Chapter 6

  Crystal Palace

  At the Ruins of the Train

  The black boots of the legendary hero “The Raven” stepped onto a wooden plank stained with dark, scattered remnants of dead Shadowkind.

  His sharp, dark-violet eyes scanned the evidence left at the scene, coming to rest on a dried smear of black fluid clinging to the wood.

  “Sir Raven?”

  A female trainee soldier noticed the change in his demeanor.

  He slowly stepped back… then gave a command.

  “Bring me its head.”

  The severed head of the large man was brought forward. Raven examined the torn area.

  “The wound’s clean… like it was sliced by something razor-sharp at incredible speed… but there’s no trace of black ice at all…”

  If a soldier had done it, there would’ve been signs—torn sinew, a blade’s edge, or fragments from a projectile. But this… had none of that.

  And then, in Raven’s mind, the scene reassembled itself—not in reality, but as a vision only he could see.

  He imagined the large man standing atop the train… mid-transformation into a Shadowkind.

  Then suddenly—the vision cut. The man’s head flew clean off, landing far below, as if struck by something impossibly fast.

  An arrow or blade wouldn’t launch a head that far. It had to be something far more powerful. According to Raven’s mental calculations, it would take a force on par with a dragon’s tail swipe or a leviathan’s crushing bite.

  “Something’s not right…”

  Then he looked again at the black splatter on the wood.

  He noticed the stain had blasted outward in a perfect 360-degree radius—like the creature had suddenly exploded. Viscera and dark sludge burst in every direction.

  Nora definitely couldn’t have done that.

  And then he noticed something else on the plank—a small, untouched circle at the very center of the explosion. No black stain had touched it.

  As if something had punched through the body at that exact point with such force that the body detonated. Whatever did it—perhaps a spear… a flint bullet… or something simpler, like a “fist.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  And just as he was about to dismiss that third idea…

  A memory surfaced. Fifteen years ago. The day he encountered that demon on the Salawan Plains… the day that enormous creature threw a punch at a Shadowkind ten times its size—and it exploded on impact. Black liquid had rained from the sky.

  There was one being he’d seen who could do something like that with a single punch.

  “No… Impossible…”

  Raven began to spiral, paranoia setting in. He doubted his own thoughts. But could he really ignore the evidence staring him in the face?

  “Zzz… zzz…”

  Zeedee had passed out, head tilted all the way back. They’d been lounging around for hours, and the lights in the city were now beginning to flicker on.

  Dan closed his book and looked out the window.

  Hmm.

  He got up and cracked open the guest room door.

  “Excuse me… where’s the restroom?”

  “Down that way…”

  A maid pointed him in the right direction. Dan nodded in thanks and started to wander through the Crystal Palace.

  The air in the hallway was surprisingly warm.

  Dan made his way down the stairs to the floor below, admiring the emerald-colored crystal pillars.

  What was Casca doing in a freezing place like this, anyway?

  He stopped in front of a large mural of the entire kingdom—a beautifully detailed map of Snowhaven’s dominion. Majestic. Intimidating.

  Snowhaven was at least ten times the size of Diablo.

  The walls stretched on with frozen engravings telling the story of the Ophilis lineage. On the surface, it was exquisite art—but with a guide, it could become living history.

  The Ophilis family had descended from a legendary Crymancer. The timeframe? Over a thousand years ago.

  At the mural’s center was a woman. From her figure, streams branched outward, showing the line of descent.

  Dan pointed at her sculpture with a finger.

  This had to be the ancient progenitor of the Ophilis line, over a millennium ago.

  If not for Casca, Fury would never have learned what it meant to “interpret records.”

  In Diablo, such things didn’t exist.

  Fury’s family had no records of which Diablo they came from, which king they served. Everything began with the present. Even his lineage had no idea if they seized power or reclaimed it—nothing was documented. Their perception of time differed vastly from humans.

  No matter how significant the event, their stories rarely lasted five generations before vanishing completely.

  Thanks to Casca’s arrival ten years ago, Diablo had finally started writing history seriously.

  Though they had no written language, Fiorentina proposed hiring artists to draw as a workaround.

  “Sculpture as recordkeeping, huh? So that’s how it works. Got it.”

  Dan pulled out a small notebook and started sketching. His drawing skills were awful—he’d been told to reincarnate more than once—but this notebook was for jotting down ideas.

  He was copying Nora.

  Clack… clack… clack… clack…

  “!”

  Bootsteps echoed. Dan froze, straightening up.

  Raven’s team had returned from the scene!

  He quickly stashed his notebook, stepped aside, and stood awkwardly, hands folded. Raven passed by him in silence… but then glanced in his direction.

  Dan avoided eye contact.

  “…”

  Raven turned away and continued on his path.

  So tense… did we leave behind some kind of evidence?

  Whatever. Time to head back upstairs.

  When Dan returned—

  Zeedee was awake, and Nora had arrived in a new black dress, flanked by her entourage. And of course, in front of others, they were just classmates.

  “Dan, where were you?”

  “Just admiring the sculpture displays, Princess.”

  Nora’s eyes widened slightly—she understood where he’d really been.

  “A maid will bring you a suitable outfit.”

  “Just for dinner? Isn’t this fine?”

  “….”

  Nora’s face tensed, and Dan immediately knew what she was struggling to say.

  “The Empress will be joining us.”

  “!”