--Descendant--

Draxuropolis

Clementé's gray hair whipped in the air as a powerful gust emanated from the glowing spell circle marked into the ground. His eyes narrowed, every line of the intricate symbols blazing with an unnatural light. This was beyond belief—magic was real. And this was not good. It shouldn’t be happening, especially not a summoning spell.

"Sceadows andas nihtes, hirienc me nu and secgeon to minum summan."

He was few steps away from the spellcaster who spoke the incantation in a strange, ancient tongue. Each word was like a physical force, and Clementé could feel the power that was being invoked.

"You must stop this now! It's too dangerous!" he shouted.

But the guy stood just outside the circle and didn't even listen. He uttered those words from an ancient book held open before him. He didn't even glance up, seemingly oblivious to the tension around them, instead concentrating on what was beginning to show up at the circle's center.

"Geferhð þonne ealdor of the defenedan, and brengie þāra gæsta forð of the liflōcan."

The night pressed in around, the darkness barely held at bay by the circle’s eerie glow and the light of two torches. They stood in the middle of weathered pillars, covered in moss and remnants of a long-ruined building.

"Sylus!"

Slowly, the ancient pillars and rocks around them began to lift from the ground, floating in the air as if drawn into the spell's pull. Clementé instinctively raised his arm, shielding himself from the surging force. This spell was spiraling out of control—something unimaginable could break free.

"Sylus, hear me now. You tread on dangerous grounds. You must cease this reckless path you have set yourself upon!"

His feet moving before he made the decision. He rushed towards the spellcaster, aiming the tome.

"I have already commanded you to desist in your actions! Yet, you persist in your stubbornness!"

Caught off guard by Clemente's unexpected approach, the spellcaster suddenly winched and the incantation interrupted.

"Agh! No...S-Stay bacK!"

Sylus started to feel pain, clenching his fists, and gritting his teeth as if trying to fend off the sensation. Clementé knew the cause - breaking ten-radius rule. But he had to come closer more. Three steps. Two steps. One step. Then, he reached out the tome.

"What are you doing, Professor?!" Sylus angrily asked while trying to bare the pain.

"Sylus! Magic possesses great power and can bring both wonder and ruin. You know not the forces you toy with, nor the cataclysmic fate that may be unleashed by that circle."

"I don't care how dangerous it seems! This is the only way left!"

He ripped the book back and shoved Clementé away from him with more strength than expected. The pain he felt slowly faded away.

"Ugh, I said halt it now!"

With a straight face, Sylus replied, "I'm sorry, Professor. This kid is truly desperate."

Then, the incantation continued.

"Nooooo!"

Coming here had been a mistake—a grave one. Clementé cursed himself for ever mentioning the book to Sylus, for not hiding it away after separating it from the sword. If only he hadn’t brought it into his home, Sylus would have never known of its existence. The worst of it was that Clementé himself had foolishly suggested that magic might hold the answer to Sylus’s problem. And now, he feared what that mistake might unleash.

"Þū ðe þe of the sceadu dwellest, gehirie minra beboden and forðferhð minne willan."

The ground beneath them trembled. The words spilled from Sylus lips in an ancient language, each syllable vibrating with a power. And the spell circle pulsed brighter, the light now blinding.

"You’re tampering with forces beyond our understanding! If you open that gate, you won’t be able to control what comes through!" Clementé warned.

There was no respond. Sylus was lost, his mind consumed by the incantation that flowed from his lips like a rapid stream. The words came faster, more desperate!

The shadows within the circle swirled, thickening with every second, their tendrils reaching out as if they could sense the desperation fueling the spell.

"Drefe þone gæsta of the āfrera and bring..."

The phrase was old, older than the ruins themselves, a relic of past when magic had been as much a part of life as the air they breathed. It had to work—this had to be the answer. It was all he had left.

Clementé watched in silence as Sylus’s voice grew louder as he approached the final words, the climax of the spell that he hoped would bring him salvation. His entire body trembled with the effort while holding the tome.

"...þone æl!"

With the last syllable, the shadows in the circle began to coalesce, taking on a more defined shape, a human form.

Both of them held their breath as they watched the figure solidify.

The figure became clearer, the details of a face beginning to form. And Sylus’s hope flaring within him. But just as the figure seemed on the verge of becoming whole, there was a violent shudder, and in an instant, it exploded into a burst of dark smoke.

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BOOM!

The shadows recoiled as if in pain, retreating back into the depths of the circle, and the ground beneath them stilled. The light of the ancient lines faded into the earth as if it had never been there at all.

“It cannot be...” Sylus whispered, stunned.

The spell failed him unfortunately.

“It's over. Stop now," Clementé said.

Sylus gritted and turned to face the man on the ground - Clementé. "You don’t understand!" His nails digging into his palms so they drew blood. He was truly angry. "This illness is killing me! It’s eating me alive, day by day, and nothing—not the priests, not the temple’s holy water—nothing has even slowed it down!"

Loss for words. Clementé had known Sylus was suffering, but hearing it laid bare like this-he could feel the despondency. The torment that clawed at the young guy's sanity day by day.

"But at what cost? What if the entity you seek to conjure is not as you presume? What if it is a trick, a deceitful trap that may cost you all that you possess? There must be another way, kid, a path that does not involve such dangerous enchantments."

“There is no other way!” Sylus shouted again. “I’ve searched for years, Professor! Years! And this is the only lead I have left. You promised me you’d help me find a way. You gave me this chance, and now you’re trying to take it away?!”

Clementé stared at Sylus with pang of guild, at the blood on his hands, at the madness in his mismatched eyes. He had never seen him like this, so far gone.

And in that moment, he knew. He had made a terrible mistake.

***

After that night, a full moon had passed, and Clementé hadn't seen Sylus again in the north. The memory of that night haunted him, yet here he stood in the Citadel of Draxurio's secret sanctum, staring at the seed with King Adheesh and the cleric Rufus by his side.

He overthought every possibility—could the petrification be a result of Sylus's desperate actions? Perhaps they had awakened something supernatural that should have remained buried in the past, left as mere legends. He knew Rufus believed the seed was divine, but Clementé had read deeper into his family’s legacy, the old tome passed down through generations. It was more than just a seed. And he had only shared his suspicions with Sylus—the one stubborn enough to follow through on them.

Coming back to the capital wasn’t about meeting the king or solving the northern drought problem. He had lied to the king and the Duke about that. In truth, his real reason was more baleful, he needed to confirm if the hidden vault existed. And he did.

He saw it submerged beneath the pond in the sanctum without knowledge of the king and the cleric.

The vault was really there. But what was in it?

Right after the meeting, he had promised the king he would tell something he knew—but that didn’t mean he would disclose the truth about the magic or the tome. His plan was simple: reveal only the vault and see what lay inside. That was all.

"That wilful youth..."

His eyeglass, cracked from that night’s encounter in the ruin land. He wondered where Sylus had gone—probably back to the Dukedom or to the place where only Sylus was allowed to enter.

Since, he already in the the Capital, he had plans to head there himself to meet his former student and fulfill a promise. But those plans changed the moment he bumped into Felix—his student—right here in the store, and the boy had boldly greeted him with a sword to his neck.

The fight that followed was more of a reunion, a test of skill rather than hostility. Felix had grown, his swordsmanship improve. Clementé found himself amazed by how much the young boy had developed over the years of training. The scuffle ended with mutual chuckled, but he was proud—proud of the boy who now stood before him as a man.

"Well done."

"You've returned, Master."

They left the store and stepped into the festival outside, watching the parade that moved through the streets. For Felix, this was his first time among the festival-goers—something Clementé knew all too well, having stolen away Felix’s time during these celebrations in favor of rigorous training.

He looked around until something caught his eyes. A woman on a ladder. Her clothes unlike anything he had ever seen before. While everyone around her wore traditional garments of wool and linen, this woman’s attire was strange—bright, structured, and foreign.

"Katrina..." he mumbled.

The woman descended from the ladder and left the crowd.

He then left Felix without a word, and followed her into the alley. His boots scuffed against the cobblestones.

“Katrina?” he called out, hopeful. But she hadn’t even turned around. She was fast.

He moved faster. “Katrina!” he called again.

It couldn't be her... Katrina was gone.

The woman disappeared around another corner.

“Katrina!”

Just as he was about to round the corner, a figure appeared in his path. It stood still as a statue, cloaked in shadow. Clementé stopped. The figure was shrouded in black, but as he peered closer, he realized there was no face beneath the hood—just darkness.

No… not human.

The faceless figure watched him, unmoving, but then—in an instant—it was in front of him, as if it had crossed the distance between them in a flash. The figure’s cold grip closed around Clementé’s wrist, the one holding the dagger.

"You have that Paladin's shield’s eyes," the figure hissed.

Widened in shock as the faceless individual spoke to him ominously. “What... what...what are you speaking of?” his voice wavered as he struggled to free his hand.

He waved the dagger at the figure, hoping to catch it off guard, but the blade met only air. Before he could react, the figure vanished and reappeared behind him. A shove from an unseen force slammed him into the rough stone wall.

"Argh....! W-What's your aim...upon me...?"

The figure approached, then a cold hand wrapped around his throat, tightening slowly.

“Where is the Skull?” the figure rasped, the pressure on his neck making it harder to breathe.

And the dagger floated just inches from his abdomen.

“Where is the Skull?”

His vision blurring as the force constricted his airway. The figure leaned in closer, its faceless void almost brushing against his forehead.

"Your ancestor," the figure sneered, "the so-called Shield of Paladin—he paid a price for his arrogance. He dared to mark me, to scar my face in that cursed war three thousand years ago. Do you even know what that means, descendant? The debt has never been repaid."

"I...I....Idon’t know what you’re speaking of!" he gasped.

"Lie."

Its anger manifesting in the way the dagger's point dipped lower, just grazing Clementé's skin, threatening to plunge deeper. He winched.

"You bear his blood, you have his eyes, the same eyes that witnessed my disgrace. Tell me where the Skull is, or you’ll join him in death."

The pain was sharp as the blade pressed against Clementé's abdomen, a thin line of blood beginning to seep through his robes. He felt the heat of the metal, the coldness of the figure’s malevolence, and a surge of desperate energy ignited within him.

"Y-You won't find it!"

The figure leaned in closer, the void where a face should have been mere inches from Clementé's. Shadows twisted where eyes might be, but only darkness stared back at him.

“You’re a useless descendant,” the figure hissed. "Perhaps, I should find the other Shields' bloodline instead. At least they might be worth something."

"Ughhhhhh"

The figure tilted its head, mocking ominous laughter escaping from the abyss where its mouth should be. "Or maybe I’ll seek out the cursed prince instead," it sneered, delighting in Clementé’s bewilderment. "He must be somewhere near...I can sense the presence of his curse..."

Cursed Prince?

Before Clementé could process the threat, the figure’s hand twisted in the air, and the floating dagger stabbed deep...so deep into his stomach. Gurgled. Pain exploded through him.

"You must know him...do you?"

The figure stepped back, watching with cruel satisfaction as Clementé gasped and struggled, the dagger rooted in his flesh.

Squelch.

"The descendant of that Paladin King, I expected them to be extinguished from this world entirely. But I sense one..."

Then, its dismissive glance, the figure turned and continued before vanishing.

"He will soon meet his doom, but I must compel him first to guide me to the skull."

Swoosh.

“Sir! What the—Sir!”

A woman voice heard.

Clementé knees collapsed onto the ground. As he fell, his vision blurred, but he caught a glimpse of her—the woman he had mistaken for Katrina.

“B-Blood! Can you hear me? Sir!”

Indeed. She was not the Katrina he had once known.