Fist met cheek with the dull thud of bone on flesh, sending a spray of crimson into the air. Aegis used his dragonified arm to grip Samuel's collar, his eyes burning with a draconic heat. "I'll ask one last time: your name, your rank, and who is pulling your strings!"
With his power suppressed by the Dragon Breath Seal, Samuel's physique had withered back to that of a mortal. Beneath the hood was not a monster, but the handsome, weathered face of a man marked by time.
He remained a soulless puppet. No matter how Aegis struck him, the Noble merely swayed. He offered no words; his eyes were as dim as stagnant water, devoid of even a flicker of pain or defiance.
Moments ago, Elder Atok had delivered the final casualty report. Of the thirty Wyvern Warriors, three were dead. Of the five hundred Storm Knights, thirty-seven had fallen. In the central command tent, the mood was funereal. None of the leaders—Lucia included—wanted anything less than to grind Samuel's bones to dust.
"Step back, Aegis," Lucia's calm voice cut through the tension.
"Yes, My Lord." Aegis stepped aside, watching as the young prince paced toward the captive, staring him down in a heavy, suffocating silence.
After a long moment, Samuel's shoulders twitched. For some reason, the ice-blue gaze of the youth made him profoundly uncomfortable, as if his very soul were being dissected. He racked his mind, still unable to comprehend how a mere fledgling had brought him low.
"A Godskin Noble," Lucia mused aloud, his footsteps rhythmic and steady.
Suddenly, he stopped. He looked back with a cold, knowing sneer. "The world believes your mistress died in her war against Queen Marika. Who would have thought she was still clinging to life in the shadows? What is the plan? To kill an Ancient Dragon Demigod, spark a war between Farum Azula and Leyndell, and crawl out of the gutters to reclaim a dead dynasty?"
The air in the tent vanished. The four guards stood in shock, while Samuel's stoic mask shattered into a look of pure terror. His lips trembled, desperate to demand how a newborn dragon could know such secrets.
Then, the world shifted. A magnificent, crushing will descended upon the tent. Samuel's eyes and mouth clamped shut as if sealed by iron.
A heartbeat later, his eyelids snapped open. His pale gray eyes were gone, replaced by a gloam-purple light that shimmered like a starless night.
"Heh..." A soft, melodic chuckle escaped his throat. The voice was no longer Samuel's arrogant rasp; it was ethereal, seductive, and carried a weight that made the mind reel.
"To think someone in this era still remembers me," the entity said through Samuel's lips. "Should I, a remnant of a bygone age, thank you for holding me in your thoughts—Luciassax?"
Lucia froze. He had intended to bluff, to trick the Noble into revealing a handler. He hadn't expected a literal divine manifestation.
The Gloam-Eyed Queen. The woman who once commanded the Apostles to hunt the divine, the one who had challenged Marika herself—she was alive.
"Protect His Highness!" Aegis reacted first, his body blurring into an afterimage as he positioned himself between Lucia and the possessed Noble.
Guilel and the Elders drew their weapons instantly, forming a wall of steel. They knew little of the Queen, but the sheer pressure radiating from the captive told them everything they needed to know. The atmosphere was a harp string stretched to the breaking point.
The entity in Samuel's body merely watched them, a faint, bitter sigh escaping her.
"To meet you for the first time like this... it is truly a dull irony." She looked past the guards at Lucia, her purple eyes swirling with an emotion that was impossible to read.
"I don't understand," Lucia said, his voice hesitant but clear. "You sent these men to kill me. What is ironic about a victim meeting his executioner?"
He was testing her. He needed to know her motives, her state of being, and if this was truly her command.
The Queen did not offer a defense.
She only sighed again, her expression turning somberly serious. "Young dragon, if you have the strength... then try to survive these troubled times."
As she spoke, Samuel's body erupted. Black flames, far more potent than any seen during the raid, consumed him instantly. The enchanted iron chains turned to ash in a heartbeat. Before the physical form vanished entirely, the Queen's final words drifted through the tent like a ghost.
"As long as you live, anything is possible..."
Silence reclaimed the tent. Guilel looked at the pile of scorched ash, her voice small and confused. "What... what was she talking about?"
To the people of this age, the idea of "troubled times" was a fantasy. The Golden Age was the zenith of civilization. Leyndell, Caria, and Farum Azula stood in harmony. Prosperity was the law of the land.
How could this be a time where one had to struggle just to exist?
But Lucia knew.
He knew the Golden Age was a flickering candle in a hurricane. He knew the Shattering would turn The Lands Between into a purgatory of the walking dead. He knew the high-and-mighty demigods would be reduced to monsters, neither human nor ghost, fighting over shards of a broken dream.
"Survive, huh..." he whispered to himself. "A difficult challenge indeed."
In the shadows of the tent, a faint, invisible wisp of energy drifted from the ashes and sank into Lucia's chest, unnoticed by all.