QUICK RECAP-
Chapter 13 follows Arthur, Adam, and Ruby as they brave the treacherous Route of Blood to reach the royal capital in time to save James from execution.
Their journey through the Hollow reveals unearthly horrors—a corrupted Vispen, a bone-forged spider, and Bexam, a stitched entity of chilling intelligence
. After surviving battles and imprisonment, they exploit the clash between Vispen and Bexam to escape.
The trio finally reaches the capital under moonlight, exhausted yet driven by hope. As they stand before the royal palace gates with Captain Nolan, urgency fuels their desperate plea for an immediate audience with King Leontius D. Dentrius IV.
-RECAP ENDS
The moon held its silence.
Silver light spilled down the path carved between cliff and kingdom as Arthur, Ruby, and Adam followed Captain Nolan Rhyne into the heart of Dentrius. Behind them, the Hollow was mute. Before them?
History waited.
They reached the final ridge by 2:02 a.m.
From there, the Royal Citadel of Nautilus unfurled like a declaration etched into stone.
Towers coiled upward as if spun by wind itself—spiral-rooted into the cliffs, glowing faintly with blue-veined Ether channels. Every arch, pillar, and dome breathed with embedded glyph infrastructure, designed not only for structural integrity but for symbolic remembrance.
Above the entry gate: the griffin sigil, Nautilus's royal mark. Wings flared, talons bared, head raised toward sky—not in defiance, but command. Sculpted from skysteel and shadowgold, it shimmered even under moonlight.
Arthur exhaled.
Adam whispered, "This place moves the wind."
Ruby nodded. "It listens to it, too."
Two elite guards stood at the gate. Helmets styled with griffin crowns, wind-threaded capes swaying behind them. Their armour bore the flame insignia of palace sovereignty.
Nolan stepped forward, his rank unmistakable. His Fire glyph, linked to a Advanced Gear Stage Eight Ether Engine, pulsed with quiet authority.
"Urgent flag. Hollow survivors. One has information regarding unregistered threats."
The guards exchanged a glance.
One activated the Ether relay node embedded into the stone.
"Message transferred. Awaiting throne signal."
Fifteen minutes passed.
No words were exchanged.
Arthur studied the griffin crest.
Ruby closed her eyes, letting her Light glyph absorb the residual wind pulse.
Adam sat quietly, cross-legged near the entrance, repairing one filament line on his Hydro circuit.
Finally—
The relay pulsed.
"Authorized. Chamber Seven."
The gate did not open like a door.
It peeled like wind-bent stone—smooth, quiet, and absolute.
Inside: cool air, light-filtered architecture, and corridors laced with embedded wind glyphs that shifted color based on elemental movement.
They entered the palace.
Statues lined the path: kings, queens, war saints, and griffin-masked knights. Each carved in ascending motion—robes caught mid-air, weapons drawn like memory refused to rest.
Their boots pressed into silver-fused tile, patterned with subtle spirals of the Nautilus crest.
The deeper they moved, the less the palace felt like a building—and more like an artifact of sovereignty.
At the end of the corridor, twin doors awaited—tall, narrow, carved into feather-wing lattice.
Above it: a line of text etched in Old Nautilian glyph:
"From Storm We Rise, and To Sky We Answer."
Nolan gestured.
The doors opened.
They stepped into the Throne Hall of Griffin Ascent.
The space didn't feel built.
It felt summoned.
Vaulted ceilings branched into layered arches, each one engraved with echoes of wind glyph sequences. The walls were polished stormstone—chiseled to refract light and soften sound. At regular intervals, wind channels stirred faint breezes across the chamber, keeping the air charged but never chaotic.
And at its heart—
The throne.
Five steps of wind-forged platinum led to a raised platform framed by twin griffin statues cast from skybone alloy. On the seat: skysteel filigree twisted into wind glyph loops. Behind it: a vertical channel that streamed silent Ether pulses into the wall's crest.
Leontius D. Dentrius IV sat there.
Still.
Immovable.
King of Nautilus. Fourth of his name. One of the only four Grandmaster-level knights of the kingdom. Wielder of the Thundra Wind Ether Engine—a 95% potency artifact so calibrated, it once cleaved two stormfronts in a single cast. Known across provinces as the Reigning Wind.
His hair was gold—not bright, but weighty. It curled over his shoulders in war-styled braids, with storm-thread wraps looped near the base.
His beard—neatly trimmed—flickered once beneath the room's Ether light. His moustache, shaped to frame his jawline, gave him the expression of someone who never blinked without reason.
His cloak: storm-blue, stitched in high-order wind glyphs. His boots: cast-fused, reinforced for impact tempo.
His eyes, light amber, held zero emotion—just measurement.
Broad-shouldered, tall, and silent, he sat like he had never needed to stand.
Not because he was tired.
Because the wind stood for him.
To his right stood:
Sir Ronald Klaus
High Herald of Royal Decree. Voice of Crownsteel Command.
Bearer of King Leontius's sovereign order.
Knight of the Echo Ether Engine, bonded to the palace's inner sigil. Stage Seven Master Gear—forged during the Siege of Valegrim, tested across twelve provinces, and whispered about in war documents never released.
His armor shimmered faintly—layered in frost-etched threads across reinforced crescent plates. His sword rested across his back, gleaming dull-white from embedded sound rings designed to cut through Ether ripple delays.
Ronald wasn't simply present.
He was pressure made human.
Arthur knelt first.
Then Ruby.
Adam last, casting a subtle Hydro pulse to steady his balance.
Nolan bowed, fists clasped.
Silence held.
Leontius didn't blink.
Ronald didn't twitch.
The wind didn't rustle.
They were inside monarchy's eye.
Then—
Leontius raised one hand.
Palm upward.
Fingers still.
The air around the throne silenced.
His voice?
Not loud.
But structured like wind choosing a storm.
"Stand."
The trio rose.
Arthur's gaze lifted but not fully.
Ruby straightened.
Adam swallowed once.
Leontius stared.
Then said:
"State what the matter is."
Arthur stood.
Not as a knight. Not as a commander. But as a father.
It was 2:03 AM.
The Throne Hall of Griffin Ascent loomed around him—quiet, regal, sharp. King Leontius D. Dentrius IV sat unwavering upon his platinum throne, golden hair glowing under wind glyph torchlight.
Sir Ronald Klaus, bearer of Crownsteel Command, stood beside him, armour stitched with frost-thread dignity.
Ruby and Adam flanked Arthur in silence, the air around them rippling with memory and tension.
Arthur's breath hitched.
And he began.
"It starts with a boy."
"My boy."
"James. Fifteen years old."
"Day before yesterday was his coming-of-age ceremony."
The words echoed—not loud, but deep.
"He grew up without a mother," Arthur continued. "But he remembers her. Loved her more than anyone. She gave her life for his."
"And all he wanted… was power."
"Not for glory. Not for prestige."
"To avenge her."
"He was mocked. Belittled. Treated like scum for being the son of a merchant and a dead warrior. Chambers bullied him. Ruby ignored him. Adam protected him."
Arthur glanced at Ruby. She didn't flinch.
"But he endured."
"He thought the Archive would answer his soul."
"It did. But not how he hoped."
Arthur's voice turned raw.
"He stepped into the Sarcophagus of Choosing… and it triggered blue."
"Not sky. Not ocean."
"Void Blue."
"His Ether Engine manifested as 0% potency."
"And the type—Abyssal Ice."
Ronald's posture tightened.
Leontius' expression remained a wall.
Arthur continued.
"The Archive froze."
"The priestesses panicked."
"His body shimmered with frost he couldn't feel."
"They branded him on the spot: Ice Plague host."
"No trial. No consultation."
"He came home that night… and what I saw wasn't my son."
"He was pale, silent. A boy undone."
"No tears."
"No fight."
Just fracture."
Arthur's eyes stung.
"He didn't ask me to save him."
"He just asked if I believed him."
"Then, around midnight…"
"Knights of the dukedom came."
"Duke Aaron Goldsen's seal burned on their decree."
Arthur swallowed.
"They took James without hesitation."
"I tried to fight—I was knocked out cold."
"When I woke…"
Arthur's voice cracked.
"He was to be executed today."
"Midday."
"By Duke Goldsen himself."
Ruby lowered her gaze.
Adam's jaw clenched.
Leontius shifted slightly.
Ronald remained motionless.
Arthur pressed forward.
"I rushed to the palace. Desperate."
"But Adam found me."
"He told me Goldsen wouldn't listen."
"That only one person could stop the execution."
He knelt.
"You."
"But official passage to the capital takes two, maybe three days."
"We had less than one."
"There was only one choice."
"The Route of Blood."
Ronald stirred.
Arthur went on.
"Adam offered his Hydro-Volt Engine. If we kept to water currents and pushed past containment zones, we'd reach the capital in twelve hours."
"But the Hollow… resisted."
"Basin fog. Miasma. Pulse decay. The cave turned against us."
"We couldn't enter."
"And then—she came."
Arthur looked at Ruby.
"She offered help."
"No questions. No judgment."
"Her Aura-Light Engine burned through the fog."
"We followed her in."
"And what we found…"
Arthur's voice chilled.
"Was not stone."
"It was suffering."
"First, we encountered a Vispen—abnormal, mutated, wider than any archive sketch."
"Spines coated in thick ice. Tail gilled and pulsing."
"Fused with corrupted Ether threads. It hunted us."
"But we escaped."
"Barely."
Arthur breathed deep.
"Then came the stitched spider."
"Twice the size of a man."
"Bone-white."
"Fused from corpses, woven by sick Ether threads. Each leg a ribcage wrapped in casting fiber."
"It didn't crawl. It danced. Precision strikes. Eyes like hollow gears."
"We fought."
"Clashed."
"Ruby burned half its jaw. Adam drowned its leg."
"And we moved on."
"Then…"
Arthur's eyes dimmed.
"We found him."
"Bexam."
He whispered the name like a wound.
"Not beast. Not cast-born."
"Not stitched like the spider."
"Something worse."
"A consciousness wearing a nightmare."
"His lair breathed silence. Tendrils etched from forgotten organs. Glyph rings carved from lost dialects."
"He looked at us—and didn't ask."
"He took."
"We were held. Bound in miasma vines. He didn't touch us with limbs…"
"He touched us with truth."
Arthur's hands trembled.
"Sanity bent."
"Ether lines crossed."
"Ruby passed out. Adam screamed. I don't remember my pulse."
"We ran. Somehow."
"Wounded."
"Bleeding."
"Bexam followed."
"But the cave led to a swamp."
"Murky. Violet-lit. Stinking of cast residue."
"A place pulsing with Vispen rot."
"And as Bexam stepped from the mist…"
Arthur straightened.
"Vispen appeared."
"Again."
"But stronger. Hungrier."
"They saw each other."
"Recognized. Remembered."
"They fought."
"Not for blood."
"For dominance."
"Nature versus nightmare."
"Mutation versus memory."
"And in that chaos…"
"We escaped."
Arthur kneeled once more.
"And now I stand before you."
"Please…"
"My son isn't evil."
"He didn't choose this."
"He's fifteen."
"He's mine."
Leontius rose.
A gust followed him, soft and fatal.
He stepped down once.
Then spoke.
"No."
Arthur froze.
The chamber held its breath.
Leontius's voice was clear.
"The Abyssal Ice is a curse. James is its vessel."
"To keep him alive…"
"…is to risk everything this kingdom was built on."
Ronald added softly:
"Your Majesty… you were right. The world shifts."
"Something evil brews beneath our foundations."
Arthur tried again.
"He's just a boy—"
Leontius cut in.
"And that boy will freeze cities."
Arthur reached into his coat.
Hand trembling.
He drew a coin.
Small.
Gold-fused.
Heavy as memory.
One side: the Griffin sigil of Nautilus. The other:
Instripo D. Dentrius II
Arthur held it up.
"Twelve years ago, your father gave me this."
"One wish."
"To be granted by a future ruler."
Leontius took it.
Inspected.
Nodded.
"It's real."
Arthur's eyes lit.
"Then I wish—"
Leontius returned the coin.
"That wish can grant land. Law. Title."
"But not the salvation of plague."
"Not the overturning of death-glyph doctrine."
Arthur's voice broke.
"But he's my son…"
Leontius responded.
"And Dentrius is my kingdom."
Arthur's hand dropped.
The coin slipped from his fingers.
Clinked once.
Silence.
Ruby didn't move.
Adam stepped back.
Arthur whispered.
"…It was supposed to save him."
Leontius turned.
"Leave."
Arthur couldn't think.
Ronald stepped forward.
Guards began to move.
The throne chamber dimmed as wind glyphs pulsed.
Then—
A voice.
From behind.
Not loud.
Not rushed.
Not panicked.
Just certain.
"Would the coin not work—if I vouch for the boy?"
Everyone froze.
Leontius turned.
Ronald unsheathed his blade.
Arthur twisted.
Ruby's glyph flared.
Adam's Hydro current shimmered.
But no figure appeared.
Only the voice.
Only the echo.
And the wind?
Held its breath.
Like it recognized the speaker.
**"When Frost Begs
and Thrones Deny"**
END OF CHAPTER-14
-To Be Continued-