The scroll did not open easily.
For three nights, Frey traced and retraced its seals, committing every layer to memory before daring to peel them apart. When it finally yielded, the message inside was not written in plain words—but in rotating sigils, each meaning changing depending on the reader's mana flow.
Reya was the first to understand it.
"It's a ledger," she said quietly. "Not of money. Of favors."
Names appeared only when mana brushed the parchment a certain way—trade ministers, border commanders, guild sponsors. Entire lines vanished if stared at too long, as if the message itself feared being fully known.
At the bottom, a single phrase remained stable:
"The roots bloom where voices are silenced."
A month later, the king gave his order.
Not public. Not announced.
Vesa's team was summoned at dawn and instructed to travel undercover into the neighboring nation—no banners, no formal authority. They were to find the origin of the funding, identify the true power behind the organization, and return quietly.
No reinforcements would follow.
---
The city they entered was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Wide streets of polished stone. Uniform buildings. Guards stationed at every junction—not aggressive, just… present. Conversations dropped the moment uniforms passed. Notices were posted everywhere, praising unity, safety, order.
There were no protest boards. No open debates. No unsanctioned guild postings.
Even taverns spoke in half-words.
"Careful," Lenny whispered one evening. "The mana here listens."
They followed rumors the way one follows a scent—carefully, indirectly. A merchant who vanished after asking the wrong question. A scholar arrested for "incorrect historical interpretation." A sealed district where lights never went out.
Their lead pointed them toward a warehouse near the lower canals.
They arrived just in time to see a fight already unfolding.
Blades clashed in silence—no shouting, no magic flares. Professionals. One group cornered, the other advancing with practiced cruelty. Before Vesa could decide whether to intervene, one of the attackers turned—and saw Eira.
Mana surged.
Eira stepped forward without hesitation.
The clash was brief but violent. Ice shattered stone. Steel rang sharp and final. The attackers retreated—but not before one slammed a crystal into the ground.
A teleportation seal ignited beneath Eira's feet.
"Eira—!"
The world folded.
Cold. Weightless. Gone.
When the light faded, Eira was no longer with them.
---
Vesa's team returned three days later—without him.
The report to the king was exact, restrained, and devastating. Foreign influence confirmed. Civil control enforced through fear. Evidence of systematic funding to destabilizing forces.
And one missing knight.
The king listened without interruption.
Then he spoke.
"The investigation will continue," he said. "But not with you."
The lead—along with the scroll's decoded contents—was handed to Ark and Neo. Their names carried weight. Their presence would be unquestioned.
As for Eira—
"There will be no official search," the king concluded. "If he survived, he will return."
Silence filled the chamber.
Vesa bowed. Slowly. Deeply.
Outside, none of them spoke.
Because they all understood what had just happened.
Eira was now alone— In enemy territory, Erased from strategy, And abandoned by the board that had chosen its heroes.
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Eira in the present
The chief watched from the steps, arms folded, eyes unreadable.
"Power isn't the problem," he said as Eira finished another heavy strike. "Commitment is."
He gestured forward. "Come."
What followed wasn't elegant.
The technique was brutal—forward momentum, relentless pressure. Iris demonstrated with wide, descending cuts that felt like a beast charging downhill, impossible to stop once it began.
"Don't retreat," the chief said. "If you hesitate, you die."
Eira charged.
The ground cracked under his steps as he chained strike after strike, momentum carrying him through spins, pivots, lunges. When he finished, breathing hard, his final thrust stopped low—precise, disabling.
The chief nodded.
"Phantom Tusk Descent," he said. "A path that only ends when you decide it does."