Jax did not move at first.
The swords that had been pressed against Peacemaker were withdrawn, steel scraping backward in nervous retreat. Several soldiers stumbled a step away from him, boots grinding against the workshop floor.
He turned his head.
Brannic stood behind him, one arm wrapped around Merriweather. A crimson mark burned across her cheek.
The shape of a gauntleted hand.
Something inside Jax went still.
Not rage.
Not yet.
Stillness.
Then he stepped forward.
Slowly.
He didn't look at the soldiers first.
He spoke to the remaining shadow.
"Training wheels are off."
The Shadow Knight shifted.
Subtle.
Silent.
"Next soldier who attacks," Jax continued calmly, "dies."
His voice was not loud.
It did not need to be.
"You didn't come here in peace. But your next move decides whether you leave here alive… or leave here in pieces."
Silence swallowed the shop.
This had been meant to be intimidation.
Confiscation.
Compliance.
Not resistance.
Not this.
Jax lifted Peacemaker and let the massive double-bladed weapon spin once between his fingers, impossibly fluid for something so enormous.
The captain swallowed.
"Regroup!" he barked. "Outside! Regroup with the main force!"
The soldiers didn't hesitate.
They backed out of the shop.
They ran.
Outside Solmere
What Jax saw next told him everything.
Carriages.
Mounted cavalry.
War-beasts.
Nearly one hundred Imperial soldiers positioned outside the town gates.
Red and gold banners fluttered in the breeze.
All human.
The captain rushed toward a taller armored figure at the center of the formation.
The man's armor was darker. More ornate. His cloak trimmed in sable fur.
His eyes were sharp with aristocratic disdain.
General Cassian Viremont.
A name spoken often in border regions where "corrections" were made to towns that grew too ambitious.
"We are dealing with necromancers!" the captain reported breathlessly. "Shadow constructs. Dark arts."
Murmurs rippled through the ranks.
"Slave Guild intelligence was correct," Viremont said coldly. "The demi-humans are emboldened."
His gaze shifted toward Solmere's gates.
"They forget their place."
One of the lieutenants spat on the ground.
"Let them pretend at power. What next? Voting rights? Equal trade councils?"
Laughter broke out.
Another voice snarled, "Burn it. Send a message."
General Viremont raised a hand.
The noise stopped instantly.
"We have discovered a cache of destabilizing armaments. Enhanced weaponry capable of threatening the Empire."
He let that hang in the air.
"We are the shield of civilization. If rebellion takes root here, it spreads."
He turned toward the town.
"We march in. Confiscate everything. Make examples where necessary."
The soldiers roared.
Some out of conviction.
Some out of fear.
"Formations!"
Steel rang as lines snapped into disciplined ranks.
They began advancing toward the gates of Solmere.
And then—
They stopped.
Because there was someone already there.
The Man Between
One man.
Standing in front of the gates.
Black trench coat shifting in the wind.
Dragon-scale armor glinting beneath it.
Two inverted pistols resting at his hips.
A massive double-bladed sword held casually in one hand.
He stood alone between the Empire and Solmere.
General Viremont recognized him immediately.
"The shop," he muttered.
It was the same man who had materialized out of nothing.
Viremont stepped forward.
"Lay down your weapons," he commanded. "Surrender peacefully and you may survive this."
Jax didn't answer immediately.
He let Peacemaker spin once in his hand.
Twice.
The blade whistled softly as it cut through the air.
Then he drove it point-first into the earth.
The ground trembled.
The ground cracked outward in a spiderweb of fractures.
Even the cavalry mounts shifted uneasily.
"Yeah," Jax said lightly, "I don't think so."
Viremont's jaw tightened.
"We are one hundred strong."
He gestured behind him.
"Cavalry. Imperial mages. Veteran infantry. The Army of the Empire."
His eyes narrowed.
"And you?"
He stepped closer.
"You are one man."
He smiled thinly.
"Alone."
The wind moved across the plateau.
Jax's coat fluttered.
His expression did not change.
Something ancient stirred in the air.
Long ago, the System had granted him something simple.
A sound amplification array.
He never used it for theatrics.
But today—
It activated.
His voice rolled across the field like distant thunder.
"There's something you should understand about me."
Every soldier heard him clearly.
Even those at the back.
"I'm never alone."