The sound of gold coins striking the marble floor echoed through the high-ceilinged chamber, sharp and clear in the tense silence. The Moon-Faced Knight stood motionless, his white mask unreadable, while the guards at the door exchanged uneasy glances. Before them, Braxen feverishly tossed coins, goblets, miniature statues, and jewel-crusted trinkets into a small chest—his plump hands moving with greedy urgency.
A soldier stepped forward, heaved the overflowing chest with a grunt, and carried it away. Another guard brought in the next, setting it down with a metallic thud. Braxen immediately resumed his frantic work.
"My lord," came the calm voice of the knight.
It was the same man whose face remained hidden behind that blank, featureless white mask—save for the dark eyeholes.
Braxen's glare snapped toward him. "I hired you because you're one of the Titled Knights," he spat. "They might have fifty experts, but you should be able to handle them. If I lose all that I've worked for, I shall have you gutted."
With that, he returned to transferring his wealth, the clinking and rustling of treasure continuing as the room filled with tension.
Then, hurried footsteps echoed from below.
A soldier burst in, his armor scratched and bloody, chest heaving.
"My lord, they're at the gates!"
Braxen's eyes widened. "Moon, let's move."
He turned at once, sweeping across the room with long, determined strides toward the far wall. But when he glanced back, expecting his knight to follow—he saw only stillness.
The Moon-Faced Knight had not moved. He stood perfectly still.
"What are you doing?" Braxen barked, venom rising in his voice.
But the knight didn't reply. Without a word, he leapt over the balcony rail and vanished into the chaos below.
Braxen's breath caught. His fat fingers, covered in gold rings of various sizes, curled into trembling fists.
With a furious snarl, he spun around and stomped toward a massive lion statue resting against the wall. He pressed a loose brick nearby, and the stone beast groaned aside, revealing a hidden passage carved into the wall.
Heavy grinding sounds filled the room as ancient stone shifted.
He and his remaining men disappeared into the shadows beyond—and the wall sealed shut behind them.
Some moments later, Braxen emerged from the hidden tunnel into one of Antioch's inner districts—only to be met with a vision straight out of a nightmare.
Stormdrakes, soldiers with cloaks whipping behind them like storm-churned waves, moved with ruthless precision, cutting down everything in their path. They weren't men—they looked like they had risen from the depths of the sea, a relentless tide swallowing the land.
Men and women in velvet robes, some of whom Braxen had dined with, traded with, or betrayed in passing, screamed as they were slaughtered. Their pleas for mercy echoed through the burning air, but mercy never came. Braxen watched one of his old associates, Lord Halvis, fall to his knees and cry for his life, only to be silenced by a spear through the throat.
Hadn't the freemen begged that way before they were taken and turned into slaves? The bitter thought flashed in his mind, unbidden.
This was the elite district—the heart of Antioch. Only the noble bloodlines and their chosen lived here. Walled, guarded, revered.
And yet, the Stormdrakes were already here.
Had the city fallen so fast?
He raised his gaze, a mix of disbelief and dread flooding his face.
Atop a three-story manor, a man in full black armour stood tall, silent as a shadow. His horned helm, curved like twin obsidian blades, marked him as a warlord. A longsword rested in his right hand, and a shorter, blade in the left. Blood dripped from both, streaming off the edges like rainwater from gutters.
Though the man wasn't looking at him, Braxen felt seen—exposed. As if this black knight had eyes not just in his helm, but in the air itself.
He knew, without being told, that this was him. The one who broke the inner city gates. The one who carved through diamond-ranked knights as if they were children wielding sticks.
The pressure on his chest grew unbearable.
With a sharp breath, Braxen's irises shimmered. His body began to swell—flesh bulging grotesquely, bones cracking and elongating until he stood over three meters tall. Gold rings burst from his thickening fingers and clattered to the cobbles below. His silk robes split at the seams.
The sudden appearance of the abomination, threw the nearby Stormdrakes into alert. A dozen soldiers tightened formation, shields locking together with precision as they advanced toward the giant, eyes narrowed and weapons steady.
"That..." came a voice, cold, quiet, and entirely unimpressed. "Was a foolish way to reveal yourself."
Braxen spun toward the sound—too slow.
He was already above.
Mid-air, descending like a champion of war, both swords drawn back. With a roar, he brought them down in a cross-shaped swing, unleashing two titanic beams of silver-black light that tore through the air.
Braxen's eyes widened. In that moment, despite his raw power and monstrous form, he remembered something crucial—something that all true warriors understood.
There was a skill called output.
And he hadn't mastered it!
Outside Kronos, one of the fortified cities of Everard Island, stood five thousand strong—the Gray Knights. Towering rat beastmen, each over seven feet tall, their dense musculature coiled beneath layers of gray plate and fur-lined cloaks. Their heavy, broad-bladed swords were plunged into the earth, the hilts gripped in silence as they bore witness to the inferno.
Before them, the city burned.
The flames roared with such intensity that the very air shimmered. Smoke curled into the sky like the arms of fallen gods, and within the heart of the fire walked a creature born of myth and nightmare—a giant white wolf.
His fur gleamed in hues of pale silver, black and white, flames licking at his sides without ever touching him, as though fire itself bowed in reverence. Blue flames surged across buildings, wrapping the city in an otherworldly blaze that devoured all with judgmental fury.
And yet, amidst the chaos, there was mercy.
Those who bore no ill will toward House Ashbourne—those who saw them as their saviours, the slaves. They stood in the courtyards, in the alleys, on rooftops, staring wide-eyed at the beast that had come like a divine reckoning.
A king among monsters. A lord among wolves.
The white wolf paused, piercing gaze sweeping across the ruined skyline. Then, with a final flick of its tail, it turned and leapt effortlessly over the burning gates, walking toward the Gray Knights.
Galanar, commander of the Gray Knights, exhaled slowly and stepped forward. With a grunt, he pulled his greatsword from the ground.
"Gray Knights," he said, voice calm as a grave. "To the next city."
Without a word, the army turned in perfect unison. Five thousand rat beastmen pivoted left, marching down the ashen trail with heavy steps that made the earth tremble.
The message had been made clear—
All of Everard will burn.