Rian Terros of the Solcarin Garrison.
The summons came at dawn.
Rian Terros was still half asleep when the alarm crystals flared across the barracks wall—five quick pulses of red, then blue. Not a drill. Actual mobilization. He’d served in the Solcarin garrison for eight years, long enough to know that this city—this paradise of pleasure palaces and painted courtesans—didn’t do emergencies. Not real ones.
He was already moving before the second pulse hit.
The others scrambled around him, pulling on cuirasses and fastening ward-locks. The barracks filled with the sound of polished steel, the clink of gear, and the distant echo of bells from the harbor towers.
A voice boomed through the command hall.
“All Rapid Response units report to staging! Northern alert—repeat, northern alert! Hostile signatures approaching through the Ravenfast corridor. Imperial patrol out of contact. Move, now!”
Rian didn’t even stop for breakfast. The corridors outside were already chaos—messengers sprinting, officers shouting orders, servants dragging crates of mana crystals to the launch platforms.
Outside, Solcarin glittered as if mocking the urgency.
The southern Imperial city was a masterpiece of indulgence—white stone terraces spilling down the cliffs, bridges of light linking floating domes, airships drifting lazily over seas that shone like glass. Perfume and saltwater scented the air. Even the guards wore gilded armor, ceremonial rather than practical.
Rian had always thought of it as a city for poets, not soldiers.
Now, for the first time, the gold didn’t gleam—it glared.
By the time they reached the northern gate, the 9th Company was assembled: two cultivators, half trained for parade duty, half veterans who’d once dreamed of retiring here. They loaded onto skimmers and transports, engines whining as spell-lattices warmed.
The lieutenant met Rian’s eyes across the line. “We don’t have air support,” he said grimly. “Wind shear over the mountains. We take the river road.”
Rian nodded. “And if we find the Zhou patrols?”
“Then we get them out,” the officer said. “If there’s anyone left to get.”
The wind shifted, carrying with it the faint scent of smoke. Not city smoke. Wildfire.
The march north followed the Ravenfast River, the great silver artery that cut through the southern heartlands and disappeared into the Karthas Range.
For the first day, the terrain was almost laughably serene. They passed through groves of flowering trees, their petals falling like snow. Villas clung to the hillsides—empty now, shutters drawn. A few fishermen waved from the riverbanks, but their eyes were wary. Word had spread faster than the army.
By the second day, the landscape began to change.
The flowers gave way to dense jungle. The humidity thickened until the air itself seemed to hum. The cliffs to the north rose higher, their peaks lost in mist. The river narrowed, darkening from blue to black as it entered the shadow of the mountains.
Then came the stillness.
No birds. No insects. Not even the ripple of fish. Only the sound of boots on wet soil and the whisper of the river dragging itself south.
“Feels wrong,” someone muttered.
Rian agreed silently. He’d felt it too—the pressure, like the world was holding its breath.
They reached the plateu leading to the vally of the base of the Cliffs of Moher at dusk on the third day. The sight should have been magnificent—towers of pale stone rising like cathedral walls, their crowns sheathed in clouds. Light from the setting sun turned them to molten gold.
Instead, it felt like standing beneath a judgment.
The area was alive with sound—low vibrations echoing through the rock and fauna, like a heart beating deep beneath the surface. Rian could feel it in his teeth.
The lieutenant called a halt and sent scouts ahead. Torches flickered against the rising wind. The jungle ended abruptly and receted several miles back though the river which he knew wasn't far from here remained out of sight.
Once, there had been an old world outpost here. The ruins of the dynastic castle that was long forgotten and was meant to protect a the Gate of a forgotten goddess.. The old bones of that castle stood in silhouette—a melted carcass of iron and obsidian in near the opening of the vally that would lead them to the base of the Cliffs.
Rian and the Capitins moved to the hill where the castle stood which could give them a view overlooking the vally.
No one spoke.
When the first scout returned, his face was white. “Sir,” he said, voice trembling, “the valley’s moving.”
Rian climbed the nearest ridge. He didn’t need a scope.
The basin below was crawling.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of shapes were advancing from the far end of the valley, spilling down from the old mountain pass like a flood.
He’d seen orcs before. Big, brutal, loud. These were none of those things.
They were worse.
Their skin was the color of drying blood, lacquered like polished armor. Their eyes were pits—black, depthless, and alive with hunger. They moved in unison, rank by rank, their pace steady and slow. Not a horde. An army.
And the smell—iron and smoke and something sweet, like rot covered in perfume.
“Emperor’s mercy,” someone whispered.
The lieutenant’s face was gray. “everyone above level 5 in the middle, standard formation, focus on anyone higher first. Casters give yourself room to prepare arrays.”
The culivators moved with individual chaos of individuals tried to fight as a something resembling a unit. The higher level culivators tried to space themselfs and form something of a defensive rings along the ridge. Sigils flared to life—blue wards against fire, gold against impact. Man crystal tipped arrows hissed as the first volley went up.
For a moment, the valley lit with flame and thunder.
Stolen novel; please report.
Then the flames went out.
The orcs kept coming.
“Volley two—fire!”
The second barrage fell heavier—mana bolts, elementalshells, everything they had.
When the smoke cleared, the orcs were closer. Their armor glowed with molten seams where the spells had hit—but they didn’t slow. Some of the wounds bled light. Others breathed smoke.
The front line faltered. One of the younger soldiers dropped his weapon and bolted.
“Hold the line!” the lieutenant roared.
They held. For another thirty seconds.
Then the orcs reached them.
The impact was apocalyptic. The front ranks vanished under a wave of red muscle and black iron. The sound was like buildings collapsing.
Rian swung his sword, caught one in the chest. The blade bit deep—then stopped, lodged in something that felt more like stone than flesh. The creature turned toward him, grinning.
Its mouth was full of teeth like polished obsidian.
He tore the sword free and drove it into its throat. The wound closed.
“Fall back!” he screamed. “To the second ridge!”
They retreated in chaos, the valley filling with screams.
The world had turned to fire and blood when he saw it; a figure walked down the slope—alone, unhurried. He stood out but he saw others following dressed in black carrying straight swords with red blades and hilts. They looked cursed.
But Rian couldn't take his eyes off the individual in the front. He wore chaosforged warplate, lacquered black, every plate etched with humming runes. The armor didn’t gleam; it drank the light, leaving faint color trails that shifted as he moved. A long, curved blade hung at his side, sheathed but visable power misting off it.
That is when Rian saw it, something he never thought he would see, a sword-spirit cloak, a methaphuscal being encircling the man with energy so potent that it was have a visable affect on the very ground he was walking on.
This was a Murai, a powerful one, it had to be.
Rian had never seen a Murai in person—only heard the stories of the duelists from the southwestern isles who fought as if dancing, as if the world existed only for their blade and the spirt that developed a long side them.
A visable Murai Sword Spirt that could outwardly manifest was someone well into their own power journey. He was trying to remember how they compared to Empire Cultivators. They weren't peak human or anything.
He couldn't remember. Damn it.
This Sword Spirit looked like something that would be hiding in a swamp in the dark, the type of spirt that he would associated with a demon horde. He didn’t know why the man was here but the why seemed very unimportant at the moment.
The others under his under Rian's command didn' tknow him. The Muria continued his walk. Every movement was deliberate, the economy of a craftsman tracing a cut he’d perfected long ago. Then the stranger looked up, and Rian understood he was looking at a predator.
A squad of his own men rushed the Murai, this was one of the coorinated groups one that used spears as their primary weapon and were more for monster fighting than war. three of the yeld "Piecing Dragon" sending a flux of compressed and shaped man at the Murai. The techique was an effective one used for pentradtion against armored monsters or targets. It range wasn't the best but they were not that fair away maybe fifty feet.
The Murai didn't even flinch. He did some strange instead as the projectiles reached him he moved his fist from his opposite hip while his arm was glowing with residue of his sword spirt. He move his arm in an arc like he was drawing a sword and struck down the attack like he was slapping away a moth that was drawn to a flame.
Rian gapped even as the Murai kept walking. That was not good. Some of the Murai's followers interepted the spearman. They died almost instantly. No more than two moves by the men, the swordsmen who followed the Murai were just too good.
This was bad.
More of Rian’s men screamed and rushed him in waves.
Then the Murai did something strange; he shifted his stance, the world seemed to tighten around the motion. The left foot slid forward, the right heel rooted; breath sank low and he bent his knees.
Air trembled. Dust lifted in a slow ring around him.
Then the draw began—soundless at first, then whispering, a friction between metal and sheath that made the air vibrate. You could see it if you looked long enough: threads of ambient power bending toward the scabbard, drawn by the vacuum of intent.
Light distorted, color bled out, the edges of his silhouette humming with pale fire.
The sword cleared its sheath in a single, perfect line.
The moment the edge tasted air, the gathered energy snapped free— a crescent arc of light and force, blue-white and veined with shadow, screaming across the field. The ground split behind it; wind and sound folded inward; every particle of, was that mana, he wasn't sure, erupted outward in a single, devastating pulse. When the flash faded, he was already resheathing, the echo of the cut racing away into the horizon like thunder still trying to catch up to the strike. The strike cut down ranks of culivators. They tried to stop it with their own attacks but it was too powerful. More than twenty men died
Rian gapped. He had seen powerful attacks from top culivators. He had seen General Li himself rise into the air and thrown down dozens of points of sword intent. But this raw power of this Murai attack. The pure destructiveness. It was like they weren't even messing with mana. Because a mana based attacked, there was no reason that his men should have fell so easy.
Rian realized that the were in real trouble. This man...this Murai...was dangerous.
The orcs were not much better. They orcs did not fight like orcs.
Rian had fought them before—their kind were rough, brutal, but never this. Orcs were supposed to have rhythm, a kind of wild grace that made them frightening but predictable. These things had no rhythm left. They moved like weapons swung by someone else’s hand. Whatever the demons had done to them, they were no longer the noble savages of frontier legend. They were tools—living siege engines built for ruin.
He saw two of his men die at once, heads sheared clean off by a massive axe. The weapon didn’t even look sharp; it was made of crude iron and hate. Blood-red mana poured from the orc’s body, steaming from every pore. Another creature—a berserker swollen with its own power—caught a soldier by the waist, tore him in half, and bit down on the screaming upper body before spitting out the head and roaring.
The sound vibrated in Rian’s teeth.
He forced his mind to narrow. Focus.
If there was any chance of saving what was left of the Solcarin Rapid Response line, the Murai had to die.
He ran.
Two spears of ice spun from his hands and streaked toward the Murai’s chest—his own refinement of the old “Piercing Gale” spell, meant to crush armor through cold density and speed.
The Murai didn’t even flinch. He drew his sword as if marking a page and sliced both projectiles out of the air. The shards hissed into the dirt, harmless.
By then Rian was on him.
The Aether-forged armor made the Murai heavier, slower, but the reach of his curved blade was impossible to counter directly. Rian’s own armor was lighter—mana-reinforced leather lined with speed glyphs—his entire style built on movement and flow. He struck low for the knee, then up for the chest, then across for the elbow.
Three perfectly controlled cuts; three complete failures.
The Murai blocked them all without breaking stance. His sword style, stripped of that dazzling draw technique, was a study in defense—smooth, circular, flawless. His eyes were wide and bright behind the mask, his mouth grinning like a man in ecstasy.
Rian felt the truth settle in his gut. This man has no soul left. Just power and pain and the will to share both.
Fine. He would still try.
He pressed forward—two moves, four, six—burning through every drill he had ever learned. Mana wrapped his joints, his elbows, his wrists. A thin edge of energy lined his blade, trying to bite through the Murai’s plate. Nothing landed. Nothing even slowed him.
He jumped back, panting. The Murai stepped forward once, lazy, enjoying it.
Rian launched a barrage—three fireballs, small but fast. One of them hit. The explosion painted the armor orange and left not even a scorch mark. The Mirai took a single step backward, almost politely. Rian threw two more icicles, both swatted from the air with contempt.
Think.
He gathered air and pressure along the edge of his sword, layering wind for speed and raw force for bite—his own sword variation of the Piercing Dragon. The air around the blade whined, white lines tracing along its surface. He lunged, stopping short at five feet and releasing the built-up energy.
The shockwave tore through the air like a cannon blast. It struck the Mirai square in the chest.
For an instant, Rian thought it worked. The impact staggered him—just a step—but a step was still a victory. He rolled left, gasping, readying another strike. His vision blurred from exhaustion.
Another soldier’s scream dragged him back. A Red Orc came barreling down, its blade already mid-swing. Rian blocked, parried, sliced through its leg. The creature fell, shrieking—not like a beast, but like a demon’s laughter caught in a throat.
That was when he realized the laughter wasn’t the orc’s.
It was coming from the Mirai.
The Murai swordsman was laughing—deep, bright, unrestrained. He stepped through the smoke, armor gleaming wetly in the light of burning mana.
Rian tightened his grip, but the man was already moving.
There was a blur, then a flash.
Rian never even felt the cut—just the sudden cold blooming across his stomach, the weight leaving his knees. He looked down and saw the world sliding sideways, the line of the horizon splitting in two.
He understood, dimly, that he was dying.
He thought of Solcarin—the white towers, the soft salt air, the music in the streets—and wondered if the city would still be standing tomorrow. He wished he’d written to his mother. He wished he’d told her he loved her.
Then the Murai’s shadow passed over him, and everything went black.