risaki would plant his feet, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
The earth answered. At first it was a low tremor, like the pulse of a great animal. Then the soil rolled and a chrysalis of timber rose slow and obedient—boards aligning, eaves pulling out, the dojo's roof unfurling into itself as if drawn up by strings. Juzu opened his eyes at the sound; Ilija stepped back and watched, every muscle still.
"Welcome to the Dipea-Kicho Dojo," Grim'Lok said as the final board slid home. He climbed the shallow steps while the others followed. The air inside smelled of dust, old incense and a deep, patient root-smell he'd known all his life.
The main hall lay silent and hollow. At its far wall, where light should dance through leaves, the Tree of Connection slumped—its leaves grey and lifeless, its bark dulled. The dojo's silence felt like a held breath. Grim'Lok touched the grain of the floor and thought of the three months Risaki had offered him—the three months of training that had become his last memory with his master.
"It was his home," Ilija said quietly. "But it's empty."
Juzu took a slow circle, hands at his back, searching the place for signatures—a sentinel by instinct. "Watch the edges," he murmured, boot heels whispering. "We don't know what left, or who stayed."
Two cloaked figures coasted at the treeline, watching the dojo like vultures, then slipped into shadow. Juzu saw them and nodded to the others. "Keep in mind—shadows can be friends of the light."
Nay drifted to the hallway leading off the hall. "So Risaki did show you how to bring the dojo up?" she asked Grim'Lok.
Grim'Lok chuckled. His chest felt too full; the sound came out small. "Of course. He'd laugh at me if I didn't."
They wandered to the corridor. A single door bore the painted sign: Risaki's Office. Grim'Lok's hand hovered over the handle. He felt a cold pressure in his chest, like fingers pressing his ribs. He thought of those last words in Archfield—how he'd been told of Risaki's end hours after the Exam. The scroll had been mentioned then, read in private by the order's leaders. The details were withheld, a promise to be delivered at the right hour.
He turned the handle.
The office was larger than most chambers in Archfield, full of maps, old tools, a low table and—on it—a golden scroll with a folded note pinned above it. Grim'Lok stepped forward, palms damp.
For Grim'Lok, from Risaki.
He felt the world tilt. A laughter—short, wet—escaped him followed by a sudden sob. "He's really gone," he whispered.
The painting behind the desk caught his eye: a giant map of Eldoria, scrawled with Xes. His fingers brushed the edge and then paused. A faint luminescence began to pool inside the room, unnoticed by Grim'Lok as the veins on his shoulder prickled and the Mark of Uken warmed beneath his skin.
A whisper like fossil wind grew into speech. The air shimmered and a figure formed—a construct of Risaki's Chikara, summoned and willed into a temporary shape. It was his master, preserved in a last kindness.
"How—" Grim'Lok swallowed.
"I left this for you," said the clone, Risaki's voice as familiar as the scent of tea. "The moment I knew my time would come."
The clay-breathed light coalesced around the golden scroll. The clone—stone-gray and warm-eyed—lifted it with careful hands. "Have you opened this yet?"
Grim'Lok shook his head. The scroll felt heavier than any sword.
The clone's face was patient and grave. "Read this, and then listen. My death means something greater than my passing. There is a storm—Noctis Dominion is moving, and its shadow fingers the quivering edge between war and ruin. You must be ready."
The clone walked points on the map. As his hand brushed continents, five places flared: Azunne, Imperia, Blizia, Ewari, and Vura—the five hearts of the O.M.E.G.A Alliance. "OMEN is but one order among five," he said. "Name them. You must remember."
He spoke quietly, and each name settled into Grim'Lok like a stone into a pocket: Order of Manifested Eternal Night—OMEN; Masters of the Blazing Sun; Eldo'Blizera; Guardian Vanguard; Aetheris. Grim'Lok listened, overwhelmed by the geography of futures he had never imagined.
"You are the last of your line," the clone went on. "A Wolfshire who can touch all elements. You are more than a student. For your first duty—protect the Dipea-Kicho and Gomen. The scroll transfers ownership. It binds Rengetsu—my blood-summon—to you. Take it. Learn. And be wary of Zeru Kagemura. He is the Faceless Phantom of the Dominion—do not follow his shadow."
Grim'Lok's chest rose and fell. Something fierce and protective lit his throat. "I… I will."
"Good." The clone smiled, and that made Grim'Lok's eyes sting. "Now—one last thing. This room hides a gift." The clone gestured to the map. "Behind it lies a path."
He lowered the golden scroll into Grim'Lok's hands. The ink along its edges pulsed like a heartbeat. Grim'Lok could not help himself. He unfurled it, and a clean white light poured out—not harsh, but clarifying. The dojo trembled as if waking from a long sleep. The roots under the floor shifted, seeking.
The Tree of Connection, so long, dull and slack, inhaled. Fine tendrils of sap-lumen uncoiled beneath the boards like fingers and rose—thin veins of living Chikara searching for a host. The roots found Grim'Lok first: they wrapped like gentle ropes around his calves, then climbed his arms, curling until his limbs were braided with living wood. The sensation was not pain; it was recognition, like meeting a name you had forgotten how to speak.
Wolfshire Chikara—his own—flowed outward and met the tree's sap; Risaki's Chikara slid in like a warm current. The three forces braided themselves in his veins. Heat and cold and sap mingled, and for a breath Grim'Lok felt whole in a way he never had.
"This is new power," he whispered, awed. His skin shimmered with faint green veins. Where the roots clasped him, the air tasted sweet and alive.
The clone watched with tender eyes. "I wanted the dojo to live on. Absorb me, and the tree will find you."
Grim'Lok stepped forward without thinking and embraced the figure. The world narrowed to the pulse at his throat and the chorus of leaves. He felt the clone's Chikara unspool into him like threads, then the threads braided with his own heat and the tree's deep tide. The dojo exhaled.
From the far wall the painting—an old trick Risaki had set—shifted. A panel slid away and a stair yawed open, black and steep.
"There," the clone said. "Your gift."
Grim'Lok's fingers tightened on the golden scroll. A lone tear fell and pooled on the tatami. "I… I never said goodbye."
"You can now," said the clone. "Remember my words. Train. Protect. And when the time comes, choose your path. Do not be bound merely by what was given—make what you are for the people you protect."
Grim'Lok nodded. The roots loosened, letting him move freely. The tree's first new leaf unfurled, a tiny green blade the color of promise. Outside, boots sounded—Juzu's call for recon—and the echo of distant wings: Rengetsu had landed on the dojo roof with a single plaintive caw.
The mission would have to wait. He ran his hands over the scroll one last time and slid it into his belt. Behind the painting, the hidden stair waited. Below, the shrine's cold stones hummed faintly—an old temple to old oaths. Grim'Lok felt the weight of Risaki's expectation settle into his shoulders like armor.
He put a hand on the dojo's threshold and, for the first time since the exam, felt like he belonged somewhere besides the edge of grief.
"Come on," Nay called softly from outside the room. "We have a job to do."
Grim'Lok looked up. Rengetsu hopped onto his shoulder, black feathers soft as shadow. The crow tilted his head as if to say, at last.
Grim'Lok took a last look at the tree—alive now, its glow steady—and stepped down to the hidden stair. The Dipea-Kicho had a new master. The forest held its breath.
"Thank you Risaki."