It was early morning in the capital of the Empire, and inside the Imperial Palace, Feynor was already in his study, reading through the previous month’s reports of the Shadow Corps. Just as he put down one paper, his body flinched, and a smile gradually formed on his face. Looking up, Ren was standing before him, arriving completely unnoticed by anyone else.
“Damn, you are sharp!” She chuckled, clicking her tongue. “I wanted to scare you a bit!”
“Hah! You may be fast as a lightning girl, but I sensed your life energy as soon as you arrived!” He laughed, standing up and hugging Ren, who returned the warm welcome. “Long time no see!”
“Um… sorry for not visiting…” She whispered as she let him go.
“Don’t sweat it! Sit, please!” Feynor said while ringing a bell. Soon, maids arrived, serving up tea for them without questions.
“Thanks.” Ren smiled with a gentle light in her eyes as she took up a cup sipping on it. “How’s the family?”
“Healthy, and that is what matters! Both of the kids are at the Sect, under my father’s tutelage. He says Sylas is going to be a good heir after he matures a bit more, but Elyse is sure to remain in the Sect as an official disciple.”
“Mmm, I heard that they joined not long after my little brother also became my father’s disciple. What about you? Already planning on ditching the role of Emperor?” She joked with him.
“Nah, not yet! It is too stressful! I’ll only step down when everything is peaceful so my son has fewer problems to deal with! Here.” He pushed a folder towards Ren, who calmly took it, flipping through the pages while Feynor continued. “After receiving your letter, I collected the relevant findings of the Shadow Corps. These are all that we know about these Ironclaw scums. Their bases, contacts inside the Empire, and their assumed strengths and numbers.”
“You surprised me with this…” Ren murmured, taking out Sentios’s papers and giving them to him. “You know almost more than your Uncle.”
“Huh!” Feynor chuckled with a bit of surprise as he looked through it. “There are many of the same details, yes... but there are a lot here that are not in our reports.”
“Yes, and those would be the brainwashed cells, I assume. It is hard to gather info if the infiltrator himself does not know he is a ‘spy.’ Anyway, with this, I am confident of cleaning up our side from their influence.” Ren said before emptying her cup.
“Good to hear! We have been gathering intel since the whole thing started. It is time that the gears finally start to move and grind their bones to dust. Nameless is already ready. He will accompany you with a team of his men, and I’ll also order the local military to aid you with anything you need them for. Nameless’s presence is going to act as a sign of my personal approval of what you are doing.”
“It isn’t going to be pretty, Feynor.”
“Was it pretty that my little brother died?” He asked back with a sharp and cold voice.
“I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry.” Ren replied immediately.
“Don’t worry about what the people will think about me! That is my problem to deal with. Do you really think the Empire is that weak?” He smiled, leaning backward on his chair. “It survived an assassination of an emperor; this is nothing! It is necessary to purge those who look to destabilize the empire for their own greedy needs and dreams of grandeur and power! When there is war, there is no prosperity, and I don’t want to drag this guerilla warfare on anymore! It is their emperor’s duty to protect them from outside and inside threats! So go, act as you see fit and cut off the rotting flesh from the body of our Empire so a healthy one can regrow in its place!”
“I’ll do so.” She nodded with a small smile. “I already sent out messages as we are going to strike at the same time at multiple places.”
“We?” Feynor asked as he raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.
“Yes. It isn’t going to be just me! Ariana, Lulu, Yanda, Toobu, Wyland, Kyu, and even Frenir are going to act and strike at different bases. It is going to be a devastating wake-up call for these fuckers.” She licked her lips with purple electricity dancing in her eyes.
“Are they going to be okay?”
“Yes. Because our fathers are also going to act. They are the backup if anything goes wrong or someone unexpectedly shows up! Meanwhile, Sect Head is going to appear at the borders with your brothers and the rest of the elders, alongside all of the battle-ready disciples. We are going to make sure that no interference comes from the Kingdom’s side.” She explained, looking into Feynor’s eyes. “The countdown has already started when they killed my husband… and now it is close to reaching zero.”
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“You are making me ashamed that I am not outside, fighting…” Feynor said, lowering his head.
“You are the emperor now. There are things you can and can not do.” She reached forward, patting his hand with a smile.
…
….
…..
Down south, at the shores of the Calm Blue, in an unimpressive fishing village, people in poor, ragged clothes walked around the hard, dirt roads between the wooden houses. On their shoulders, they held onto long rods with buckets attached to them on both ends. They were filled to the brim with freshly caught fish. The village itself was called Whiteshore as the salty seawater painted the rocky beachline white with salt every time it receded. The wind was bringing its salty smell inwards every day, not to mention the odor of the fishes that were caught in large quantities and put up to dry. These two, the fish and the salt, were the only things that gave this little village its source of income. They traded it with the monthly arriving caravans or gave them up as taxes for the Empire.
Only two hundred people called this place their home, and most of them never even left the borders of their little town, enjoying the relative simplicity. They were living out their lives without ever really worrying about the happenings of the world. Their only connection to the outside was the few returning merchants and the yearly appearance of the region’s militia and government officials, doing census and collecting tax before leaving them alone for another year. They bothered nobody, and nobody bothered them; life was simple yet fulfilling.
Most people, native to Whiteshore, were tanned; their skin carried a light shade of bronze while having brown or black hair and eyes. Their feet were usually white from the salt, right up to their ankles, a striking contrast to the rest of the color of their bodies. Yet now, if someone stood at the shore and watched as people gathered around the small two or three manned boats that were coming back from the sea, they could spot some irregularities. Every boat had a person who, even though they wore simple, rough clothing or stood there half-naked like the rest, their skin was much, much paler than the original population of Whiteshore.
The same could be seen inside the village as foreign people were clearly lazing around everywhere inside the only tavern or in the only shop that made clothes or small trinkets for the villagers. There were people standing around the village, looking out of place compared to the natives. Neither their hair nor their skin color matched the locals’, not to mention their physique. All of them were well built and not like the slim and slender type of the natives to Whiteshore.
Inside a shabby shack close to the ocean, where people kept damaged canoes waiting to be repaired, two scrawny kids were hiding, whispering to each other. One of them was a young, maybe 11-year-old boy, while the other was a similarly aged girl. Both of them wore only a loincloth and a rough, slipper-like footwear and nothing else.
“It hurts…” The girl moaned while tears gathered at the edge of her eyes. “And it stinks!”
“Sssh, it is going to be okay, Kaia…” The boy tried to calm her down as he was holding a foul-smelling, small jar filled with a brownish paste. He scooped it out with his thin fingers and tried to stick it under the collar that Kaia was wearing on her neck. Under the iron choker, her skin was filled with rashes and cracked skin, oozing blood and puss from it. He also had the same collar, and freshly dried blood was all over under it as it scraped against his skin with every movement he made. “This is going to help! It will ease the pain, promise!”
“Really…?” She sniffled, holding onto the collar with her small fingers, trying to pull it apart, but it was an impossible feat for even a cultivator. “Ari, when can we take these off?”
“I don’t really know…” The boy answered, going silent a little before continuing. “But if they see us tampering with it, you know what will happen! So stay quiet until I rub some more onto your neck!”
“O.. okay!” She whispered, gulping back a yelp and almost wetting herself because of the memories his words brought up.
Kaia and Ari were childhood friends, born on the same day, and growing up, living next to each other made them close like siblings. When the foreigners arrived, everyone thought a new caravan had come, but instead of trading, a nightmare had started. They were not normal people but cultivators, and their leader was someone who could even fly. A miracle that none of the villagers ever knew was possible. Since then, the children were given ‘necklaces’ that sometimes choked them so hard they passed out. Especially if the parents were disobedient to the orders of their new lords.
In the coming months, they became slaves to them, and even if the people here dressed as they acted like one of them, they were doing it only to not stand out immediately if someone came visiting the village. They constantly monitored everybody while their leader dug a secret cave under the village, hiding there with his warriors. The adults were ordered to act normally if a caravan came. Sometimes, under the night sky, the foreigners left, leaving behind only a few men.
On one such night, Ari’s parents tried to sneak out with him when most of the cultivators were away, but when they got too far, the collar on Ari started to tighten, and he almost choked to death. When they were discovered, what came next was something nobody ever going to forget in the village. The next day, his parents were beaten to death with iron chains in front of everybody. Then, their bodies were left on the shore, rotting under the hot sun for the upcoming days. They were lying there until the recurring tides slowly dragged their bodies into the ocean, swallowing them. Nobody was allowed to even touch their bodies, or they themselves would be beaten just the same. Since that day, Ari had been under the care of Kaia’s parents, taking the orphaned boy in without a second thought.
“There, it should not hurt that much anymore…” He patted Kaia’s head with a soft smile while she just nodded, finding solace in him. Her parents were out on the ocean every day, made to fish non-stop.
“When will they go…?” She asked with such a soft and quiet voice that even Ari had to lean in to hear her.
“I don’t know… but I am sure they will be gone soon! Do you remember what happened two days ago?”
“The storm?” She tilted her head, thinking back to that awful night when she snuggled up to him under their blanket. A wild storm was raging outside, high above the ocean. It was loud and frightening as if gods were fighting and lightning was flashing every minute, accompanied by the rumblings of nature’s war drums.
“Yes… the gods were clearly angry! My parents may finally have found the God of the Ocean and asked it to help us!” He said with conviction. “I prayed to it, too! Trust me, Kaia… soon, help will come!”