Chapter 80

The last pebble Rian threw began to draw a new map of hell on the continent’s chessboard already stained with blood. It was a blood-scented invitation delivered to the deepest, darkest places of the two empires’ capitals.

The Kairos Empire’s Imperial Intelligence. In the underground office that had lost its master in the Ashwind Plain tragedy sat a new ‘iron blood.’ It was Calico, nicknamed ‘The Viper,’ once Walter’s loyal adjutant. He was as ruthless as his predecessor, but far more cunning and ambitious.

On his desk lay an anonymous report leaked by Argos.

“The Valerian bastards are using data recovered from the Ashwind Plain to conduct horrific plague experiments in the lowest-tier slum of Ethernom, the ‘Leech’s Nest.’ The results are on the verge of unleashing uncontrollable monstrosities, which would become the worst biological weapon against Kairos.”

The report contained a detailed map of the slum, a ‘witness’ testimony claiming the test subjects’ screams echo every night, and cleverly fabricated information down to the location of the secret laboratory.

Calico’s eyes flashed with greed and a thirst for vengeance. This was the perfect chance to restore the fallen intelligence service’s honor and prove his worth to the Emperor. He immediately mustered the reformed Imperial Shadow Blade, a new blade filled with wolves younger and hungrier than before.

“The target is Ethernom’s Leech’s Nest. Find the Valerian bastards’ disgusting laboratory and reduce everything there to ash and dust. Not a single living witness must remain. This is not mere espionage. It is a ‘purge’ against filthy vermin, carried out in the Empire’s name.”

No imperial seal was required. In the madness of war, the head of intelligence had the authority to act first and report later. Kairos’ new shadows readied themselves, poisoned by the name of vengeance, to strike at the enemy’s heart.

Around the same time, in the office of the Valerian Empire’s Minister of Shadows, Duke Alcard.

He too held another invitation sent by Argos.

“The Kairos bastards have found a clue to the true location of the Dragon’s Heart in the Ashwind Plain. According to their intel, the genuine relic sleeps deep beneath Ethernom’s lowest slum, the Leech’s Nest, and they will soon send their elite Shadow Blade to seize it exclusively.”

Duke Alcard’s crimson eyes cooled with resolve. He had witnessed his finest agent, Cypher, ruined by the curse emanating from a shard of the Dragon’s Heart, and watched a secret laboratory descend into hell. He vaguely understood that the relic was an uncontrollable catastrophe, yet he could not hand such a dangerous thing to his nemesis, Kairos.

“Foolish wolves. Dare to reach into the snake’s nest?”

Alcard summoned his new ‘puppets.’ To fill the void left by the Crimson Phantoms, he had created new abominations through ever more inhumane experiments: corpse soldiers called Night Reapers, stitched from dead assassins and bound with dark magic and alchemy, incapable of feeling pain.

“Go to the Leech’s Nest. Kairos’ rats are digging in. Find them, tear their limbs apart and harvest their souls. And… confirm with your own eyes whether the ‘treasure’ they seek truly lies there.”

Alcard planted a seed of doubt. While blocking Kairos, he intended to verify the intel’s authenticity. His suspicion became the final adhesive that made Rian’s laid trap even more perfect.

All that chaos was converging on Ethernom’s lowest slum, the Leech’s Nest.

This place was the rotten entrails of a city where the Empire’s light did not reach. Narrow, filthy alleys were slick with filth and vomit, and between crumbling shacks the hollow moans and despairing sobs of addicts on drugs never ceased.

And in the deepest pit of that hell, a secret altar carved into an abandoned underground monastery.

The priest Silas, called the Apostle of the Plague and the Scream of Torment, had his eyes closed. Around him knelt hundreds of drug addicts in vacant stupor, greedily inhaling the incense smoke he had lit. The incense was the Ashen Worm cult’s cursed drug, ‘Ashen Dream,’ delivering supreme pleasure while devouring the soul and turning the body into a plague ‘incubator.’

“Krrk… Do you feel it, my foolish sheep…?”

Silas’ voice reverberated moistly with pleasure.

“All the world’s pain vanishes, and only ecstasy remains… the paradise of our great lord…”

As he sank into rapture, a cult informant emerged from the altar’s shadows and reported.

“Apostle, two great forces are approaching this place from outside. Kairos and Valerian, the shadows of both empires.”

“Oh?”

Silas’ eyes flashed with delight.

“Moths walking into hell of their own accord. Excellent. The final sacrifices for my grand garden have arrived. Prepare to greet them. Tonight, this Leech’s Nest will become a magnificent banquet hall where the most resplendent symphony of screams on earth will play.”

He rose and lovingly caressed a massive, cocoon-like mass behind the altar. Within, something fed on tens of thousands of souls was ominously pulsing.

At that moment, in the Aster estate.

Through the Eye of the Abyss, Rian watched two red dots heading for Ethernom’s Leech’s Nest and another red dot condensing like a great storm between them.

“The board is set, and the actors have all taken the stage.”

He gave his final orders to his Shadow Blade.

“Our sole target is the throat of Silas, the ‘Scream of Torment.’ While the two empires’ dogs tear each other apart and turn the banquet hall into chaos, we will quietly cut the host’s throat and slip away. This is not a war. It is a hunt.”