Western Guard Post - One Hour Earlier
Captain Darius Kaine stood alone before the western guard post, his greatsword resting against his shoulder, his cold blue eyes studying the fortress-like structure with professional assessment. The building was three stories of reinforced stone, designed more like a military barracks than a civilian facility. Guard towers flanked the entrance, archers visible on the battlements, and the unmistakable aura of disciplined soldiers permeated the air.
This wasn't a warehouse or a factory disguised as something innocent. This was a military installation operating in plain sight, protected by the very authority that should have been stopping it.
"Captain Darius," Marcus's nervous voice came through the communication spell. "All teams in position. Awaiting your signal to begin simultaneous assault."
Darius didn't respond immediately. His tactical mind was calculating odds, assessing risks, preparing for the inevitable moment when plans collided with reality and adaptability became survival.
Thirty-plus hostiles inside. Military trained. Well-armed. Operating with official sanction from corrupt elements within the city guard. And somewhere in that building, eighteen children were being held prisoner, their lives depending on Darius making the right decisions in the chaos to come.
No pressure.
"All teams, this is Darius," he said into the communication spell, his voice carrying the absolute authority of someone who'd commanded soldiers through a hundred battles. "You have your objectives. Remember the children are priority one. Everything else is secondary. If you have to choose between capturing enemies and protecting innocents, you choose the innocents. Every time. Clear?"
A chorus of affirmatives came back.
"Then let's bring these children home," Darius said. "Execute in thirty seconds. Mark."
He counted down in his head, his enhanced hearing picking up the distant sounds of his team moving into position at other locations. Magnus and Brutus at the eastern docks. Finn and Rhea at the western industrial district. Sera and Marcus at the northern facility. And Prince Ethan's team at the noble quarter, though that one still concerned him.
Five teams. Five simultaneous strikes. One chance to cripple the Velvet Merchant's entire Valisar operation before he could relocate or destroy evidence.
Ambitious. Dangerous. Possibly suicidal.
Exactly the kind of operation Darius had built his reputation on.
Twenty seconds.
He began walking toward the guard post entrance, not bothering with stealth or subtlety. This was his assigned role direct assault, maximum pressure, draw attention while the infiltration specialists did their work elsewhere.
Sometimes the best strategy was to kick in the front door and dare them to stop you.
Ten seconds.
The guards on the battlements noticed him now. Crossbows were being aimed, alarms were starting to ring, and somewhere inside a commander was shouting orders.
Five seconds.
Darius stopped fifty feet from the entrance, planted his greatsword point-first in the ground, and let his aura manifest.
The air around him began to shimmer with silvery-blue energy, like heat waves but cold instead of hot. His blonde hair stirred despite the absence of wind, and the ground beneath his boots began to frost over with geometric precision.
"Iron Dominion," Darius said quietly, and his aura exploded outward.
Unlike most aura manifestations that were flashy and dramatic, Darius's Iron Dominion was subtle in its horror. The silvery-blue energy spread across the ground in perfectly straight lines and right angles, creating a geometric grid pattern that pulsed with mathematical precision. Within this grid, the very concept of durability and hardness shifted.
The ground became harder than steel. The air itself became resistant to movement, like trying to walk through water. And anything Darius touched with his will became either impossibly brittle or impossibly durable at his discretion.
It was an aura of absolute control, of imposed order, of reality bent to military precision.
The crossbow bolts fired at him struck his Iron Dominion field and shattered like glass, unable to penetrate the hardened air around him.
"I am Captain Darius Kaine of the Royal Knights," Darius announced, his voice carrying across the fortress with supernatural clarity. "By order of Prince Ethan Valisar and authority of the crown, this facility is under investigation for child trafficking. Surrender immediately and you will be tried according to law. Resist, and I will execute every last one of you where you stand."
The response was immediate and predictable more crossbow fire, guards pouring from the entrance with weapons drawn, a coordinated military response from soldiers who'd been trained to never surrender.
"So be it," Darius said.
He pulled his greatsword from the ground, and the blade erupted with silvery-blue energy. Where his Iron Dominion touched the weapon, it became something more than mere enchanted steel it became a manifestation of absolute cutting force, a blade that imposed its will on reality itself.
The first wave of guards reached him ten soldiers in formation, shields interlocked, spears bristling between gaps. Professional tactics, proper execution.
Completely irrelevant against Iron Dominion.
Darius swung his greatsword in a horizontal arc.
The blade passed through the interlocked shields like they were made of paper. The metal didn't bend or crack it simply failed to be hard anymore, its fundamental durability negated by Darius's aura. The shields crumbled to dust, and the blade continued through armor, through flesh, through bone.
Five soldiers fell in a single strike, their bodies separated at the waist.
The remaining five broke formation, survival instinct overriding training. But within Darius's Iron Dominion grid, their movements were sluggish, fighting against the hardened air that resisted every step.
Darius moved through them with brutal efficiency. His greatsword was a tool of execution, each strike calculated for maximum lethality and minimum wasted energy. Throat. Heart. Skull. Spine. The vulnerable points were obvious to someone with his training, and his Iron Dominion made their armor meaningless.
Ten soldiers dead in fifteen seconds.
"Next wave," Darius said calmly, his blue eyes cold and emotionless.
Twenty more guards poured from the building, these ones carrying tower shields and forming a proper shield wall. Behind them, archers provided covering fire while a squad of soldiers with halberds prepared to exploit any opening Darius gave them.
Better tactics. More discipline. Still insufficient.
"Iron Dominion: Brittle World," Darius said, and his aura pulsed.
Within his geometric grid, the fundamental durability of everything except himself and his weapon inverted. Stone became fragile as glass. Metal became brittle as dried clay. Even the soldiers' bones became susceptible to shattering from the lightest impact.
The shield wall charged, and Darius met them head-on.
His greatsword struck the first tower shield and the entire thing exploded into fragments, the metal unable to maintain structural integrity within the Brittle World field. The soldier behind it died as the sword continued through his chest without slowing.
Darius spun, his blade singing as it carved through the formation. Each strike shattered weapons, pulverized armor, and destroyed bodies with terrifying ease. The halberd squad tried to flank him, but their weapons snapped like twigs when they struck his Iron Dominion field.
"You can't win this," Darius said, his voice emotionless as he executed another soldier. "Your weapons are useless. Your armor is meaningless. Your tactics are irrelevant. Surrender and live. Continue, and die."
The guard captain a scarred veteran with hate in his eyes drew a runed sword that glowed with its own enchantment. "We don't surrender to crown dogs! This guard post operates with legitimate authority! You're the criminal here!"
"Then you'll die a criminal's death," Darius replied.
The captain attacked with surprising skill, his enchanted blade managing to resist the Brittle World effect through sheer magical reinforcement. They exchanged three strikes, steel ringing against steel, before Darius changed tactics.
"Iron Dominion: Absolute Edge."
His greatsword's edge became atomically thin, a line of pure cutting force that could sever molecular bonds. The next strike passed through the captain's enchanted blade without resistance, the magical sword falling apart into perfectly smooth pieces.
The captain's eyes widened in horror. "What are you"
Darius's greatsword took his head off in one clean cut.
The remaining guards maybe eight still standing finally broke. They dropped their weapons and ran, military discipline shattered by the impossibility of fighting an opponent who could simply negate the fundamental properties of matter itself.
Darius let them go. They were fleeing, no longer a threat, and he had more important concerns.
"Captain Darius, situation report!" Marcus's voice came through the communication spell, sharp with worry.
"Western guard post outer perimeter secured," Darius reported, surveying the carnage around him. Twenty-eight dead, eight fled. "Moving to interior to locate prisoners. Expect heavy resistance."
He strode toward the guard post entrance, his Iron Dominion still manifested, geometric patterns of silvery-blue energy spreading before him like a carpet of controlled reality.
The interior was a maze of corridors and barracks rooms, designed to be defensible and confusing to intruders. But Darius had stormed fortresses before—he knew how military structures were designed, understood their logic, could predict where prisoners would be held based on security priorities.
He moved through the building methodically, his greatsword cutting through locked doors and barricades like they were mist. Guards who tried to ambush him from side rooms died before they could complete their attacks, their weapons shattering against his aura, their bodies falling to precise counter-strikes.
Darius didn't waste time or energy. Every movement was calculated for efficiency. Every strike was aimed at vulnerable points. There was no showmanship, no unnecessary cruelty, just professional execution of enemy combatants.
He was halfway through the second floor when he found the first children.
They were locked in what looked like repurposed barracks rooms, ten children per room, huddled together on bare floors. Their eyes were hollow with trauma, their bodies thin from malnutrition, their hope extinguished by weeks or months of captivity.
Darius's jaw tightened, the only external sign of the rage building beneath his professional facade.
He broke the locks with precise strikes from his greatsword, the doors opening to reveal the prisoners.
"I'm Captain Darius Kaine," he said, his voice gentling despite the blood covering his armor. "Prince Ethan sent me to bring you home. You're safe now."
The children stared at him with distrust born from too many broken promises. One of the older ones, a girl maybe thirteen, spoke with a voice that trembled.
"They said... they said no one would come for us. That we were forgotten. That our families didn't care anymore."
"They lied," Darius said simply. "Your families have been searching. The kingdom has been investigating. And tonight, we're ending this operation permanently." He looked at each child in turn. "Can you walk?"
Most nodded. A few were too weak, would need to be carried.
"Stay in this room," Darius commanded. "Lock the door from the inside if you can. I'm going to clear the rest of the building, then I'll come back for you. Do not leave this room until I return. Understood?"
The children nodded, and Darius moved on, his tactical mind already adjusting plans. Prisoners located, ten accounted for, eight more somewhere in the building based on intelligence estimates.
He found six more children on the third floor, locked in similar conditions. Same speech, same instructions, same promise to return.
But the last two children were different.
The third floor had a reinforced door at the end of a corridor, guarded by four soldiers in heavier armor than the others. Elite guards, protecting something—or someone—important.
"Stand aside," Darius commanded. "Final warning."
The guards drew weapons, their faces set with grim determination.
Darius sighed. "Iron Dominion: Crushing Pressure."
His aura pulsed, and suddenly the air within his geometric grid became impossibly dense. The guards fell to their knees, their bodies struggling against gravity that had intensified tenfold. Their armor, designed to distribute weight evenly, became anchors dragging them down.
Darius walked past them, their struggles meaningless, and struck the reinforced door with his greatsword.
The door, designed to resist battering rams and siege weapons, crumbled to dust under the Absolute Edge technique.
Inside was a cell different from the others. This one had been designed not just for imprisonment but for torture. Bloodstains covered the floor. Instruments of pain hung on the walls. And in the center, chained to posts, were two children.
A boy and a girl, both maybe eight years old. Both covered in bruises and burns. Both with eyes that had gone beyond trauma into something approaching catatonic withdrawal.
Darius felt something crack in his professional facade. A surge of pure, murderous rage that he hadn't felt since his early days in the Royal Knights, before he'd learned to channel emotion into cold efficiency.
These weren't just prisoners. These were examples. Children who'd been tortured to intimidate the others, to show what happened to those who resisted or tried to escape.
"Captain Darius, status update?" Magnus's voice came through the communication spell.
"Western guard post secured," Darius said, and his voice was colder than ice. "Eighteen children recovered. All alive." He paused, looking at the two tortured children. "But we have casualties. Psychological casualties. These children were... they were used as examples."
Silence on the communication spell. Then Magnus, his voice tight with controlled fury: "The people responsible?"
"Dead," Darius said. "All of them. No survivors." Which wasn't entirely true—eight had fled—but it would be true soon enough. He'd make sure of it.
He moved to the chained children, his Iron Dominion carefully controlled so he didn't harm them as he shattered their restraints. The chains broke like glass, falling away.
"You're free," Darius said softly, kneeling to their level. "No one will hurt you again. I promise you that."
The boy didn't respond. The girl flinched away from his touch.
They'd been broken. Not just traumatized, but fundamentally broken by what had been done to them.
Darius carefully lifted both children, one in each arm, their small bodies almost weightless. He carried them from that room of horrors, his Iron Dominion still manifested, his rage still burning beneath professional calm.
He was halfway down the corridor when the communication spell erupted with panicked voices.
"catastrophic failure at western industrial! Building collapse! Three children "
" Prince Ethan's team still unresponsive! Twenty minutes dark! Something's wrong"
"magical instability spreading! Marcus, we need you NOW"
"All teams, SILENCE!" Darius's command voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "One at a time. Finn, report."
Finn's voice came back, hollow and broken. "Western industrial... we failed. Three children dead. Magical complications. Structural collapse. We... we fucked up, Captain."
Darius closed his eyes briefly. Three casualties. Not acceptable. Not forgivable. But also not fixable the dead stayed dead, and recriminations wouldn't bring them back.
"Secure your location and the surviving children," Darius ordered. "Palace guards are en route to all sites. We'll address what happened in debrief."
"Captain, Prince Ethan's team " Sera's voice cut in, sharp with worry.
"I know," Darius said grimly. "All teams, listen carefully. Secure your locations first. Get the children to safety. Then we converge on the noble quarter. If Prince Ethan's team has been compromised, we go in with maximum force and we bring them back. No one gets left behind. Clear?"
Affirmatives came back, but Darius could hear the strain in everyone's voices. The mission was spiraling. Three children dead. Prince Ethan's team dark. Multiple teams reporting complications and casualties.
This was what happened when you spread forces too thin, when you tried to do too much with too few resources, when ambition exceeded capability.
This was what failure looked like.
But Darius had commanded through failures before. Had watched soldiers die from his decisions, had carried the weight of command even when it crushed him. You didn't get to quit just because things went wrong. You adapted, you salvaged what you could, and you made sure the failure meant something.
He carried the two broken children through the guard post, collecting the other sixteen as he went. By the time palace guards arrived to secure the location, he had all eighteen children gathered in the main barracks room, wrapped in blankets taken from enemy supplies, given water from enemy stores.
Alive. Traumatized. But alive.
"Captain Kaine," a palace guard lieutenant saluted. "Prince Arnold's compliments, sir. He's been informed of the situation and is sending additional support to all locations."
"Good," Darius said. "These children need immediate medical attention. The two I'm holding especially they'll require specialized care for psychological trauma."
"Understood, sir. Medical wagons are standing by."
Darius carefully transferred the two tortured children to a medic, watching as they were wrapped in fresh blankets and carried to waiting transport. They still hadn't spoken. Still hadn't shown any sign of awareness beyond basic survival instinct.
Eighteen rescued. Three dead elsewhere. Prince Ethan's team unresponsive.
The night was far from over.
"All teams, this is Darius," he said into the communication spell. "Report status. I need to know who's mobile and who needs support before we move on the noble quarter."
"Eastern docks secured," Magnus reported. "Twenty-seven children safe, all hostiles neutralized. Brutus and I are mobile, ready to move."
"Northern facility secured," Sera said. "Twenty-two children safe, all hostiles neutralized. Marcus is exhausted but can still cast. We're mobile."
"Western industrial..." Finn's voice was still hollow. "Eleven children secured with palace guards. Three casualties. Rhea and I are... we're mobile. We'll come."
Darius could hear the pain in Finn's voice, the guilt eating at him. They'd address it later. Right now, they had a mission to complete.
"Palace guards are handling prisoner transport and site security," Darius confirmed. "All mobile teams converge on the noble quarter. We're going in heavy, we're going in together, and we're bringing our people back. Intel suggests fifty-plus hostiles, master-level mage, and unknown traps. This will be the hardest fight of the night. Questions?"
"Rules of engagement?" Magnus asked, and his voice carried an edge that spoke of barely controlled violence.
"Anyone who threatens our people or the prisoners dies," Darius said simply. "No mercy. No hesitation. We end this tonight."
"Copy," Magnus said, and Darius could hear the shadows stirring in that single word.
Darius looked at the western guard post one last time the bodies of twenty-eight dead soldiers, the blood-soaked corridors, the torture chamber that would haunt his dreams. Then he turned and began moving toward the noble quarter, his greatsword still drawn, his Iron Dominion still manifested.
The geometric patterns of silvery-blue energy spread before him as he walked, reality bending to his will, durability and hardness becoming suggestions rather than laws.
Captain Darius Kaine, former Royal Knight, current commander of Prince Ethan's strike force, walked toward the final battle of the night with cold determination.
Eighteen children saved. Three children lost. And somewhere ahead, his teammates were in danger.
The math wasn't good. The mission was compromised. Everything was going wrong.
But Darius had learned long ago that you didn't measure success by how many things went right. You measured it by how many people you brought home alive.
And tonight, he was bringing everyone home.
Or he was dying in the attempt.
His Iron Dominion pulsed with silvery-blue light, geometric patterns spreading across the cobblestones of the noble quarter, an island of imposed order in a city drowning in corruption.
"Hold on, Prince," Darius muttered. "We're coming."
Behind him, the palace guards secured the guard post and began the grim work of documenting the dead. Ahead, the noble quarter waited wealthy estates and political power games, hiding darkness beneath pretty facades.
And beneath all that, the Velvet House. The heart of the trafficking network. The place where Prince Ethan's team had gone silent.
The place where the real battle would begin.
Darius's cold blue eyes scanned the darkened streets ahead, tactical mind already planning the assault. They'd hit five locations simultaneously and mostly succeeded. Rescued sixty-three children total, with only three casualties.
But three was three too many. And the mission wasn't over until everyone came home.
"All teams, ETA to noble quarter?" Darius asked.
"Ten minutes," Magnus reported.
"Twelve minutes," Sera said.
"Eight minutes," Finn's voice was quiet. "We're already close. We're moving fast."
"Maintain spacing," Darius ordered. "We go in together or not at all. No one rushes in alone and gets ambushed separately. That's how we lose more people."
He paused at an intersection, his enhanced senses picking up movement ahead. Guards. Multiple contacts. The noble quarter was more heavily patrolled than the other districts, which made sense this was where the wealthy lived, where political power concentrated.
"Darius to all teams," he said. "Noble quarter has heavy security presence. We'll need to move carefully to avoid alerting the target before we're in position. Stealth approach where possible."
"Copy," Magnus said. "My shadow techniques should be able to hide our approach if we stay together."
"Good. We rally at the coordinates Marcus provided two blocks from the target building. Then we plan final assault based on whatever intel we can gather."
Darius moved through the wealthy streets like a ghost, his Iron Dominion suppressed to minimum visibility to avoid detection. The blood on his armor had been wiped clean, his greatsword sheathed, his appearance just another soldier on patrol rather than a warrior who'd just executed twenty-eight men.
But inside, the cold rage still burned. For the eighteen children he'd saved. For the three that Finn couldn't save. For the two tortured children who might never recover.
And especially for whatever had happened to Prince Ethan's team.
Tonight, the Velvet Merchant would learn that some prices were paid in blood.
And Darius was very, very good at collecting.
To Be Continued in Chapter 38...