"He who bears the Fang does not conquer with numbers.
He conquers with certainty — and that is what terrifies the world."
— The Shattered Hymn of House Dawnspire
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I.
The moons bled pale light over the continent of Val'Khora. Where once their glow brought omen and myth, now they brought fear — for all the world knew:
The House of Embersong was no longer myth.
It was movement.
It was momentum.
And it would not be stopped.
News of Reginal's growing force spread like wildfire across kingdoms, passed from merchant tongues to royal courts, from dying priests to whispering generals. The Council of Brands, wounded by the loss of Aerodahl's prized weapon — the Fang-Eater — formed an alliance unlike any seen in a thousand years:
> The Jade Covenant.
Five elite Brand Houses, bound by mutual fear and fragile pride, pledged to crush the House of Embersong before it could root itself deeper into the bones of the world.
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II.
The Five that Rode to War:
🜁 House Thryssa — Masters of the storm sigils, sky-knights riding thunderbirds, wielding lightning-spears that split trees in a blink.
🜃 House Velgarn — Earthbind giants, born of stone and blood. Their warriors chanted to the rhythm of earthquakes, fists heavier than hammers.
🜄 House Lunara — Moonblood witches from the Shimmering North. Known for illusions, poisons, and blades laced with dream-sleep.
🜂 House Vaelrix — Fireborn zealots, all red armor and flame-tongued sermons. They set their enemies ablaze before the blades even fell.
☉ House Maldrik — The Strategists. Cold. Calculating. Masters of binding pacts and war-forged summons. Their army was part magic, part machine.
Together, they descended like five blades from heaven.
And they meant to erase Reginal from the pages of time.
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III.
Gravemount stood silent as the drums of war echoed across its jagged cliffs.
Inside the war hall, Reginal stared down at the Embermap — updated with shifting magic to reflect troop movements and energy surges. Red lights flickered at five points. Five armies. Five fronts.
Kammy leaned against a bone-carved pillar, sharpening her twin-blades, one eyebrow raised.
> "They think we'll scatter."
Milo spit on the stone floor, cracking it.
> "Let them come. I've been needing a reason to bleed again."
Reginal remained still.
> "We don't scatter…" he said.
"…we split."
---
IV.
The Battle of Five Fronts:
Kammy led a strike against House Lunara, infiltrating their moonlit camp during a false truce. She danced through their illusions like flame through mist, slicing throats and stealing sigil runes mid-fight. By dawn, their witches had fallen… whispering her name in terror like a ghost-curse.
Milo met House Velgarn head-on — no strategy, no trickery. He fought with only his gauntlets and his pain, howling like a wounded god, driving their mountain-kin into the valleys. He broke the jaw of their chief with a headbutt and wore it as a necklace until the last soldier fled.
Reginal himself did not face one House — he faced three.
With only a hundred elite Emberborn, he struck the warcamp of Thryssa, Vaelrix, and Maldrik in the dead of night — not to win. To divide.
Lightning rained. Fire roared. Constructs screamed.
And Reginal laughed.
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V.
The Crimson Fang Ascended.
In the heart of battle, Reginal shed his armor — not to weaken, but to evolve.
From his flesh emerged tendrils of molten sigil-blood, reshaping his body into a form few could look upon without their minds unraveling. His wings were not wings — they were blades. His eyes burned glyphs into those who dared meet them.
He cleaved through Thryssa's sky-knights, one by one, dragging them from their birds and using their own spears to pin their generals to the earth.
He faced the Fire-Lord of Vaelrix, took a blade of pure flame through the gut… and kept walking.
> "You're fire," he said, eyes burning.
"But I am the match that lights the world."
He devoured the Fire-Lord's sigil, tore his essence into his armor, and turned his flame against Maldrik's machines.
What remained of the Maldrik force fled — and their contracts burned themselves out of existence.
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VI.
By the second moonrise, the war was over.
The Five had fallen.
Not in battle… but in belief.
They had seen something ancient.
Something that could not be branded, chained, or killed.
> Reginal was not a warrior.
He was a tide.
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VII.
Back in the halls of Embersong, Reginal stood before his people. Blood still dripped from his armor. His blade, the Bloodborne Edge, pulsed faintly in its sheath.
He did not speak long.
> "They sent five houses to break us."
"Now five kingdoms kneel."
"And if the rest do not… let them know…"
He raised his hand, and flame erupted behind him, shaping into the sigil of the Crimson Fang:
> "We are not seeking peace.
We are not defending land.
We are building a world that will never bow again."
The hall shook with roars.
Kammy smirked. Milo howled.
The House of Embersong was no longer rising.
It was marching.
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[End of Chapter V]
Chapter VI – "The Blood-Forge and the Blade-King" coming next…