Kyren’s POV
*****
The stealth craft cut through the ashen red skies as Kyren approached Gravethorn City.
A few charred towers and cracked obsidian walls of the border settlent glowed faintly under the sunlight — a scarred reminder of the very first attack Arcadia launched against the Dark Lands.
Fitting, then, that he’d use it to slip into Arcadia unnoticed.
The mont the craft reached the city’s southern ridge, Kyren flicked a rune on the console.
"Activate spectral dispersion. No traces."
"Confird," the AI chid.
The craft dissolved from sight, sound, and magical perception — phasing into an invisible shadow.
Kyren leaned back in the control seat and, with a flick of his wrist, summoned the crystallised curse shard into his palm.
The sa one he’d obtained from his maid who was poisoned to death. And from Alpha King Arian.
It was sickly green. Vile. Pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat trying to wake.
"You used this to poison the Alpha King," Kyren whispered. "Borrowing power from curses that should’ve stayed buried."
A humourless smile tugged at his lips.
"Bold of you, father. And stupid."
He would find Garrick. And he would make him regret breathing.
The craft soared past Gravethorn, crossing the magical barrier at the border, a wall of shimring blue light. For anyone else, it would’ve scread alarms.
For Kyren’s cloaked craft? It rippled harmlessly.
Once he was well into Arcadian territory, Kyren set the autopilot to hover in a remote wilderness sector deep within Arcadia’s forest belt — one with no cities, no wards, nothing man-made for kilotres.
A place no witch should be watching.
He stood in the rear bay of the craft, watching the ramp unseal with a hiss.
Cold Arcadian air rushed in — vibrant, flora-scented, and painfully alive compared to the Dark Lands’ cursed skies.
Kyren stepped out.
The forest stretched endlessly. Towering silverpine trees shimred in sunlight. The ground glowed with faint mana veins. Life pulsed everywhere, vibrant and annoyingly loud.
"Too peaceful. Too perfect," he muttered, eyes narrowing.
He raised the curse crystal.
Mana spiralled around his fingers — black, red, and green intertwining like venomous serpents.
The air warped instantly, the ground cracking beneath his feet.
Kyren began the incantation — words that sliced through space-ti itself.
"Vexorum al’thar... find the origin. Find him."
Magic surged, ripping reality like thin cloth.
A vortex ford — green sparks snapping violently as the curse shard resonated, screaming for its parent source.
Kyren’s crimson eyes glowed hellishly.
Almost... almost—
But then before he could get any clues, the air shifted with a low hum.
He froze.
Above him, the treetops lit up with blinding white beams.
Kyren’s head snapped up.
Arcadian skycraft — three of them — hovered overhead, erald runes glowing on their hulls. More engines roared in the distance.
They’d found him.
Despite his cloak. Despite the wilderness. Despite his specifically choosing a dead zone of surveillance.
His blood ran cold.
"They were watching for ," he whispered. "Not for intruders. ."
Before he could react—
"TARGET ACQUIRED!" a voice bood through arcane speakers. "Engaging containnt!"
The first blast shot down — a spear of condensed light.
Kyren flicked his fingers.
The attack bent midair, twisted like wet paper, and hurled itself back at the skycraft.
The craft took the hit, exploding into erald fire before spiralling into the forest below.
Kyren didn’t blink.
"Co, then," he growled. "Let show you why you should’ve stayed out of my way."
The remaining two ships released squads of witch-soldiers wearing arcane armour that glowed with sigils across their chests and helts. Their boots hit the ground, shaking the earth.
Kyren stretched his hand.
The trees around him telekinetically tore from their roots and twisted into spears.
He launched them.
Soldiers were ripped open, impaled, and crushed instantly.
Blood sprayed the silverpine bark.
"ELITE SQUADS DEPLOYING!" A soldier shouted in a panic.
Twenty more witches dropped — flying toward him with weapons shaped from magic and steel. Mana cannons. Sigil grenades. Blade-staves humming with destructive magic.
Kyren inhaled deeply... and then snapped.
The ground caved outward in a shockwave. Half the witch-soldiers were sent flying, bodies shattering against trees.
But the rest? They shielded themselves, creating force bubbles that held on strongly.
Too strongly.
Kyren narrowed his eyes. Their mana signatures were wrong.
Twisted in ways no natural witch could survive.
They rushed him.
Kyren countered with a gravitational crush spell — an invisible field of force that snapped bones and bent armour—
But two soldiers forced their way through regardless, despite their limbs breaking at unnatural angles.
"Hm." Kyren stepped aside as they lunged. "You’re not normal witches."
He slashed his claws through the air.
Their bodies split cleanly in half.
But as they fell... their blood glowed, causing his stomach to turn.
"Arcadia is tampering with bloodline enhancents," he muttered. "Bio-magitech witches."
These enhancents reminded him too much of a certain organisation.
The Dark Hand!
So does this an Arcadia was truly involved with them?
Before he could process it, five augnted witches lunged at him with synchronised speed.
Kyren raised a hand—
One soldier drove a mana blade straight into his ribs.
It pierced the skin.
It wasn’t deep, but enough to sting. And actually draw blood.
Kyren’s smile was slow and cold.
"You dare draw my blood?"
He grabbed the soldier’s wrist and crushed it to dust. The scream barely left his lips before Kyren used his body like a battering ram, smashing through the next soldier.
Two more attacked from behind, blades shimring with runic poison.
Kyren snapped his fingers.
Black fire erupted in a spiral — incinerating them to ash.
But then—
A blast hit him from above, pulsing with crushing force that slamd him into the ground.
Kyren snarled, aura exploding outward, flas and shadow lashing violently.
But sothing was wrong. His mana... faltered.
Not from weakness — from distortion.
Suddenly, the battlefield warped. Reality pulsed.
The spell he began earlier — the one linking to the curse shard— was still active, tugging space-ti open like a widening wound.
If he didn’t close it properly, it could tear the entire region apart.
Or worse... signal Garrick and Amara directly.
Kyren clenched his jaw.
He had no other choice.
He summoned everything — his mana core flaring like a star going supernova.
A sphere of blood-red energy erupted from him, swallowing all the remaining soldiers in a hurricane of ripping, crushing force.
But he couldn’t let Arcadia detect the explosion.
So he bent space and twisted ti, forcing the blast into a collapsing pocket dinsion — like crumpling a universe into a fist.
The soldiers scread but then vanished, devoured by the collapsing void.
The forest around him crackled, warped, and glitched like a broken screen.
Kyren fell to one knee, blood dripping from his lips.
The sky flickered.
He’d pushed too far for the first ti in decades.
The pocket space caved in on itself — swallowing him next.
The world blinked out.
His consciousness began unravelling... darkness clawing at him...
Then he rembered soone.
A face. Soft, warm and gentle.
Elian.
His little fla.
Kyren’s lips barely moved. "...not... yet..."
And then everything went black.
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