Kaiser walked through the halls of the hospital alone, his boots echoing with a steady thud against the white floor. The air was thick with the mingling scents of herbs, antiseptics, and the faint metallic tang of blood, a simple reminder that this was a place meant for healing. Yet, something about it felt oppressive. Maybe it was the heavy silence. Maybe it was the weight of unseen eyes watching his every move.

  As he turned a corner, a figure clad in steel stepped into his path. It was one of the knights he’d seen when he first woke up, the broad-shouldered, rigid, knight with a sword strapped to his hip and an expression as unyielding as stone.

  “You. Follow me,” he commanded, his voice flat and devoid of any courtesy.

  Kaiser raised a brow but said nothing, falling into step behind him. The knight’s armor clanked softly with each step, the sound reverberating off the quiet walls. For a while, Kaiser let the silence hang between them, but curiosity eventually got the better of him.

  “Not much of a talker, huh?” Kaiser tried, keeping his tone casual.

  The knight didn’t even glance back. “I am only following orders.”

  Kaiser studied the knight, his mind racing as he connected the dots. These men served under Regulus, a knight of the Northern Liberatorium… The very same faction that had razed Woodrift. The people who had slaughtered Aria’s village, burned her home to the ground, and left her with nothing but the clothes on her back. His fingers twitched with the urge to curl into a fist, but he forced himself to stay calm. He knew better than to make assumptions, and he knew these men weren’t necessarily the same as the ones responsible.

  The knight led him down another hall, past several closed doors, until they finally stopped in front of a familiar wooden entrance. Kaiser recognized it instantly, as it was the very room he had woken up in. The knight turned to face him. “Wait here. Sir Regulus will come when he’s ready to speak with you.”

  Kaiser crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly. “So, what? I’m your prisoner now?”

  The knight’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I do not wish for this to escalate. Follow orders.”

  A sharp laugh escaped Kaiser’s lips. “Oh? Orders? I thought this was a request. When did that change?”

  The knight’s jaw tensed. “Are you refusing?”

  Kaiser smirked. “I’m just asking for clarification.”

  A flash of irritation crossed the knight’s face before he reached out, gripping Kaiser’s arm to drag him toward the door. And that’s when Kaiser acted.

  His hand shot up, clamping around the knight’s wrist, his grip so tight that the steel of the gauntlet began to groan under the pressure. The knight’s body stiffened, his breath hitching as he realized he couldn’t pull away.

  The floor beneath them cracked slightly as the knight’s aura flared, raw power pouring from his body like a searing heatwave. A silent challenge, as if he was begging Kaiser to give him a better reason to attack him.

  Then, from behind him, the unmistakable sound of armor shifting came as three more knights emerged from the shadows of the hall, their presence like circling wolves. One of them, taller than the rest, spoke first. “There are more knights stationed near the wounded girl,” he said, his voice level but laced with an underlying threat. “Think carefully about what you do next.”

  Kaiser’s grip lingered on the knight’s wrist for a moment longer, his fingers pressing into the cold steel. He could feel the pulse beneath the gauntlet grow rapid and unsteady. If he squeezed just a little harder, the metal would buckle entirely, bones following soon after… But he didn’t.

  Instead, he took a breath, relaxing his hand and stepping back. “You know what? I changed my mind.” His tone was casual, but the edge in his voice was unmistakable. “I think I’ll rest for a bit.” He turned, striding past the knights and into his room, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.

  Outside, three of the knights immediately moved into position, standing tall, backs straight, stationed directly beside the door like statues.

  It was obvious they weren’t just guards, but instead wardens, and Kaiser wasn’t being invited to stay, he was being contained. Yet as the knights took their positions, the one Kaiser had grabbed, remained in place where he grabbed Kaiser’s arm.

  He stood there, staring at his own hand, flexing his fingers stiffly. The other knights took notice, exchanging glances before one of them muttered, "What’s wrong?" The knight hesitated, then slowly turned his palm upward, revealing the damage.

  The metal of his gauntlet was crushed. Not dented. Not bent. Crushed.

  The steel was warped inward, molding against his skin like a second layer of flesh, the pressure visibly causing him discomfort. He tried to move his fingers again, but his knuckles barely responded.

  Inside the room, Kaiser let out a slow breath.

  The room was as grand as before with polished marble floors and intricate gold embroidery on the curtains. Everything about it spoke of wealth and power. But for all its beauty, Kaiser found himself irritated because Milo was waiting for him inside.

  The man sat in a cushioned chair near the center of the room, his posture stiff, his usual casual air nowhere to be seen. His expression was unreadable, his lips pressed in a firm line, eyes sharper than usual.

  Kaiser sighed. "Not even gonna say hello?"

  "Sit," Milo said, his tone giving no room for argument.

  Kaiser hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and lowering himself into the chair across from him. Milo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his gaze unwavering. "What are you?"

  Kaiser’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t answer. Milo exhaled, folding his arms. "I reached out to some people in Arkhold. Asked around about that girl, Mia." His eyes narrowed slightly. "They told me she has the power to make everyone in her presence speak the truth.".

  Milo’s voice grew lower, more measured. "So imagine my surprise when I heard what you said earlier. Supreme Military Commander of Nebrosa." His expression darkened. "There’s no such place."

  Kaiser tilted his head. "You sure about that?"

  Milo’s fingers tapped against his arm. "The last true kingdom in this world was absorbed into the Liberatoriums five hundred years ago. If what you said was true..." His voice trailed off before his gaze hardened. "It would mean you’re something far beyond a common man."

  Kaiser stared at him for a long moment before finally standing up from the chair. "I owe you no explanations."

  He turned slightly, his back half-facing Milo. "But I’ll give you one anyway," he said, glancing back at him. "Because I consider you a friend."

  Milo’s expression flickered for a moment, but he said nothing. Kaiser exhaled, his voice quieter this time. "I was in a battle. I don’t remember how long ago. But I remember my opponent." His hands curled into loose fists. "And I remember that I lost."

  Milo’s brow furrowed. He had seen firsthand how strong Kaiser was. "Who could have beaten a monster such as yourself?"

  Kaiser’s gaze darkened. "A man whose death is my only goal," he said. "Sabel Stoorm."

  Milo stiffened slightly at the name, and after a moment, his shoulders slumped, and he exhaled. "...I’m sorry."

  Kaiser glanced at him. Milo rubbed the back of his neck. "Not just for you. For everyone. The whole world’s been on edge because of that bastard."

  Kaiser’s expression sharpened. "You know of him?" Before Milo could answer, the doors to the room swung open, and a powerful voice boomed through the air.

  "Who in the Five Liberatoriums doesn’t?"

  As Kaiser's head turned, Regulus entered the room.

  The weight of command pressed upon the knight with each step, yet he moved with a grace that could only come from unwavering confidence. With each step, his armor sparkled, its polished metal showing no signs of wear and tear. As he walked, the long cloak that hung over his shoulders hardly moved; its white fabric was immaculate and unaffected by the outside world, while the flaming feather still burned bright on top of his helmet.

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  Even though Kaiser had seen him previously, there was something unquestionably intimidating about him at this precise moment. As a presence, not merely as a warrior or even as a knight.

  Regulus moved forward cautiously, his armor barely making a sound in spite of its weight. He grabbed a chair and pulled it across the floor, then sat down on it, making the poor chair bend from the weight if the man.

  Kaiser looked down at him, still standing.

  Regulus sat with an air of ease, his hands resting lightly against the armrests, fingers tapping idly against the polished wood. There was no tension in his posture, no overt hostility. And yet, he might as well have been a mountain sitting in that chair, unshakable and utterly dangerous.

  His head locked onto Kaiser. "You interest me." Kaiser remained silent, but met his gaze. "I was the first to see you when you arrived," he said in a measured voice. "I watched your unconscious body fly out of the Drillex gate, smashing into the stone at the other end of the chamber."

  He drummed lightly on the wood with his fingers. "I have witnessed men sustain severe injuries from less severe impacts. I've witnessed warriors suffer broken backs as a result of falling at a wrong angle.” His eyes became piercing. "But you? Not even a bruise anywhere on your body.”

  Kaiser could feel the pressure of Milo's gaze, but his face was still unreadable.

  Regulus reclined a little. "Then, I hear of you fighting a member of the Kingsguard, and you left that battle alive."

  Even though his voice was steady, there was something sharp and intensely inquisitive about the way he spoke. "And then," he continued with a slight chin tilt, "I discovered that you were in possession of the Marlabane, the sword that ought to have killed you the instant you touched it."

  With a hint of amusement in his face, Regulus let out a breath through his nose before Kaiser could say anything. "I've previously encountered people with exceptional recovery skills. However, yours...” He curled his fingers a little. "None I’ve seen come even close."

  Regulus continued, his face unchanging, "I also had to make sure of something, so I cut your hand while you were unconscious." To this, Kaiser's gaze grew strained, and even Milo appeared unprepared, flashing a startled glance in Regulus' direction.

  Regulus, however, stayed perfectly calm. " Simply put, it wasn’t much," he said. "Just a quick test. Your palm was cut shallowly, but at the very least, it ought to have left a scar.” He pressed his lips together. "And yet, with no effort… with no rush of Sol… your body repaired itself in an instant."

  Kaiser stared, turning the words over in his mind, processing them as carefully as he could, before speaking after a short pause. "What is Sol?"

  Silence hung in the air as Regulus sat still, unblinking, while Milo remained motionless, both of them fixated on him without a word. Kaiser's eyebrows went up. "What?"

  Milo's expression changed from bewilderment to something more akin to disbelief as his lips slightly parted. On the other hand, Regulus smiled, and in less then a second, he burst out into a laughter.

  It was neither a controlled exhale nor a courteous laugh. It was a loud, honest laugh. He threw his head back, his whole body trembling as a deep, booming sound filled the room. It was the sort of laughter that results from seeing something genuinely ridiculous. Something so implausible that laughter was the only appropriate response.

  Kaiser looked at Milo, who had a contorted expression of secondhand embarrassment on his face. The man muttered something under his breath and rubbed his temple.

  Regulus, after a few long moments, finally began to calm down. His laughter tapered off into deep breaths, a lingering smirk on his face as he wiped a gauntleted hand across his mouth trying his hardest to hide it.

  He mused, "No spy," and shook his head. "No infiltrator, no matter how skilled and experienced would ever act this clueless." Still amused, he let out a breath and sank back in his chair. "Milo, your suspicions were unfounded."

  Milo let out a sigh. "Seems so." Milo's words caused Regulus to ease his posture fully and exhale once again, but his smirk persisted for a moment longer. As he turned back to Kaiser, the amusement in his eyes subsided, but not completely. With a more composed expression, he spoke.

  "Sol," he stated, "Is the power of every living being."

  His tone was matter-of-fact, as if explaining something so basic it shouldn’t have needed explanation. "Some call it talent. Others call it magic. Some just say power. But the world, as a whole, calls it Sol. It’s the energy you’re born with, the force your soul exerts through your abilities."

  Leaning forward a little, Regulus's eyes remained fixed on Kaiser. "Simply said. It’s the most basic state of power for any living being."

  Kaiser just processed the information without saying anything. "And yet, you didn’t even know of its existence." Regulus added, seeing how silent Kaiser was being.

  A faint hint of amusement returned to his face. “Even young children in the capital are aware of that. A man of your age...?" He drummed his fingers lightly on the chair's wood once again. "You should have known that, no matter your background."

  Kaiser's eyes squinted at the insult, but Regulus wasn't done yet.

  "You claim to be from a kingdom." He carefully uttered the word while observing Kaiser's response. "The last of those were absorbed into the Liberatoriums quite a while ago." He gave his chin a little tilt. "Which means you are either… ancient, Or…" His gaze grew serious once more. "You are from a land completely unknown to us."

  Kaiser's face remained unchanged, but there was a faint, nearly undetectable strain in his shoulders, and Regulus noted it down.

  He went on, "But there is one more possibility," in a tone that became almost informal. "That you are not the first of your kind to appear out of nowhere." After a moment of staring, Regulus went on.

  "There is only one person in recent history who was unknown one day and infamous the next."

  "Sabel Stoorm." The name hung in the air like a curse.

  Regulus let the silence stretch before speaking again. "He appeared near Woodrift only a year ago. No records. No past. No known origins."

  His voice was level, but his gaze was still as sharp as ever. "And you, Kaiser…" Regulus let his words trail off as he studied the man before him.

  He had noticed it from the very start. The way Kaiser’s posture subtly shifted. The way the air itself seemed to grow heavier when the name was spoken. The way his expression, no matter how carefully controlled, always darkened at the mention of that man.

  Regulus leaned back slightly. "The sheer hatred that radiates from you every time his name is spoken…" He said. "To me proves you are not his ally, far from it in fact."

  Milo said nothing, his eyes darting between the two men, while Regulus's face became contemplative. "Which begs the question," he mused, "Just what is he truly?"

  Kaiser let out a slow, controlled breath, but the air changed. The room began to feel heavier, as though invisible hands had squeezed the warmth out of the walls. Milo was the first to notice. He didn't say anything, but his fingers twitched a little against his chair's armrest. Regulus stood motionless, keeping a close eye on Kaiser.

  For a short moment, there was only silence, but then Kaiser finally spoke.

  "Men write stories of devils and beasts to make sense of monsters," he continued "To give them fangs, horns, and purpose… But Sabel Stoorm is no such thing."

  His voice did not waver, yet there was a weight behind it, a certainty that could not be questioned.

  "He is not the wolf that stalks the lamb, nor the fire that razes the village, ohhh no… He is the absence of the village. The space where a thousand lives should have been, the yawning hollow in the world that nothing will ever fill again.”

  The words sat heavy in the air, sinking into the bones of those who heard them, especially Regulus. He was a man who had witnessed war and stood in front of unspeakable atrocities, however, there was something about Kaiser's speech that caused his fingers to flex slightly against his chair's arms.

  "You speak as though he is something greater than a man," Milo said, his voice quieter than before. "But I have seen true evil before. I have met men who have done unspeakable things—monsters, if you will." He fixed his gaze on Kaiser. "And I doubt he is much different then the rest."

  Kaiser exhaled deeply before looking directly into Milo's eyes.

  "To call him evil," he stated, "is to call the abyss deep, it’s true, in a sense, but it does not capture the horror of standing at its edge." Kaiser went on. "He is not cruel because cruelty necessitates emotion. He doesn't hate because hatred is inherently motivated. He is hunger without end, the silence without mercy."

  Regulus's grip on his chair tightened slightly, the wood creaking under his fingers.

  "The weight of inevitability pressing down on every mortal soul."

  Against the dense air, the light from the light in the room wavered and flickered.

  "Sabel Stoorm does not leave corpses.” As he said the last words, Kaiser's eyes remained steady and unblinking. "He leaves nothing at all."

  A dense, impenetrable silence descended upon the space. Despite all of his knowledge and his experiences with the worst that humanity had to offer, Milo was unable to speak. He had come prepared for many things, for defiance, for bravado, even for threats.

  But this was not a threat. It was a truth so absolute, so terrifying, that there was nothing to say. Regulus exhaled, slow and measured, as if steadying himself. He was no stranger to horror, to the cruelty men could inflict upon one another. He had waded through battlefields littered with the broken, had seen warlords burn entire cities to cinders.

  And yet, something about the way Kaiser spoke of him left a hollow in his chest, a creeping, gnawing thing that he dared not name. Milo leaned back, fingers lacing together in thought. His sharp gaze flickered between Kaiser and Regulus, searching for something, perhaps reassurance, perhaps denial, but neither came.

  Then, with a quiet breath, Milo spoke. "I have heard the rumors," he said. "The destruction of Northlink, the vanishings and the whispers of something unnatural."

  "But even then," Milo added, "I never truly believed it. Men embellish, they make myths out of murderers, turn butchers into demons. I assumed he was simply another murderer, another man who had clawed his way to the top through blood and terror."

  His jaw tightened slightly.

  "But if what you say is true—"

  "It is," Kaiser interrupted, with no room for negotiation.

  Milo paused.

  Regulus drummed his fingers against his gauntlet, a slow and thoughtful rhythm. Then, without warning, he let out a small breath of amusement, shaking his head. "Well," he muttered. "That’s fucking terrifying." Kaiser tilted his head slightly at the reaction.

  "You’re laughing?"

  Regulus exhaled sharply. "Yea. Because what else can a man do?"

  He got up from his chair. "If I don’t laugh, I might start thinking too hard about what it means to fight something like that."

  To that Milo only glanced at Kaiser. "You said you fought him," Milo said. "And that you lost." And to that Kaiser could only nod.

  "Then tell me this." Milo’s voice was quieter now. "If he is as unstoppable as you claim, if he is hunger without end, the silence without mercy… Why are you still alive?"

  Kaiser did not answer immediately. His gaze dropped, ever so slightly, as if searching for an answer himself.

  Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he replied:

  "I don’t know."

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