"Your Majesty," the Imperial Guard said, dropping to one knee, his whole body trembling. Everyone knew of King Daryls reputation as a merciless and cruel man, so bringing him bad news was enough to make anybody shiver.
"The Seer and her sister… have escaped into the land of ghouls," the guard said, sweat already pooling beneath him on the polished marble floor.
King Daryls stopped mid-bite, the grapes in his hand forgotten. His stark red eyes shifted to the trembling man before him. Slowly, a smile curled at the edge of his lips.
"Zarvenik, you've been fighting the war for days. You must be hungry. Come—eat with me," the King said, though the faint luminescent glow in his eyes betrayed the madness simmering beneath his calm tone.
The Imperial Guard banged his forehead against the floor, the impact splitting skin. Blood trickled down. "I wouldn't dare, Your Majesty!"
"Zarvenik," Daryls said again, his voice tightening as his eyes narrowed, fury twisting his features. "How many Knights did I give you for this mission?"
Zarvenik swallowed hard. "Forty-seven, Your Majesty."
"And what," the King asked, his words dropping into a low, animal-like growl, "was your only mission?"
"To capture the Seer at all costs," Zarvenik replied, fists clenched, head bowed low.
"That's why I'm curious, Zarvenik…" Daryls rose to his feet, muscles flexing beneath the strain of his anger. "How does a girl who hasn't even lived a decade slip past forty-seven knights and escape the tower? Did you come all the way here to crack jokes with me!"
Zarvenik's face twisted into something that could only be described as shame. "Your Majesty, it felt impossible. Every decision we made was manipulated, and by the time we realized her influence, she was already gone." He shut his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let out a bitter smile. "In the end… she toyed with all of us."
"How laughable. How utterly humiliating!" King Daryls roared, kicking his throne so hard it exploded into splinters against the wall. The guards standing along the throne room's edge shifted uneasily, sweat trailing down their faces.
"You were outsmarted by a little girl, and yet you have the gall to tell that to me—me, Daryls!" He slammed his boot into the wall, the marble cracking into jagged pieces.
"You imbecile! Castrated son of an idiot! Half-baked parasite! Moon-sucked maggot! Zarvenik!" the King screamed, his voice so sharp and thunderous that Zarvenik felt blood spurt from his ears.
"Now people will whisper that Daryls, the Titan Conqueror, can do everything but capture a child! This shame, Zarvenik—how will you wash it? Tell me, you bastard!"
Zarvenik lifted his sword, pressing the edge to his neck. "I will follow the Imperial Code, Your Majesty. This sword will wash away your shame. All I ask… is that you spare my family."
King Daryls turned, eyes glinting with a dangerous light. "Get on with it, you bastard."
Closing his eyes, Zarvenik coated the blade in Cosmic Dust. The metal glowed a searing yellow, casting light across the throne room. He drew in a long, echoing breath—and then drove the sword into his heart. His eyes rolled back as his body crumpled to the marble floor, lifeless.
Daryls glanced at the corpse with nothing but disgust. He turned toward the guard stationed behind his throne. "Moxten—kill everyone who carries this bastard's name. Leave no one breathing. Then gather a team of knights and head to the Land of Ghouls. I refuse to believe that wretched place cannot be trespassed. Bring me the Seer at all costs. And hear me well—you are not permitted to return alive if she isn't captured. Now go!"
Bowing quickly, Moxten replied, "Of course, Your Majesty," before striding out of the throne room—his steps just a fraction unsteady under the weight of Daryls' burning stare on his back.
The moment Moxten vanished through the doors, a woman entered the hall. It was as if every thread of light in the chamber bent toward her. Not only was she Yulvaris, the Titan Spearmaster, she was—without question—one of the most beautiful women in all Olviren.
Her presence was like a living monument—tall, sculpted, draped in the shimmer of molten starlight. Her skin carried a faint golden hue, etched with glowing markings that curved like constellations across her form.
She strode forward with the grace of royalty, her hair drifting in slow, liquid waves as though the air itself obeyed her. Her deep amber eyes locked on Daryls with cool indifference.
"Finally, my most honored warrior arrives," Daryls said, a grin stretching across his face as he descended the steps of his throne.
"Cut the crap, Daryls," Yulvaris replied, folding her arms. Her glare was sharp, steeped in loathing. "Why did you send for me? Be quick about it. I can't stand another second in your presence. It's sickening."
Daryls' grin only widened, as if her words was music to him. Reaching out a hand toward her face, he whispered, "Oh, Yul… you've learned some truly nasty words—"
"It looks like you're tired of having both your hands intact," Yulvaris cut in, her voice like steel. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be testing how close you are to losing one."
His hand froze mid-air before he withdrew it, still smiling. "My sweet Yuyu… still as fiery as I remember. That's one of the things that makes you so utterly adorable."
Gritting her teeth, Yulvaris's eyes flared a brilliant yellow before fading back to normal. "Don't tell me you called me here just to tempt me into killing you—because it's working."
"While I know that's your deepest desire, sweetie," Daryls said, lowering his voice into one of mockery, "sadly, I'd prefer to keep my head attached to my neck. I wanted us to catch up on old times, but something urgent has ruined our little… bonding session. So why don't you be a dear and go fetch me that Seer?"
Yulvaris's lips curved into a mocking smile. "So, Daryls—the great Conqueror King—can't even capture a little girl."
"Of course I can," Daryls replied, his voice bright with amusement. "That's why I have you."
Her expression soured into pure disgust as she turned toward the doorway. "This will be the last favor my master owes you. Once I'm done, you'd better watch your mouth, bastard."
Her next words were little more than a whisper, but they cut through his mind like a blade: "Because there's no thrill I crave more… than killing you."
A slow grin spread across Daryls' face. "Still as fiery as ever," he called after her. "Careful, or you will set the whole throne room ablaze!" His laughter echoed through the throne room, deep and resounding.
***
There was hardly a soul in the Solvren Galaxy who hadn't heard of Ilarea—the land of ghouls. A realm of death, darkness, and choking gray mists. Bone-white trees whispered with the voices of the dead, and no star dared to shine above it. Only a pale light from its cracked moon lingered overhead, forever trapped in an eclipse. The air tasted faintly of iron, and every step crunched over the remnants of corpses.
The ghouls of Ilarea were cunning, vicious hunters, luring travelers with the voices of their loved ones or twisting their memories until madness claimed them—before feasting. Among them were the Dust Eaters, ghouls capable of draining a Stellari's cosmic dust, leaving nothing behind but rotting decay.
And yet, in this infamous death trap, two little girls walked as if strolling through a harmless playground.
"Lunera… you have a plan, right?" the older girl asked, skepticism thick in her tone. "We're safe for now, but stay here too long and the death scent will start to eat at us."
Lunera—the younger of the two—didn't answer. She tilted her head, scratched at her hair, and without a word, wandered deeper into the cursed forest.
"Hey—wait up!" Jenera shouted, running after her while muttering curses under her breath.
Jenera could never quite understand her younger sister. From birth, it was obvious Lunera was not a normal child. Her eyes were stark silver, flecked with golden tints that shimmered like flames. To look into them was to be pulled into a vortex where past, present, and future converged.
But there was something far more dangerous about those eyes. That vortex didn't just draw you in—it shredded your soul, erasing it so completely there was nothing left to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
It was those very eyes that killed their mother and every maiden in their household the moment Lunera was born.
Their father had been broken by grief, but he could not bring himself to kill his child. Instead, he bound her eyes beneath a blindfold and locked her in a tower, never to be seen by the outside world.
Every sunset, Jenera would visit her sister there. That was how she understood that Lunera was a very scary child.
She spoke little, but her gift was unlike anything in recorded history.
Lunera could influence the future.
Seeing the future alone was a formidable power, one that had earned seers their prestige for millennia. But influencing it was something else entirely. Something impossible. Fate was supposed to be fixed. If a seer foresaw your death in three months, then no matter how you prepared, your death was set in stone.
That was the natural order of things, and anything that defied it should not exist. By that logic, Lunera should not exist.
King Velune, their father, tried to hide her ability from the world, but secrets like that never stayed buried. Soon, nearly every major force in the Solvren Galaxy turned its gaze upon them. The fall of their empire became inevitable especially with a father who refused to surrender his child.
That was why Jenera's feelings toward her sister were… complicated. A raw mixture of love and hate in equal measure.
Lunera stopped between two bone-white trees, tapping one of the trunks lightly with her fingers. She then pressed her forefinger to her chin, tilting her head toward the shattered moon above, as if lost in thought.
Jenera couldn't read her expression through the black blindfold, but something in the girl's stillness suggested unease.
"Lunera… is something wrong?" Jenera asked, her voice betraying a flicker of nervousness.
"I… I don't know," Lunera whispered, her childish voice faintly drained. "I just have… this unsettling feeling."
"Well, do something about it," Jenera urged, her eyes scanning the misty forest around them.
Lunera closed her mind to the present. The future unfolded before her like a hall of mirrors, countless realities stretching out in all directions. Her eyes hidden beneath the blindfold glowed with a deep golden light as she focused on the one thread tied to that gnawing feeling in her chest.
And then she saw it.
A reality resonating with her dread where a band of gigantic warriors, the same kind who had killed her daddy, moved silently and deliberately through the Death Land.