There was a time when the Empire, its forces, its might, its name, went unchallenged. A time when even whispers of rebellion were drowned before they reached their second breath. That age was known as the Golden Era, when Verdun ruled not just the continent, but the very definition of power itself.
For five thousand years, this land has had only one empire... but that 'Golden Era' I spoke of, that era has long ended.
The threats now are no longer whispers. They scream.
First came the fires of rebellion — the Winter War, the Bloodfrost Uprising, and five others that scorched the north and northwest. Then, the corrupted beasts. Then, the vanishing of the Nmanas. And now... the Wraiths.
"Huh?" I halted mid-step.
The scenery ahead — the city, the defensive lines, the very path to Varis — looked… wrong.
From my vantage point on the final cliff before the plains, everything should've looked familiar. But instead, the world before me was dimmed, shaded unnaturally. It wasn't a shadow. It wasn't fog. It was as if the landscape had been veiled, split in two. One side is clear. The other? Swallowed in dusk.
I felt it in my bones. My hand clenched.
Snowhite shimmered into existence — its cold, familiar hilt wrapping around my palm like an old truth.
This wasn't a hallucination. Not a trick of exhaustion. Not paranoia.
Something was wrong.
I stepped closer. The divide between light and dark wasn't natural. It was too clean. Too precise. Like a veil separating rainfall from dry skies, I stood on the edge, at the line itself.
Mana flared around me, sharp and alert.
"A veil… no. A shroud," I muttered. "Which means—"
I summoned my armour again. The plates clamped to me like a second skin, like a loved one's embrace, steadying my pulse. This battle wasn't over.
No wonder the knights were late…
If this was what I suspected — a dome of silence and sight distortion — then no wonder no one arrived. My entire fight had been sealed off. Buried in silence. This shroud… it wasn't meant to trap noise.
It was meant to trap me as well.
I studied the veil closely. It was thick — flexible even. Not like glass. More like dense fog compressed into a surface. It pulsed slightly as I approached, reacting to my presence. My armored fingers reached forward. The surface pushed back — pliable, resistant, but not immovable. Like clay or stretched leather. Or a water balloon, waiting to burst if too much pressure was applied.
"What is this…? Spatial distortion? No... maybe Physical Spatial Isolation?" I muttered under my breath. The questions came too fast to answer. But answers could wait.
Escape could not.
CRACK.
The veil fractured like ice under pressure as Snowhite, reinforced by concentrated mana, carved a narrow path through it.
A way out.
But I didn't rush.
The resistance... was unnatural. Deliberate. As if even now, something waited, watched.
I didn't have time to admire the craftsmanship of whatever the hell this was. I needed to leave, I decided.
Mana surged beneath my heels, pooling in my calves, ready to launch me full speed toward Varis.
The crack in the veil had started to regenerate. Flowing back into place, like molten obsidian folding into itself. The exit—closing.
I bolted.
But just as I took my first step —
Something flashed.
A black orb.
No bigger than my fist.
Right at my feet.
It pulsed once.
The mana it gave off— It was familiar.
And undeniably dangerous.
SHIT.
BOOM!
The orb exploded point-blank.
I barely managed to adjust my stance, compromised from nearly dashing forward, before the blast hit me like a collapsing mountain. My arms shielded my face on instinct, but the force launched me hundreds of meters backwards. I crashed into the earth, rolled, bounced — the sky, the ground, the sky again — over and over in a blur of chaos and searing pain. I could hear the crackling of my own bones within the armour, could feel my skull slam into something solid — a rock, maybe.
The tumbling finally ended when that same rock halted my momentum, absorbing the last of the kinetic hell I'd endured. I lay there, face-first in the dirt, my body half-broken and my breath ragged.
Mana pulsed from my core, the signal instinctual. My storage ring answered, and my headgear shimmered into my hand.
I shouldn't have, but I reached out with my senses — and instantly regretted it.
There were more of them.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
I froze as the information flooded in. The area around me was littered with orbs — mana bombs — drifting silently, moving in unpredictable rhythms. One hovered dangerously close, just above me, lingering as if sensing me through my core's faint circulation.
ABSOLUTE ZERO.
I shut down my mana rotation. Cut it off completely. My core went still — an artificial death. My body froze with it, heartbeat pounding like war drums in a hollowed-out chamber. The orb, confused or perhaps now indifferent, floated away.
I exhaled silently.
Looking up, I saw them clearly now — glowing, silent sentinels of destruction. Some were small, almost the size of my fist. Others were enormous, pulsing, unstable masses of pure explosive mana. They floated at random, some drifting, some perfectly still, all glowing with that ominous inner spark.
The atmosphere was quiet, but charged. Like a battlefield full of landmines with no ground.
My hand, still trembling, slowly raised my headgear to my temple. The pain was unreal — a burning, tearing ache laced with fire. My arms were wrecked. The armour fractured, the bones beneath likely broken, the skin beneath the metal barely recognisable.
As the headgear slid into place, there was a moment of blindness — that half-second where my vision was obscured between layers.
And that was when I saw it.
A massive orb.
Floating just above me.
Right above my torso.
Close. Too close.
The kind of close that turns people into red mist.
It hovered there, silent, menacing, like it was waiting.
I didn't blink. Couldn't afford to. I counted the shivers crawling down my spine. My every instinct screamed to move, to run, to cry — but I waited. I held my breath.
The orb didn't move.
Couldn't sense me... not completely.
Maybe my mana suppression was working. Maybe it was blind to movement and only responded to energy pulses. Whatever the case, it hadn't detonated yet.
How?
How did these things even get here?
My senses are exceptional. Exceptional. I walked this terrain minutes ago. Not a single pulse. Not a flicker. Nothing.
Was I deceived?
Or were they always there, hidden in the same shadows the Wraith disappeared into — invisible unless disturbed?
As my thoughts spiralled, I inched my body sideways, away from the orb. It followed. Slightly. Not a lot — just enough to make me curse the gods.
It could hear.
Or sense pressure.
But I don't see. Thank the stars.
SPARKLE.
A shimmer lit the inside of the orb — the kind that ignites your nerves and dilates your eyes. It was about to explode.
No time.
REPEL.
Telekinesis surged to life. I forced my core to spin again — violently — and the backlash hit me like twin sledgehammers to the temples. Still, I channelled it, launched the orb skyward.
But it was too late.
The orb reacted the moment it sensed my mana. It detonated mid-air, sending shockwaves in every direction, including straight down.
I threw up a shield of raw mana, skidding across the broken earth, dodging the brunt but still feeling the heat and force smash into my ribs.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
They were all going off now.
Each explosion was surgical, vicious, throwing shockwaves through the terrain like divine artillery. My armour cracked. Chipped. Blew apart into fragments. I kept moving, stumbling, ducking, rolling — trying to avoid a kill-shot.
And then—
One got through.
A smaller one. Sneaky. Nimble.
It hovered right above shoulder level.
I didn't sense it in time.
I saw it flash.
White. Blinding white.
Like the sun itself was detonating next to my head.
BOOM.