Volume 4: Nuisance of Fate
Encounter 4: The Pendragons
Grand Duke Vermorth sat by the dying campfire, his gaze drifting from the sleeping figure wrapped in a cloak to the flickering flames. The cold of the North still lingered in his memory. He remembered the weight of being called the "Chosen One," and how it all began in blood and mud rather than frozen halls.
House Pendragon had guarded the North for centuries as its unyielding shields. While his siblings burned with bright, visible mana, Vermorth's power was different—silent, invisible, a high-frequency resonance that no sensor could detect. To most, he simply appeared magicless. Only his father, Pendragon III, had recognized the truth: this was not absence, but concentration. The same terrifying potential as their greatest ancestor.
Pendragon III had seen the truth. This was no weakness. It was pressure. Concentrated. Dormant. The same terrifying resonance as their greatest ancestor. In a decision that shocked the entire North, he bypassed tradition and named Vermorth the next patriarch.
The castle had nearly torn itself apart that night.
The breaking point came three days later on the vast, mirror-black ice of the Frozen Lake. His siblings, pride bleeding from the slight, demanded a public trial under the eyes of the entire household. The wind howled across the frozen expanse as the three of them stood facing one another.
"You think an invisible nothing can protect our borders?" his older brother snarled, mana flaring bright crimson around his fists.
His younger sister laughed coldly, crystalline barriers already forming in the air. "Father has gone senile. Let us show him what real power looks like."
Vermorth simply stood there in silence, hands at his sides, cloak fluttering in the bitter wind.
The duel began without warning.
His brother unleashed a roaring torrent of flame that scorched the ice black. His sister followed with a barrage of razor-sharp crystalline spears meant to impale and shatter. The combined assault was blinding—flashy, overwhelming, the kind of power the North had always celebrated.
Vermorth didn't cast a single spell. He didn't even raise his hands.
When the storm of fire and crystal crashed toward him, his resonance awakened. The flashy attacks didn't just stop—they disintegrated against an invisible, immovable wall. The very ice beneath their feet cracked and groaned violently from the sheer frequency of his power. The air itself began to hum, a low, oppressive vibration that pressed down on everyone watching.
In the end, both siblings dropped to their knees on the fractured ice, breathing hard, faces pale with exhaustion and disbelief. Vermorth hadn't moved an inch.
The North learned a hard truth that day: the most dangerous storm is the one you cannot see.
Back in the Great Hall that same evening, stone walls draped with ancient Pendragon banners, Vermorth knelt on the frigid floor before his father. Pendragon III's gaze was hard, searching his middle son for any sign of hesitation or pride.
"The Northern borders are secure for now," his father's voice boomed, echoing off the vaulted ceiling, "but the rot in the South threatens our supply lines. Bandits grow bolder by the day." He placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on Vermorth's shoulder. "Go. Root them out in the Blackthorn Fields. Let the world see what a true Shield of the North looks like."
Vermorth bowed his head lower. "I will not fail, Father."
Pendragon III's grip tightened, a mixture of challenge and blessing in his tone. "Make your family proud, son. Show them that strength does not always need to shout."
Weeks later, the pristine snows of the North had given way to the foul, waist-deep muck of the southern marshes. Vermorth moved alone through the stench and fog, expanding his invisible resonance like a silent net cast across the battlefield. He didn't need scouts. He simply felt for the ripples of living things.
When he stepped into the first Crimson Fang camp at dusk, the outlaws laughed at the lone cloaked teenager. Their laughter died the instant the air grew thick and heavy. Weapons fell from numb fingers as men dropped to their knees, pinned by a pressure they could neither see nor understand. Vermorth hadn't even drawn a blade.
Then the mist behind him tore open with a savage roar.
Then the mist behind him tore open with a roar.
A massive greatsword came screaming down in a vertical cleave powerful enough to split a man in two.
Vermorth didn't turn. At the final instant he pivoted smoothly, raising both bare palms. The blade slammed into his hands with the sound of a mountain crashing down. A perfect circular shockwave exploded outward, flattening reeds and blasting the fog away for fifty yards.
Edric Gray—golden hair wild, wolf crest glaring on his shoulder—stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. He poured every ounce of his strength into the sword, veins bulging, yet Vermorth's boots hadn't sunk even an inch deeper into the mud.
A low vibration traveled up the blade. Edric felt it in his bones: the silent, crushing pressure of something vast and unseen.
"Hah…" Vermorth's shoulders began to shake. "Hahahaha!"
With a casual flick of his wrists, he shoved the greatsword upward, nearly lifting Edric off his feet.
"Damn it, mate! We're after the same bandits!" Vermorth laughed, deep and genuine. "Hahahaha!"
Edric recovered his stance, sword still trembling. "We are? So you're not the bandit leader?"
"Of course not, you jackhead!" Vermorth grinned. "I'm Vermorth. You?"
"Edric Gray."
They clasped forearms—two young heirs of rival houses recognizing something dangerous and equal in each other.
The moment of peace lasted only three heartbeats.
A dozen bowstrings sang. The Crimson Fang bandits burst from the thickets, their leader slipping through shadows with unnatural grace.
"Behind you, jackhead!" Vermorth shouted. He expanded his resonance into a dome. The volley of arrows shattered harmlessly against invisible air.
Edric didn't hesitate. He spun into a wide horizontal arc, his jagged mana erupting like a silver storm. "Hold the line, Pendragon! I'm clearing the grass!"
The Crimson Leader emerged, eyes gleaming as he recognized the threat. "A Kigen master, eh?"
Edric charged first. "Dragon Fang: Shatter-Point!" His greatsword tore through the ground in a low diagonal slash, vacuum energy ripping behind it and shredding everything in its path.
While Edric became raw, explosive destruction, Vermorth anchored the battlefield. His high-frequency mana turned the air to lead. The shadow-using leader slammed into an invisible wall mid-blink, body vibrating violently as his own energy was disrupted.
The leader flickered desperately toward Vermorth's throat.
Vermorth didn't flinch. He reshaped his resonance into a slanted, shimmering ramp of solidified air right in front of Edric.
"Step on it, Gray!"
Edric didn't question it. His boot slammed onto the invisible platform, sparks flying as he launched himself skyward.
From above, he roared, "How about the Edric Special?! Dragon Fang: Heaven-Render!"
He came down like a falling star. At the exact moment his blade fell, Vermorth released the anchor holding the Crimson Leader.
The combination was devastating—Edric's explosive power acting as the hammer, Vermorth's lingering resonance as the anvil. A perfect crater formed in the Blackthorn mud. A towering pillar of swamp water shot into the clouds.
Silence returned.
The two young warriors stood back-to-back, breathing hard as the surviving bandits fled into the fog.
"Hahaha! That was fun!" Edric clapped Vermorth's shoulder hard enough to stagger the taller man. "What do you think, Vermin Penny?"
"It's Vermorth, you imbecile," he sighed, but a rare, genuine smile broke across his face. "Yeah… it was fun, Edric."
They laughed together like fools in the middle of the ruined battlefield.
"Hey," Vermorth added, wiping mud from his cheek, "I heard you didn't come alone. Got a companion, right?"
Edric's eyes suddenly widened in panic. "Ah, shit… I lost him again."
to be continued.