Ingthe time the sun began to sink, I already knew where I was going.
Babel.
Victor Zefar's city of stone and arrogance. The place where this rot began.
Where Oma had been erased, where my people had been turned into ghosts and refugees, where the idea of us was burned long before the forest ever was.
Zefar and his Summoned Slayers weren't just part of the problem.
They were the reason there was a problem.
Nine thousand of them filled the grounds that evening. Armor ringing. Laughter careless. Confidence loud.
They gathered beneath banners and torches, drinking, boasting, sharpening blades that had never once been turned on a worthy enemy.
They still called me Wedlock.
I stepped into the open as the sun bled out behind the towers.
Silence snapped through the crowd like a broken neck.
I declared, "Let this night be the last time any of you call me Wedlock."
Killerwhere came to me. He placed his right hand on my shoulder as he said,
"Wedlock relax. You don't get to make demands until you beat me."
I vanished before his very eyes.
I then came out of the shadows on the ceiling. I dropped straight down and drove him into the earth with my full weight.
No bone cracked. No stone fractured. I sent him plunging into his own shadow.
His body folded beneath me, collapsing into the darkness like a stone dropped into a well.
I disappeared yet again.
I appeared in the midst of the Slayers who were still seated.
I was outnumbered but no one came at me.
They didn't even breathe.
So I spoke.
"From this night forward," I said, my voice carrying across stone and steel, "you will address me as Warlord."
No one laughed this time.
I opened the sea of darkness.
The blackness spilled across the ground—silent and absolute. It didn't chase them. It waited.
Jager who was the strongest among them pointed out,
"Damn this! It's nine thousand against one. Wedlock, you will never win."
The ground beneath us betrayed him.
Darkness surged upward from his own shadow.
It was not like smoke, not like shadow, but like depth. Like an ocean opening its mouth.
It swallowed his boots, his legs, his waist.
His scream cut off as the dark climbed his chest and filled his lungs.
He tried to stay afloat, but he sank nonetheless.
The rest ran, as the ocean of night rose beneath their feet.
More than five hundred fled as they rushed to Victor's Castle.
They sprinted for the castle gates as the last edge of sunlight vanished.
From the walls, the watchmen watched their comrades sink.
Not dragged.
Not grabbed.
Sinking.
Like the earth had become water. Like the world itself had decided to swallow them whole.
Armor disappeared first. Then hands. Their faces twisted in terror as the dark climbed their throats and stole their screams.
I moved through it on all fours.
Not walking.
Hunting.
I burst from the shadows like an animal, slammed into fleeing bodies, and drove them down into the black.
One by one. Ten by ten. Every leap ended with another body vanishing beneath the surface of night.
By the time the sun was gone, not one of the five hundred had reached the gates.
The watchmen froze.
I appeared behind them.
They didn't even turn.
I kicked.
They fell backward into the sea of darkness that was now the ground.
Helmets vanished. Spears sank. Their shouts cut off mid-breath.
Inside the castle, I emptied it.
Every fighter. Every corridor. Every stairwell. Shadow after shadow after shadow. No blood. No deaths. Just terror—stretched thin and long until it broke them.
All nine thousand fell before midnight.
And then I entered the throne room.
Victor Zefar sat upon his throne as if the chaos outside was nothing.
Miss Eva—his most trusted maid—stood at his side, holding a silver tray. Zefar reached for an apple.
I threw a dagger.
The blade tore the fruit from his hand and pinned it to the back of the throne with a ringing crack.
Eva did not scream.
Zefar did not flinch.
"Eva," he said calmly, eyes still on me, "bring me my sword."
She ran as I walked toward Zefar, slow and deliberate.
"Did you know about the suffering of the People of Oma?" I asked. "Did you feel it?"
"I stopped involving myself in their affairs," he replied. "Oma no longer concerns me."
My face showed rage I could no longer contain.
"What happened," he continued, "And how is it my fault?"
He looked annoyed like I was some kid throwing a tantrum.
I stretched out my hand.
The dagger pinning the apple trembled.
It suddenly slipped into the darkness, swallowed whole. The apple fell and rolled to his feet.
Zefar drew a slow breath.
"New tricks huh?"
That's when he smiled.
Wicked. Familiar.
"You shouldn't have played with my food," he said. "I won't be so merciful in our second round. Don't hold back. Show me your wrath."
I lunged.
Daggers flashed toward his throat.
Eva returned holding his sword in her hands.
She tore the sword from its sheath and hurled it with flawless precision.
Zefar caught it mid-air.
Steel met steel.
He shoved me back with brute efficiency, then glanced over his shoulder.
"Thank you, Eva," he said.
Then, he told her : "Run."
She obeyed without question.
Once she was out of sight, the fight began.
Shadow against discipline. Hunger against mastery.
Daggers against a sword trained for a thousand years.
He moved like an experienced fighter—patient, precise, unbothered.
I struck from every angle, vanished, reappeared, attacked from above, from behind, from beneath.
But he didn't drown.
He couldn't.
He was a Trueslayer.
All night we battled. Every strike I landed was answered with two of his own. Every opening I thought I saw closed a heartbeat before I reached it.
By dawn, my arms shook.
The darkness thinned.
I dropped to my knees.
Zefar stepped forward and struck me with the flat of his blade.
The world went black.
When I woke, the sun was rising.
The Summoned would never know what happened that night. Only the fear. The silence. The way the ground had swallowed them and then let them go—broken and shaking.
Zefar looked down at me.
"Why?" he asked.
I smiled through the blood.
"To launch my legend," I said. "You told me I had to be feared. So I gave them fear. I don't have time anymore. You doomed my people—and sooner or later, I will make you pay."
I pushed myself up, unsteady but unbroken.
"Remember this night," I said. "Remember that your army of nine thousand couldn't stop me. Remember that when I finally decide to end you… There will be nothing you can do."
I stepped back into the shadows.
"I am the one-man army," I said. "I am the man they call Warlord."
I left Babel the next day.
Two men met me on the way. They came at me like blades testing skin. Heavy. Dangerous. Familiar in the way only Trueslayers are.
Mag came first.
I felt him before I saw him—the way metal around me shuddered, sang softly, like it was afraid. Every buckle, every nail in the stone, every hidden blade trembled in recognition of him.
Spark followed, heat rolling off him in waves. Not wildfire. Controlled. Condensed. The kind that didn't rage—it waited.
They stepped into the open street together, blocking the path out of Babel as they'd rehearsed it.
Hunter stopped beside me.
Didn't flinch. Didn't reach for his Sound-Death gun. Just watched.
That was why I'd brought him.
Mag smiled. Calm. Confident. "You made quite a mess," he said. "We didn't hear about it until after."
Of course, they hadn't.
Spark cracked his knuckles, fire leaking between his fingers like breath in winter. "You're not leaving," he said simply.
I pulled out my daggers.
I threw them.
Both blades cut the air in perfect arcs—fast, precise, meant to kill.
Mag lifted a hand trying to stop them.
He had to catch them with his bare hands to see my surprise.
They were wooden daggers.
I shadow-blended.
Or tried to.
The other guy whom Mag screamed for," Spark, stop him!"
Spark snapped two fingers together.
The sound was small.
The explosion wasn't.
Compressed fire detonated where I would have been, light ripping through the street, heat punching the air flat. Stone burst. Windows shattered. Fire bloomed violently and white-hot, flooding the space with light.
Another flick.
Another blast.
And another.
They were smart. They filled everything with flame and brilliance, convinced light would strip me of my refuge.
They were wrong.
They forgot something simple.
They still had shadows.
Smoke rolled. Fire crackled. Stone hissed and cooled.
Spark raised his hands again.
That's when I stepped out of his shadow.
Right behind him.
His eyes widened just enough.
I cut.
Not deep. Not fatal.
Precise.
The veins in his right wrist opened like red threads pulled loose. Blood sprayed hot and fast. He screamed and clutched it with his left hand, fire stuttering, control shattering as panic took over.
Spark dropped to one knee, choking on pain, scrambling to slow the bleeding.
Mag turned—
And that was when he realized I was wearing nothing metal.
No buckles. No rings. No blades.
I'd left my daggers in the dark.
That was the thing about shadow telekinesis—they didn't have to stay gone. They only had to wait.
Mag's jaw tightened.
He reached anyway.
And instead of grabbing me, he grabbed Hunter's gun.
The Sound-Death rifle tore free of Hunter's hands and snapped toward me, barrel already screaming as it fired. The bullet hit the air moving at the speed of sound.
I plunged it into darkness.
The crack vanished mid-flight.
Then I turned it.
Brought it back.
Straight at Mag's face.
He barely caught it—metal screaming as he stopped it less than an inch from his right eye. Sweat beaded on his brow as he focused everything he had on holding it still.
That was all I needed.
I came from behind him and dropkicked his legs out from under him.
He hit his knees hard.
We didn't use powers after that.
Just fists.
He was strong. Trained. Disciplined. Every punch he threw was clean and lethal. I answered with rage sharpened by grief, by hunger, by everything Babel had tried to bury.
Bone cracked.
Blood flew.
I broke his nose. Split his lip. Drove him back again and again until his body gave up before his will did.
When it was over, I had him by the throat.
He choked. Gasped. Tried to speak.
I leaned close.
"Help him," I said, nodding toward Spark, who was pale now, shaking, barely keeping pressure on his wrist. "If he bleeds out, that's on you."
Mag nodded frantically.
"Then listen carefully," I continued. "You tell the other Trueslayers to stay away from me. You tell them that if they ever want to kiss their families good night—if they want their armies, their friends, their kingdoms to still be standing after noon—they do not cross me."
I tightened my grip just enough for the message to sink in.
"If you do," I whispered, "I will be the one-man army that keeps you awake at night. I will be the shadow behind every wall. The fear behind every silence."
I let him go.
Mag collapsed beside Spark, already tearing cloth to bind the wound, hands shaking.
I stepped back into the dark.
Hunter was watching me like he didn't know whether to speak or pray.
"Take them back to Babel," I said.
I fell into my shadow before he could ask questions.
I had things to do, kings to slay and a people to protect.
The Warlord never rests.