The garden was quiet.
Cherry blossoms fell like whispers of time, drifting gently onto the ancient stone table where two figures sat across from each other. A wooden chessboard lay between them. The pieces — carved with symbols of Dao and destiny — stood frozen in a delicate standoff.
Karlos sat calmly, his eyes fixed on the board. Behind him stood Kell, arms folded, her usual sharpness dimmed by the weight in the air. A few paces back, the silent Butler watched — not as a protector today, but as a witness to something far older and deeper than war.
Jacob, dressed in a simple white robe trimmed with faint gold, stared at the board in silence.
Far beyond this serene scene, the war raged. Explosions cracked the sky. Daoists clashed with Wolves in brutal duels across the sacred grounds of the Uaan Sect. Craters scarred the land as Elders unleashed forbidden techniques, setting the heavens ablaze with elemental fury.
But here, in a garden sheltered by flowering trees and old memories, time itself seemed to hold its breath.
Karlos moved a piece forward — the black knight.
"You always opened with that," Jacob murmured. "Even back then, when we played in the orphanage."
Karlos said nothing at first. His fingers tapped the table — once, twice. Then his voice came, quiet and cold.
"Do you remember... the night the orphanage burned?"
Jacob looked up.
A gust of wind stirred the cherry blossoms.
"You asked me to come," Karlos continued, his voice steady but heavy. "To play chess. You promised we'd go see the stars afterward. But I waited. And then the fire came."
Jacob's hand froze above a piece.
Kell's eyes narrowed.
"You think I forgot?" Karlos said, his tone sharpening. "You and that strange man... the one in the black trench coat. You spoke near the storage room. I hid behind the crates. I couldn't hear everything, but I remember enough."
Jacob's face paled slightly.
"He told you something. You panicked. You said, 'We have to do it tonight.' That's what I heard."
The board remained still. The game paused in mid-thought.
Then Jacob finally spoke. "You think you know what happened. But you don't."
"Then tell me," Karlos said, his voice edged with ice. "Tell me the truth, Jacob. For once in your life."
---
[Flashback Begins]
The orphanage was once their entire world — a crumbling red-brick building on the edge of a quiet forest. Dozens of children lived there. Laughed there. Fought, cried, and dreamed there.
But one by one... the children began to vanish.
At first, no one questioned it. The wardens claimed they were adopted, taken to homes in faraway cities, or collected by distant relatives. But none ever returned. None ever wrote.
Then, on a rainy night, Jacob met a man in the alleys of Vulgaris City, where the orphanage was located in the Eastern Continent. The man wore a long black coat, a strange mechanical monocle, and carried scars that told stories of war and betrayal.
"Call me Detric," he said.
Jacob, only fifteen, listened in stunned silence as Detric revealed the truth.
The orphanage was a cover — a farm. The children weren't adopted. They were selected, sold, and taken to hidden facilities for scientific experiments — horrific projects conducted in the shadows, where bodies were dissected, twisted, enhanced... and discarded.
"I need your help," Detric said. "I'm trying to stop them. But I need someone on the inside."
Jacob's world shattered.
He couldn't understand. Was this man insane? Or was he exposing the nightmare behind the smiles of the caretakers? The contradiction swirled in his mind. He remembered he had promised Karlos to stargaze after a game. But something inside told him... Detric was telling the truth.
So he made a choice.
He told Detric he had something to do and asked him to wait — just wait. Then he agreed to help Detric.
They planned to escape that very night. They would gather the remaining children and flee through a tunnel Detric had dug under the toolshed.
But someone overheard.
The wardens — loyal to the scientists — alerted their masters.
When Jacob led the children from their rooms, the enforcers were already waiting.
The massacre was swift. Merciless.
Children screamed. Fire erupted. Mana guns lit the night with red and blue streaks. Detric fought with everything he had, dragging Jacob toward the edge of the flames. In the end, only Jacob survived. Detric pushed him through the collapsed tunnel beneath the old well and sealed it with a blast of energy.
"Find the truth," Detric said. "Live."
---
On the other side of the burning orphanage, another figure had arrived.
Grandfather Lincon — a man with silver eyes and a divine aura — stood on the cliff above the chaos, horrified.
He had come to take the two boys home. Days before, he had finalized their adoption, hoping to give them a real life.
But the night greeted him with screams and smoke.
In the chaos, he found Karlos unconscious beside the altar and rescued him. But before leaving, he uncovered a single, damning clue:
A spy from an enemy nation had visited the orphanage that night — seen speaking to a boy. The boy was Jacob.
The story hit the news days later.
Lincon investigated. But the trail was buried beneath government silence and falsified records.
Karlos, meanwhile, remembered what he saw: Jacob speaking to that man. Then the fire. Then the screams. Then the loss.
And his heart decided: Jacob betrayed us.
---
[Flashback Ends]
Jacob stared at the board. His hand trembled.
"You think I killed them," he said. "You've hated me all this time."
Karlos's expression was unreadable. "Didn't you?"
"No," Jacob whispered. "I tried to save them. I failed."
The wind howled beyond the garden. In the distance, a tower of the Uaan Sect collapsed under the combined assault of Wolf 1 and Wolf 4.
Kell turned away, swallowing her emotions. The Butler, silent behind Karlos, tightened his gloved hands. He had known Karlos for years — and had never seen him look so torn between vengeance and grief.
Karlos moved a piece. "Check."
Jacob looked up, eyes wet.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Karlos asked. "Why didn't you come back?"
Jacob's voice cracked. "Because you were gone. Because I didn't deserve to."
Another explosion in the distance. Daoists and Wolves clashed mid-air, their battle sending tremors that rippled through the tranquil garden.
Karlos studied Jacob carefully. "Do you still think peace can be found in this game?"
"No," Jacob said. "But maybe truth."
Karlos leaned back in his chair. "Then answer me one last thing."
Jacob nodded.
"Did you… love them?"
Jacob's gaze turned to the cherry blossoms overhead.
"With all my heart."
Silence.
---
Karlos stood and gently knocked over his black king.
"That's enough chess."
The piece fell with a faint clack, echoing louder than the distant explosions. For a heartbeat, the war outside felt impossibly far away — like another world.
Jacob opened his mouth to speak, but Karlos held up a hand.
His voice, once controlled, now cracked with something deeper — not rage, but sorrow.
"But wait... are you fooling me?"
His fingers trembled as he stepped back from the table.
"Why should I believe you?"
Karlos's breath grew shallow. "If you knew everything… then why didn't you tell me?"
Jacob said nothing. What could he say?
Karlos staggered. His thoughts scattered like blossoms in a storm. He clutched his chest, as though trying to hold his own heart together. Logic slipped away. Memories flashed, collided. Faces of the dead. Flames. Jacob's voice. Silence.
You have to trust him…
A whisper. Not from the world, but within. Faint. Familiar. A voice from the past — a promise made under stars long gone.
He is always right…
There's a reason for his silence…
Kell stepped forward, but the Butler raised a hand — gently. Let him break, the gesture said. Let him feel.
Then, the wind stopped.
Just like that.
The cherry blossoms halted mid-fall, frozen in air like suspended time. A silence unlike any before swept across the battlefield.
It was not the quiet of peace, nor the stillness of fear. It was something divine.
High above, the clouds shifted — not pushed by wind, but pulled apart as if by will.
A golden shimmer trickled from the sky like spilled sunlight, soft at first, then blinding. Dust, no — stardust, it seemed — sparkled in the air, falling like blessings upon scorched earth.
Across the shattered plains, soldiers paused mid-strike. Daoists, Wolves, Elders — all lifted their eyes.
The legends whispered it might happen one day.
When sorrow reached the heavens… a Watcher would descend.
And now, that prophecy walked among them.
Bathed in divine light, the figure rose slowly, as though unfolding from the very fabric of the sky.
He moved like dawn breaking — not abrupt, but inevitable. Calm, radiant, eternal.
Tall and regal, the being's face bore no malice, only aching wisdom. His skin shimmered like moonstone. His eyes — molten gold, ageless and infinite — held lifetimes of grief and mercy.
Hair white as starlight flowed past his shoulders. From his back stretched wings not feathered, but woven from light itself — bending color, bending reality. The air shimmered around them.
His robes rippled like mist over a sacred lake — ever-shifting threads of twilight, starlight, and dreams.
Even time bowed. Even gravity stilled.
Karlos stared, breath caught in his throat.
Jacob slowly rose to his feet, eyes wide. "It can't be…"
Kell dropped to one knee without knowing why. The Butler's eyes watered as his gloved hand pressed to his chest.
The figure said nothing. He didn't need to.
The mere act of standing there was enough.
Then, softly — like the first note of a forgotten song — the angel turned his gaze to the garden, and his golden eyes met Karlos's.
And Karlos, for the first time in years, felt small.
Not in weakness, but in humility. In presence. In the face of something vast and kind and terrible.
He took a step forward.
"…Who are you?" he whispered.
The angel smiled — gently. Sadly.
And somewhere inside Karlos… something broke.
Not from pain.
But from release...