"Victor... you’re awake!" Celia’s voice broke through the tension, full of disbelief and relief all at once.
"Yeah..." Victor’s lips curved faintly, though his face was pale and his voice weak. "Soone made such a grand vow right next to my ear... I had to wake up and see how he’s planning to eat dirt while standing on his head."
Celia let out a wet laugh, her tears turning instantly into joy. The others followed Victor’s gaze and found themselves staring at Liam Silverwood.
The man’s expression had shifted from smug certainty to wide-eyed shock. As the forr steward of the Silverwood family, he knew how to tell real treasure from worthless glitter. This towering mound before them should not, by any logic, exist. Yet the dazzling radiance pouring from the golden mountain forced him to accept the impossible.
With a flick of his wrist, a throwing knife appeared in his hand. It whistled through the air, embedding itself in the side of the mountain before spinning back with a severed chunk of gold clutched on its edge. Liam caught it, inspected it, and the gleam in his eyes betrayed his greed.
Ethan didn’t move, only watching with calm amusent. Liam’s reaction was proof enough: what Ethan had created was not an illusion or trick. It was real gold. A mountain of it.
"Any thoughts?" Ethan asked lightly, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"This..." Liam’s voice faltered.
"Don’t stall. Take as much as you can carry," Ethan said, still smiling.
Temptation flickered visibly across Liam’s face. He had once fled the Silverwood family’s estate, disgraced and bitter. When Ivy had tracked him down, proposing a partnership to bring Ethan down, Liam had seized the chance. The pay she offered was simply too enticing to refuse.
That alliance had led to the sar campaign against Ethan. Liam, ever the opportunist, had kept a secret backup: a complete video that could clear Ethan’s na if he ever needed leverage. He had planned to profit by playing both sides. But Ethan’s refusal to react, his sheer indifference to public opinion, had rendered Liam’s little sche worthless. Zachary had raged, cursing Ethan as a fool who knew nothing about survival, while Liam’s chance to profit crumbled to dust.
And yet here he was again. Ivy had returned with a new plan—cutting off Ethan’s last ans of survival. This ti, Zachary had gone all-in, targeting those Ethan cared about to force him to hand over Renegade Alliance. In exchange, the reward Liam was promised was staggering.
To a man with nothing left to lose, already branded a traitor and living like a hunted animal, the risk had been worth it. He had taken part of the advance paynt, secured five tons of explosives, and stord back into the Silverwood family’s hidden grounds.
But now... now Ethan had conjured a mountain of gold. And Liam’s old instincts ca clawing back.
Without hesitation, he drew out a spatial pouch from his coat and began moving toward the mountain, his left hand extended as the first bar of gold floated toward the pouch’s opening.
"Move!" Ethan’s roar cracked through the air like thunder.
Liam flinched violently, heart hamring, as a figure materialized before Ethan. Reflexively, he raised his right hand in defense—only to freeze where he stood.
"Seal the heavens and the earth..."
The words rang out in an ancient, heavy voice. Space itself groaned and locked down, the air hardening until Liam was suspended as though encased in ice. The man who had appeared was Regis, the old City Lord from Ethan’s mindscape. The atmosphere was suffocating, frozen in unnatural stillness.
Yet this ti, the sealing spell did not collapse into ruinous destruction as it had in the past. Instead, it held—imprisoning Liam completely, without shattering everything around him.
The gathered Silverwood mbers shuddered. Ethan’s roar had already set their blood racing. Now this mysterious old man, who exuded no aura yet radiated impossible depth, only deepened their unease.
"Ethan, sothing’s wrong. Look closely," Regis said.
Ethan stepped nearer, his eyes narrowing on Liam. The first thing he noticed was the embroidered hurricane pattern stitched onto the spatial pouch in Liam’s left hand. A symbol of Hurricane City, the fortress on the Sea of Death within the Umbral Star. The pouch’s worn leather suggested it had been around for decades.
Ethan and Regis exchanged a glance, both recognizing the oddity. But what truly drew Ethan’s focus was Liam’s right arm.
It was no longer attached to his body.
Just ten centiters from the shoulder, the arm hung in midair, suspended separately in the frozen space.
"This..." Ethan’s gaze snapped to Regis.
"I didn’t do it," the old City Lord replied firmly. "I only sealed the space."
Ethan leaned in. The implications were chilling. Even without Regis’s seal, Liam would never have pressed the detonator. Sothing—or soone—had intervened.
Before Ethan could speculate further, Leo spoke up. "That... that’s a Shadow Eater."
Heads turned. The young man, usually a chatterbox, spoke with uncharacteristic seriousness. He pointed to the severed end of Liam’s arm, where a strange crimson pattern pulsed faintly. What Ethan had assud was blood was, upon closer inspection, a parasitic creature.
Ethan recognized it instantly. The sa worm once bound to Celeste.
This parasitic entity could rge with a host’s flesh and even anticipate its thoughts. Liam must have been on the verge of pressing the detonator when the worm turned on him, severing his arm from within. Only one person could have commanded it: Celeste herself.
Ethan exhaled slowly. Celeste hadn’t changed after all. He allowed himself a small smile and glanced at Leo, who stared back with a troubled expression, sothing unreadable flickering in his eyes.
"Alright. It’s fine now. The danger’s passed," Ethan said at last. "Go on ahead. I’ll catch up shortly."
His voice was steady, but his hands were damp. His calm earlier had been a mask. He didn’t know exactly what five tons of TNT could do, but he knew one thing: if it had gone off, none of them would have survived.
"Ethan..." Lyla stepped forward, gripping his hand.
"Good girl," Ethan said softly. "Go with Mom and help them get settled. I’ll join you soon."
Her hand was small and delicate in his, her skin soft as cream. He gave it a reassuring squeeze before letting her go.
"We’ll handle it from here," Matriarch Whitmore said, taking Dragonia’s arm. The two won shared a familiar smile, their old friendship evident.
Ethan chuckled. "I was waiting for you to say that."
Lyla blushed and turned her face away, sticking out her tongue at him playfully before hurrying after the others.
One by one, the group departed, leaving Ethan standing alone. His smile faded, replaced by grim thought.
"Ethan... what’s wrong?" Lyla’s voice lingered faintly before she, too, was gone.
Ethan’s gaze drifted back to Liam’s severed arm, still floating in the frozen air.
"Celeste... she might be in danger."
The arm bore seven small, clean wounds, each like a precise knife cut. Because of Regis’s seal, no blood flowed, but the marks were clear. Ethan leaned closer, his pulse quickening. They weren’t random. They were the worm’s work.
And then he saw it—an eighth, faint mark near the back of the arm, shallower but aligned with the others. Eight in total.
His mind raced back to a mory of Shadow Lynx Village in Ravenwood. The beam of a ruined house where seven people were said to have hanged themselves had borne seven strange knife marks.
Now, those marks overlapped perfectly with the wounds on Liam’s arm.
The severed limb, in that instant, beca more than a grotesque injury. It beca a sign, a warning, and perhaps even a key.
User Comments
0 comments from readers