Chapter 151

The cold in the Northern Reaches did not merely hunting spear. He was barely sixteen, his breath coming in ragged, terrified plumes.

“Twelve,” Vaelen replied, his voice barely louder than the howling wind. “Ten foot-soldiers wearing the mark of the Iron Sun. One commander in plate armor. And one…” He paused, narrowing his eyes as he spotted the figure standing near the village well. “…one Weaver.”

Kael swallowed hard. “A Weaver? Here? In a border village?”

“They aren’t looking for grain or silver, Kael,” Vaelen said grimly, adjusting the leather straps of the broadsword strapped to his back. “They’re hunting.”

Vaelen’s hand involuntarily brushed against the inside of his tunic, where a heavy, leather-bound leather ledger rested against his chest. It was cold to the touch—colder even than the air—and vibrated with a faint, rhythmic pulse. The Codex of Forgotten Names. The last remnant of his ruined House, and the reason an entire legion of the Iron Sun Empire had crossed the frost-peaks.

Down in the square, a woman’s scream pierced the wind, followed by a heavy thud and the booming laughter of armored men.

Kael shifted, his legs tensing. “Vaelen, my sister—”

“If you rush down there now, you die before your feet hit the snow,” Vaelen snapped, gripping Kael’s shoulder with a hand of iron. “Look at their formation. The soldiers are relaxed, but the Weaver is watching the tree line. It’s a trap.”

“We can’t just watch!” Kael’s voice cracked, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his face. “My family is in that square!”

Vaelen closed his eyes for a brief second. He remembered another square, three years ago. He remembered the smell of burning silk, the roaring flames of his ancestral home, and the sight of his father’s head mounted on an imperial pike. He had stayed his hand then because he was weak. Now, he was no longer weak, but he was still outnumbered.

Survival first, he reminded himself. Vengeance second.

“We aren’t going to just watch,” Vaelen said, opening his eyes. They glowed with a faint, iridescent amber—a momentary slip of the sealed power within him. “We are going to butcher them. But we do it my way.”

Vaelen pulled a small, glass vial filled with a shimmering black liquid from his belt. He unstoppered it, the acrid stench of sulfur and void-weed immediately filling the air.

“Take this,” Vaelen instructed, handing the vial to Kael. “Circle around to the southern windbreak. Toss this into their supply wagon. The moment it hits the oil barrels, run back to the ridge. Don’t look back. Don’t stop to fight.”

Kael looked at the vial, his hands trembling. “What about the Weaver?”

“The Weaver is mine.”

Ten minutes later, Vaelen moved like a ghost through the treeline, his boots making no sound against the deep drift. He had suppressed his inner mana entirely, masking his heat and heartbeat—a technique learned from the shadow-hunters of the Red Waste.

In the center of Oakhaven, Commander Varos stood over the kneeling villagers. Thirty survivors, mostly women and children, were huddled together, shivering uncontrollably.

“I will ask only once more, old man,” Varos rumbled, his voice echoing from inside a visor shaped like a snarling lion. “The boy who came through here yesterday. He carried an heirloom. Where did he go?”

An elder villager, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead, spat on Varos’s steel boot. “The snow covers all tracks, Imperial dog. May the frost take you.”

Varos chuckled darkly, lifting a massive, two-handed warhammer. “The frost is welcome to try.”

Before the hammer could descend, a deafening BOOM shattered the silence.

A pillar of pitch-black fire erupted from the rear of the village. The supply wagon detonated, sending iron shrapnel and burning oil raining down on the soldiers. Two foot-soldiers were instantly engulfed in dark flames, screaming as they thrashed on the ground.

“Ambush!” Varos roared, turning toward the explosion. “Draw steel! Form a perimeter!”

In the chaos, the Weaver—a tall, gaunt man wrapped in obsidian-colored robes—didn’t flinch. Instead, he raised a slender silver staff, his pale eyes tracking the treeline. “A distraction,” the Weaver murmured, his voice sounding like dry leaves rustling. “The target is already here.”

The Weaver turned, but he was a second too late.

A shadow detached itself from the smoke behind him. Steel flashed in the firelight.

Clang!

A shimmering barrier of translucent force materialized an inch from the Weaver’s neck, deflecting Vaelen’s downward strike. The force of the impact created a shockwave, blowing away the surrounding snow.

“Found you, remnant of House Valerius,” the Weaver sneered, stepping backward as his staff began to hum with purple light. “The Emperor will pay handsomely for your head.”

Vaelen didn’t waste breath on words. He twisted his grip, kicking out with his heavy boot to strike the Weaver’s chest. The magical barrier absorbed the blow, but the momentum sent the mage stumbling back into the open snow.

“Protect the Weaver!” two Imperial soldiers shouted, rushing toward Vaelen with raised shields and spears.

Vaelen lunged forward. He sidestepped the first spear thrust, catching the shaft beneath his arm, and slammed his sword’s pommel directly into the soldier’s visor. Steel crunched, and the man went limp. Using the falling soldier as a shield, Vaelen kicked off his body, vaulting into the air as the second soldier lunged.

Mid-air, Vaelen released his suppressed mana.

A dark, suffocating pressure washed over the battlefield. The runes etched along the spine of his broadsword lit up in a terrifying shade of crimson.

System Notification: [Skill Activated: Crimson Edge (Level 3)]

Effect: Physical attacks convert 30% of damage into armor-piercing Void Energy.

With a clean, horizontal sweep, Vaelen’s blade sheared through the second soldier’s steel chestplate as if it were parchment. Blood sprayed across the snow as the man collapsed.

“Mage-killer!” Varos screamed from across the square, charging toward Vaelen with his warhammer raised high, his heavy armor thundering against the frozen earth.

Vaelen ducked under a bolt of lightning fired from the Weaver’s staff. The bolt struck a nearby wooden post, instantly vaporizing it into ash.

I have to finish the Weaver before Varos reaches me, Vaelen calculated in a split second. If I get sandwiched between a heavy brawler and a range-caster, I die.

Vaelen reached into his chest pocket and tapped the Codex.

System Notification: [Warning: Consuming 20% of maximum Mana. Opening First Seal: Shadow Step.]

A sharp pain shot through Vaelen’s brain, like a hot needle piercing his temple. His vision flickered, turning black and white. Time seemed to slow.

The Weaver was already casting another spell, a ring of frost expanding around his feet. “Die, rat!”

Vaelen vanished.

In his place, only a cloud of black mist remained.

A millisecond later, Vaelen materialized directly behind the Weaver, stepping out from the mage’s own shadow cast by the burning wagon.

“What—?” the Weaver gasped, his eyes widening in pure horror as he felt the icy breath of death against his ear.

“Your barrier only protects the front,” Vaelen whispered.

Before the Weaver could turn his staff, Vaelen drove his dagger directly up through the base of the mage’s skull. The silver staff slipped from the Weaver’s lifeless fingers, clattering onto the ice. The purple light faded from his eyes, and the corpse crumpled into the snow.

“Wizard!” Varos screamed, now only ten paces away. The commander jumped into the air, bringing his massive hammer down with all the weight of his enchanted armor. “I’ll crush you into meat paste!”

Vaelen couldn’t dodge in time; the shadow-step had left his legs temporarily numb. He raised his broadsword horizontally, bracing the back of the blade with his left palm.

CRASH!

The force of the warhammer’s impact felt like a falling mountain. The ground beneath Vaelen’s feet cracked, sending spiderwebs of ice fracturing across the square. Pain exploded in his shoulders, and he tasted copper as blood welled up in his throat.

“You’re fast, boy!” Varos grinned beneath his lion visor, pushing down with immense physical strength. “But raw steel can’t hold against Imperial High Alloy! Break!”

Vaelen’s sword groaned under the pressure, micro-fractures appearing along the crimson-lit edge.

“You talk too much,” Vaelen coughed out, his eyes flashing amber once more.

System Notification: [Absorbing spell-residual from killed enemy: Weaver (Tier 3).]

Mana restored by 40%.

Skill Cooldown Reset: Shadow Step.

Varos’s eyes widened behind his visor as he felt the boy’s resistance suddenly double. “What?”

Vaelen didn’t try to overpower the hammer. Instead, he let his knees buckle slightly, angling his blade to slide the heavy hammerhead off to the right. The sudden loss of resistance caused Varos to overextend, his massive body lurching forward.

Vaelen dissolved into black mist once again.

Varos hit empty air, his hammer burying itself deep into the dirt. “Coward! Show yourself!”

“Behind you,” a calm voice echoed.

Varos spun around, swinging his elbow in a wild arc, but Vaelen was already inside his guard. With a fluid, terrifying precision, Vaelen drove the.