The cosmic cycle turned once more. In the deepest, most shadowed pits of the Abyssal Yellow Springs, the gates of the Netherworld groaned on hinges forged from the souls of the damned. Gronak Stone Head, the King of the Past—the man who once stood toe-to-toe with the legendary Beatrice—stepped through the veil. He went to his second death not with a scream of agony, but with a blood-chilling smile. In his final moments, he had seen the "Human" son he despised become a beast of war. He died knowing that the Stone Head bloodline, though diluted by human genes, had the fangs necessary to bite the world.
Far above the clouds of the Dwarf Kingdom, in the celestial heights of the Human Royal Capital, a woman of peerless elegance opened her eyes. Lord Beatrice sat upon her throne of white jade, her aura as calm as a summer lake. She felt the violent pressure of the Tier 2 God-Seeker clash dissipate from the astral winds.
"The echo of the old foe has finally faded," she whispered, her voice carrying the weight of centuries. "Gronak... you were a stubborn thorn, but even you could not withstand the evolution of your own lineage. I chose my student well."
Beside her, the two legendary Griffins—the parents of the Verlin—felt the shift in the spiritual tide. Sensing their offspring's survival and the end of the hostility, they let out a soft, melodic hum and drifted back into a deep, restorative slumber. Beatrice stroked their golden feathers, her gaze piercing through space and time toward the ruined Dwarf Palace.
"Rest now," she murmured. "The cleanup of the trash is all that remains."
The sky over the Dwarf Kingdom was suddenly bisected by a streak of roaring crimson fire. It wasn't a falling star, but King Borin Stone Head, plummeting back to Aetheleon with his final sliver of essence. He was encased in a shrinking oxygen bubble, his body a map of charred flesh and shattered bones.
Alaric Chenwongo, standing amidst the rubble of the plaza, looked up. His black eyes, sharpened by the Sovereign's Path, tracked the trajectory. "That old man really put him through the wringer," Alaric muttered, his golden hair whipping in the gale created by the falling King.
As Borin neared the ground, a catastrophe seemed inevitable. A Tier 2 master crashing at terminal velocity would have leveled the remaining half of the city.
Alaric moved. He didn't use brute strength; he used Elemental Harmonization.
"Heavenly Glacial Seal!" Alaric roared.
He slammed his palms together. From the moisture in the air and the subterranean aquifers, a massive, tiered pillar of ice and swirling water magic erupted. It acted as a giant, liquid cushion, catching Borin's bubble and slowing the descent through sheer viscous resistance.
BOOM.
The impact was dampened, but the ice pillar still cracked into a million pieces. At the summit of the frozen monument, the oxygen bubble popped. Borin lay there, half of his face missing, his left arm gone, looking more like a corpse than a king.
Alaric leaped to the top of the ice. He looked down at the man who was technically his "brother-in-arms" through Beatrice's tutelage.
Borin opened his one remaining eye, a faint, bloody grin tugging at his mangled lips. "Hey... bro," Borin wheezed, the sound like dry leaves. "Your aunt... and you... saved us again. Tell her... the bill is going to be... expensive."
Before Alaric could reply, Borin's head slumped. He had survived the impossible, but he had reached the absolute limit of the God-Seeker's endurance.
Alaric didn't waste time. He hoisted Borin over his shoulder and vanished in a blur of light, reappearing in the center of the Palace Medical Wing.
The scene was a nightmare. Thousands of wounded soldiers and civilians were packed into the halls. The air smelled of iron, ozone, and the pungent herbs of the Dwarven apothecaries. When Alaric arrived, the doctors were already in a state of high-tension panic.
"THE KING!" a head nurse screamed. "Clear the primary operating theater! The King has returned!"
The Medical Head of the Dwarf Kingdom, a Tier 4 elder named Master Hargin, rushed forward. He was 133 years old, with a beard that reached his knees and eyes dimmed by cataracts. He took one look at Borin and turned to his staff. "Forget the Ministers! Prioritize the King! If his heart stops, the Kingdom dies!"
Alaric's face turned into a mask of pure, frigid shadow. He looked toward the corner of the ward where Jai (Arthur) and James lay. They were in deep comas, their skins pale as marble, their breathing shallow.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Alaric's voice was low, but it vibrated the glass vials on the shelves. "My nephews and their companions are at death's door. You will treat them now."
Master Hargin paused, his voice trembling but firm. "Mister! I understand your urgency, but look at the King! He is missing a face! He is a Tier 2 powerhouse whose soul is leaking! The boys are stable, but the King is a life-thread away from the Yellow Springs. We must prioritize!"
Alaric stepped forward. His Sovereign Aura flared, pinning the 133-year-old doctor against the wall.
"Listen to me, 'Master' Hargin," Alaric hissed. "The King is a God-Seeker. His body will fight for itself. My nephews are Tier 9 children who fought a war they should never have seen. If a single hair on Jai's head stops growing because you were 'prioritizing' a man who can survive a vacuum, I will personally ensure you spend the next century as a medical specimen in my aunt's laboratory. Do I make myself clear?"
Hargin's eyes bulged. He realized he wasn't looking at a man, but a predator who valued family over crowns. "I... I understand. We will divide the team! I will handle the King, my vice-heads will handle the youths! Please... lower your pressure!"
Alaric released him. "Five hours. I want them awake in five hours."
While the doctors worked, Alaric's rage did not subside; it merely focused. He walked to the temporary detention camp where 27 elite soldiers and ministers of the Shadow Ledger were being held.
He entered the camp alone. He didn't bring his divine artifacts. He took a common iron sword from a guard at the door.
The prisoners sat in the dirt, their faces filled with a mixture of arrogance and cowardice. In the center sat a Tier 5 Minister named Kruul, who had been Thrain's primary contact.
Alaric's heart was heavy with the images of Jai and James lying broken in the ward. These were the only people he truly considered kin, along with Beatrice. To see them nearly die because of these traitors was a sin that only blood could wash away.
"Where is it?" Alaric asked, his voice devoid of emotion. "The main base of the Shadow Ledger. Tell me, and I might let you die with your heads still attached."
Kruul spat on Alaric's boots. "Why should we tell you? We watched those brats starve in the pits. We watched them scream. If we die, we take the secrets of the ledger with us. Why should those high-born humans live when we lose everything?"
Alaric's rage hit the ceiling of the Heavens.
"You chose the wrong day to be brave," Alaric said.
With a flick of his wrist, Earth-Dao Magic surged. Kruul was lifted into the air, his body suddenly becoming as rigid as a statue. Alaric didn't kill him. He used a Spirit-Binding Technique that forced Kruul's own muscles to obey Alaric's will.
"You like to speak of death?" Alaric whispered.
In a display of brutal efficiency that made the guards outside turn away in horror, Alaric forced Kruul to reach into his own mouth and tear out his tongue. Then, using the blunt iron sword, Alaric systematically removed Kruul's ears and all ten of his fingers.
The screams that erupted from the camp were not human; they were the sounds of a soul being shredded. The remaining 26 prisoners scrambled backward, their arrogance replaced by a primal, soul-deep terror.
"WHO IS NEXT?" Alaric roared, throwing Kruul's mutilated body out of the tent like a piece of trash.
"UNDER THE PALACE!" a Tier 4 minister screamed, bowing so low his forehead cracked the stone. "The base is under the Palace itself! Thrain Iron Hand used his God-State magic to warp the space beneath the foundations! Please! I'll tell you everything! Just don't let that man touch me!"
Alaric stopped. "Under the palace? No wonder our scouts found nothing. The shadow was cast by the minister itself."
The news spread like wildfire. The citizens of the Dwarf Kingdom, who had been hiding in the forests, began to trickle back into the city. The scene was one of polarized emotion—mothers finding lost children and weeping with joy, while others fell over the corpses of their husbands, their cries filling the air like a discordant requiem.
After seeing the battle field filled with dead bodies of the soldiers. Alaric memorizes a quote that he reads of the book that is written by King DD:
"Where one dies in the great battlefield, their souls directly go to the heaven if they choose the correct path instead of the shadows." — The Epoch Walker, King DD.
Alaric walked through the grieving crowds. He didn't stop to accept their thanks. He had a task to finish.
He stood in the center of the Palace plaza, directly in front of the medical ward. The doctors inside felt a vibration that made their surgical tools dance.
"EVERYONE OUT!" Alaric's voice boomed.
Using a Gravitational Artifact and his own Tier 3 Sovereign Strength, Alaric did the unthinkable. He didn't just dig; he lifted.
The entire Eastern Wing of the Palace, including the stone foundations and the earth beneath it, began to rise into the sky. The doctors screamed as they saw the ground beneath them floating, but Alaric held it steady with a focused field of intent.
Beneath the palace, a hidden cavity was revealed—a dark, damp abyss that smelled of rot and ancient copper.
Alaric descended into the hole. At the end of a long, dark corridor, he found it.
The Gate of Flesh.
It was a massive door, four meters high, but it wasn't made of wood or iron. It was constructed from the preserved, magically-sealed body parts of hundreds of children. Their faces were frozen in eternal expressions of pain, their skin stitched together with violet thread.
Alaric's black eyes turned a shade of red that promised the extinction of the Shadow Ledger.
He kicked the door. It didn't break; it shrieked. The "Flesh Gate" burst open, and a torrent of stale, bloody water poured out.
Inside the chamber, hundreds of children—naked, emaciated, and covered in the blood of the door—blinked at the sudden intrusion of light. They had been kept in total darkness for months, used as "Living Batteries" for the Shadow Ledger's rituals.
For the first time in an eternity, the children felt the warmth of the sun. They didn't cheer; they simply stared at Alaric, their eyes hollow.
Alaric stood there, his heart breaking for the first time in twenty years. He looked at the children, then back at the palace he had just lifted.
"The Shadow Ledger," Alaric whispered, a vow that shook the very foundations of Aetheleon. "I will not leave a single drop of your blood on this earth. Not a single memory of your existence will remain".
"The rescue is complete. Now, the only task left is to help the Jai team wake up from their comas and regain consciousness."