"Move! Move out of the way, you maggots! I bring news from the North!"
The voice cracked across the winds like a whip. Thunderous hoofbeats followed, pounding against the dry, cracked earth as if the ground itself recoiled from the rider's approach. A man clad in black armor streaked down the dirt path, a blur of motion and menace atop a horse just as fearsome as its master.
The beast beneath him was a monster in its own right—jet-black from mane to hoof, with eyes that glowed an ominous crimson. There was no mistaking the bloodline. This was no common warhorse pulled from a stable.
Its very presence radiated aggression, its gallop more akin to a predator's charge than a steed's ride. Each strike of its hooves left shallow craters in the earth, a trail of forceful declaration: something dangerous is coming.
The land unfolded ahead, revealing a towering fortress hewn from obsidian-black stone. Jagged battlements crowned its walls like fangs, and the very silhouette of the place looked as if it might bite the sky.
Soldiers lined the perimeter, clad in dark armor and bearing halberds crusted with old blood. Their presence exuded brutality—but not chaos. These were not mere savages. Beneath the bloodlust in their eyes, there was discipline, a rigid control forged through years of violence and order.
From the main watchtower, a senior guard narrowed his eyes, his sharp gaze following the trail of dust. The shouting rider came into full view, a storm of noise and bravado, flailing like a drunk soldier yelling at ghosts.
"Tch," the man on the tower clicked his tongue, expression curling with disdain. What kind of fool shouts like that so close to the Black Fangs' walls?
All around, guards paused in their routines. Some glanced toward the commotion with thinly veiled annoyance, others with cold amusement. The man's voice was loud, unnecessarily so, as if he believed the world needed to tremble at his presence.
But volume alone didn't earn respect here.
Not among wolves dressed as men.
But then a runner emerged from the side tower, panting and pale, a folded scroll in hand. The senior guard took it, unfolded it with a flick, and his sneer slowly melted into stunned silence.
"Vice Captain of the Scout Regiment…?" he muttered under his breath, eyes darting down to the rider who now circled furiously before the closed gate.
A beat of cold silence passed through the tower.
The Scout Regiment. The first wall against the Beasts of the South. Hardened warriors who operated in the no-man's land, where monstrous things roamed freely. Their vice captain wasn't someone who frightened easily—certainly not someone who would lose composure from mere bandit raids or a rogue beast.
So why now?
Why this man, shouting like a madman, trembling atop that warhorse?
Suddenly, the senior guard's hesitation morphed into dread.
Below, the gates remained shut. The vice captain, breathing heavily, saw the guards still unmoved, still doubting.
His jaw clenched.
There was no more time to waste.
"MARTHENA HAS FALLEN!"
His voice cracked like thunder across the wall.
The air turned still.
A chill surged through every spine on the ramparts. Spears loosened in grips. One guard's hand slipped from his halberd altogether. The name Marthena carried weight—it was one of the Empire's most prosperous and economic strongholds along the northern border.
The senior guard stumbled back a step, his eyes wide.
"Open the gates, damn it!!" the rider bellowed again.
Years of battle instincts surged through the senior guard like lightning. He roared back, voice booming louder than ever:
"OPEN THE GATES! QUICK, OPEN THE GATES!"
The order shattered the paralysis. The gatehouse crew scrambled. Chains groaned as the mechanisms creaked to life. With a chorus of rattling steel, the black gates began to part.
The rider wasted no time. As soon as the gap was wide enough, he kicked his mount forward, a blur of speed disappearing into the heart of the city.
From the watchtower, the senior guard stared at the rider's back as it vanished between the fortress walls. His lips pressed into a grim line, the weight of the moment settling onto his shoulders like an avalanche.
"To fell Marthena this quickly…" he whispered. "What kind of demon is marching toward the Empire?"
He turned sharply to the wall's inner guard.
"Listen closely," he growled. "From this moment forward, none of you are to speak a single word of what you just heard. Not to your brothers. Not to your wives. Not even to your gods. If this leaks to the public before the Duke hears it, I swear, I will see every loose tongue buried beneath this wall."
His eyes were steel.
"And may the Empire help us all if it's already too late."
--------------------------------
"Too late… it's too late to react now."
The voice, aged and brittle like the yellowed pages of an old book, came from an old man dressed in worn servant's robes. His eyes, dimmed by age but sharpened by experience, settled on the man clad in black armor—a man who stood breathless and ragged, mud and blood caking every inch of him. His horse was nowhere in sight. He must've ridden it into the ground.
The old servant shook his head and turned, his gaze shifting to a young man in fine, regal attire, eyes locked on a scroll with a look that mingled disbelief and dawning dread.
"How is this even possible, Father?" the young man asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The question hung in the air, thick and unanswered, as both the servant and the heir turned toward the room's heart.
There, standing at the arched window carved into the mountainside keep, was a man neither young nor old—yet heavy with the presence of both time and war. He stood tall, his posture unbending. One of his eyes had long gone blind, scarred through in some forgotten campaign, yet the other gleamed with brutal clarity. His beard was rough, not unkempt, but uncaring—like a beast that had no need to impress.
He wore black—blacker than pitch—furs draped over his massive shoulders, trailing down like the cloak of a winter god. The air around him felt thick, as if it conformed to his will, pressing down upon the room in silence. His very presence suffocated, the kind of pressure that made one forget to breathe. It was not unlike standing near Kael when his temper boiled—except colder, older, and far more dangerous.
The man turned at last. The servant and the son both stood to attention.
He didn't speak at first.
He stepped forward.
Each step was slow and deliberate, as though the weight of his title and every soul beneath his command bore down on his limbs. The silence stretched until he reached his chair—an ornate throne carved from black iron and dark wood, draped with the pelt of some slain beast. He sat, and the room seemed to exhale.
The old servant, already prepared, stepped forward and lit a long, thick cigar. The man took it, inhaled, and exhaled with the calm of someone used to storms. Only then did his shoulders ease, and his eye open fully.
His voice came low, steady—like a war drum in the deep.
"To crush a rebellion within his own lands in just two weeks… then to rebuild that shattered territory with his own hands and spark an economy within it… and not stopping there—he captures an entire province, defeats the Steelclad Order, and slays a Beast Lord we hadn't even noticed sneaking past our borders."
Smoke curled from his lips like specters rising from a battlefield.
"He's giving the Empire every excuse to question us. No—he's giving them every reason to demand our heads."
A pause.
Then the faintest ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"It seems His Majesty is slowly strangling me alive."
The old servant stepped forward, his worn boots making no sound against the stone floor. He didn't meet the Duke's eye—not out of fear, but respect sharpened by long years in the game.
"No, My Lord," he murmured. "He's not strangling just you."
He paused, and poured the clear tea on the kettle, then said.
"He's tightening a noose around the entire realm. You… you just happen to be the last to feel the rope."
The silence lingered.
"Ha!"