CHAPTER 93

  A LEGEND IS BORN

  “Wait—did he say Theodred? That Theodred?”

  Murmurs rippled through the crowd. “The one from the prophecy? The one the noble elves and the royal houses have been searching?”

  Even the slaves, momentarily forgetting their torments, stirred with sudden excitement. Whispers surged like wind in these hollow mines. And when someone uttered the word royals, all eyes turned to the figure them.

  His aura blazed—a radiance—pure and blinding.

  “He is the man of legend,” someone breathed. “The one destined to set this world free. The demigod.”

  But Hans didn’t hear them.

  Ignoring the words, his logical reasoning screamed warnings. Facing a fifth circle mage without any aura skills was a suicide, and his grade was just around ten. Yet something within him stirred—boiling, rising, demanding release. A force deeper than logic.

  He could not run. Not now. Not as a knight.

  He exhaled sharply. A visible breath fumed from his heated body. His gaze sharpened, his eyes turned stark, his blue pupils lit—and then, in a blink, he vanished.

  “Shack! Shack!”

  He stood behind the mage. Disbelief flickered in his eyes. “How... how did I do this?” he murmured, staring down at his hand as the summoned sword faded into light.

  He turned slowly.

  The Fifth Circle mage—once the overseer of mine in this region—was on his knees, both arms severed in a single, clean strike.

  Blood sizzled on the stone floor.

  “Was that... Sirius Strike?” Hans whispered. “It felt like it... my father’s signature technique.”

  He wasn’t there yet—not in skill, not in power. But it was in him.

  And for the first time in his life, a joy he had never known surged through his heart. To be like his father—nothing else had mattered more.

  And now, unknowingly... he had done it.

  The crowd surged—some in joy, others in fear.

  The mine manager lay disabled, few of his subordinates treating his wounds.

  For the first time in years, the repeating cycle of being sold and retrieved began to crack. They were free. But freedom, fragile and fleeting, came with questions. How long would it last? They were still property in the eyes of the Highborn. To flee was to invite retribution—cold, merciless. To escape meant bringing a murderer to their doorsteps.

  Their eyes turned to Theodred.

  The legend. The prophecy made flesh.

  Perhaps... he was the answer. A symbol. A saviour. Hope.

  Slowly, hesitantly, they approached him—worn hands trembling, shackled limbs moving as if in a dream. Fear warred with faith in their hearts.

  “What should we do?” one voice asked.

  Then another, bolder: “Please... guide us, Theodred.”

  And then, as if by unspoken command, they all knelt—bowing in reverence before the man who might yet change their fate.

  Hans knew the moment would not last.

  He was still only a Grade Ten aura user—barely worth notice by the world’s standards, not even a true knight. His power a flicker, not yet a flame. But this momentum—this miracle—was his to wield, if only for a while. He had to ride it as far as it would carry him. At least until the royals took notice.

  His gaze swept over the awestruck faces around him, and he stood tall, shoulders squared, as if he bore a divine mandate.

  “Where is the next mine?” he asked, his eyes burning.

  There was pride in his expression—not arrogance, but something fiercer. Righteous. As if he was carrying out the will of the gods himself.

  Someone came running—one of those sharp-eared types, always listening where they shouldn't be.

  “South, just by the canals,” he reported breathlessly, pointing.

  Hans moved at once—swift, deliberate steps that carried weight with every stride. He didn’t look back, but the freed followed him, no longer bound by any mental leash. Hope, after all, was a contagious thing.

  When they reached the outer wall, Hans called out: “Open the gates.”

  The guards peering down from the tower didn’t answer, but the sneer in their silence was enough.

  “I gave you a choice,” Hans said calmly.

  Light flared. His aura sword burst into being. One strike to the right, one to the left—clean, diagonal cuts. A tilted cross, a perfect quadrisect. The massive gate shuddered, then collapsed like wet paper, split cleanly into four.

  He stepped over the ruin. “Who manages this place?” he demanded.

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  A voice, familiar and dripping with disdain, answered. “And who’s asking? Leading a rebellion in Highborn territory, are we? Do you have a death wish?”

  It was her—the woman from earlier. The one clad in silk and arrogance, missing from the first mine. Apparently, she’d found a new playground.

  Hans stared, unimpressed, and raised his glowing blade. “Are you the one?”

  She sauntered forward, eyeing him like a connoisseur inspecting a rare delicacy. “Mm. A fine masculine specimen. Did I miss your screening— white aura, light— That’s impossible. Are you a royal?” Her voice wavered.

  She wasn’t nearly as perceptive as the Fifth Circle mage. Whatever rank she held, she hadn’t earned it through power but perverted means.

  “Stop him!” she shrieked. “He must not leave alive. Kill everyone who followed him!”

  The guards came on her orders, but hesitated. To raise weapons against potential Highborn property—or worse, a royal himself—on the command of some lascivious administrator was risky.

  She saw their hesitation and snarled. With a flourish, she pulled a gleaming seal etched with the insignia of Libra, the official mark of Highborn.

  “By the authority of the Highborn!” she bellowed. “Do as I say, you spineless dogs!”

  Narrowing his eyes, Hans saw a needle in a haystack. “A proof.” There was nothing major that he could pinpoint to Highborns, even if he would’ve accused them. They could always claim the slaves had been properly delivered, and their job was done. The hired mercenary responsible for seeing them reach homes had acted independently in the lust for coins.

  But this was different. A seal of House Highborn wasn’t handed to just anyone.

  He wanted it.

  And before the guards could act, Hans moved. The ground barely stirred beneath his feet as he launched forward, a blur of precision. The Agile Sword Steps—a technique solely for him. He carved through the guards in swift, elegant motions, inflicting grave wounds but sparing their lives.

  And then he stood before her, blade levelled.

  Her lips curved into a sultry smile. She let the silken straps of her dress slide from her shoulders, revealing the flesh beneath without shame.

  “I can make your time worthwhile,” she purred. “Like what you see? There’s more where that came from—”

  Hans’s blade flashed.

  The edge caught her jaw, cleaving through with surgical cruelty. A thin, red line split her face, blood welling in her mouth, gurgling through broken teeth.

  “You disgust me,” Hans said coldly.

  He crouched, plucked the seal she’d been trying to conceal at her waist, and held it up to the light.

  “Now this,” he breathed, eyes closing as he tilted his face skyward, “is something worthwhile.”

  “Where’s the next one?” Hans asked.

  The eavesdropper—now like a loyal retainer—stepped forward without hesitation and pointed again.

  And so the march continued.

  One target after another fell beneath Theodred’s sword. In mere hours, five mines had been reduced to ruins, their overseers defeated, their captives freed. But with every strike, every shattered gate and fallen warden, the ripples spread wider. This would not go unnoticed for long, and Hans knew this very well.

  The Highborn are bold—too bold. Their actions were without caution, their cruelty without care. Hans knew what that meant.

  Someone powerful is cleaning up after them.

  Perhaps, also, the one tasked with wiping the blood from the floor before the public could see it. Ensuring the truth remained buried.

  Hans could feel the mechanisms of spreading rumours— the one being these slaves being tainted—were also their work. It was a tactic of control. Strip them of legitimacy. Leave them with no choice but to submit—again—to their silent, indirect oppressors.

  “Stay here. I have something to do—”

  “Are. You. Abandoning. Us?” The people, in flaky voices called.

  “No, I’m no coward. If I want to be a knight, I’ve to bear the weight of chivalry and altruism. I can’t leave people in need.”

  “I will return,” he said. His voice was steady, unwavering. “Hold fast to your freedom. When questions come—and they will—speak the truth. Speak of what you’ve seen. Sing not of rebellion, but of justice. Not of fear, but of hope.” Hans quoted the Parable of the Knight King he’d read in childhood.

  He was living his dream of being the perfect knight, and when the people bowed, some with tears in their eyes. The feeling he got was something described in that very book. And then, without fanfare, he disappeared into the horizon.

  Travelling alone, through fractured wilderness, as himself again. He found the weight of being the perfect knight was somewhat heavy. He enjoyed being one, but not for long. He, as Hans, was much more comfortable and free, bound by no rules or knightly ethics.

  His black hair with ruby eyes beneath a cloak of ordinary grey masked the light that would give him away.

  By dusk on the second day, he reached the Satr Outpost, a lonely hunter’s nest nestled in the crags of the western border—quiet and unguarded.

  The barn stood weathered and silent beneath the moon’s pale gaze. From its shadowed doorway emerged a figure—older, cloaked in worn leathers, the smell of herbs and steel clinging to him like a second skin. He was a hunter by trade, mild-mannered at best, though his eyes held the weight of deeper meaning.

  He squinted at the approaching youth.

  “You look a touch lost, dear boy,” the hunter said. “Need help, do you?”

  Hans didn’t break stride. He spoke a single word—soft, precise. The key password.

  The hunter’s expression changed instantly.

  “Oh,” he murmured, nodding with the ease of one who had been waiting. “I do have some clean water. Come in.”

  He led Hans through the barn and toward a hut nestled beside it. The interior was modest, almost crude—but as he stepped onto the rug near the hearth, the ground shimmered slightly. A moment later, the hunter peeled back what appeared to be an ordinary pelt, revealing a concealed trapdoor below. No enchantment registered to the senses—it was cloaked with a craft far older than standard artefacts.

  Hans mused, stepping forward. “My country in artefact making is no joke—well, we were of the Ateliers clan after all.”

  The hunter descended the stairs, Hans following in silence.

  Below, torchlight flickered across a narrow corridor carved into stone. At its heart, resting atop a stone pedestal, were three orbs. One of them Hans recognised—the other two pulsed with unfamiliar patterns, each tuned to something different.

  A doubt he needed to clarify. “Arat told me this is not a secure line—”

  “Yes, this is not so—” The man pointed to the other two orbs. “These are two-way ciphers. Encrypted. Complicated. Nothing here stays long. Patterns rotate. Keep it short.”

  And with that, the hunter stepped away, vanishing into the corridor’s shadows—leaving Hans alone in the quiet chamber of flickering flame and Arat’s face etched on the communication orb.

  Hans spoke without hesitation.

  “Deliver the Highborn scandal,” he said, “to Queen Reina herself.”

  Arat’s gaze sharpened at once. “And what do you ask in return?”

  “Nothing,” Hans answered. “Tell her… only your friendship.”

  The older man’s brow lifted, a skeptical flicker of amusement in his usually unreadable face. “That’ll make it even moresuspicious.”

  Hans allowed a faint smirk, but his voice remained even. “If she insists—if she demands balance—ask only for what this truth weighs. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  He paused then, the light of the orb casting shadows across his cheek.

  “And give her your word—this will not be leaked from our side. But this matter must be handled personally. By Reina herself.”

  For a breath, the orb was silent—only the flickering fire and the low hum of the ciphers filled the room.

  Then Arat inclined his head. “It will be done.”