Everlyn didn't tell me gently.
She didn't sit me down. Didn't ease into it. She stood there in the lantern light, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to stop something inside her from spilling out. Her tent felt smaller the longer she waited to speak. Like the air itself knew what was coming.
"Oma, I hate to tell you this on first day back but they've returned," she said.
I frowned. "Who's returned?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her eyes dropped to the floor. Then lifted again—harder this time.
"The Tyrant families," she said. "All of them. The ones the Kingdom of Oma overthrew."
I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes. Not pain. Not yet.
"That's not possible," I said. "They were dismantled. Broken. Their power—"
"—was never destroyed," she cut in. "Just displaced."
She began to pace, short steps, restless. The lantern flickered as she passed.
"They returned quietly at first. Influence. Coin. Marriages. Councils bought instead of conquered. Then came fear. Stories twisted. Lies repeated until they sounded like history."
She looked at me then.
"They taught their people to hate us."
My jaw clenched.
"They called Oma a mistake," she continued. "A rebellion that should have never succeeded. They blamed your people for famine. For instability. For every war that followed liberation."
"And when hatred was ripe," she said, voice hollow now, "they moved."
She described it clinically. Violent but coordinated coups across the continent. Kingdoms falling in the same week. Thrones overturned overnight. Loyalists slaughtered before dawn. Anyone who resisted vanished.
I shook my head slowly. "What about our land?"
Her mouth tightened.
"Oma doesn't exist anymore."
The words landed like a blade slid between my ribs and left there.
She told me how it happened.
When Zefar and his Summoned Slayers erased the physical Kingdom of Oma in blood and flame, he left us homeless.
When the Sons of Oma, the only standing army, were annihilated to the last man, we became defenseless.
And, when the women and children fled, carrying nothing but names and memories , the families of every tyrant our kingdom took down seized power with terrifying speed.
Afterward, the Tyrants moved in.
They seized the lands of our kingdom.
Declared it restricted territory.
Anyone from Oma who returned—anyone who tried to resettle, even to mourn—was executed without trial.
I stared at the dirt floor, my fists trembling.
"And the people?" I asked.
Everlyn exhaled shakily. "Refugees. Stateless. Living in tents hidden near the stone mountains. They use the cave networks to survive. They're not hunted for rebellion anymore."
"For revenge," she whispered. "The Tyrants want to punish them. Make an example. Destroy the idea that Oma ever stood for anything."
Something inside me went quiet then.
Not calm.
Empty.
"And the forest?" I asked.
She froze.
"The Forest of Predators," she said. "They're killing it."
She told me the truth behind it—the gold and diamonds buried beneath the roots. Our people had always known and chosen wisdom over wealth.
Another reason was how, the forest earned its name honestly: Forest Of Predators.
Man-eating predators. Territorial. Intelligent. Lethal.
Any miner or soldier who tried to exploit the land never returned.
"The forest itself was the obstacle," she said. "Not law. Not armies. Nature."
I already knew what came next.
"They burned it," I said.
She nodded.
Wildfires. Planned. Calculated. Flames set to scatter predator packs. Smoke to strip the forest of concealment. Once the animals fled, armed men waited.
"They hunt them down," Everlyn said, tears finally breaking free. "Kill everything. Dump the bodies in heaps. When the forest is empty… they mine it. Gold. Diamonds."
"For profit," I murmured.
"They don't care if it all turns to ash."
I stood.
Everlyn grabbed my wrist. "Oma—don't."
"I have to see it," I said.
"No," she pleaded. "Not like this."
I pointed outside the tent. "Look."
She turned.
I fell into my shadow and disappeared before she realized I was gone.
The forest smelled wrong.
Smoke clung to everything. Trees groaned as fire consumed them. Men moved through the haze, laughing, feeding the flames like children burning ants.
I followed the sound of flies.
The clearing was stripped bare. Animals piled together—burned, gutted, broken. Life discarded like waste.
Then I saw them.
George lay on top of the heap, feathers dull with ash, one wing bent the wrong way. His eye was open. Sharp. Accusing.
"George…" My voice cracked.
Trevor lay beside him.
The wolf's chest was torn open, fur scorched, teeth bared in a snarl frozen in time.
"You didn't run," I whispered. "You stayed."
These weren't beasts.
They were companions.
My father's closest allies. Guardians of the forest while I was gone.
They died fighting.
Sunset was slowly creeping in. Sunlight barely touched the ground.
I opened the sea of darkness, the shadows of the nearing night becoming one.
It swallowed sound first. Then shape. Then weight.
I gathered every animal corpse—every witness—and sent them into it gently.
Then I turned to the men.
They never saw me coming.
No threats.
No questions.
Daggers flashed.
Slow cuts. Deliberate pain. I made sure they felt every second. Tendons severed. Throats opened just enough to beg.
No survivors.
When the last body fell, I dropped to my knees and screamed until my voice tore itself apart.
Then I remembered my parents.
I shadow jumped.
The clearing where their graves should have been was gone.
No flowers.
No markers.
Just ash. Fallen trees. More dead animals.
I searched.
Once.
Twice.
Then I stopped.
Because I finally understood what my strength was for.
That evening, nine thousand Summoned Slayers would gather near Babel. Near Victor's castle. Near Andreya.
How one Trueslayer would face them didn't matter.
I dived into the sea of darkness and let the silence take me.
When I emerged—
I would be loud.
Every Summoned would scream for mercy.
I would never give it.
Not after this.
I returned to Babel before the bells finished calling dusk.
Nine thousand Summoned filled the grounds—armor ringing, laughter careless, confidence loud.
They stood beneath torchlight and stone, certain of safety because Victor Zefar still breathed somewhere above them.
I stepped into the open.
Silence snapped through the crowd like a broken neck.
Killerwhere moved first.
He always did.
The ground beneath him turned against him. Darkness surged upward, swallowing his legs, his waist, his scream. He tried to phase. Tried to cut free. I came out of the ceiling shadows above him, dropped straight down, and drove him into the earth with my full weight.
He drowned without water.
I used his collapsing body as a launching pad—vaulted forward and landed clean.
I didn't finish him fast.
I wanted them to watch.
When it was over, I stood on shattered stone and raised my voice so it carried to every corner of Babel.
"From this night forward," I said, "you will all address me as Warlord."
No one spoke.
"Prince of Oma," I continued. "And the man who will kill your master, Zefar. I will be done before nightfall."
They laughed but soon fear would find them all.
And it fit.