From the pitch-black depths, the three of them found themselves swallowed by silence — the kind that breathes, that presses against the skin until it feels alive.
Even though Marco had sealed the door from above, Mikayle kept shouting, his voice echoing down the unseen walls.
"Marco! Marco—you're not my brother, you idiot! You idio—iooot!"
The words bounced and twisted through the dark, returning to him as broken whispers — idiot, idiot — until even his rage sounded hollow.
Ivan was the first to move. He stepped off the soft pile they had landed on and felt the cold floor beneath his bare feet. The ground was uneven, damp, alive with echoes. His hand brushed the wall beside him — it was coarse, jagged stone.
"This is a cave," he murmured. "We're inside a cave."
Then his fingers found something — a stick-like shape rising from the path ahead. He squinted through the dark, drawn by a faint glimmer that wasn't there a moment ago.
The instant his skin made contact, a violent light burst through the air. A shockwave flung him backward, his body striking the stone wall with a dull thud.
The cave screamed with him.
Mikayle and Yuhan froze, their hearts hammering in their chests. Then, from the darkness, a pulse of blue light began to throb — faint at first, then alive, like the rhythm of some unseen heart.
A bandage-wrapped object stood upright in the stone floor, glowing a storm-blue that flickered like a dying star. The light surged once more, then softened to a dim cosmic shimmer.
Ivan groaned, sprawled against the wall. Yuhan hurried to help him. Mikayle remained still, eyes red, breath unsteady. In his hand, he still held the broken dagger — his master's gift — now split in two, useless, like everything else.
He looked at the broken dagger and saw himself in it — a beggar of fate, clinging to the shards of what once was whole.
And beggars, he thought, were worse than slaves — because they had the freedom to die, yet still chose to live in a cursed world.
Something about the bandaged blade pulled at him. It called faintly, like a whisper underwater. He stepped closer, each footstep swallowed by the dark. The glow grew stronger, the hum louder, as if the weapon recognized him.
When his fingers brushed its surface, a shockwave rippled through the cavern. The light flared outward — white, blue, blinding — then slowly dimmed into a steady pulse.
For a heartbeat, Mikayle stood frozen. He felt the weapon hum beneath his skin — not with power, but with sorrow. The same kind that lived inside him, voiceless and endless.
He lifted the blade. Its glow throbbed softly, like a heartbeat in his palm. For a fleeting moment, it illuminated the tunnel ahead — a narrow passage that none of them had noticed before.
"Let's move," Yuhan whispered.
The three followed the glow through the tunnel until it opened to the outside world — a steep slope leading down into a forest, where fog drifted like ghosts through the trees.
Yuhan looked around, realization dawning.
"That means… we're under the house," he said quietly. "We must've passed the training field."
He looked up and froze. The cliff above them — the one he and Mikayle used to climb to pee from — now loomed like a tombstone.
Then came the voices.
"Found a kid — maybe twelve," one man said above. "We're sending him to Arcadia, I guess. Damn, so many dead. Warden Dorg said to dump these wild dogs off the cliff."
"There are bodies everywhere… so why are we only dumping this black-cloaked bastard? And who the hell are they anyway? I've never heard of any 'Karvan' having black-cloak Kingspawn."
"You don't know? Those are Arcadian Temple tribe thugs — wildings. Can't mix their kind with the Kingspawn . It'd be an insult. And anyway… this raid wasn't ordered by the King."
"What? Then who?"
"Like hell I know," the first man said, laughing. "If I knew what's going Inside the castle, I'd be the Warden myself."
The other's voice lowered. "So many deaths… that bastard with the dragon ritual — how did he do it? Even Tier Three awaken can't imagine that."
"Bloom Black Magic Wish," the man sneered. "He didn't learn Tier Three — he stole it. Used forbidden wishcraft, I'm certain."
Their laughter echoed, cruel and distant, as they began tossing bodies over the edge.
The corpses fell like rain.
Below, a grotesque mountain of the dead rose, slick with blood and stinking of iron. Mikayle and the others hid beneath the cliff's shadow, watching in silent horror. Above them, the men unzipped their belts and pissed on the mound, laughing.
"Any other kids escape?" one asked.
"Maybe. Used magic, probably. Still, who's gonna believe me? If the Warden sends anyone into this forest, I'm not the one going. The man's scarier than death."
Their voices faded, carried away by the wind.
Yuhan's fists shook. Ivan's face twisted with disgust. Mikayle said nothing — but behind his silence, his mind was memorizing every word, every name. Especially one.
Arcadia Temple.
After a long moment, Yuhan whispered, "It's the only way out. We jump."
Without a second thought, Ivan stepped back, then leapt — landing hard but alive on the mound below. Mikayle followed. Then Yuhan.
The mound gave beneath their feet, sinking like sand under the weight of death. The forest below waited, silent and cold, as if it too were mourning.
They stood among the dead. The fog coiled around them like smoke from a funeral pyre.
Then Yuhan stopped. His voice broke.
"It's… Master."
They rushed forward. The man's chest was torn open, his head gashed, his eyes fixed on the sky as if still searching for something beyond death. Ivan knelt, trembling, and gently closed his eyes.
No one spoke. The forest held its breath.
And there, amid the stink of rot and blood, three broken boys wept — for the man who had given them hope, for the home that no longer existed, and for the pieces of themselves they would never find again.
They carried him deep into the forest, to the roots of an old Tulio tree whose branches bent like open arms. They dug until their hands bled. They buried him with his cloak, his tools, and his name.
Their master once said, "To be remembered is to be reborn."
As the soil covered his face, Mikayle whispered the words — not as a prayer, but as a promise.
For a marker, he placed the bandaged blade atop the grave.
Maybe it had belonged to him. Maybe he had hidden it in the depths for a reason.
Either way, it now stood there — a silent sentinel guarding his master's rest.
When they finally turned away, the forest seemed to watch them leave.
And as the shadows swallowed them, the grave remained beneath the ancient tree — the blade still glowing faintly in the dark, like a lone star that refused to die.