After hours of waiting, the ground trembled.

  At first, it was faint — a low groan in the earth’s belly, like some ancient creature shifting in its sleep. Then came the rattle of falling stones. Dust sifted from the tunnel ceiling, coating their hair and shoulders.

  Mica flinched, pressing her back against the wall. “What is happening now?”

  No one answered. The echo of shouting followed — distant, overlapping voices that rolled through the tunnels like thunder. A battle cry. Hundreds of them, perhaps more.

  Artin crouched, pressing his palm against the frozen dirt. His animal-like eyes narrowed. “That’s probably our signal.”

  Kana caught the change in him — the way his grin vanished, replaced by something cold and distant. He wasn’t the kind of man who showed fear easily, but his expression said what his words didn’t. He was expecting this to go wrong.

  A faint crack split the air. Artin’s right arm warped, skin hardening to scaled blackness. The claws gleamed faintly in the half-light of Ger’s glowing detailed map. Without a word, he slammed it forward. The stone wall ahead fractured, the sound reverberating through the tunnel like thunder trapped in a cage.

  Dust billowed outward.

  “Move,” Artin said — his voice deep, commanding.

  Kana followed close behind, bow ready, as they emerged into a hollow room. It wasn’t something like a part of the dungeon, not exactly — it looked like a cellar once used for storage. Empty shelves. Broken crates. The smell of damp wood and something older, deeper — rot soaked into stone.

  “This place hasn’t been touched in decades,” Mica whispered, her breath forming white mist.

  “It’s abandoned,” Lex’s voice came from the shadows. He stepped out from Ger’s shadow, emerging like a ghost peeling free from its host. His eyes scanned the corners. “No movement. No mana signatures either.”

  Artin turned his head slightly, eyes flickering gold. “Not a trap.”

  Kana exhaled slowly, drawing air through her nose. The room felt wrong — not dangerous, exactly, but too quiet. Even the echoes of the soldiers above had gone silent.

  Shai let out a low growl, fur bristling as her tail lashed against the wall.

  Mica crouched beside her beast. “Easy, girl… She didn’t detect any rune trap either,” she whispered.

  Kana’s hand brushed against her bowstring. The air was heavy — stale with something that wasn’t quite dust or cold. It was the same faint, metallic tang she’d smelled once before in the dungeon — just before the monsters swarmed.

  Ger knelt by a shattered pillar, hands glowing as his skill flared. Golden lines spread like veins across the stone, forming a perfect geometric web.

  “No mechanical traps,” he said after a moment. “No shifting floors, no pressure plates… But—” He hesitated, eyes narrowing. “There’s another layer above us. Whoever built this place didn’t want it to be found. The floors don’t align with the rest of the architecture. It’s inverted.”

  “Meaning?” Kana asked.

  “Meaning there’s something hidden under what looks like the top floor.” Ger looked up. “A false ceiling, maybe. A barrier.”

  Artin’s wings flickered behind him — not solid, but made of black mist and gold light. He flexed them once before they vanished. “We move carefully. This isn’t the kind of place where light is your friend.”

  Kana focused. Her [High Awareness] spread outward. Nothing. No presence. No flicker of life. Even mana, that ever-present hum beneath existence, felt thin here, like it was being swallowed.

  Her skin prickled. It wasn’t that her [High Awareness] failed — it was that something ate it.

  She glanced at Artin. He must have felt it too; his expression hardened.

  “This area looks abandoned,” he said. “But I know the empire’s architects. They never leave space unused.”

  The words hung in the air, heavy as the silence that followed.

  Kana’s fingers tightened on her bowstring. Ryle unsheathed his curved swords, the faint ring of metal swallowed almost immediately by the darkness.

  Mica drew her sword and nodded toward Shai, who crouched low, muscles tense, fur standing on end.

  Kana swallowed. A bead of sweat traced down her neck, despite the freezing air.

  They moved forward, one step at a time.

  She glanced over his shoulder. It was obvious even in the dark, Ryle seemed more tense than any of them. Beads of sweat were running on his forehead, she asked,”Are you alright?”

  Ryle who seemed in daze looked at her and simply nodded in response.

  …

  There was no warning.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  When the northern horns sounded, the ground itself seemed to tremble in answer. The army surged forward — thousands of boots breaking through layers of snow, banners whipping under the cold wind.

  And then came the rain.

  Arrows fell like black needles from the clouded sky, blotting out the light for a heartbeat. The air hissed with their descent, the sound sharper than any storm Suri had ever heard. Shields lifted in unison. Students raised barriers — shimmering walls of mana that flashed blue, green, or crimson as the arrows struck.

  “Hold the line!” someone bellowed, but the roar of battle swallowed the command.

  [Mages] answered with fire and wind. Flames spiraled upward, colliding with the storm of arrows. The air rippled with heat, snow hissing into steam. The ground shook again — this time from the force of hundreds of skills detonating at once.

  Suri swallowed hard. Even from the safety of the rear camp, she could feel it — the weight of the clash, the large amount of mana vibrating through the earth.

  She stood within a command tent, a wide sheet of canvas that billowed like a lung breathing too fast. The smell of sweat, leather, and ozone hung thick in the air. Several high ranking soldiers sat beside Wor-en, their faces drawn and pale as they awaited her reports.

  The garrison’s walls loomed in the images — tall, black, and impossibly thick. Even fire magic did little more than scorch them.

  “How are they going to break through that?” she whispered.

  She didn’t need to wait for an answer.

  A new ripple spread across her illusions. The battlefield fell silent for a moment, as if the world itself paused to look upward.

  He was hovering.

  Lord Kavel — the Duke of the North, the rumoured strongest human of the kingdom — rose above the battlefield like a storm given form. His long gray hair streamed behind him, catching the dying light of the sun. Wrinkles traced his face like carved stone, yet his posture was steady, unyielding.

  “He’s… floating?” Suri murmured.

  Wor-en’s said,”That’s Lord Kavel, heard it’s one of his many skills, [Gravity Authority].”

  Lord Kavel lifted his spear. It was taller than a man, its shaft made of black steel, its edge faintly humming. He muttered something — a prayer or a curse — then drew the weapon over his shoulder.

  The sound that followed wasn’t thunder. It was sharper, heavier — a tearing shriek of air itself being split apart.

  A line of compressed wind, bright as if a lightning, tore forward.

  It struck the garrison wall.

  For a heartbeat, the fortress held. Then the stone fractured — a thousand cracks spiderwebbing from the impact point. A moment later, the entire section exploded outward, shards of rock scattering like a rain of knives.

  Suri gasped. “That… that’s impossible. He just destroyed the wall..”

  Before the echoes even faded, Lord Kavel moved again. His arm blurred — another swing, another slash of wind. Then another.

  Each strike was faster, more violent, until it was no longer clear where one ended and the next began. The garrison’s massive wall — the wall that was said to be built with high-grade reinforcement — simply disintegrated.

  The northern soldiers roared.

  Even from within the tent, the sound reached them — thousands of voices crying out in triumph, in awe.

  Suri could barely tear her eyes from her illusion. Power like that didn’t feel human. It felt disaster itself— the kind of strength that reshaped the world. Boris’s destructive skill, the most powerful she’d ever seen before, was nothing compared to this. Not even close.

  Then she noticed the blood.

  A thin crimson line ran down Lord Kavel’s chin, staining the white of his beard. His lips were moving — not in a chant, but in effort. He swallowed something, forcing the color back into his face.

  Still, he stood. Spear raised, eyes locked on the enemy fortress, daring them to stand against him.

  “The wall is down,” Suri whispered, barely aware she’d spoken.

  “The wall of the garrison is destroyed,” she said again, louder this time, for Wor-en and the others.

  The tent fell into stunned silence.

  Only Wor-en smiled — small, grim, proud. The others didn’t celebrate. They waited in silence, and Suri could read their thoughts in their eyes.

  If that was what it took to begin the assault…

  What kind of monsters were waiting inside?

  ….

  They could hear it. The walls trembled.

  Dust sifted from the ceiling, falling like lazy snow across the armor of the men seated around the war table. The room was lit by a single lantern—steady, stubborn against the shaking earth. Shadows of iron helmets and fur-lined pauldrons stretched across stone walls, twisting each time the flame flickered.

  No one moved at first.

  “The northern dogs have discovered us earlier than expected,” said the general. His voice was calm, deliberate—each word shaped as though by a whetstone. His armor was black steel, unmarred except for the faint engraving of wings along his breastplate.

  “Something must have gone wrong,” muttered one of the commanders, drumming a gauntleted finger against the table. “Old Kavel himself leads them. That relic can barely stand, I heard. He probably has a few days or months left to live.”

  Another man, thinner, eyes sharp as cut glass, spoke softly. “The [Oracle] misread this one,” he said. “He swore the north wouldn’t move for the next few months. Yet here we are.”

  “That makes twice in our history the [Oracle]’s been wrong.”

  “The last time,” the general said, “gold badges were involved as well.”

  Silence followed that. Heavy. Cold.

  A hundred-year plan balanced on a knife’s edge between them.

  The door burst open.

  A soldier stumbled in, his armor dented, a slash across his shoulder still bleeding through hastily wrapped bandages. “Sirs! Urgent report!” he gasped, half kneeling before the table.

  The general didn’t rise. “Speak.”

  “Two intruders are already inside, in western section,” the soldier said. “We believe— they are Royal Knights.”

  That changed the air. Even the lantern’s flame seemed to hesitate.

  “Two?” said one of the officers, a scar bisecting his cheek. “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re cutting through our men like—” The soldier caught himself. “They’re searching for the prince.”

  The scarred officer snorted. “Two knights? Overconfident fools. Let me deal with them.”

  “Alive,” the general said, his tone iron. “Bring them in breathing. Knights do not come alone. If they’re here, they know something.”

  He turned his head slightly. “Status of the prince?”

  The soldier swallowed hard. “I checked just now, sir. He’s… secured.”

  The general studied him for a long heartbeat. The word secured could mean many things. Too many.

  The tremors outside grew stronger. Muffled shouts, clashing steel, the faint thunder of siege impacts rolled through the floor. A hairline crack traced down the wall near the door.

  The thin man—the one with the sharp eyes—leaned forward. “The [Oracle] said the gold badges would shift the balance. I thought she meant in our favor.”

  “She never said whose balance,” the general said. “And prophecy favors no one. We created it.” He stood, armor whispering against the stone.

  The men rose as one.

  The soldier turned to leave, but the general’s voice stopped him mid-step.

  “Tell the commanders,” he said, “We will slowly retreat since Kavel is here personally.”

  The soldier saluted, chest heaving, and bolted back into the corridor.

  The general watched the door close, then allowed himself a single exhale. His reflection caught in the metal of the table—eyes hollow, jaw set.

  The lantern guttered once more, shadows crawling like living things across the stone.

  “Begin the retreat,” he said quietly. “Slowly. Let them think they’re winning.”

  He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And when everything is in our favor…” His lips twitched, not quite a smile. “We will show them what a century of planning looks like.”