Chapter 6: The Man I Must Find

Raviah remained frozen at her mahogany desk, her thumb repeatedly caressing the dark ink of the final name written across her ledger.

Rhyder Drakeheir.

The letters felt heavy, almost sacred, standing in sharp contrast to the ugly venom she felt toward Zachary Taylor and Carmela Bane.

"Who were you really?" she whispered to the silence of her room, her voice barely carrying over the quiet hum of her computer.

In her former life, his face had been obscured by mud, ash, and the blinding flashes of his terrifying elemental aura. She remembered only his armored shoulder, the sharp line of his jaw, and the warm blood dripping from his brow onto her face before the world exploded into dust.

She had been too broken, too naive, and far too preoccupied with surviving her ex-boyfriend’s betrayal to realize who had saved her.

Opening a fresh browser window on her military-grade encrypted laptop, Raviah typed his full name into the search bar.

She expected standard military records, perhaps a handful of heavily redacted news articles from the lower defense divisions. Instead, the search engine returned thousands of verified high-level clearance results that made her heart drop into her stomach.

"Supreme Military Commander... Eastern Defense Division?" She read the primary headline aloud, her voice trembling slightly.

She clicked the topmost press archive, watching official high-resolution photographs load across the monitor. Rhyder stood at full attention in an immaculate, obsidian-black dress uniform adorned with prestigious combat medals, his expression stone-cold and completely unreadable.

Another image showed him standing atop an armored command vehicle during a mass mobilization exercise, his wide shoulders cutting a imposing silhouette against a dusty horizon.

Raviah reached out, leaning close to trace the sharp angle of his jawline on the glowing display screen. There was no mistake. Those piercing grey eyes and that formidable stature belonged to the stranger who had thrown himself into a swarm of razor-clawed Zergs to shield her.

Her eyes scanned rapidly through the official biography published by the Department of Defense. Rhyder Drakeheir was an anomaly, having shattered every historic milestone by rising to the rank of full General before his thirty-second birthday.

He was listed as an apex tactical mind, famous for commanding high-risk border evacuations, domestic disaster relief efforts, and classified counter-threat operations.

"You weren’t just a soldier," she breathed, her mind reeling as she pieced together his true background. "You were one of the most powerful military officers in the entire country."

Continuing her research, Raviah bypassed standard media features and dove into public defense procurement logs and regional logistics registries. Within minutes, her sharp medical mind began identifying a suspicious pattern hidden beneath routine bureaucratic paperwork.

Over the past three months, General Drakeheir had personally signed off on massive, quiet requisitions of emergency grain, medical antibiotics, heavy-duty industrial generators, and concrete fortification materials.

She pulled up a secondary regional report detailing military construction permits. Rhyder had quietly expanded several underground defense vaults in the mountainous perimeter and authorized massive multi-branch military storage operations.

Raviah leaned back slowly against her chair, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the desk edge. "He isn’t just following orders... he’s building a fortress."

In her past life, she had believed humanity was totally caught off guard by the sudden awakening of mutated beasts, Zergs, and volatile Elementals. But looking at these financial and logistical footprints, she realized the truth was far more complex.

The top brass might not have understood the apocalyptic magnitude of what was coming, but General Drakeheir had clearly caught the warning signs early and acted on them.

She dug deeper, attempting to trace his current location through active deployment orders. Security walls flashed red across her screen, blocking her from viewing classified real-time troop assignments.

However, an unclassified regional press notice caught her eye. The Eastern Defense Division was hosting a joint civil-military disaster response drill later this week.

The staging site was a massive military installation located in the neighboring province, less than eighty miles from her current position.

Raviah froze, her breath catching in her chest as she reread the deployment location three times. He was coming here. The man who had given his life to save hers was practically on her doorstep.

A wave of overwhelming emotion surged through her, a bitter mixture of profound relief and crushing guilt. If Rhyder was already aware of the impending doom and possessed the resources of an entire military division, why had he perished in the muddy ruins of a fallen sanctuary?

The answer hit her like a physical blow. In her past life, he hadn’t died because he was weak. He had died because he broke formation to save a foolish, helpless doctor who had been left behind by her traitorous ex-boyfriend.

"You idiot..." Raviah choked out, tears burning the back of her throat as she closed her eyes.

She remembered the fierce warmth of his blood dripping onto her face, the weight of his body protecting her from falling debris, and the raw authority in his voice when he commanded her to live. He had thrown away his tactical command, his fortress, and his life just to buy her a few extra seconds.

Raviah abruptly stood up, pushing her chair back as a cold, dangerous resolve replaced her sadness. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and looked down at her notebook.

"Not this time," she vowed, her voice echoing sharply against the bedroom walls. "I won’t be a burden you have to die for."

She walked over to her wall-mounted planning board, where maps of the surrounding province and lists of stockpiled supplies were pinned alongside blueprints for her fortified farm. She took a red marker and drew a bold circle directly around the military base listed in his deployment orders.

In six months, the old world would end, but her preparations were already moving forward. She had the medical skills, the spatial domain, and the future knowledge to build a kingdom capable of surviving the worst monsters.

"General Drakeheir," she whispered, capping her marker with a firm click. "You saved my life once, but in this life, I’m coming to find you first."