Capital – the stone corridor outside the Imperial Council Hall
The messenger, pale-faced and trembling, handed the sealed letter to one of the scribes. He did not dare speak, but the way his hand shook spoke louder than any words. The seal was circular, carved with two intersecting lines—an emblem used only when the very borders of the Empire were threatened.
The scribe opened it with care, eyes scanning the parchment quickly before swallowing hard. Without a word, he hurried into a side chamber where a group of advisors waited. The letter was brief, stripped of ornament, as though the writer had no time for anything but the truth:
"Strange banners sighted near the northern frontier. Reports confirm a single man standing at their head. He did not speak, did not shout, did not raise a blade… yet an entire unit withdrew the moment he faced them in silence."
One advisor whispered:
— "The Silent General…?"
But another cut him off sharply:
— "No. There is no proof. Likely another rumor."
Still, the whispers spread through the halls like fire: the name that refused to die, returning whenever the Empire's walls seemed close to breaking.
Elsewhere – far from the capital
Beneath a canopy of heavy trees, Adam sat beside the ruins of a burned cabin. What remained of the walls were nothing but blackened skeletons. The ground was layered in ash that had not yet cooled, as if the fire itself had refused to leave the memory of this place.
Adam looked to be in his early thirties. His body was a map of old scars, his gray eyes sunken, fathomless. He did not look like a grieving man. He looked like a man who had swallowed grief until his face had hardened into stone.
He leaned slowly toward a tree nearby, its bark still stained with dried blood. That was where his family had once been hanged before he buried them. His hand brushed the rough wood, fingertips clinging to the last chill his children had left behind.
From his pocket, he drew a broken wooden talisman, split down the middle. He pressed it into the soil at the tree's base. No words escaped him, but the air thickened around him, silence heavier than any scream.
On the road nearby, a small caravan of merchants passed. One man glimpsed Adam in the ruins and whispered to his companion:
— "Those eyes… they aren't human. They look at death as though it's already here."
None dared to approach. They left him there, the way one leaves an open grave unfilled.
Capital rumors… forests of ash… the camp's silence
In the capital, whispers of the Silent General refused to fade.
In the forest, Adam remained among the ashes of his family.
And in the training camp, still unaware of the storm gathering, the valley waited—its gates ready to open on the third stage of their trial.