His gaze sharpened.
"But my ambitions do not end there, Brother.
I want more.
I want you to become part of my legion."
Velkar stepped back, fury and horror mixing in his chest. "How could you do this to our people!? To your own kingdom!?"
Bagoas chuckled darkly.
"I simply removed the weak from the future."
Velkar's eyes widened suddenly. His heartbeat spiked — wild, painful.
Bagoas' smile stretched into a chilling, ecstatic grin.
"Ahh… I see you've noticed. That is the sound of the transformation beginning."
Velkar staggered. "What… what did you do?"
"The potion, Brother," Bagoas whispered.
"The one mixed into your breakfast this morning."
Velkar froze.
Breakfast.
That morning.
Rhena sitting beside him.
Leana smiling warmly.
All three of them—
Bagoas tilted his head. "Come to think of it… didn't your wife and daughter eat from your plate as well?"
Velkar's blood ran cold.
His vision blurred.
"No…"
"Yes," Bagoas said gently, almost lovingly. "They are likely changing already. I wonder what beautiful forms they'll take."
"YOU—!"
Velkar roared with a fury that shook the hall. He lunged forward, drawing the greatsword at his side—its blade igniting with radiant mana.
Bagoas swung his chain-blades wildly to intercept, fully expecting the enhanced strength of his new form to overpower his brother—
—but Velkar's sword cut through the barrage like a descending star.
The impact hurled Bagoas across the room, cracking stone pillars.
Bagoas screamed in disbelief.
"HOW!? After all my sacrifices, after everything I've become—HOW ARE YOU STILL STRONGER!?"
Velkar didn't answer.
With a burst of light, he appeared before Bagoas.
One swift, merciless strike.
A clean arc.
Bagoas' head rolled across the marble floor.
His body collapsed, chains clattering violently before falling still.
But Velkar did not stop to watch it fall.
He ran.
He ran with a desperation he had never known.
His footsteps blurred into streaks of light.
He tore through hallways, vaulted over corridors, broke through doors—
And finally reached his chambers.
He froze.
The sight before him shattered whatever remained of the man he once was.
Leana was on the floor, clutching Rhena in her arms. Both trembled violently, skin splitting into chainlike fissures. Silver eyes turning pitch black. Bodies twisting, bones groaning, veins bulging unnaturally as they reached desperately toward Velkar.
"Vel…kar…"
"Father… help…"
Their voices were a mixture of their own and the distorted cries of transforming monsters.
Velkar dropped to his knees, slamming mana into his palms.
"Hold on—! I can fix this! I can—"
He tried purification magic.
He tried life magic.
He tried extracting the corrupting poison from their bodies.
Nothing worked.
Leana's trembling fingers reached for his cheek.
"Run… please—"
Then—
They exploded.
Their bodies burst into spirals of chainlike tendrils and black mist, unable to withstand the violent transformation.
The shockwave punched Velkar through the wall, but he didn't feel it.
He didn't feel anything.
He knelt among the shreds of dust that used to be his family, trembling as the world blurred.
Then…
He screamed.
A scream so powerful it shook the foundations of the castle and rolled across the entire kingdom.
The sky darkened. Mana warped. The land itself turned gray.
And Velkar—
broken, consumed by grief—
transformed.
His body twisted, reforged by rage, despair, and the remnants of the potion coursing through him.
He became something greater—and far more terrifying—than any chain monster before him.
The entire kingdom followed, turning into monsters under the wave of corrupted mana.
That was the birth of Velkar, the Fallen Knight.
Back to the Present
A massive shadow fell over Alex.
With a leap strong enough to crack the ground, Velkar—now a towering armored specter wreathed in cursed chains—descended like a meteor.