The night sky tore open above the Lucas estate as a streak of absolute-zero frost and high-density mana carved through the clouds. Valen and Luke did not bother with the formal gates; they plummeted directly into the grand central courtyard, the kinetic force of their landing kicking up a flurry of crushed gravel and frost-rimed leaves.
In the courtyard below, Zayne and Olivia had been walking and conversing quietly under the pale moonlight. The sudden, violent displacement of air stopped them mid-sentence. Zayne's brows furrowed, stepping forward to demand an explanation, but the words died in his throat the moment Olivia's eyes landed on Valen's arms.
Valen stood holding a ruined, smoking silhouette.
Kyle's body was a horrific canvas of catastrophic destruction. Patches of his silver-white hair had been singed down to the scalp, and his entire frame was carbonized, charred black by the violent backlash of the soul-world detonation. He lay bare against Valen's coat, stripped of his gear save for the jagged, molten remnants of his armor. Where Valen's freezing fingers clutched his side to slow the internal hemorrhaging, a thick, unnatural layer of glittering blue frost had locked over Kyle's skin, attempting to preserve what little life remained.
Olivia froze. For a terrifying, breathless second, the world seemed to stop spinning entirely. Her breath caught in her chest, and a hand flew instantly to her mouth, her eyes widening in a mixture of horror and profound, bone-deep disbelief. The color drained completely from her face, leaving her looking paler than the frost on Kyle's skin.
"Kyle..." Olivia breathed, her voice trembling with a fragile, breaking terror as she stumbled forward.
Zayne's face hardened into a mask of grim, towering fury, his aura flaring dangerously before he reined it in with immense effort. "Get him inside. Now."
The medical wing became an immediate theater of desperate, frantic survival. Healers and alchemists were roused in the dead of night, their hands shaking as they poured high-grade recovery fluids, crushed spirit-grass, and stabilizing elixirs over Kyle's ruined body. The air grew thick with the sharp, medicinal stench of burning herbs and the hum of high-tier restorative runes.
For hours, it hung on a knife-edge. Kyle's pulse dipped so low it practically flatlined twice, forcing Valen and Zayne to continuously pump raw, high-level mana into his chest to force his heart to beat. Every breath he drew sounded like glass grinding against stone.
He survived by a terrifying, hair's breadth. When stability was finally achieved—a fragile, shallow rhythm of life locked behind containment wards—the medical staff stepped back, drenched in sweat.
Olivia refused to leave. While the rest of the estate retreated to prepare for what came next, she pulled a wooden chair directly beside the recovery slab. With trembling fingers, she washed the soot from his pale, scarred face, replacing the damp cloths with cool compresses hour after hour, a silent, unyielding guardian against death.
For days on end she spent most of her time taking care of Kyle, each time she sees the once jovial person she grew to love reduce to a vegetable, lying still on the bed, her heart bled. Some days she cried beside Kyle, other days she whispered prays for him to wake up. But all seemed futile as Kyle remained non - responsive.
Adjacent Kyle's ward in the quiet, sterile recovery room, the rhythmic hiss of the medical runes was the only sound breaking the silence.
Xavier stirred on his cot, groaning softly as a dull, throbbing pain pulsed behind his eyes. He blinked sluggishly, his vision blurring before sharpening against the dim white light of the ceiling.
"Easy now. Don't try to sit up too fast," a gentle, melodic voice instructed.
Xavier turned his head gingerly, wincing as he saw a young woman standing beside his bed, adjusting the saline drip. Her name was **Nurse Elena**, a senior healer of the estate known for her sharp eyes, calm demeanor, and an immaculate, starched grey-and-white nursing uniform that matched her neatly pinned dark hair and steady, empathetic gaze.
"Where... where am I?" Xavier rasped, his throat feeling like sandpaper.
"You're in the estate's recovery ward," Elena replied softly, pouring a small cup of water and helping him sip it. "You took a nasty psychic shockwave to the skull, and your left arm was fractured by the fall. You've been unconscious for nearly a day."
Xavier swallowed the water, the coolness soothing his throat as the memories of the blazing crater, Kyle's desperate plunge, and the explosion rushed back into his mind.
"Kyle..." Xavier whispered, panic suddenly spiking his heart rate. "Is he—"
"He's alive," Elena interrupted quietly, gesturing gently toward the far corner of the room behind a drawn privacy screen, where the faint silhouette of Olivia sat keeping her unwavering vigil. "He's stable for now. But he has a very long road ahead of him."
Xavier closed his eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath as the exhaustion finally reclaimed him.
A WEEK LATER
In the grand strategy hall of the estate, the atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy.
Zayne sat at the head of the long obsidian table. Flanking him were Cerci, Luke, Aston, Valen, and the key captains of the silver eclipse. The flickering candlelight cast long, distorted shadows across their tense, exhausted faces.
Lyra and Maya stepped forward first, their armor still stained with dried demonic blood, giving a measured, grim narration of how the eastern, northern, and southern vanguards had successfully swept their respective sectors.
When they finished, Zayne's gaze shifted to Xavier.
A thick, white bandage was wrapped tightly around Xavier's head, soaking slightly with fresh antiseptic, and his left arm rested in a rigid, mana-infused cast. Swallowing hard against the metallic taste of blood still lingering in his mouth, Xavier began his account.
He explained how he and Kyle had peeled away from Aston and Luke to scout the eastern flank before a planned rendezvous. His voice wavered slightly as he recounted the sudden emergence of the masked shadow and the unhinged demon prince, Vilthrax.
"I... I don't know what exactly happened after that," Xavier muttered, staring down at the polished wood of the table, guilt weighing heavily in his chest. "I was positioned high up in the canopy, trying to support Kyle by laying down covering fire against his opponents. But then... an invisible wave hit us. The mana density broke. The next thing I knew, I was violently flung from the tree, crashing into the ground before I blacked out."
Xavier finished, his head hanging low as he sank back into his seat.
Cerci said nothing, but the air around her dropped several degrees. Her rage knew no absolute limits; her eyes burned with a dark, lethal intent. She would have loved nothing more than to rip open a gate to the demon realm right this second and carve a path of unadulterated mayhem through their ranks, but she forced her breathing to steady, locking her fury behind an icy, terrifying composure.
Zayne broke the silence, turning his attention to Duncan and Orion, who stood near the back of the hall. "Report what you discovered beneath the ridges."
Duncan stepped up, his expression grave. "We found an extensive, labyrinthine layout of underground tunnels, Your Grace. It appears to be the primary transit network the demons used to bypass our surface patrols. Who constructed them or when remains a mystery—the structural decay suggests they have existed beneath these lands for centuries, perhaps even predating the current border treaties. They lead directly into one of the major surrounding dungeons."
Orion chipped in," At the deepest part of the labyrinth was a gate. Something unsettling unsettling about the gate just isn't right. It looks like we stumbled upon Gorgoroth."
Aston looked at him," It's just some fairy tale bullshit, Gorgoroth isn't real."
Zayne cut in. "We will dispatch a punitive legion to investigate and seal those tunnels permanently."
"You can't seriously believe it" Darv objected.
"My words are finally -
"I'll go," Luke interjected immediately, his voice flat, resolute, and devoid of hesitation.
Zayne spared him a glance that said - are you sure you are ready to do it. Seeing Luke firm in his decision he did not reject him. He gave a slow, deliberate nod. "I will handpick the strike team to accompany you."
With that, the meeting was adjourned. One by one, the captains and commanders filed out in heavy silence, leaving only Zayne and Cerci in the vast, shadowed hall.
Zayne stared down at the polished table, his mind racing through tactical permutations. He looked up slowly. "What do you make of this, Cerci?"
Cerci turned her head slowly, her gaze drifting toward the tall, arched stained-glass windows looking out into the dark gardens. Her voice, when it came, was chillingly soft, devoid of all warmth.
"Last time, I failed to end that miscreant Vilthrax's life," Cerci whispered, her fingers curling into a tight fist on the stone sill. "Look at the result. Kyle lies broken because of our leniency. I will not make that mistake a second time."
Without waiting for a reply, Cerci turned and swept out of the hall, her cape billowing behind her.
Zayne remained seated at the head of the table, his mind plunging deep into calculations of retaliation, logistics, and survival.
Outside the heavy oak doors, Duncan was waiting patiently in the corridor. As Cerci approached, he offered a low, respectful bow. "Shall we be on our way, Lady Cerci?"
Cerci gave a sharp nod.
Duncan raised his hand, channeling a concise burst of spatial mana. A miniature, shimmering gate tore open in the middle of the hallway, revealing a swirling portal that connected directly to a vast, ancient forest miles away. In the distant background, shrouded in mist, stood a towering manor.
They stepped through the threshold together, and the gate collapsed behind them, sealing shut without a sound.
End of volume 1: The Beginning