The world outside didn't notice.
They never did.
Not when silent wars were fought with paper smiles and polite murders in five-star boardrooms.Not when one name on a document could destroy empires.
And definitely not when a man like Chess Golding picked up the phone and made one call.
Three days after the gala fallout, Silas Kade sat in his private tower — KadeCorp Heights, in the city of Virelith.He'd been quiet. Too quiet.
His secretary, Miss Deyan, tapped her pen nervously. "The stocks—"
"Recovering," he cut in.
"And the board?"
"Panicking," he said, eyes cold.
But she noticed it — the twitch in his jaw. The tension in his spine. The way his fingers hovered over his desk like he was waiting for something… or someone.
Silas hadn't left the tower in seventy-two hours.
Because something had changed since the Gala.
Chess Golding had moved.
And Silas didn't know how, when, or where the next blow would land.
But it would.
Meanwhile, at a quiet tea shop in the lesser-known district of Lo'enna, Chess sat across from an old man — bald, sun-spotted, and half-blind.
"Master Hulo," Chess said quietly.
The old man didn't look up.
"Ah… so the tiger came down the mountain after all," he said in a raspy voice.
"I need your help," Chess said.
A silence fell between them.
Master Hulo slowly poured tea into two cups. One cracked. One flawless.
"You shouldn't have called me," he said. "You were never meant to step back into the circle."
Chess looked down into his cup. "They made it personal."
The old man's hands stilled.
Then he said:"You want one of the Hidden to move in the open?"
"No," Chess said, smiling faintly. "I want three."
Elsewhere, Elsa Jefferson walked through Jefferson Global's main research hub, heels clicking sharply.
She'd changed.
Something about the last few days had shifted her. Hardened her.
No more playing nice with vultures. No more defending Chess from whispers.
She pulled her lead engineer aside.
"I want a full audit on the AI division," she said. "Pull everything. Even the backups."
"Why?" the engineer asked.
Elsa turned.
"Because I'm not my grandfather," she said. "And I'm not afraid of what I'll find."
Behind her, the shadows seemed to whisper:
She's learning.She's dangerous now, too.
Back in KadeCorp Heights, Silas heard a faint click at his window.
He turned.
No one.
Then — a sound behind him. A whisper of movement.
He grabbed the pistol under his desk and spun around—
—and found himself face-to-face with nothing.
Just cold air.
Then… a card.
Lying on his desk.
Pure black.
One symbol embossed in gold:🜂 — the Fire Mark of the Celestial Fang Sect.
He froze.
"No…" he whispered.
Only the Five Hidden carried that mark.
But they'd vanished decades ago. Erased from modern history. Legends, whispers, nothing more.
Silas looked out the window again.
And somewhere in the distance, standing atop a rooftop with wind in his hair, was a man in a black hoodie.
Watching.
Waiting.
Unmoving.
Chess Golding.
That night, Elsa found him on their penthouse balcony.
"You've been out," she said.
"Needed to stretch my claws," he murmured.
She leaned beside him, brushing his hand with hers.
"You're not the man I married," she whispered.
He glanced at her, the city's lights dancing in his eyes.
"I've always been this man," he said. "You just didn't need him yet."
She squeezed his hand tighter.
"And now?"
"Now," he said softly, "the monsters think I've forgotten how to roar."
Far away, in a dark temple hidden beneath the Eclipse Mountains, a bell rang once.
A figure in red robes looked up and said:
"The Heir of Golding walks again."