The roar of rotors shattered the primordial silence on the southern slopes of the Iron Mountains.

  A matte black tactical transport helicopter, bearing the sigil of Black Keep on its fuselage, descended slowly. Its searchlight swept the tall grass meadow, creating an artificial halo amidst the darkness.

  Tonight, the sky was displaying its most arrogant luxury.

  Cloudless, free of city light pollution. Thousands of stars burned bright on a pitch-black canvas, blinking sharply as if they were the eyes of gods watching the petty play of humans below. The Milky Way stretched clear, sheltering the roof of the old, weathered wooden temple of House Sagara.

  WHOP-WHOP-WHOP-WHOP!

  The downwash wind from the helicopter pressed the tall grass flat.

  The side door opened. Arka jumped down first, followed by William.

  The moment their feet touched the ground, their dignity and hairstyles vanished instantly.

  The fierce wind from the rotors ruffled William’s hair mercilessly, turning his neat noble styling into a bird's nest. Arka’s suit flapped wildly, slapping his own body. They walked hunched over, squinting against dust and wind, moving away from the landing zone toward a calmer area near the temple gate.

  Behind them, unloading activities began. And it wasn't just dropping off passengers.

  William looked back while fixing his messy hair with his fingers. His eyes widened.

  Several elite Black Keep soldiers in full uniform began unloading goods from the helicopter’s belly. Not one or two boxes.

  They were unloading piles of goods.

  Wooden crates containing premium food logistics, cooler boxes of fresh meat, thick rolls of silk fabric, boxes of rare herbal medicines, and even several jars of old wine that looked extremely expensive. The pile of gifts mounted in the simple temple's front yard, looking starkly contrasting and conspicuous.

  The soldiers worked quickly and respectfully, as if delivering tribute to an emperor, not to a poor old man on the forest edge.

  William stared at the mountain of wealth, then remembered the sender: Mistress Cheng. The shadow ruler of Black Keep.

  William mumbled softly, his voice almost swallowed by the fading engine noise.

  "This is truly an old love..."

  His conscience was slightly shaken. The famously cold and cruel Mistress Cheng had apparently sent the contents of her logistics warehouse just because Rajendra Sagara was here.

  William turned sideways, looking at Arka who was busy dusting off his new clothes, completely oblivious to the political implications of the pile of goods behind him.

  Even this wild boy... William thought in disbelief, ...suddenly gets a new grandmother from Black Keep.

  William exhaled a long breath, staring at the playfully twinkling stars.

  Sagara’s connection to Black Keep was now wide open.

  "Is this luck..." William whispered doubtfully, his eyes returning to the grinning Arka. "...or the beginning of a great disaster?"

  The roar of the helicopter slowly receded, shrinking to a mosquito buzz in the distance, before finally vanishing completely, swallowed by the vast night sky. Silence once again blanketed the southern slopes of the Iron Mountains, returning the privilege to the stars to be the only ones speaking through their twinkling.

  "Bro, let's go in," Arka invited casually, opening the sliding wooden door that creaked softly.

  As soon as they stepped inside, Arka immediately threw his new cloak onto a random rattan chair.

  "Make yourself at home. I'm taking a bath first, all sticky. Take turns, okay."

  Without waiting for an answer, the terrible host disappeared toward the back, leaving the sound of splashing water that soon echoed faintly.

  William was left alone.

  He stood awkwardly in the middle of the wooden temple's living room. The silence gripping him felt different from the cold, militaristic silence of Black Keep.

  The silence here felt... primordial and alive.

  William’s eyes swept the surroundings. The house was simple, made of ironwood and old teak whose surfaces were slick and dark, worn by age and human touch for generations. No gold ornaments, no silk carpets. Only ancient calligraphy with fading ink on the walls, pandan woven mats, and furniture radiating ascetic simplicity.

  However, what dominated his senses most was the smell.

  The scent of incense.

  Not the pungent smell of cheap incense, but the soft, sweet, and calming aroma of sandalwood and agarwood. The scent seemed to have seeped into the wood pores of this building, becoming the breath of the house itself. William felt as if time moved slower in this room. The exhaustion, anger, and political tension burdening him all day slowly melted away, replaced by a strange sense of reverence.

  The floorboards creaked softly.

  William turned.

  From behind a shabby cloth curtain separating the central room, the figure emerged.

  Rajendra Sagara.

  Seeing him in person felt more striking than seeing him in the remote vision earlier. The old man wore simple home clothes—a white tunic slightly yellowed with age and loose trousers. His thin white hair was combed neatly back.

  Rajendra’s old eyes widened slightly upon recognizing the uninvited guest standing in his living room. William’s noble aura could not be hidden, even in dirty, battle-worn clothes.

  Instantly, Rajendra’s posture changed. His loyal servant instinct took over.

  The old man brought his feet together, cupped his hands, and began to bow low. A full kowtow of respect to Royal blood.

  "This servant pays respects to Prince Ironsea—"

  William moved fast.

  With two wide strides, he closed the distance between them. William’s sturdy hands caught Rajendra’s frail shoulders, preventing the old body from bowing lower.

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  "Don't," William cut in firmly yet gently.

  Rajendra looked up, staring into the youth’s eyes in confusion.

  William looked at that wrinkled face. The face he saw earlier lighting the final fire to protect the kingdom his father ruled. A face betrayed yet remaining loyal. William’s respect overflowed. It was unfitting for this old hero to bow to him.

  "Uncle..." William called softly, using a warm kinship term, discarding all royal titles.

  Slowly, the confusion on Rajendra’s face melted. The corners of his lips pulled up into a sincere smile. A smile so serene, cool, like calm lake water in the morning. A smile that made anyone seeing it feel forgiven.

  "Ah..." Rajendra sighed softly, straightening his body back up. His eyes twinkled mischievously.

  "Rarely does an Ironseat visit the Sagara family hovel," he said in a friendly raspy voice. "It seems Arka is good at making friends, huh."

  William smiled wryly hearing the word 'friends'.

  Friends... William muttered internally. Damn, what friendship.

  Reflexively, his hand rose to rub his own forehead.

  He could still feel the phantom ache—the memory of pain when Arka’s wooden bokken hit his forehead squarely in the palace courtyard that time. Their first meeting began with a lump, and their second meeting began with a swarm of undead. Arka’s definition of 'friend' was clearly hazardous to his physical and mental health.

  "Come, Son. Please sit. Consider this your own grandfather's house," Rajendra said warmly, breaking William’s reverie.

  The old man walked limping slowly toward a low table. With calm and meditative movements, he began brewing tea in an old clay teapot. The sound of pouring hot water and the aroma of jasmine tea wafting soon blended with the scent of incense, creating an ironic peace on this turbulent night.

  William sat seiza-style on the rough pandan mat, both hands gripping a warm teacup emitting thin steam. Before him, Rajendra Sagara sat with the calm of a hermit, eyes staring at the ripples of tea water inside the clay pot as if reading the future there.

  The old man's voice was soft, almost like a whisper of wind slipping through cracks in the wooden wall, yet every word carried a weight that shattered William’s reality.

  "Tonight," Rajendra rasped, "the Thousand Constellation Chessboard array has been activated."

  William’s heart pounded, a painful beat in his chest. He knew that term. It was a final-tier defense protocol, a myth only spoken in whispers by elders in the palace's forbidden library. A protocol never activated since the Unification War three centuries ago.

  "Tonight will be the beginning night of a long disaster that will befall the world..." Rajendra continued, his gaze drifting far, piercing the wooden walls of the temple, piercing the night, staring at something invisible.

  William was silent. The tea in his hands felt burning to his palms, but cold crept up his spine. Long disaster. Not an ordinary border war. Not a political conflict with Dukes. Something else.

  "Carta, yes... so it is," Rajendra sighed, his tone containing bitter acceptance yet tragic pride. "That darkness rises from our land. Not from outside, Son. From beneath our feet."

  The old man lifted his face, looking at William with a gaze that suddenly turned sharp, as sharp as an eagle diving for prey. "Carta was indeed founded as the first fence for the world. Not as a kingdom for prosperity, but as a prison. As a padlock."

  The statement hit William harder than any physical blow.

  This wasn't the usual history lesson he heard from his palace tutors. This wasn't heroism propaganda about founding fathers conquering wild lands for civilization. The narrative he believed all his life—that Carta was the center of civilization, beacon of progress, and protector of humanity—suddenly cracked.

  First fence...

  William placed his teacup down slowly, afraid his trembling hands would spill its contents. "So..." his voice sounded alien to his own ears, raspy and heavy. "All the stories about our ancestors' glory... about conquest... were all lies?"

  He stared at Rajendra, demanding the truth. "My father... King George... does he know this? Does he know we are actually sitting on a time bomb?"

  Rajendra smiled thinly, a smile full of ancient sorrow. "King George doesn't just know, Son. He is the warden. And tonight, he just realized his prisoners are planning a massive riot."

  William felt a sudden dizziness. He massaged his temples. The puzzle pieces that had been scattered in his head began to merge terrifyingly.

  Why his father became paranoid. Why border defenses were suddenly withdrawn. Why the Anukh-Ramj—creatures that should only be legends—appeared in hundreds. Why those three fire points had to be lit.

  It wasn't a political maneuver to eliminate enemies. It was preparation for an existential war.

  William felt small. All this time he was busy hating his father, thinking himself a victim of petty power struggle intrigues. He felt he was the protagonist in his own royal drama. But tonight, in this old incense-smelling shack, he was made to realize he was merely a speck of dust amidst a cosmic storm that had just begun.

  "And House Sagara..." William looked at Rajendra with a new perspective, a mix of horror and awe. "You weren't exiled here because you were useless. You were placed here... on the front line of this shadow... as a sacrifice?"

  Rajendra didn't answer with words. He only poured hot tea back into William’s untouched cup, steam rising twisting to form abstract patterns in the air.

  "Drink, Prince," Rajendra said gently. "The night is still long. And you need warmth before the reality out there completely freezes your heart."

  William stared at the murky liquid. He realized, once he drank this tea, he could no longer return to being the naive Prince William. He would step into a world where his father wasn't a villain, but a desperate gatekeeper of hell, and where his silly roommate might be one of the keys to preventing the apocalypse.

  With a steady hand, William lifted the cup and gulped its contents. Bitter. As bitter as the truth he had just swallowed.

  William placed the empty teacup on the wooden table. Hot steam still wafted thinly from the clay teapot, filling the space between him and the old figure before him.

  "The King didn't explain the details of this to you?" Rajendra asked. His voice was low, yet his serene gaze demanded absolute honesty, as if peeling back the prince’s layers of self-defense.

  William shook his head slowly, a bitter smile curling on his lips. "Only a small part," he answered. "It seems he only told the outer shell. Fragments of legends disguised as bedtime stories or metaphors in state speeches."

  William looked down, staring at the woven pandan mat pattern below his knees. "As for the education and understanding I have about this dark disaster... it's all limited to standard academic knowledge. Mandatory curriculum for princes or royal family members. We were taught darkness exists, that monsters are real, but..."

  William paused for a moment, searching for the right words. "...but it was taught like we learn about dinosaur fossils. Something ancient, distant, and finished. Something existing in history textbooks, not behind our bedroom windows."

  He raised his face again, looking at Rajendra with a gaze implying deep disappointment toward his own father. "About Father's strategies and intrigues, about what actually happens behind the scenes... I know nothing at all. He never shared it. He only gave orders, demanded obedience, and punished failure. To him, I am merely a pawn who doesn't yet need to know the rules of the game."

  Rajendra listened intently, nodding slightly as if the answer confirmed his suspicion. He reached for the teapot, pouring the amber liquid back into William’s cup with calm and steady hand movements.

  "Even the King keeps that burden to himself..." Rajendra murmured, his tone not condemning, but full of respect. "Very wise."

  William’s eyebrows knitted together. Offense stung his ego. "What do you mean, Uncle? Wise? He left me blind in the middle of a storm! He sent me to the border without mental preparation, without a clear situation map. How can this ignorance be called wise?"

  Rajendra placed the teapot back with a soft clink echoing in the silent room. He looked straight into William’s eyes, the look of a grandfather explaining the danger of fire to a child wanting to play with matches.

  "Yes, Prince. Very wise," Rajendra asserted. "Because knowledge is the most dangerous currency in Carta right now."

  The old man shifted his sitting position slightly forward. "This shadow world does not work with swords and shields alone, Son. Our enemies... the entities rising from those depths... they have ears everywhere. They can smell fear, and they can track knowledge."

  "If you knew everything—if the King crammed the entire grand strategy, locations of ancient seals, and enemy weaknesses into your head early on—then your head would become the most valuable trophy on the entire continent," Rajendra continued, his voice growing heavy.

  "Enemies would target you not just to kill the heir to the throne, but to dismantle the contents of your mind. Dark mages, shapeshifters, mind readers... they would come in droves hunting you day and night."

  Rajendra pointed at William’s forehead with his wrinkled index finger. "By leaving this head empty of core secrets, King George has provided the strongest protection a father can give."

  William fell silent, paralyzed by the logic Rajendra just laid out.

  "The King protected you," Rajendra whispered gently, "with ignorance forced upon you. He let you hate him for 'ignoring' you, when in fact he was hiding you right under the enemy's nose. He made himself the sole target, the only center of gravity for all enemy hatred and attacks, so his son could grow, learn, and survive long enough to become strong... before finally being ready to shoulder the true burden."

  The words sank in slowly, cooling the anger that had burned William’s chest all this time, yet replacing it with a new tightness—guilt.

  "So..." William’s voice hitched. "All this time he wasn't ignoring me? He... he became a shield?"

  "The loneliest shield in the world, Prince," Rajendra answered with a sad smile, lifting his cup to sip the tea, hiding the tremor of emotion on his lips.