1:

  Silvas Anderle, the Sword Warden of Cravess and one of the greatest Aura Knights in the whole nation, stood in the midst of the flaming remains of his castle. It was on a day that would be remembered in the annals of history, a day on which the final duchy that remained of the once majestic Kingdom of Nostura.

  His trusted longblade, a weapon that could only be wielded by Aura Knights, possessing the length and heft of a longsword while maintaining the thickness of a dagger, boasted a total of seven enchantments, marking it as one of the few Myth Grade Artifacts in the entire Kingdom. Vayu’s Whisper, the signature blade of the Sword Warden, fell from his grasp in that moment, landing upon the floor without a sound— for it was no ordinary longblade, the Myth Class Artifact having been forged to be nigh weightless.

  Before Silvas Anderle lay a sea of corpses of both allies and enemies alike, yet even in death they were not granted a peaceful departure. Their remains were aflame due to the remnants of the hateful Black Mana flames that were continuing to burn by using organic matter as fuel. As a Zenith Tier Aura expert not even the collective bombardment of multiple Sixth Circle Grand-Master Mages were capable of bringing him down easily, yet that damnable, detestable black mana was something he had to be cautious of.

  To think that a small coastal region that now called itself an Empire, lacking even a single Sixth Tier Grand-Master, let alone a Zenith-Tier Aura expert, had managed to incorporate the mana of dungeon monsters with their own, resulting in the creation of a new Mana type that had transformed the nation. A discovery that had to have been made decades ago, given not only the proficiency the Cyndran Empire’s Mages used Black Mana with, but also the various artifacts that had been developed around the use of the Mana Type.

  While the world had seen Cyndra as a small nation that survived on their trade of a variety of marine products like water attuned mana stones and aquatic mana beasts, it had revealed its fangs by declaring war on not just one, but all three of the major southern powers that claimed hegemony over the south at once.

  That meant that the Kingdom of Nostura, a titan of the South that had existed for five long centuries and regarded as the strongest nation amongst the three hegemons, had only faced a third of the Cyndran Empire’s forces.

  And yet… they had lost.

  Their Sixth Circle Mages, Grand-Masters that were considered weapons of war capable of devastating entire cities on their own, had been far more skilled than the enemy’s mages, the highest ranked among them merely being Fifth-Circle Masters. Yet the nature of Black Mana allowed even a First-Circle Spell, Mana Bolt, to shatter the complex Magic Circles involved in casting Sixth-Circle Magic.

  The unique properties of Black Mana not only corroded any magic it came in contact with, but its weight was a fourth of regular mana, allowing the Cyndran Mages to overcharge a lower circle spell by a tier. Fifth-Circle Magic Spells cast with an overwhelming amount of Mana still didn’t classify it as a true Sixth-Circle Spell, but when the cast magic also corroded magical defenses and was even capable of eating away at offensive spells, the result was devastating. Prodigious Grand-Master Mages had fallen at the hands of Masters that were not even half as skilled, making it an era where the less talented and less experienced mages were no less than fodder for the Cyndran Mages.

  Fifth-Circle Evocation Spell: The Sin of Gluttony was the wide-area evocation spell that the Cyndrian offensive had cast when the battle had reached a stalemate and any Mages capable of erecting defenses or counter-casting the terrifying spell had already perished in prior wars. Black Mana flames had leapt from knight to knight, the flames only spreading after not only burning the loyal knights of Cravess to a crisp, but also using the organic matter as fuel to jump to more living creatures in the vicinity, directed by the instructions encoded in its spell matrix. Even fifty or so enemy soldiers had been caught by the black flames and another fifty had died upon what had been an organized retreat from the front line, yet that was far from the casualties they were taking on their side.

  A self-propogating spell was terrifying, albeit given the fact that the knights had little to no mana meant that the Black Flames wouldn’t spread more than a few standard lengths beyond the vicinity of the Anderle Castle, that still wouldn’t change the fact that his knights would perish along with the last bastion of the Nostura Kingdom.

  In face of such a cruel and vicious spell that was designed to slaughter his men in the most painful way imaginable, no man who had once been a knight and now was a duke commanding his brothers-in-arms, would stand back and watch such a sight unfold. Killing the caster would not defeat the self-propogating spell, but if all the mages were dead, then they could neither fuel the spell with more mana nor could there be any counter-measures against the mages under his command, weak though they might be, they could surely find a way to diminish the impact of the Black Flames.

  Of course, it was a trap— yet it was one Silvas Anderle had no regret charging towards.

  Of the twelve Master Mages that made up the enemy’s mage unit, not to mention the dozens of Specialist Mages, Silvas had cut down seven. The reckoning for his recklessness had come in the form of a mage disguised as a soldier that had ambushed him from behind with his signature spell, Fifth-Circle Evocation Spell: Solar Ray, a spell that had been developed and refined by the Magic Towers of Nostura and now, used by the traitor, Helmick Verstais.

  The gaping hole in his abdomen was, ironically enough, the work of the very country Silvas had given his everything to protect. Had the spell not been overcharged by Black Mana, giving it the raw magical weight equivalent to a Sixth-Circle Spell and had the caster not disguised himself, worked in tandem with another Master to disguise his Mana Signature and used a spell known for its incredibly quick casting from outside of his domain, he would not have been able to breach a Zenith Aura Expert’s defenses so easily.

  Yet, there was no use complaining about what had already transpired. His knights were either dying or dead and it was all Silvas could do to use his Aura to control his blood flow and keep his heart pumping. All of his thousand knights had been capable of using Aura, however there was a vast gulf between reserve knights that were mostly at the Gathering stage of Mastery with a few dozen at the Foundation Stages as compared to a Zenith Aura Expert’s and only the later was capable of completely resisting a Fifth-Circle Evocation Spell.

  It was unfortunate that he would not live long enough to lure the enemy into the castle, but in all honesty, given the expertise the Empire seemed to have with artifacts, it was unlikely they would have fallen for it in the first place.

  It was without hesitation that he triggered the artifact hidden in one of his pockets, which caused the pride of Cravess, the Anderle Castle to crumble as a series of explosives planted in key areas that contained either valuables, technique manuals or any remaining artifacts to go off. His family had already been evacuated long ago to a foreign kingdom and the servants had been cut loose before the enemy’s arrival, so there was no reason for the Anderle Castle to exist any longer.

  However diminished he was, ordinary brick and mortar had no hope of harming a Zenith Aura Expert.

  It was then and only then, when there was nothing left to fight for, had Silvas Anderle allowed his blade to fall.

  “Make way!” A familiar voice barked out and in response, the enemy knights that had a makeup similar to Anderle’s knights, except they had thrice the number of knights and two dozen Reinforcement Stage Aura Knights alive even after sweeping the entire kingdom.

  A still armoured Helmick Verstais made his way through two rows of fifteen hundred knights, the standard military issue black and gold bronzium armor clearly too large for his gangly frame. His dark-green hair was a curly mop, his otherwise sharp features diminished by his pasty visage. Instead of a wand, Helmick’s medium was a specialised gauntlet that had been designed to match with the otherwise ordinary bronzium armor, another part of the reason why Anderle hadn’t been able to detect his actions even with his domain active.

  Behind him were the five Master Mages Anderle had failed to kill.

  They came to a stop at the helm of their army, still not willing to come too close to Nostura’s last Zenith Aura Master, even unarmed and half-dead as he was.

  From the Black Mana he could detect surging into their mediums, Anderle could tell that the moment he tried to reach for his blade or did anything to arouse their suspicions, he would be blasted by six Fifth-Circle Spells.

  “To think the great Sword Warden of Cravess would go as far as to destroy his own castle,” Helmick said, as his gaze swept across the devastated ruins of a majestic castle. “What a tragedy,” He declared, his tone one of feigned lament.

  Had Silvas Anderle not already lost everything, he would have lunged for the foul mage right then and there. Instead, he recognized the childish attempt at provocation for what it was. The hot, boiling rage that had threatened to consume him across all these hellish years had cooled down into a silent fury in the moment that he, the protector, had nothing left to defend. All that was left was the sharpest blade in the world, tempered to perfection.

  “What do you want?” Silvas Anderle asked, his tone surprisingly devoid of any emotion at all.

  “My mission was to retrieve the Anderle sword forms, but I assume anything of value has been either concealed or destroyed,” Helmick mused aloud, his tone tinged by disappointment. “To lose seven Master Mages and have nothing to show for it, a pity indeed. Don’t suppose you have any intention of telling us where you hid those?”

  Silvas Anderle chuckled at the traitor’s words, before replying in an amused tone, “I’ll tell you.”

  The Master Mages behind Helmick flinched at Anderle’s words, their expressions wary as they prepared their mediums to instant cast their defensive spells at a moment’s notice. Helmick was the only one who remained unphased, his mana reserves still the highest amongst the six mages given that he had only cast one spell since the battle began.

  “My Tempest Codex Art. Grandmaster Andrea’s Silent Casting. The Iron-Blooded Berserker’s Body Cultivation Art. The Traceless Assassin’s Phantom Steps. These three Aura Arts and the one Mana Technique that can truly counter your depraved Black Mana Spells have been sent to every major nation across the continent!” Silvas Anderle declared, as his intense gaze met Helmick’s, where he saw a flicker of surprise.

  “Yours, I can believe,” Helmick said with a shake of head. “But the other three techniques were not even shared with their own disciples— believe me, we asked. And the Iron-Blooded Berserker is a vagabond who refuses allegiance to any Noble Family or Mage Tower, so there is no way he would bequeath his life’s work to you.”

  Silvas Anderle laughed boisterously as he watched the expressions of the five Master Mages that were standing behind Helmick change—- shock, confusion, dismay and denial were the expressions shared amongst them and even Helmick’s otherwise unflappable visage twitched in response to his laughter.

  “So, you shared a few arts and techniques of dead men and women,” Helmick retorted, his features contorting into a frown. “It is of no import. You call our Black Mana depraved, but you forget that it was your own mage towers that were desperate to unlock its secrets. No world power can prove that the dungeons are the work of an ancient Eight-Circle Archmage that had used taboo magic, or they would already have the justification needed to invade us. As long as we share some of our research on Black Mana, an artificially created Mana type, enough to reduce the threat we pose to them without giving away our core secrets, the world will acknowledge our hegemony over the south.”

  “That black mana of yours drives mages to slaughter civilians and burn towns to the ground and yet you have the audacity to claim that it isn’t taboo magic. Preposterous!” Silvas Anderle replied with a sneer.

  “Any Mage that reaches the rank of Master can overcome those side-effects,” Helmick calmly replied. “That is enough justification for the world to embrace Black Mana instead of declaring it taboo. The discovery and knowledge of a new Mana Type is worth more than turning the south into rubble and dividing the scraps that remain. And you know it.”

  Silvas Anderle’s expression turned grim at Helmick’s words, for he knew the truth that lay in his statement. It did not matter if a new Mana Type came with a compulsion to slaughter, as long as there was a way to overcome those side-effects. The discovery of each new Mana Type had come with countless ways to use it for the welfare of one’s nation, let alone the multitude of applications in artifact creation and other types of research— the sheer wealth a discovery like this could create was enough of a bribe to acknowledge the Cyndran Empire’s hegemony over the south, especially after he had given them the tools to fight back against Black Mana. Yet, it wouldn’t buy the Cyndran Empire peace forever—- as long as they remained in the lead when it came to their understanding of Black Mana, eventually the hunger of the other nations would drive them to act against them. It was only a pity that the reckoning would be delayed.

  “I answered a question of yours. If you have any honor left, answer one of mine in return,” Silvas Anderle said, noting that his control over his Aura was slowly faltering.

  Helmick remained silent for a moment, before he nodded and said, “Very well. Ask.”

  “Why?” Silvas Anderle asked. “What did Nostura do to you, for you to go this far? Had it not been for your betrayal, the Cyndran Mages would not have defeated our Grand Mages nearly as easily. So… why?”

  The mask of calm that Helmick wore finally cracked, as his gaze filled with fury and his expression contorted into one of hate, “The third prince,” He spat out. “Were you familiar with him?”

  “A Fourth-Circle Mage. We’ve only met in passing,” Silvas Anderle replied, his tone a little uncertain as he was taken aback by hatred that was shining in Helmick’s eyes.

  “The bastard had asked me to swear fealty to him, back when the race for succession hadn’t been called off,” Helmick revealed, his tone trembling with fury. “I told him I would consider it and the third prince told me to consider his offer carefully before departing. I saw no reason to get involved in the schemes of the Royal Family, so I offered my neutrality instead and swore to him in my reply that I would not ally myself with any succession candidate. Three days later, my only sister was found dead, the supposed work of bandits,” His voice was quaking with fury as he made the revelation.

  Silvas Anderle silently listened as a corner of history that was unbeknownst to him was revealed.

  “I tracked all those bandits down and slaughtered them all. A mage was covering their tracks, which made the whole affair more difficult than it should’ve been. I killed him, too and upon searching his person, I found a coded letter that was written in standard Nosturan Military Code. It was him. And this is my vengeance!” Helmick declared, his arms outstretched as a display of the ruined castle and the sea of corpses whose final resting ground it would be.

  “Then you should have limited your vengeance to the third prince,” Silvas Anderle replied, not a hint of pity in his tone for Helmick’s sob story. “If it was even him that did it. The evidence you have would not hold before a court of judgement.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Helmick snapped back in an angry tone. “Now, this has gone long enough. As one who has reached the pinnacle of Aura, as the Sword Warden of Cravess and the last Zenith Aura Expert of the soon to be fallen Kingdom of Nostura, do you have any last words?”

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  Silvas Anderle’s gaze swept across the arrayed army, more interested in the three thousand knights that made up the force than the despicable mages. They might have been the enemy, but they had not made use of the depraved Black Mana and as such, were not victims to its side-effects. They were knights, a title that could only be earned in the heat of battle, by confronting life and death battles until they unlocked their force, only to push themselves further to grow.

  They deserved to hear his last words.

  “Hear me, Knights of Cyndria!” Silvas Anderle’s voice boomed outwards, enhanced by his Aura so that all knights present could hear him. “I am Silvas Anderle, the Sword Warden of Cravess and the last remaining Zenith Aura Expert of the Kingdom of Nostura. Across the last three years of this bloody war, many have tried to kill me. Grand-Master Mages far greater than I and Zenith Aura Knights many decades senior to I have fallen before me. I have survived, time and time again and now, I stand alone in this Kingdom. Do you know why?” He boisterously asked.

  There was a pindrop silence as the three thousand knights waited in anticipation for his answer, no doubt hoping to gain some enlightenment from a senior that stood at the pinnacle of the path that they had chosen to walk, enemy or not.

  “It is because I am a sword,” Silvas Anderle simply stated.

  Silvas Anderle was many things, but a genius he was not. His talent was below average and that was simply the truth. Enlightenment was a spiritual experience that most mages and Aura users came across at least once in their life, but Silvas Anderle had not experienced it even once in his tragic life. That meant that his Aura Sword Art, The Tempest Codex, was something that he had refined by practicing tens of thousands of times and risking his life on the battlefield, in the dungeons and against mana beasts, relentlessly in pursuit of the blade.

  But it was not until all his men had died, lit aflame by the cruelest of black mana spells, his knights that he had trained through blood, sweat and tears, the camaraderie he had shared with them, the kingdom he had crazedly fought for and bled for—- it was not until Silvas Anderle had lost everything he cared for and wished to protect, did he experience enlightenment.

  Silvas Anderle was a fucking joke. The pendant he wore was a proof of that, one of two family heirlooms of the Anderle family, a supposed gift from a god before all of them had departed their world. A pendant that had done nothing for seven generations of his family and did nothing now— undoubtedly proof of the fact that the gods were mocking his very existence.

  Only after losing everything had Silvas Anderle gained the power to cut anything.

  He had let go of his Myth Grade Artifact, because he had no need for such an inferior tool. He had blown up his own castle, because everything the Anderle Castle stood for had already been erased from the world and so it no longer needed to exist. In doing so, he had caused the enemy to let down their guard and approach him freely. Once, Silvas Anderle would have seen that as an act of subterfuge, yet now he no longer cared.

  “SHIELDS!” Helmick roared at the top of his lung as Silvas Anderle swung his empty hand in a wide arc, his hand still held gripping onto a sword that was no longer there.

  All the Aura remaining in his body simply vanished as Silvas Anderle finished swinging his hand, a pitch black dome now standing where the six Master Mages including Helmick had stood.

  Fifth-Circle Abjuration Spell: Nyx’s Umbral Aegis cast by six Master Mages, all of them concentrating their spells into one aegis and overcharging it with Black Mana, could easily defend against even the blow of a Grand-Master Mage. And it had, many times across the war.

  Silvas Anderle’s voice was barely above a whisper as he spoke.

  “Tempest Codex Art, Final Form— Formless Sword.”

  The Overcharged Fifth-Circle Spell shattered with a light plink, revealing the horror stricken faces of the six Master Mages that were hiding within, including Helmick.

  “Mon…ster,” Helmick croaked out as his upper and lower body separated cleanly, falling in opposite directions.

  The same instance played out across the battlefield, including the other five Master Mages and the three thousand knights in presence, the attack from a half-dead Aura Master being outnumbered three thousand and six to one.

  With all the Aura having left his body, Silvas Anderle could no longer use it to keep his heart pumping and prevent the blood from spilling out from the hole in his abdomen. Yet, he had a smile on his visage as he started to fall backwards, the last vestiges of life draining out of him.

  Zenith Aura Expert was not the pinnacle of Aura usage and yet, neither was formless sword. Yet it was a step in the unnamed realm that existed beyond Zenith, a glimpse at an entirely new world beyond his knowledge.

  That would have to be enough.

  Or so Silvas Anderle thought, when the world froze.

  There were many Grand-Master Mages that were capable of killing him, despite the fact that a Zenith Aura Expert was a far rarer existence and even at the peak of the Kingdom of Nostura’s power, only a mere ten individuals had been able to reach the stage, with Silvas Anderle being the last amongst them. For magic offered versatility in a way that Aura could struggle to compete with and mages who were born with affinities for multiple mana types or the less common affinities about which little information was available, were a nightmare to deal with in a battle.

  Silvas Anderle had experienced many Grand-Master spells from a close distance, thankfully not having been targeted by any of them. He had witnessed power that should have been beyond the capability of any mortal, spells of incredible skill and calculation that the word talent could not contain and yet, none of those compared to what he was witnessing before his eyes.

  His lethal wounds that were ebbing away at the final vestiges of his life no longer numbed his body, as death’s hold over him completely relaxed. He tried to move, but not a single muscle in his body responded. Even without his Aura, two and a half decades of fighting experience told him that it was neither Aura nor mana that was responsible for restraining him.

  It was something else entirely and he was frozen in place, unable to even cause his eye to twitch in response to the incursion. The same was true of the enemy’s army, not that even a single one of them had lived to tell the tale— but some bodies were still suspended mid-air in a grotesque display, while the scene spoke of a dreadful stillness matched by a chilling silence that was clearly unnatural.

  Whether everything in the wide area was suspended by some sort of unknown energy or if time itself had stopped, was a fascinating question, but one that mattered little to a man ready to die.

  Given that he was the only one in the vicinity drawing breath though, Silvas Anderle had a feeling the unknown entity responsible for the phenomenon wanted something from him.

  “Traces of Divine Mana have been detected,” A serene voice revealed in his mind, shocking Silvas Anderle without warning.

  He couldn’t speak and resistance in his state was futile, so instead he thought about the question he wanted to ask, Who are you?

  “A being that once resided in this world. A fragment that now resides in your pendant,” The entity answered.

  A God? Silvas Anderle instinctively thought. Were my ancestors' words true after all?

  “Nothing so grand. Merely an ascendant,” The serene voice answered. “But our time draws short. As the inheritor of this pendant, I will grant you one wish if it is within my power.”

  Why now? Silvas bitterly asked, even though he could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

  “The greatest of protections are reserved for the gravest of threats,” The Ascendant answered. “You fell to the work of a magic that contained the faintest of traces of another ascendant’s divine mana, thereby meeting the conditions for activation.”

  You mean black mana? What’s different about it?

  “It is not something that belongs to this world,” The Ascendant replied. “If enough of it proliferates in this mortal world, it will perish.”

  What? How does that make any sense?

  “It is the work of a malevolent ascendant, one that could not normally interfere in the workings of this world. However, if enough mortals accept his power out of their own volition, then the ascendant will be able to send an avatar into this world.”

  Despite clearly being out of his depth, Silvas Anderle still asked, What happens then?

  “The world perishes. Primordial Life Essence is one of the most valuable resources in the upper realm and even though restrictions will be placed on the avatar, no one will be able to stop them from destroying this world.”

  You said you would grant me any wish? Silvas asked.

  “If it is within my power,” The ascendant answered.

  Kill everyone that uses Black Mana and extinguish it from this world, Silvas Anderle made his wish without hesitation.

  “The Divine Mana contained within this fragment is not enough to accomplish this request. Even if it was, I cannot engage in the mass slaughter of mortals without accruing significant negative karma. Thus, I would have refused regardless,” The ascendant answered.

  If Silvas Anderle could flinch, he would’ve done so, for what kind of god offered a wish only to refuse him when he asked? Instead, he calmed the frustration that welled up in his heart as he considered what to request.

  “You have five minutes left to choose a wish,” The ascendant added. Damn it, Silvas thought. Why is the cost so high for my wish?

  “Interfering with the work of another ascendant’s divine mana exponentially increases the cost involved.”

  What can you do then? Silvas asked, far more brusquely than he had intended to.

  “My speciality is Temporal Magic. The spell I am sustaining to keep you alive is Eighth-Circle Transmutation Spell, Eternal Zero. As such, any requests tailored to my speciality will be easier and more efficient to execute.”

  The revelation that Eighth-Circle Magic even existed, not to mention, Temporal Magic was possible, should have shocked and awed Silvas Anderle, but he found that he couldn’t much care about that given his present circumstances.

  Can you stop this… malevolent ascendant from spreading any more of this Black Mana in this world?

  “I am a fragment, an insignificantly small part of a whole. That request is only something my main body can grant, so for all intents and purposes, influencing the upper realm is beyond my capabilities.”

  Of course it is, Silvas Anderle bitterly thought. He was running out of time and he needed to make a decision now.

  Send me twenty five years back in time. I’ll slaughter them myself and stamp out Black Mana from this world before those Cyndrian bastards destroy it, Silvas Anderle asked, hoping that the request that fell in the category of this supposed Temporal Magic.

  “The available Divine Mana in this fragment can send your present memories back in time by nineteen years, eight months, fifteen days, twenty two hours and fourteen seconds, albeit with a stipulation.”

  Silvas Anderle was surprised that his request was even possible, but that stipulation gave him a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.

  What’s the stipulation?

  “You can choose one person to inherit all your memories of this life, as long as they are still alive during the specified time period. But it cannot be you as such overt interference will lead to the destruction of the time-space continuum of your mortal world.”

  Are you fucking with me? Silvas Anderle asked, as fury rose in his mind. I have fought relentlessly against this world-ending threat and this is how you wish to reward me? By asking me to die?

  “You are already dying and the destruction of this mortal world is not my concern, I am a mere fragment that is acting out of a promise made to your ancestor. Given the traces of divine mana I detected being used upon you, I suspect that the malevolent ascendant involved in this matter is stronger than even my main body, so I am taking a risk in interfering in this matter. So choose Silvas Anderle, descendant of Delphi Anderle.”

  Taking a moment to calm himself, Zenith Aura Expert Silvas Anderle accepted that he was going to, for all intents and purposes, die.

  Despite the interference of a literal god, even if it went by a different title, he was still going to die.

  It was a fitting end for the joke of the gods.

  So Silvas Anderle cast aside his fury for the heavens and instead, thought of who could do the most good with his memories of the future without falling to the grave temptations that came with knowing the future.

  There were Grand-Master Mages he could have his memories transferred over to and they would likely succeed in stamping out the threat of Black Mana. But he knew few of them well enough for such an intimate transfer and moreover, he knew mages. Their thirst for knowledge was an endless river and once they discovered the existence of eighth-circle magic, they would stop at nothing to find a way to use it.

  Would they really use the inheritances contained within his memories and the sheer advantage that knowing future discoveries could snowball into for good? Even if they stamped out the Black Mana and the Cyndrian Empire, the only thing keeping Grand-Master Mages’ ambition was each other and the Zenith Aura Knights.

  A Grand-Master Mage armed with knowledge of the future would be unstoppable and even Grand-Master Andrea, who he trusted the most amongst all of them, would not be free of the temptation that came with their newfound power. Would they really continue bowing to the royal family? Would they destroy Black Mana or try to use it to commune with the malevolent ascendant?

  The Grand-Master Andrea he knew was tempered by the loss that came with war but the one in the past knew no such strife.

  So who could he trust? Who could he trust that also had the talent and drive to save the world? The Royal Family? Certainly not. His fellow Zenith Aura Knights? No, they were only one step away from becoming tyrants themselves.

  The Iron-Blooded Berserker? He craved too much battle for Silvas Anderle to trust him with the task of saving the world and his true allegiances and always been split.

  The Traceless Assassin? He was a bonafide killer that would never have turned to our side had it not been for the loss of his wife.

  He could trust none of them, except…

  There was one. A prodigious talent that had squandered it.

  His best friend, who was only a distant memory in his mind.

  He died twelve years ago, having taken an attack in a dungeon that was meant for Silvas.

  The pompous Grand-Master mages were talented, monstrously at that, but none of them had that same brilliance he had seen in the third young lord of the Dukedom of Velmoria, the Northern Wall that protected the entire Kingdom from invasion, facing constant skirmishes against the Central region’s Seven Sect Alliance of which the Iron-Blooded Berserker had been once a part of, not to mention the occasional mana beast waves from the Grimhallow Forest that separated the North from the Centre.

  Lucan Velmoria had a terrible reputation. He was a drunkard, he was cranky on most days, he was easily annoyed at the smallest things and lashed out at those close to him when he was hurting and he also cried at night sometimes, in his sleep. He was neither noble in bearing, nor did he have the grace and refinement that was expected from the heir apparent of Velmoria, a title that ended up going to him despite being a bastard born to a common-born mother.

  Yet the more he thought about it, the more Silvas Anderle became certain about it. The story Helmick had told him was more suspicious the more he thought about it and Silvas’ gut told him that it was possible that it wasn’t the third prince that had ordered his sister’s assassination, but the Cyndrian’s instead. It made sense, for they had gained the loyalty of a fifth-circle mage that could win them the Kingdom of Nastura while the third prince had gained a mortal enemy and if that were true, the Cyndrian Empire’s true strengths were far greater than Silvas knew it to.

  Might alone couldn’t win wars and the more he thought about it, the more suspicious certain events in the past that had resulted in their defeats became.

  Lucan Velmoria didn’t give a single fuck about political power. He didn’t give a damn about reaching the pinnacle of magic and he certainly wouldn’t care about making contact with some malevolent ascendant or the power black mana could get him.

  There were only three things he’d ever known Lucan to care about. His mother, the maid that was also his closest and only friend within the Velmoria Estate and his half-sister that he went berserk over. Well that and his small circle of misfit friends. He and Helmick were very similar, except there were two differences. The first was that Helmick’s talent couldn’t hold a candle to Lucan’s. The second was that while Helmick would destroy a nation to avenge his sister if it came to it, Lucan would destroy the world and slaughter an ascendant if that’s what it took to save the four things he cared about.

  If there was one man who would amass enough strength to kill a god if that’s what it took to save the world, only to walk away from that power once its use was fulfilled, that was Lucan Velmoria.

  I’m sorry, old friend, but you’re the only one I can count on, Silvas Anderle thought. Don’t worry about the ghosts of the past too much, just do what you want. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, you damned genius. Oh and for fuck’s sake, Cynthia is heads over heels in love with you, you blooming idiot. If you fumble it twice, I swear on the god in my head that I will come back to life and take your head myself.

  “Is your decision to choose Lucan Velmoria final?”

  The debt of a life has been paid. Yes.