"Finally, I can rest..."
Vadyn sat down.
Her body relaxes when she finally sits down on her favourite chair in her own office.
It had been a very long and tiring day.
Everyone in the Enforcer Headquarters had gone ho already, considering that it was already midnight, but she remained behind. Not because she has work to do or she doesn’t have a ho, but because her office is her safe place.
Better than even her own ho.
She worked hard to get into this position.
Despite her family being the most prominent family in Larta City right now, she asked for no help to get into this position. It was purely hard work. From cluster to cluster, she kept the Primordial adow and its associated places safe by enforcing punishnts on the transgressors.
Enforcers are a group of elite units belonging to a special organization detached from every departnt.
Only the High Lord can command them.
And in idle ti, their duties are to make sure the entities entering the Primordial adow would obey the sacred rules in place. If they cannot, then the Enforcers would enact punishnt and have the liberty to determine the severity of the punishnt.
Starting from the bottom is a hard thing to do.
Vadyn and the other new enforcers work like a horse with minimal rest.
Now that she was a sergeant, most of her work involved managing the lower-ranked enforcers. But in a case of a major incident occurring, she beca the first responder—arriving long before the lieutenant or captain could get there.
And today, that had happened four tis. She was completely drained.
Vadyn closed her eyes for a good two minutes before taking out a rubber ball from her drawer.
She tossed it against the wall and caught it on the rebound, over and over—letting the repetitive motion ease her restless mind. It didn’t work. Her mind recalled what High Lord Rashal showed to her back in his office.
"An entity who had hard a God," Vadyn whispered. "No one, be it Demigods or Mortals, can harm a God and expect nothing to change. The Herald of the Godless would mark them. So, what is that cousin of mine planning to do with soone like that?"
High Lord Rashal seed to be open to Vadyn.
But she didn’t believe even for a second that he told her everything despite their close relationship.
"Not my problem," Vadyn shrugged and took out her phone. She logged into her favourite ga and leaned back. If the rubber ball didn’t work, then a ga would certainly distract her mind. "I’m perfectly happy with where I am."
Just as the loading screen appeared, the door was knocked.
Vadyn glanced at the door and put her phone away. "Co in."
An enforcer entered her office, and she recognized this enforcer. One of the promising ones.
"Mark," She leaned back in her seat, surprised to see him still in the office. He has a family, so it’s rare for him to stay until this late. "Won’t your wife scold you for staying until this late? Go ahead. I will lock up."
"It’s an ergency," Mark said with a troubled voice.
Monts later.
Vadyn, Mark, and two other enforcers stood inside a spacious chamber on the underground floor. All of them are already suited for battle. Their combat gear was uniform: all-black with red accents, reinforced with protective plates, masks hiding their mouths, and rings made entirely of twinkling stars.
Only Vadyn deviated from the standard arsenal.
Others carried regulated weapons.
Mark was equipped with a Petrifying Bone-lance strapped to his arm, a wicked lance that extended to his knees. As for the other two, they were equipped with Mobile Realm-shields. Floating discs—that followed their arms like united limbs.
It was obvious that they were expecting trouble.
Vadyn extended her arm, and Mark handed her a paper.
On it were details of where they were going.
Coordinates in hand, she moved to the wall and pressed her glowing index finger against it. The surface responded instantly as a portion turned translucent, then solid glass. Vadyn traced the numbers onto it with glowing energy; the character was foreign and illegible to anyone but her.
And with another tap, the glass humd to life.
Beyond the fractures of the uneven glass wall, the other enforcers could see another place.
"Let’s go."
Vadyn walked into the glass, and the others followed right behind.
The place that greeted them on the other side was completely different than where they ca from.
No trace of modernity could be seen. In fact, there was nothing at all other than great arcs of blackened stone that clawed out of the ground like human ribs, curving over a wasteland as far as the eye can see. A thin mist crept low across the ground, swallowing distance, dulling sound, until even the faint whisper of wind seed hushed or afraid to linger.
Everything was muted—the light and color were reduced to a cold, ashen stillness.
Life doesn’t exist here. Or at least, not anymore.
"Is this still the Primordial adow?" An enforcer questioned. "Sothing this... dead?"
"A few platoons of senior Pale Defenders rolled through here once. Swept the place clean. The corruption, though... it knew how to hide." Mark’s hawk-like gaze raked the horizon. "I heard they squatted here for fifty years. Built temporary forts and everything, trying to dig it up. Failed.
"So, this place was abandoned. Marked as a dead zone."
"Take out the radar," Vadyn instructed. "Let’s find them."
Just a few weeks ago, a team of ten enforcers was sent to this place, the Western Cavity, when a foreign entity was detected entering the realm. Since the entry point was quite peculiar, as nobody would want to enter through this dead zone filled with dangers, the enforcers were sent to check.
To determine whether the entity is a troubleso one or is it simply a foolish one.
High Lord Rashal was the one who gave the instruction.
But the organization lost contact with the team, and the team never ca back.
Another team was then sent a day later to locate and find out what happened to the first team—yet, like the first team, they disappeared. In the following days, more teams were sent, but not one of them returned to tell the tale.
Finally, Vadyn was called.
She was surprised she was the one sent to check, expecting the instruction to co from the High Lord.
But it wasn’t.
It was from the lieutenant.
’Either he believed that I could handle this, or he wanted to see whether this hostile entity is well-versed with the Primordial adow,’ Vadyn thought, inclining to believe the latter more than the first. ’I have a bad feeling about this place, but since I’m already here...’
Sending Vadyn here was a test.
If the entity knew about the Primordial adow, then Vadyn would survive.
After all, ssing with soone from a High Lord’s family is a death sentence.
Considering the permit a High Lord has from the Overseer, the entity would be located in seconds.
And that’s nothing more but trouble that needed to be avoided.
’Good thing the others don’t know about what happened to the previous teams,’ Vadyn thought silently; her gaze shifting toward Mark and the other two enforcers behind her. The instruction ca through a phone call, so even Mark didn’t know all the details other than it being an ergency. ’If they had the full story, I’m not sure they’d still be walking beside .’
Vadyn hoped that the entity would recognize her and would not attack her.
But even if the attack ca, she was ready.
The team of four followed the radar.
Every ti an enforcer dies, a beacon would be released from their bodies, and it couldn’t be disrupted.
It was tied to the Primordial adow, to the Overseer, so this effect was absolute.
Finding where they died beca trivial because of that, but the walk dragged on for more than twenty minutes. And when they finally closed in on the blue dot, they found themselves standing in the middle of nowhere.
No trace. No remains. Nothing.
Just empty ground with the sa black stone arcs.
"Should be around here," Mark muttered and walked around.
"Around here? Where?" Another enforcer chid, confused. "Are we standing on top of the blue dot? Maybe this guy has the decency to bury the corpses."
"It could really be underground," Mark stood directly at the blue dot. "I’m standing directly on it."
A light pressure landed on his shoulder.
Mark turned his head, not expecting anything, and found a glistening bead of liquid that couldn’t soak into his water-resistant combat suit. He touched it with his fingertip, then frowned in confusion, "Is it raining?"
"No," Vadyn said; her face was tilted skyward, and a frown cut deep between her brows.
She raised a slow, deliberate finger.
Mark held out his hand. Another drop struck his palm—red this ti, and it reeks of copper. Blood.
"Above us..." Vadyn whispered. "The corpses are above us."
Slowly, Mark and the other enforcers looked up, and their breaths were imdiately stolen away.
Above them are four blackened stone arcs that converged into one, a silhouette carved from nightmare against the glow of the moon. At the apex of the dark monunt, there was a glittering thicket. Dozens of crystal spikes bristled from the stone.
Each one was impossibly clear, like frozen water or the stems of so ethereal, light-drinking flower.
But no flower has a petal like this.
The corpses of the enforcers from the previous teams were impaled with a uniformity that spoke of one entity’s design. Each one had been threaded onto the glass from behind; the exit wound was a clean, silent scream of porcelain flesh right below the ribs.
Mark’s stomach clenched.
And the others were the sa.
From below, the perspective was dizzying. The bodies hung suspended, arms dangling down toward the ground. One could see the soles of feet and the arch of a back forced into a final, agonizing blow. It was done while they were alive.
It looked like a grand ritual. A testant of soone who viewed slaughter as a form of art.
Vadyn didn’t freeze.
She leaped onto the blackened stone arc and climbed up.
A horrifying stench greeted her once she arrived at the top, but what caught her attention was sothing else entirely. A threatening aura—unlike anything she has ever felt before. ’Once an enforcer beca a sergeant, we were given a blessing from the Overseer that connected us more to our beloved realm. To the Primordial adow.
’And that’s probably why I can feel this,’ Her eyes narrowed.
Back in the Southern Cavity, before eting with Rex, she had also inspected the vicinity.
Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Just missing bodies and the sa level of energy in the air.
However, she felt very uneasy, like being in the middle of the ocean, and a shark was rising from under.
One could feel sothing bad approaching, but doesn’t know what. That was what coiled through Vadyn now—a dread without origin. She had never known this sensation before up until recently. Not once. And since Rex and whatever entity haunted this place stirred the exact sa chill in her blood, the implication was unmistakable.
"Another one marked by the Herald of the Godless..." She frowned. "Another entity who had hard a God."
...
anwhile, at the police headquarters in Larta City.
"Damn it, do you know who I am? Think! I have money—so why the fuck do I need to steal the High Lord’s credit card?!" Aaran roared, shouting at the one-way window in utter anger. "I’m clearly being frad by soone!"
After being stopped by a few police officers for a missing credit card, they found that exact card in his pocket.
It belonged to the High Lord, and he was imdiately brought into custody.
Now, he was placed in this cold interrogation room.
It has been more than an hour, and he was left in there alone.
Just then, the door was opened, and a figure stepped inside.
"Settle down, I know you’re not a thief." A man entered the room and closed the door behind him. "But you are a liar."
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