The killers got closer and closer, until Micah could hear the sound of their blades scraping against armor. Every breath she took was sharp, metallic, and full of the stench of blood. One of them raised his sword, ready to hit—
Then everything came to a halt.
The air felt different. It didn't just move. It dropped, pressing down on them with crushing weight. Every instinct screamed to run. This wasn't qi. This wasn't a spell.
It was presence.
A pressure so absolute it clawed at the lungs and froze thought.
The blood-red glyphs of the assassination array flickered, and their once-perfect lines trembled as if they were scared for their lives. The magic in the room even paused, as if it knew that something much bigger had just woken up.
A low, electric hum rippled through the marble beneath their feet. The faint scent of ozone bled into the air. Lightning cracked—not in sight, but in sound, a pulse that made the air vibrate against skin.
The shadows on the walls deepened, thickened, swallowing the light until all that remained were thin streaks of dim frostlight reflecting off steel.
Then something moved.
It wasn't an assassin.
It didn't step. It glided.
A blur tore through the darkness, faster than sight.
A wet, violent sound split the silence.
SLASH.
One assassin's head flew free from his shoulders. It hit the ground with a dull thump, bounced once, then rolled to the boot of the man beside him. The decapitated body stayed upright for a heartbeat, still trying to obey its last command, before collapsing in a boneless heap.
The man next to it froze mid-step, eyes wide behind his mask. "What the—"
He never finished.
A streak of violet cut across his chest, and the world snapped in half with the sound of splintering bone. His body folded inward, ribs shattering like brittle glass. He hit the floor in silence, twitching once before violet flame erupted from the wound, consuming him completely.
Flesh, armor, soul—gone. Only black ash and scorched steel remained.
For the first time, the assassins—their elite, disciplined killers—hesitated. Panic rippled through their formation. Their training screamed to regroup, but their bodies refused to obey. Everyone of them could feel it. Something else was in that room. Something ancient and merciless.
Something that had been waiting.
Micah turned toward the bed. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.
Empty.
The sheets were still indented, the faint warmth of a body lingering—but Charles was gone.
Her throat tightened. "He's… gone?"
Then she felt it. The truth. The pulse of qi that moved like a storm behind her spine, electric and endless. The shadows that had moved—the ones that struck faster than thought—hadn't been summoned.
It was him.
Charles Alden Vale.
Lord Charlemagne Ziglar.
The Sleeping Prince had awakened.
Not as a boy. Not as a noble.
But as something far beyond what the assassins could ever understand.
He was a storm wearing a man's face, the quiet before thunder breaks the world open, the reckoning that comes when even the gods turn their eyes away.
They hadn't hunted down their target. They had unlocked his cage.
And what stepped out wasn't the frail young heir they imagined—
It was a ruler born from rage and darkness itself.
The air was thick with blood and frost, heavy enough to choke on. The remaining assassins closed ranks around Micah, their boots slick against the crimson-soaked marble. Every man there had killed a dozen times before—but none of them had ever seen bodies fall apart this fast.
One blink. Another head rolled across the floor.
Another blink. A leg hit the ground with a wet slap.
A heartbeat later, a man convulsed mid-swing, his body erupting in violet-black soulfire that consumed him from the inside out.
Six were dead before fear even had time to form.
The suite's isolation array quaked, its once-bright sigils dimming and pulsing erratically, like stars gasping their last breath. Blood seeped into the cracks between the tiles, spreading in slow, uneven rivers.
Nimbus lay trapped beneath the shimmering curse web, her small body trembling. The runes binding her glowed a cruel crimson, and her wide, reptilian eyes reflected pure terror.
Baylen—the leader of the squad—took a step forward. His mask had fallen away, revealing a face twisted with rage and disbelief. "Bastard!" he roared, the word cutting through the crackle of dying magic.
And then, from the broken light between the faltering glyphs, something stirred.
A figure stepped into the light, and the world seemed to bow with it.
Silver-blue eyes burned like comets in a storm. His chest still bore the fading scars of his own death, blood streaked down his jaw, but the aura rolling off him wasn't human anymore. It was pressure made flesh—raw, ancient, and merciless.
Charlemagne Ziglar stood alive. Awake. Terrifying.
In one hand, the Raijin Emberfang pulsed with electric hunger, lightning crawling up its crimson edge. In the other, the Gauntlet of the Elemental Ascendant hissed with rotating veins of fire, lightning, and shadow.
He didn't speak. He moved.
"Phantom Veil Steps: Mirage Fang Displacement."
The air fractured. He was gone.
Then he appeared behind one of the assassins.
"Heaven-Crushing Fist."
The gauntlet flared, light bursting from it like a newborn sun as it struck. The sound wasn't just a hit—it was a detonation. Bone gave way with a sickening crunch, blood sprayed in a violent arc, and the man's chest folded inward like crushed metal.
His body slammed into the wall with such force that it left a crater, sliding down in a wet streak of red.
Charles didn't even glance his way.
Micah stumbled back, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. The air felt heavier now, thick with smoke and iron. This wasn't combat anymore. It was a slaughter.
Charles turned his head slightly. His sword gave a low, hungry hum—like it knew the killing wasn't over yet.
"Raijin Art: Thundersurge Cleave."
The air screamed. Lightning lanced outward, searing through the gloom in a blinding silver arc. One assassin charged forward—and died in the same instant. His body split cleanly from shoulder to hip, the wound cauterized by divine electricity before he even realized he'd been cut.
And then Baylen reappeared.
A teleportation glyph flared behind him, and steel met steel. Sparks burst between them as their weapons locked mid-air. The shockwave rattled the suite's foundations.
Micah turned just in time to see another assassin lunging for her. She spun, blocking the first strike, then the second—but he was faster. His blade kissed her side, drawing blood.
Baylen flickered out of sight again—
And materialized behind her.
"Checkmate."
His blade pressed against her throat, slicing a thin line of red. Micah froze, lips parted but silent, fury burning behind her eyes.
"Drop your weapon, Ziglar," Baylen taunted, voice low, oily with triumph. "Or your lovely girlfriend dies before you can blink."
Charles didn't move.
Something inside him twisted— a haunting déjà vu surged, sharp and merciless.
Elena.
That scream. That blood. The night he was too late.
Not this time.
His jaw tightened. His pulse slowed. Even the flicker of his aura stilled.
The world went silent. Smoke hung in the air. Dead men's blood steamed on the marble.
Then, slowly, Charles opened his hand.
The Raijin Emberfang slipped free, clattering against the floor. Lightning still crawled along its edge like a caged beast refusing to die.
Baylen's grin widened. "See? Always the same with your kind," he sneered.
"All ambition, all arrogance—until someone touches the pretty little thing you want to keep."
He pressed the blade deeper. "Beauties. The eternal weakness of men who think they're kings."
Micah's heart clenched. She saw the ghost of another woman's death behind his words. She tried to speak, to warn him, but Charles… didn't blink.
He didn't even breathe. He simply vanished.
No sound. No qi flare. Not even a shimmer.
Baylen's grin faltered. "Wha—"
CRACK!
Charles reappeared behind him, fist already in motion. The Heaven-Crushing Gauntlet roared to life, smashing into Baylen's ribs with enough force to implode armor and shatter bone. The blow sent him flying across the room like a rag doll, embedding him into the far wall in an eruption of dust and fractured stone.
Micah staggered, her legs giving out, but before she hit the ground, Charles caught her, steady and unflinching.
He didn't speak. His eyes said everything—cold, controlled, furious.
Then he was gone again.
"Voidwalk Execution." Absolute silence.
The remaining assassins spun in panic, blades shaking, eyes wide. "Where is he?!" one yelled.
The light flickered. The shadows trembled. Even the glyphs on the walls dimmed, as if terrified to shine.
A whisper of breath. A flick of movement.
And steel sang.
"Whispershade Form: Horizon Fang."
Baylen barely had time to look up.
His head separated from his neck in one clean, flawless cut. For a second, his eyes still moved—confused, disbelieving—before they went glassy. His body followed, slumping to the ground in a heap of ruined flesh and arrogance.
Blood splattered across Micah's face. She didn't flinch. Didn't even wipe it away.
She knew this version of him.
The assassins had come to kill a sleeping heir.
Instead, they had awakened the thing that haunted kings and gods alike.
A phantom of vengeance.
The storm that never forgives.
Charles stepped out of the dark like he had been born from it.
The two surviving assassins didn't hesitate—they bolted.
Their training vanished, replaced by raw survival instinct. One dove for the shattered window, the other lunged toward the door where the exit glyph sputtered weakly. Their boots slid across the blood-slick marble, breath coming out in ragged gasps.
All they could think of was to run. Just run.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The voice didn't need volume. It rolled through the room like a living thing—low, electric, alive with menace. It vibrated in their chests, coiling up their spines. The temperature plummeted. The air itself seemed to hum, charged and waiting to explode.
The first assassin didn't even make it to the doorway.
"Raijin Art: Thundersurge Cleave."
The world flashed white. A bolt of lightning ripped through the room, cutting reality itself. The assassin froze mid-stride, twitching once before his body split cleanly in two—skin seared, armor hissing as smoke curled upward. The halves hit the ground with a wet crack, the scent of burnt flesh choking the air.
The other man turned just in time to see the glow. The gauntlet—that gauntlet—was already moving. The Gauntlet of the Elemental Ascendant, alive with violet arcs and veins of black ether, looked less like a weapon and more like the hand of a god.
Charles's strike landed dead center.
BOOM.
The impact was an explosion of sound and bone. The assassin's chest collapsed inward, ribs snapping like splinters, organs liquefying under the force. Black tendrils of soulfire burst out through his back, wrapping around his spine and curling up his neck like the roots of something ancient and hungry.
Violet fire burst from the man's eyes and mouth, burning him from the inside out. He let out one horrible, strangled sound—half scream, half gurgle—and then collapsed in a smoking heap.
Silence followed.
Charles stood in the middle of it all, chest rising and falling with quiet, measured breaths. Blood dripped from his armor, splattering against what little marble floor remained clean.
The suite, once gleaming with gold trim and elegance, had become a grave. Burn marks spread like veins across the walls, the faint scent of ozone and death thick in the air.
Frost had crept across the tiles in jagged lines, and torn curtains swayed in the haze of smoke that refused to clear. The air stank of ozone, scorched metal, and blood—thick enough to taste.
He exhaled slowly. His eyes, still faintly lit with sapphire fire, flickered toward the destruction. The rage inside him had quieted, but it hadn't gone anywhere. It never did.
Click.
A soft hum broke the silence. The ceiling shimmered with pale light as a surveillance orb blinked to life, its golden lens turning toward him. It had been triggered by the final death. Now it recorded everything—the blood, the ruin, the man standing at the center of it all.
Ten bodies. One survivor.
A massacre, caught in the glow of artificial judgment.
A warning to anyone who would ever ask what happened to those who tried to assassinate Lord Charlemagne Ziglar.
Charles moved through the carnage with quiet precision. One by one, he knelt beside the fallen assassins, flipping their masks aside. Each face told the same story—fear frozen in its last heartbeat. Professionals, all of them. Foreign, trained, efficient. And utterly destroyed.
Until the last.
Baylen.
Micah steadied herself against a broken wall, armor dented and streaked with blood.
She was pale but standing. "He was with Malfor," she said, her voice rough but steady.
Charles's gaze flicked toward her. His eyes narrowed, and a shadow crossed his face—not surprise. Not rage. Just confirmation.
"Of course he was." His words came out like frost, cutting and controlled.
Then he turned to her fully.
"What are you doing here?"
The question hit harder than any strike. There was no anger, no shout. Just cold precision. It was enough.
Micah's breath caught. Her throat tightened. She tried to speak but couldn't. The blood streaking her cheek suddenly felt heavy, like a mark of failure she couldn't wash off.
Charles took a step closer. His expression softened, only slightly, but enough to shift the air between them. The same gauntleted hand that had crushed bones and burned souls reached out and gently brushed the blood from her face.
"You're safe now," he said quietly.
For a second, neither of them breathed. Then—
CRASH.
The door burst open, splintering off its hinges. Borris charged through, half-covered in blood, one arm dragging a half-dead assassin by the throat. He threw the man down hard enough to shake the floor.
Rob stumbled in behind him, coat singed and crossbow raised. His eyes went wide as they swept the room. Wendy followed a step later, stopping dead as the smell hit her. Her hand covered her mouth.
"Gods above…"
The room said the rest for them. Ten corpses. One survivor.
Charles turned slowly, his silver hair streaked with soot and blood. His sapphire eyes glowed faintly in the dying haze. Frost still crept along the floor where he stood. Sparks danced over his gauntlet. Shadow energy bled faintly off his shoulders like smoke rising from an execution ground.
No one dared speak.
Because what stood before them wasn't the young lord they'd followed into battle.
It wasn't a man.
It was the aftermath of one.
A storm given flesh. A force that didn't forgive.
And tonight, someone had been foolish enough to wake it.