The upper corridors of Castle Opes had plunged into complete chaos. The tremor had cracked the entrance vaults of the noble wing in two, collapsing rubble and raising dense clouds of lime dust. Alarm bells chimed at regular intervals from every tower a dark, pounding knell cutting through the smoke and panic-saturated air.
Amidst the chaotic coming and going, dozens of royal guards in light armor were trying to herd the terrified servants and courtiers toward safety exits and outer ramparts.
Hayjin and Zhilian forced their way at full tilt through the fleeing crowd, their faces beaded with sweat and their weapons drawn.
"Out of the way! Make way!" the princess shouted, exerting her royal authority despite the disarray.
A squad of royal guards, led by a veteran with a gray beard and armor scarred from falling debris, halted the moment they saw her, planting their boots and bowing their heads in salute.
"Your Highness Zhilian!" the veteran exclaimed, his voice raspy from the dust. "We must escort you out of the castle! The east wing is collapsing, and horrific sounds are echoing from the dungeons!"
"Absolutely not!" Zhilian cut him off sharply, her hand firm on the hilt of her sword. "You men will come with me and Hayjin. We must reach the Sage Council Chamber immediately!"
The soldiers exchanged bewildered, deeply uneasy glances.
"The... the Council Chamber?" one of the younger ones ventured, swallowing hard. "Your Highness, we can only hope nothing terrible has happened to the Sages... And besides, we don't know where Captain Wilder is... He hasn't been seen on patrol for hours... Without him, we don't know who is directing the defense on the lower floors!"
"There's no time for explanations! Just follow me!" Zhilian ordered, waiting for no reply as she broke into a run toward the dark staircase.
Before they could take the stairs leading down into the tower, a slight figure burst out of a side corridor, narrowly avoiding a butler carrying a heavy chest of parchments on his shoulder.
It was Wren. Her royal gown was smudged with soot at the sleeves, her hair disheveled, her eyes wide with anxiety.
"Zhilian! Hayjin!" the girl called out, skidding to a halt a few paces from them, out of breath. "What is happening?! The castle is shaking and evacuation orders were given without warning! What was that roar from the east wing?"
Hayjin grabbed her shoulders before she could step closer, staring straight into her eyes with near-ferocious intensity. "Wren! Listen to me carefully! You need to run. Now!"
Wren flinched, startled by the roughness of the boy's grip. "But... Hayjin, what are you..."
"No 'buts'!" Zhilian interrupted, her voice cutting over Wren's with absolute authority. "Wren, obey Hayjin! You must get to safety immediately! Outside the palace, in the lower gardens or toward the southern ramparts! The situation in the dungeons is completely compromised!"
Wren looked first at her sister, then at Hayjin, reading a blind terror on both their faces that she had never seen before. She instantly understood there was no room for questions.
"All right..." the girl said, clenching her fists and swallowing her fear. "All right, I'll go! But I won't just sit idly in the gardens. I'll help the royal guards and the stewards assist the injured in the main atrium!"
"Fine, do what you must, but stay far away from the dungeons!" Hayjin yelled to her before turning his back and sprinting down the stone staircase alongside Zhilian and the squad of soldiers.
As they descended into the bowels of the castle, the situation in the dungeons had descended into an unspeakable slaughter.
Wilder had reached the absolute limit of human endurance.
The captain wheezed, leaning his blood-soaked shoulder against the cracked stone wall. His lungs burned as if he were breathing ash and crushed glass. Sweat, mingled with his own blood and the nauseating black filth of the beasts, beaded across his forehead and plastered hair over his eyes.
The monsters never stopped emerging from the shadows. By the dozens, by the hundreds, they poured from crevices in the collapsed wall and from shadow portals that continued to tear open in midair with a sound like ripping silk.
Fortune dictated that Wilder's roars and the clash of his steel guided Zhilian, Hayjin, and the royal guards through the terrifying ruins of the east wing.
When the group finally burst into the great Council Chamber, the sight before them drained every drop of color from their faces.
The chamber was utterly destroyed, devastated, reduced to a crater of rubble and shattered beams. No trace remained of the carved wooden benches or the centuries-old tapestries. Everything had been pulverized, buried beneath a thick coating of lime, congealed blood, and smoking viscera.
"My God..." the guard veteran muttered, bringing a hand to his mouth while his helmet trembled visibly. "What... what happened here?!"
"Listen!" Hayjin exclaimed, raising a hand to demand silence.
From the deepest, darkest recesses of the chamber, where the secret rooms of the Sages' archives lay, echoed a hellish symphony of guttural roars, gnashing fangs, and the desperate, metallic sound of a blade crashing repeatedly into hard flesh.
The youths and the soldiers picked their way cautiously into the secret rooms for several minutes, carving a path through rubble and smoke-choked corridors.
And then they saw him.
At the far end of an immense circular hall, bathed in a gloom pierced only by eerie violet flashes, hundreds of deformed creatures were swarming a single figure.
Wilder was a bloody ghost.
The captain's left arm was gone torn away at the shoulder, leaving a ragged, frayed stump from which red blood gushed in torrents, soaking his entire side and forming a vast pool beneath his boots. The right socket of his face was a hollow, bleeding cavern, scarred by a claw slash that had taken his eye and part of his cheek.
He stood by sheer miracle, his remaining right hand death-gripping the hilt of his greatsword, swinging blind, desperate slashes to keep a tide of monstrous flesh at bay.
Of Arkon, there was no sign.
"Captain!" shouted one of the royal guards, taking an impulsive step forward.
The soldier's shout drew the attention of a pack of deformed beasts at the edge of the swarm. Three disfigured wolves, their jaws split down the middle to expose their neck vertebrae, snapped around and caught sight of the newcomers. With a visceral grunt, the monsters charged on all fours directly toward the royal guards.
"Back!" Zhilian roared, leaping past Hayjin and throwing her hands wide into the air.
A golden, pure, incandescent burst of light exploded from the princess's palms.
BOOM!
Two roaring shockwaves of radiant light impaled the beasts midair. The impact was brutally violent: the bodies of the three monsters literally exploded from the inside out in a macabre, visceral display. Scorched flesh, dark ribbons of intestine, and splatters of boiling blood hurled against the walls and ceiling, coating the stone in dark, steaming smears.
Hearing the explosions, Wilder managed to wrest himself free from the swarm for a single moment, sinking his blade into the skull of a deformed boar and leveraging the dead beast's weight to force an opening.
"Run!" the captain wheezed, his voice nothing more than a guttural whisper soaked in blood spilling from his mouth. "Run... you damned fools... Get out of here!"
But his words were drowned in chaos. From the side walls of the secret chamber, hundreds more creatures kept pouring in. The tide of monsters was relentless a nightmarish wave of disfigured flesh lunging to bite and trample anything in its path.
Nearby, hovering a couple of meters above a shattered stone altar, the mysterious figure watched the scene in a state of pure, maniacal ecstasy.
Their black mantle billowed as if possessed of its own life. The figure moved thin hands in a convulsive, hypnotic rhythm, opening a multitude of pulsing black shadow portals across the chamber's vaulted ceiling. From those dimensional rifts slithered increasingly abominable, disturbing, and grotesque creatures: limbless entities dragging themselves by their jaws, massive wolfs with warped human faces uttering spine-chilling wails, and mounds of flesh covered in eyes that fused together.
Wilder collapsed to his knees. Massive blood loss and superhuman exertion forced his right leg to give out; his sword slipped from his fingers, clattering into the crimson pool.
Seeing him fall, Hayjin didn't hesitate for a second. "Zhilian! Cover me!" he shouted, lunging forward and diving straight into the rubble to reach the captain.
Then, something entirely inconceivable occurred.
As Hayjin sprinted frantically toward Wilder, crossing paths with dozens of those abominable beasts, the creatures paid him no mind whatsoever. Monsters rocketed past him, roaring inches from his face, yet completely ignored his presence instead swarming with blind, bloodthirsty rage toward the royal guards and Zhilian.
A giant hound clamped its jaws around one royal guard's throat, tearing away his entire trachea with a single, gruesome wrench. Blood fountain-sprayed across his comrades' faces as the soldier collapsed, choking on his own vital fluids, before being torn to shreds and devoured by three other beasts swarming over him.
Zhilian tried desperately to advance to reach Hayjin. "Hayjin! Come back!" the princess cried, but a solid wall of monsters blocked her path, forcing her to unleash constant bolts of light to defend herself and the surviving soldiers.
Hayjin dropped to his knees beside Wilder, grabbing him by the collar of his armor with trembling hands.
"Wilder! Wilder, look at me!" Hayjin yelled, trying to haul him up. "You have to get up! We have to get out of here!"
Wilder slowly raised his remaining eye. The sight of the boy before him twisted his face into a contortion of unspeakable, agonizing inner torment.
"Hayjin..." the captain murmured, blood running down his split lip. "I'm sorry... Please... forgive me..."
Hayjin frowned, bewildered by those words uttered at death's door. "What the fuck are you talking about?! Get up!"
"I'm sorry... for not being brave enough to kill you..." Wilder breathed.
Hayjin froze solid. His heart skipped a beat, his grip on the captain's collar hardening like stone. "What... what are you saying?"
Aware that life was slipping through his fingers and the end was inevitable, Wilder resolved to reveal the raw, ruthless, definitive truth.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Wilder..." Hayjin demanded, shaking him in desperation.
"It's... it's all my fault..." Wilder confessed, tears carving clean trails through the crust of blood and dirt on his battered face. "It's all my fault... I listened to Arkon... I trusted him..."
The captain released a muffled, broken sob.
"Arkon convinced me you were a danger to the kingdom... a threat to the princess... to Wren... And I... I was ready to kill you. I was prepared to murder an innocent boy just to protect the people I love... I stooped to committing an abominable crime..."
Wilder closed his single eye, weeping with absolute, devastating sorrow, his voice cracking with regret.
"And look how it ends..." the captain sobbed. "Dying like an animal in this filthy hole... Without proving to my father the knight I had become... Without saving anyone... I'm sorry, Hayjin... Forgive me... I haven't changed at all... I remained the exact same miserable coward I always was..."
Hayjin stood petrified.
Wilder's words echoed in his head like an explosion. Truth loomed with blinding, terrifying clarity: Wilder was not merely the strict, suspicious Captain. Wilder was the man designated as his executioner. The one who was supposed to drive a blade into his back.
Shock and a veiled, profound sadness tangled in Hayjin's chest. He looked at this broken man stripped of an arm, robbed of an eye, weeping like a helpless child in his arms and found himself unable to feel even a single grain of hatred.
"Wilder..." Hayjin whispered, his voice trembling.
Wilder reopened his eye, fixing him with a final, desperate spark of resolve.
"Run..." Wilder told him, reaching out with his bloody right hand to clamp tightly onto Hayjin's. "You must run... Keep Wren safe... Protect Zhilian... Protect them all... in my place... I beg you!"
Wilder summoned superhuman strength from the final reserves of his broken body. With terrifying effort, he hauled himself to his feet, dragging Hayjin up with him.
"Move! Go!" Wilder roared to Zhilian and the two surviving guards.
With his right hand still locked in Hayjin's, Wilder led the group in a desperate dash toward the main exit of the Council Chamber.
Along the way, creatures tried to block their path, but Wilder, wielding his greatsword with his single remaining arm, delivered devastating slashes slitting throats and cleaving through beasts that were overwhelming Zhilian and the soldiers.
Reaching the oak door of the main entrance, Wilder shoved Hayjin and the others past the threshold.
"Get out! Now!" the captain roared.
Wilder seized the massive iron ring of the door and hauled it shut with his entire body weight, sealing the main hall and throwing the heavy external deadbolt into place. The act temporarily contained the horde inside, buying them precious seconds to flee.
As they sprinted breathlessly through the dark corridors of the east wing, Wilder began to stumble.
The captain looked down at his body. He could feel life draining from him in heavy ebbs: blood kept pumping from his severed arm stump, the vision in his single eye was rapidly dimming, and his skin had turned a deadly, ashen gray.
He realized no healing magic in the world could save him now. His end had arrived.
Wilder came to an abrupt halt, leaning against the stone wall.
"Run..." he wheezed, arresting Zhilian and Hayjin with his remaining arm. "I can't go on... I'll buy you more time... Go!"
"No! Not a chance!" Hayjin shouted, spinning around and grabbing him by the breastplate. "I'm not leaving you here to die!"
"There's no time, Hayjin!" Wilder roared.
But before they could argue further, the ceiling directly above them partially collapsed.
Dozens more abominable creatures dropped from air vents and fissures, raining down upon the group. Two royal guards were overwhelmed and mauled instantly before their eyes, their shrieks of agony choked out by the crunch of breaking bones.
One beast a deformed wolf of terrifying size leaped from a scaffold, landing square on Wilder's shoulders from behind.
The creature's jaws gaped wide and bit down on Wilder's sound shoulder with brutal violence. With a horrific, visceral tear of flesh and snapping tendons, the monster ripped away a massive chunk of meat, exposing the stark white bone beneath.
Wilder let out an inhuman howl of agony a roar that shook the corridor. Yet he did not fall.
With one last monstrous effort of raw willpower, Wilder spun around, drove his right hand into the beast's throat, and plunged his service dagger straight into its eye, driving steel into its brain until the creature collapsed dead to the floor.
Wilder turned to Hayjin and Zhilian. His face was now a blood mask, his single eye completely bloodshot.
"RUN! IMMEDIATELY!" the captain roared with the last breath in his lungs. "THAT IS AN ORDER!"
Hayjin and Zhilian exchanged a single, desperate look. Knowing that staying would only render his sacrifice meaningless, the two turned and sprinted full speed down the corridor.
As she fled, Zhilian could no longer hold back. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, washing over her face as she sobbed openly over the loss of one of her most loyal men.
Beside her, Hayjin ran with a frozen face. A devastating storm raged in his chest: absolute shock from the revelation of his intended killer, a veiled yet profound grief for Wilder's fate, and an endless trail of terrifying doubts regarding what Arkon was truly planning.
Behind them, left alone in the ruined corridor, Wilder stood awaiting his end.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over the faint remaining light.
The mysterious figure materialized behind the captain with absurd, inhuman speed.
Before Wilder could even react, the hooded silhouette drove a long black dagger straight into the center of his back, piercing his heart from behind.
The figure twisted the blade inside the wound with near-maniacal, sadistic glee, accompanying the gesture with a shrill, distorted whisper that curdled the blood.
Wilder exhaled a final, choked gasp of blood, the light fading permanently from his eyes.
The figure yanked the blade clear with a swift flick of the wrist and stepped aside.
An instant later, the tide of abominable creatures threw themselves onto the captain's fallen body.
It was a brutally violent frenzy. The monsters fought amongst themselves for Wilder's remains, tearing at his flesh, ripping away his remaining limbs, crushing his chest, and devouring every organ in an explosion of thick blood, entrails, and bestial snarls echoing through the hall.
The mysterious figure, lazily wiping the blood-soaked blade on the sleeve of their cloak, raised their hooded head in the direction the two youths had fled.
With swift, light, completely silent steps, the shadow immediately gave chase after Hayjin and Zhilian into the darkness of the castle.