The dim chamber of the royal palace stood cloaked in heavy silence. Moonlight filtered through towering crystalline arches, glinting faintly off the obsidian-black armor of the man standing in the center—King Laco—his figure obscured in silhouette, like a living monolith carved from wrath itself.
Before him, Varel crumpled to one knee, clutching his throat and gasping for air. His breathing was ragged, strained—lungs desperate to remember the rhythm of life after being suspended by the neck like a weightless child.
He looked up slowly, sweat beading his brow, lips trembling.
"…Are you really… King Laco?" he finally rasped. "Or… or have you become something else?"
Laco's eyes shimmered—a cruel starlight buried in shadow.
"I owe you no answers," he said, voice cold, controlled, and thunderous. "You've spent too long playing games beneath my nose, Varel. Whispering lies while wearing my banner. Meeting in secret. Aligning with forces you do not understand."
He stepped closer, the faint hum of raw energy vibrating the marble floor beneath his boots.
"The summit you dared to host without me… will proceed. But you will not command it. I will. Every decree will pass through me. Every decision will be mine."
Varel's face contorted in helpless dread. "But… the royals, they—"
"They will obey," Laco said sharply, cutting through his plea like a blade. "Or they will fall like the rest."
He turned his back to the trembling man, his black cape fluttering like wings of shadow as he walked toward the towering window overlooking Zelkaris.
"Remember, Varel," he said, his voice now low—deadly calm. "Nothing happens in this star system without my will."
And as the doors closed behind Varel, stumbling away in fear, a dense silence reclaimed the room.
But far away… within the yawning void of Narlak's Maw, amidst the swirling black mist of a forsaken battlefield, Jason suddenly froze mid-step. His eyes widened as if an unseen hand had just gripped his soul.
"…You felt that?" asked Shin, watching him with concern.
Jason nodded slowly. "Yes. Something just shifted. The world… felt like it flinched."
Shin furrowed his brow. "What does it mean?"
Jason's eyes turned toward the horizon. "That day he warned me about… the day I'm meant to act…it's coming. I can feel it now."
The moonlight bathed the shattered ruins of the outpost in a pale, haunting glow. For nearly four days, the team had been stranded here — their mission to deliver emergency aid to the southern rim halted by strange storms and distorted spatial anomalies. Every hour passed like a weight pressed against their shoulders.
Jason sat atop a jagged piece of collapsed stone, his eyes tracing the distant horizon where the stars flickered unnaturally.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
"It's going to be midnight soon… Verdalian," came Rovin's voice, calm yet edged with fatigue.
Jason didn't turn around. "Yep. It is."
There was a pause before he added, "Do you know… some power's been moving? Something vast. Beyond the usual chaos."
Rovin finally sat beside him, glancing up at the sky. "Energy?"
Jason nodded slowly. "Felt it last night. Or maybe the night before. I can't even tell anymore. It wasn't just a flare. It was presence. Like something breathed through the ley-lines of this system. That… thing—it wasn't S-class."
Rovin narrowed his gaze. "How strong?"
"S+ at least," Jason said, voice quiet, almost reverent. "Maybe more. I've only felt power like that once."
Rovin's face tightened. "I believe those kinds of beings don't live here anymore. The ancients are gone… or sealed."
Jason finally looked at him, lips twitching in an unreadable expression. "Oh… okay."
Rovin tilted his head. "Why do you ask like that? What are you thinking?"
Jason's eyes remained on the stars.
"Because," he said slowly, "if they're not supposed to be here… then why did one just wake up?"
Silence followed, stretching long between them as the wind howled faintly in the distance, whispering the secrets of a star system long fractured by forgotten wars.
And somewhere in the darkened void between Zelkaris and Vokar, King Laco stood alone in the command deck of his ship—eyes glowing faintly, as if sensing Jason's words across space.
The wind had settled.
A moment later, a faint metallic clang echoed from behind as Mek'lar approached, his long coat brushing the ground, his breathing still slightly labored but steady.
"I should've said this earlier," he began, voice roughened by age and battle, "but… thank you. For saving my life."
Jason turned toward him, eyebrows raised. "You're welcome, old warrior."
Rovin offered a slight nod too. "We both owe you."
Mek'lar gave a small grunt, then looked out at the jagged skyline. "But we don't have time to rest on gratitude. We've got meetings to prepare across the ten planetary circles. The rebellion's not going to organize itself."
Jason crossed his arms. "Speaking of time… I've been meaning to ask. Mek'lar — you're far older than Rovin, yeah? You don't look like a father and son, more like… well, generations apart."
Mek'lar chuckled dryly.
But Rovin beat him to it. "No, no. He's not my biological father. The old man adopted me when I was around two."
Jason blinked, surprised. "Oh."
Mek'lar grunted again, this time with a softer tone. "Doesn't make him any less my son."
Rovin smiled faintly. "Alright, alright. Enough past tales. We've got tomorrow for that. Let's rest."
Jason, however, hesitated, his gaze shifting to the stars again.
"One last thing," he said. "What happened to your star system? When did things begin to shift? The Royals… they weren't always this way, right?"
There was a pause.
Then Rovin sighed. "No… they weren't. But I'll explain it all to you tomorrow. It started… thirty years ago. That's when the corruption began."
Jason gave a quiet nod.
The wind picked up again, whispering across the broken ruins like a lullaby for the wounded.
Without another word, the three turned and headed toward their makeshift quarters. Tomorrow, truths would be revealed — and with them, the shadows behind King Laco's wrath would begin to take form.