The atmosphere beneath the capital of the Dwarf Kingdom was no longer just damp; it was thick with the copper stench of old blood and the lingering miasma of forbidden spells. As Alaric Chenwongo stood before the mangled remains of the Flesh Gate, his golden hair shimmered with a pale, celestial light that seemed to reject the darkness around him. The "Shadow Ledger," an organization that had festered like a parasite under the throne of the defeated Thrain Ironhand, had finally been laid bare.
What Alaric saw inside the cabin was a sight that would cause even a seasoned God-Seeker to tremble.
Under the Flesh Gate hundreds of children were huddled together in the freezing slush of the basement. They were not just Dwarves. Alaric's gaze swept across the room, noting the pointed, clipped ears of Elven children whose emerald eyes had been clouded by cataract-inducing poisons. There were Golems, small stone-bodied youths whose crystalline cores had been cracked and drained of their elemental essence, leaving their rocky skin grey and brittle. There were Elemental Kingdom children—spirits of fire and water—whose flickers were so weak they looked like dying embers in a storm. And, of course, there were Humans and Dwarfs, their small bodies covered in the viscous, rotting gore that had poured from the flesh-sealed door.
These children, ranging from the tender age of five to teenagers the size of Jai and James, looked at Alaric with hollow expressions. Some had had their eyes harvested for ocular alchemy; others were missing tongues or fingers. When the sunlight from the palace above finally touched their skin, many flinched, as if the light itself were a weapon. But slowly, the warmth began to register. Those who could see stared at Alaric's silhouette, and those who were blind simply tilted their heads toward the heat, their cracked lips curling into the first smiles they had shared in months.
Alaric did not speak. His rage was a silent, suffocating sea. He channeled his Gravitational Dao, creating a massive, invisible platform of soft kinetic energy. With a gentle flick of his wrist, the hundreds of children were lifted out of the pit, floating upward like dandelion seeds in a summer breeze.
As they reached the surface, a cacophony of grief and hope erupted. The plaza was filled with thousands of adults—citizens of the Dwarf Kingdom and refugees from the wars. Many of them had lost their own children to the Shadow Ledger's raids. When they saw the state of the rescued kids—naked, shivering, and mutilated—a wave of collective maternal and paternal instinct took hold.
These children were orphans; their parents had long since been turned into the very "Flesh Gate" Alaric had kicked down. Yet, the adults of the city did not hesitate. Men tore off their heavy fur coats, and women ripped their silken shawls to wrap around the children of different races. A Dwarf mother held a blind Elven girl to her chest, sobbing into her hair, while a Golem warrior allowed a shivering Human boy to lean against his naturally warm, sun-heated stone body.
"The sun..." a teenager whispered, his skin covered in the boils of a necrotic disease. "It doesn't hurt anymore."
Alaric withdrew a silver, pulsating disk—the Sound Waver, a Tier 3 communication artifact of the Chenwongo house. He struck the center, sending a spiritual vibration across the dimensions to the Human Kingdom.
"Aunt Beatrice," Alaric's voice was like grinding glaciers. "The basement is filled with empty, but the cost is high. I have hundreds of multi-racial children here with diseases and injuries that defy common medicine. I need the Royal Corps."
As he spoke, a shadow blotted out the sun. Verlin, the Golden Griffin and soul-companion of King Borin, descended from the clouds. The beast was a wreck; its feathers were stained with the black venom of the Serpent, and its eyes were rolling back in its head. With a final, agonizing screech, the legendary beast collapsed at Alaric's feet, its heart slowing to a crawl.
Beatrice's voice came through the Sound Waver, as calm and authoritative as the Heavens themselves. "I see through the Griffin's eyes, Alaric. The Shadow Ledger has committed a sin that demands extinction. I will take the child home."
Suddenly, a massive, golden ritual circle manifested beneath Verlin. The air rippled with Spatial Laws, and the Griffin vanished in a blink, teleported directly to Beatrice's private sanctuary. There, the Empress of the Human Kingdom placed her hand upon the beast's brow. A Heaven-Wing Mark appeared on Verlin's belly, glowing with the "Solar-Phoenix" essence. The two elder Griffins—Beatrice's personal summons—nuzzled their child, their own Divine Qi flowing into Verlin to restart its heart.
"Now," Beatrice's voice echoed through the artifact to Alaric, "I am sending three thousand healers. Clear the way."
Within ten minutes, Alaric opened a Grand Teleportation Gate. Three thousand Human Medical Ministers stepped through, their pristine white robes a stark contrast to the blood-soaked ruins of the Dwarf Kingdom. They moved with a speed that made the Dwarf doctors—who prided themselves on their mechanical intelligence—look like bumbling amateurs.
"Move! Use the Aura-Purge on the Elf3 children! Stabilize the Golem cores with Liquid Jade!" the Human Chief Director shouted.
A young Dwarf doctor stood by, her jaw dropping as she watched a human healer use Spirit-Needles to reattach a severed limb in seconds. She turned to her Chief. "Sir... I thought we were the most intelligent race in Aetheleon. How do these humans possess such terrifying knowledge of the biological Dao?"
The Dwarf Chief, a man who had lived through three centuries, sighed. "Knowledge is not just about books, child. It is about bloodline. The Human Kingdom is led by the Chenwongo Lineage. They are the peak of our planet's evolution."
"The Chenwongos?" she asked. "Like Emperor Dominatrix?"
"The very same," the Chief replied, his voice hushed. "When the Dragon Lords descended from the stars to rule us, it was Dominatrix who tore their wings off with her bare hands. She sat upon the Throne of Aetheleon, and even the stars bowed. They called her 'Emperor' because 'Empress' was too small a title for a woman who held the world's fate in her palm. Her son, King DD, was even more of a monster. They say he wrote the Epoch Walker while standing in the center of a supernova. Rumor says he's still alive, watching us from the higher planes."
"Hmph!" The Human Medical Chief walked past them, his eyes sharp. "If you have time to worship our ancestors, you have time to hold a bandage! Your comrades are dying while you chat about history! Move!"
The Dwarf doctors scrambled, shamed into action by the sheer intensity of the Chenwongo-led medical force.
For two days, the medical teams worked without sleep. James, Zayn, Brokk, and Winston were successfully brought back from the brink, their wounds sealed and their Dantians stabilized. But in the center of the royal infirmary, Jai remained motionless.
Alaric stood over his nephew, his face filled with a rare, paternal anxiety. "Minister! Why is he not waking? The Griffin is healed, the King is stable—why is Jai still in the dark?"
The Medical Minister sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. "Alaric... it is the Soul-Hallucination State. Jai's spirit has retreated into the inner world of his mind to cope with the trauma of the war. In this state, he is trapped in a dream that feels more real than reality. If he cannot find the 'Truth' and break the dream himself, his soul will wither, and his body will follow. It could be days... or it could be years. We cannot interfere, or his mind will shatter like glass."
Alaric looked at the boy—the future of their line—and felt a cold, murderous resolve harden in his chest.
Seeking a target for his fury, Alaric walked to the prison camp where the surviving ministers and soldiers of Zeron's army were held. These were the men who had facilitated the Shadow Ledger's atrocities.
Alaric entered the tent. 27 men sat there, their faces filled with the smug silence of those who think they are protected by a higher power.
"Who is the master of the Shadow Ledger?" Alaric asked. No one answered.
Alaric's eyes turned a pitch-black, a sign that he was activating the Sovereign's Executioner mode. He walked toward the lead minister, a man who had helped Zeron starve the children.
"You think your silence is a shield?" Alaric whispered.
He grabbed the minister's arm. With a slow, deliberate twist of Gravitational Pressure, Alaric began to compress the man's bones. The sound was like a thousand dry sticks snapping at once. The minister screamed, but Alaric used a Spirit-Seal to keep the sound trapped in the man's throat, causing his lungs to nearly burst from the internal pressure.
"This is for the Elven girl whose eyes you took," Alaric said.
He didn't use a sword. He used his fingers to peel the skin from the minister's face as if it were parchment, exposing the raw nerves to the salty, metallic air. Then, Alaric reached into the man's chest—while he was still conscious—and began to slowly squeeze his heart, pulsing it just enough to keep him alive while he felt every ounce of agony.
The second minister tried to crawl away, but Alaric's shadow expanded, pinning him to the ground. Alaric turned his gaze to the second man.
"And you... you watched them scream."
Alaric pointed his finger. A beam of Condensed Light pierced the second minister's stomach, but it didn't pass through. Instead, it stayed inside, heating up until the man's internal organs began to boil. The minister's eyes melted in their sockets from the internal heat, his body smoking as he was cooked from the inside out.
The remaining 25 soldiers collapsed, their bladders failing, their minds breaking as they watched their leaders turned into unrecognizable heaps of charred and flayed meat.
"TELL ME!" Alaric roared, the sound shaking the very earth.
"The Abyss!" one soldier shrieked, his voice cracking. "The man in white! He leads us! He is the Shadow! Zeron was just a toy!"
Deep in the Abyssal Plane...
A man sat in a throne of obsidian, surrounded by the shadows of a thousand dead souls. He wore a robe of blinding, pristine white that seemed to absorb the light around him. His long, black hair flowed down his back like a river of ink.
In his hand, he held a Fesko hen, its feathers shimmering with spiritual energy. The bird was still alive, its heart beating frantically against his palm. With a casual, terrifying grace, the man bit into the bird's neck, tearing away the flesh and drinking the hot, spiritual blood as the creature shrieked and twitched.
He watched a floating screen of dark energy, seeing Alaric's interrogation. He laughed, the sound cold and hollow, like wind through a tomb.
"This kid... this Alaric," the man whispered, blood dripping from his chin onto his white robe. "He's got the Chenwongo fire. He actually thinks he can find me."
The man looked at a dark artifact on his table—a Black Snake-Headed Totem.
"My soldiers have served their purpose. They are witnesses now. And witnesses must be erased."
He tapped the snake's head.
Back in the Camp...
The 25 surviving soldiers suddenly stopped screaming. Their faces began to swell, their skin turning a deep, bruised purple. Their eyes bulged out of their heads like ripe fruit.
"Wait!" Alaric shouted, realizing the trap.
POP. POP. POP.
In a series of wet, rhythmic explosions, the 25 soldiers detonated like over-inflated balloons. A tidal wave of blood and viscera flooded the tent, coating Alaric in the gore of the traitors. Within seconds, there was not a single living soul left in the camp to testify.
The man in the white robe watched the screen and took another bite of the Fesko. "See you soon, Alaric. I'll be waiting in the dark."
Alaric stood in the silence of the tent, the blood of the dead dripping from his golden hair. He looked toward the floor, his gaze piercing through the crust of the earth toward the Abyss.
The game had changed. The Shadow Ledger wasn't a group of Dwarven rebels—it was the playground of a monster who is unknown.