Episode 10: Bond and Break

  Chapter 033 - The Mirror and the Guest

  An explosion tore the land apart.

  Wallan and Vynelor were flung backwards, thrown like toys. Heat slammed into them like a wave. Leaves disintegrated midair. Roots melted. Trunks cracked and shot upward like geysers of splintered wood. And then, the trees began to rise. Dozens of them.

  Telekinetic Magic ? Lv. 46

  Massive trees, wrapped by clenching threads of magic, wrenched from the ground and rose with a rapid succession. They hovered there weightlessly. Suddenly, they began slamming into each another. One collided against the other. The bark splintered, pulsed with echoes of wood being shredded apart in the sky. Fragments rained down like shrapnel.

  Another tree slammed into the next. With each collision, the wood sharpened. Thin, lethal points formed as though the trees were being carved into spears.

  Beneath it all, Xollor stood. His eyes glowed with pure crimson, and his hands were raised, hands holding the threads that suspended the trees. And with him were two bodies rolling across the ground without resistance. The man collapsed on one end, and the boy on the other—separated.

  His gaze locked on them.

  Floating above him—dozens of sharpened trunks—each one aimed at the land dividing the two. Xollor exhaled deeply. A few beads of sweat rolled down his temple, an unfamiliar discomfort he rarely got from any pursuit. Once his breath settled, he stepped forward.

  The sharpened tree trunks followed him, and they began to descend, one by one. They pierced the ground like falling spears, thudding into the soil with bone-jarring weight. Each impact drove them deeper, forming a jagged barrier. Within moments, they fenced the clearing, cutting Wallan and Vynelor apart.

  With every step Xollor took, another tree dropped behind him like a closing gate. They followed him, matching his pace.

  With a few more steps, the final tree struck the ground. And with the calm, Xollor stopped and stood still, watching the boy in front of him.

  Vynelor’s body trembled. He groaned softly, barely conscious. Half his body was scorched—raw skin burned black, cracked, and bleeding from the seams.

  HP: 17 / 129

  Xollor stood over him. After he had a good look at the boy, something shifted. The rage that had filled him wavered. His eyes… softened.

  Suddenly, Donnor’s voice echoed in his mind. That soft, calm, confident voice lingered deeply. So much so that Xollor winced. He shook his head. The inner conflict clawed at him, the past that haunted him.

  Seeing the little child on the ground, eyes brimming, lips trembling, and body frozen in fear made his spine crawl. He wanted to gag, like a disgusting animal lay before him. But he knew the only thing he was gagging to was the boy behind the reflection. That small, helpless boy who could only weep in front of his captor who raised his whip again. Xollor had been lucky to escape, now armored and armed with a sword. Yet in his rise to status as an elite, he had lost count of the children he had crushed, the mirrors he kept shattering. None had survived his onslaught. Every shard had fallen.

  But one still stood.

  He stared longer than he should have. The boy’s face, even through the burns, showed a terrible reflection. Something about him felt familiar, yet different. And right there, he could envision it—him striking Vynelor with the same whip that inflicted him. But while raising his hand for another blow, the child would keep standing, eyes burning, and face hardened. Xollor’s face shook, the vision trembling too.

  Because in that moment, he found the only one who fought against the sword with his life. The scorched child on the ground. The survivor ten years ago. Vynelor.

  His foot hesitated as if he might take a step back. Words trembled at the edge of his tongue. “A child who survived…”

  If the Groggins were right—that Vynelor was the same child from the basket ten years ago—then this child had endured what no other could. Not even the mightiest warriors.

  Death.

  Then, at last, the soldiers arrived. A dozen of them came with panting, battered, and dirt-smeared appearances. They gathered behind him in silence.

  One stepped forward, still catching his breath. “Sir... all of us are present. What is your—”

  But the words stopped abruptly as his eyes fell on the child. The others looked too. And for a moment, none of them moved. Their expressions changed. One covered her mouth. Another took a step back.

  “…It’s true,” someone whispered. “The child is real.”

  “Wait, we need proof he’s actually the one,” another intervened, equally shocked despite trying to calm others. “Is he of the Ladrack’s bloodline?”

  “Don’t know. Bring him to the kings! They can verify.”

  “Sir? Your orders.”

  Xollor straightened his back. His posture stiffened, returning to that hardened, unreadable stillness. It was a leader’s stance he always had, the one his men always knew. He cleared his throat too sharply. The rasp was noticeable. And then he said flatly, “Take him away. Bring him to the cells.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The soldiers nodded stiffly. A few exchanged uneasy glances, but none spoke. They approached the boy. But before they could reach him—

  THUD.

  A heavy crash echoed from the side. Near the wall of impaled trunks Xollor constructed, Wallan’s body slammed into the earth, falling from above with a brutal crunch. The sound jolted the soldiers to turn.

  Wallan lay there, catching a breath. Smoke curled from his skin. His clothes were half-burned. One leg was charred black. Half his hair was gone. He looked like the shell of a man. Then he moved. One arm dragged across the dirt. Then the next.

  He crawled slowly but never stopped and left a trail of blood behind him. The red path grew longer, the line reaching the boy with every movement forward. He reached for Vynelor once close, his hands shaking. And he wrapped around the boy tightly, with whatever strength he had left.

  He held him close. And then, as if it cost him the world, Wallan lifted his head. He looked at the soldiers. And then he stared at Xollor, a battered, unwavering stare. It was something impossibly steady for a man so broken. That look, the face of the child resisting the whip. The vision shocked him like lightning.

  Xollor flinched.

  His face twitched. He blinked rapidly. For a split second, he looked away. His hand raised, hovering over his mouth. The soldiers noticed, and one called out hesitantly, “Sir?”

  Xollor blinked again. Then, with a breath he tried to steady, he broke through the wavering will and said coldly, “Did you listen to me? Ignore the man and take the child away. Now.”

  The soldiers didn’t hesitate this time. Their steps were rigid as they marched forward and shoved Wallan aside with their boots. His body, already bruised and battered, collapsed into the dirt with a hollow grunt. But his grip didn’t release.

  He clung to Vynelor’s burned clothing with the desperation of someone who had nothing else left in the world. “Don’t,” he rasped, voice nearly inaudible.

  One of the soldiers, without a word, stomped his boot down on Wallan’s wrist. There was a sickening pop. The fingers loosened. The contact broke.

  –14 HP

  HP: 8 / 459

  Vynelor’s hand reached weakly in return, trembling in the air like it was moving through water. Then it fell limp.

  “Vyn…” Wallan gasped, the name torn from his throat with the last of his strength. His body slumped forward. He didn’t pass out. Not quite. But it was as if something inside him gave up fighting back.

  The soldiers turned away, now carrying the boy between them, his burned arms dangling, legs dragging grooves in the dirt. They moved in perfect order, uniforms shining even in the fading light.

  Xollor stood still as they passed him, remaining silent without losing stance. His eyes locked onto Wallan’s. There was a faint something in his gaze. He had seen Wallan crawl through his wounds for a child. He had seen him hold the line even when he could stop.

  It should’ve ended there. Xollor would leave this man to his wounds. He caught the boy. His job was done.

  But then… The air changed.

  The absence of noise spoke louder than a gust of wind.

  The soldiers froze. Their limbs stiffened. One staggered as if struck from behind. Another dropped to a knee, eyes wide in sudden confusion.

  Then, from the edges of the clearing, shadows began to crawl.

  Not metaphorically, but actual shadows. Like liquid darkness, they slithered from under roots and tree trunks, rising in coils across bark and stone. The forest grew cold. The light dimmed even if no clouds had crossed the sky.

  Then, black clouds curled upward from the soil. They bled across the forest floor like smoke with no fire.

  Xollor’s hand shifted to his blade. His instincts screamed. Something about this felt heavy. Dreadful. His feet didn’t move.

  From the trees, they emerged. Groggins.

  Three…

  Seven…

  Twelve…

  Twenty…

  Then more.

  Their cloaks were dark. Their masks bore no expression. They appeared behind trees, between trunks, atop boughs, along the ridge of the glade, an audience in a semi-circle formed.

  This was more than a patrol. Xollor had seen one Groggin, one who guided him through authority and order. Two, at most. But now, there were dozens. Their swift entrance felt choreographed, something no man would react on time for.

  He looked right. Twenty of them stood evenly spaced between trees. On the left, another row.

  Then Xollor turned—

  The soldiers who had taken the child were on the ground. Collapsed. They were unconscious but breathing. Their weapons were untouched. They never left their scabbards. Without him knowing, something happened to them. But one thing for sure, it wasn’t a fight that stopped them. The child was lying on his side again. Xollor stepped forward to check on them, and ready to speak to the Groggins.

  And then… he stopped.

  Ahead, two figures stood beyond the crowd. Unlike the others, they did not hide.

  The first was a tall being wrapped in a cloak that rippled without wind. Its face was hidden completely, but its presence was suffocating. Its crown of jagged black spikes pulsed with a faint, burning aura. It was as still as a statue.

  Next to it stood a woman, radiant and unreal.

  Her skin gleamed like polished porcelain. Her hair—long, flowing, and unnaturally white—fell in soft waves past her waist. She wore a short-sleeve robe of light gray and silver, cut with ceremonial elegance and edged with arcane script. There was no armor or weapon. She seemed to be the weakest out of everyone here. Her bright clothes seemed out of place. And that relaxed posture was so effortless. That unfazed smile. They were all too out of place. None of it felt like they belonged to this world.

  Xollor was speechless. His back straightened instinctively, like a student caught by a teacher who should’ve been dead. He knew that face. He knew it better than his own. The tilt of her cheekbones. The faint glimmer of mockery behind her serene eyes.

  The smile that had spoken judgment to kings, the same who overturned the previous government and established the triumvirate. His mouth opened slowly.

  He didn’t resist the urge to bow his head, but it happened anyway. The air around her was like gravity; it pressed down on his very system. And when he spoke, it wasn’t as a commander or an elite. At that moment, he was simply a soldier like everyone else.

  “Marshal Thallion,” he said.

  Luminar watched in silence, her smile unchanging.

  End of Episode 10