Literally unexpected.

While the flying ship had already settled on the top of a mountain overlooking endless lands, eastward stood a great wall in the middle of the lands.

Decorated with intricate carvings and crowned with massive battlements, it surrounded a mysterious mansion.

At its peak, dark smoke rose into the sky, obscuring the radiance of the full moon.

Inside the Great Wall surrounding the palace, which was of enormous size, it had been completely burnt from east to west, from top to bottom.

Its size was so massive that it could have withstood ten weddings, and this was a fact. However, space is one thing, and what it had become was something entirely different.

It had no value left at all; a dilapidated, burned-down structure with no beauty or grandeur. It was simply a completely blackened sight due to the severe fire that had consumed everything inside and out.

Even the gardens surrounding it were burned, except for the road that formed a triangle around the mansion and the small gardens inside the wall.

But everything about the Agard family mansion had become ugly to look at.

"That's why they told us to put masks on our mouths," one of the soldiers said, placing his right hand over the black mask.

The soldiers, numbering ten in total, were all wearing masks.

Although the masks were designed with thick fabric and were comfortable on the skin to block the entry of harmful air, they couldn't bear it and placed their hands over their mouths because of the toxic air mixed with the surrounding atmosphere.

The smell wasn't bad, it was so toxic that the soldiers hated the minute they entered the place.

Except for one.

Akriod, who was also wearing a mask, stared at the burned palace with wide-open eyes. "Black fire!" The fire that had consumed the palace was no ordinary flame; it was one he knew well.

It was the source of the toxic fumes choking the throats of anyone who inhaled the poisonous air left in the wake of its destruction.

This fire was forbidden, considered a war crime for those who dared to use it.

"Oh, great Dysar."

After a long look at the burning mansion, Akriod turned to his left towards the soldier who shouted at the far eastern end of the mansion.

"What's wrong?" He was surprised by his loud scream.

"I found something strange." The soldier pointed to an area behind the mansion.

"Strange!" Akriod turned to the soldier, his gaze looking at the black mansion, with his questions in his mind about the reason for the forbidden black fire being in this place.

_

While the four soldiers, who were standing in shock, were frozen, Akriod appeared from behind them.

"There, sir," the soldier in the front alone pointed to the wide back wall of the mansion, between two trees.

Below them was a table and two chairs in a garden of withered flowers.

What akriod saw, was the last thing he expected to see.

"Akriod!" he muttered to himself, amazed and shocked by the writing on the vast white wall. "Why is my name written on the wall?" It was truly baffling to him, for his name was carved into the mansion wall with a mysterious black substance that was definitely not blood.

The soldiers coughed behind him, unable to withstand the air in the place.

A soldier approached him, placing his hand on his mouth. "Sir, the soldiers can no longer bear it."

He turned his head, and the soldiers behind him were approaching the point of losing consciousness.

He looked back at the wall, focusing on it, and said, "Yes, let's go back to the ship." It was confusing and raised many questions, but he decided to withdraw from the place.

_

While he returned to the ship, he was astonished in his private room with the desk and the small window to his right overlooking the moon.

Akriod was thinking about it deeply. He literally did not expect the incident to be such a surprise, as the matter was supposed to be limited to playing his role as the head of the Agard family and checking on his family's burnt mansion.

But finding his name written on the wall was not something he expected to see. "The black fire... and my name, is this a coincidence or deliberate?"

His doubt was between coincidence and intentionality.

Coincidence, because the incident occurred in the Agard mansion, a place with no connection to him. Yes, it belonged to the family he takes the form of their son, but it still remained unrelated to him.

However, the option of intentionality was heavily favored by akriod, due to the meeting of two things that seemed impossible to be mere coincidence: his name, and the black fire, which Akriod knew well.

It was a rare type of fire, almost legendary among people because it was seldom seen by them in reality and because of its prohibition.

However, his suspicion in this case outweighed his certainty about which of the two options was correct, which made him doubt even more. "If I said coincidence, this option would still be weak compared to the presence of my name and the black fire in the palace, which only means one thing: that the one responsible wants to send me an anonymous message under the table, if it was intentional..."

His questions were of such an unknown nature that even he could not answer them. This was because no one knew of his existence except for himself, and he had left no trace behind.

It was impossible to track him down, as he had eliminated every close or related possibility of revealing his identity, especially any small trace the Northern Theocracy could have benefited from.

"If my name hadn't been written on the wall, I would have thought it was just a coincidence. But with the black fire involved, whoever is behind this clearly knows exactly what they're doing, as if they know me well."

Akriod had no one in his mind.

It was hard to consider it a coincidence with the presence of the black fire, especially since Akriod had a grim history with it. "I'll act as though I didn't see anything."

He tried to dismiss the situation by considering it a mere coincidence, even though his reasoning leaned toward the idea that it was intentional, without a shadow of a doubt.

But he knew that asking questions wouldn't help, especially since the answers were nearly impossible to find, given his ignorance of the person responsible.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Sir, we are almost at democracy." A soldier's voice said.

"Yes." After his answer, Akriod brought his head closer to the window to see the democracy of Elethra from above, with the sounds of life rising within it.

The first thing that caught Akriod's attention were its bright lights and elegant streets, with magnificent buildings, but the most striking feature was the tall tower that illuminated much of the city with its decorative lights spread across.

"Between coincidence and intent, let's discover what is in the unknown pages of destiny." With those words leaving his mouth, the ship neared the landing area where various ships were descending.