For once, I slept like a baby. No shadows gnawing at my ribs, no storm howling in my chest, no whispers of gods or systems trying to drag me deeper into their schemes. Just sleep. Deep, quiet, ordinary sleep.
When I woke, sunlight filtered through the curtains, warm across my face. My body — battered, scarred, re-forged in silence — should've ached. But it didn't.
Instead, I stretched, cracked my neck, and laughed under my breath. "So this is what not-dying feels like."
The first thing I saw when I stepped into the courtyard was Kaelen, flat on his back, panting, sweat streaming off him like he'd been fighting an army. Darian stood over him, unimpressed as always.
"You lasted three more seconds than yesterday," Darian said. "Congratulations. You've upgraded from 'hopeless' to 'slightly less hopeless.'"
Kaelen groaned. "You call this training? This is torture."
I walked past, grinning. "He's being nice. Torture usually comes with screaming."
Kaelen sat up, glaring. "Easy for you to say, stormlord. You go into dungeons, come back glowing like some kind of thunder god, and we're just supposed to keep up."
"Exactly," I said, grabbing an apple from the table. I bit into it, juice running down my chin. "If you can't keep up, I'll leave you behind."
His jaw dropped, eyes wide — until he caught the smirk tugging at my mouth. He threw a pebble at me. I let the storm flick it away midair.
Selvara, perched nearby with her notebook, sighed. "You two act like brothers, and yet one of you can level cities while the other can't beat his own shadow."
"That's harsh," Kaelen muttered.
"Not inaccurate," Darian added.
Even the berserker cracked a grin. It wasn't much, but for a moment, the estate felt lighter.
The moment didn't last.
By noon, word had reached us.
One of the younger recruits sprinted in, pale-faced, breathless. "They're here," he gasped.
Darian's expression hardened instantly. "Who?"
"The guild envoys. From the capital."
I felt the storm inside me stir. Not the raging, destructive tide — but a quieter, sharper current.
So, they finally came.
It was inevitable. I'd cleared dungeons they wouldn't dare touch, taken recruits without permission, built a guild without blessing. The political world tolerated many things — but not storms that couldn't be controlled.
When the envoys arrived, they didn't bother with subtlety. Five cloaked figures, gilded crests flashing on their shoulders, the sigils of three different guilds woven together in uneasy alliance.
A show of force.
They didn't bow. Didn't greet. The leader, a tall man with silver hair and a smile too sharp to trust, stepped forward.
"Ashura Bellet," he said smoothly. "We've heard the rumors. The boy who walks alone through calamity. The nameless guild that grows in the shadows. The whispers of a god at your back."
His eyes glittered as they locked onto mine.
"We're here to decide if those rumors are worth fearing."
The storm in me flared, answering before I could.
And I smiled, just a little. "Then you came to the right place."