“Chains Beneath the Rubble”

The battle had bled deep into the ruined lower decks of ANSEP — a collapsed facility now twisted into jagged metal and scorched concrete. Rubble towered like broken monuments. Shattered floors overlapped in chaotic layers, leaving only narrow paths and flickers of light.

Crept Artem stood among the ruin, calm amid the falling dust.

Across the fractured hall, Henriech rose again — no emotion, no words. Just silence and the slow hum of orbs forming around him.

Their duel had already scorched the battlefield. But this… this would settle more than victory. It would decide legacy.

---

Henriech moved first.

His bombs tore through the air, crashing into support beams and collapsing jagged steel.

Crept dodged low, chains spiraling from his back like silver serpents. One lashed to a broken pipe, pulling him up — and over — the blast.

Then a second chain shot out, catching a falling slab midair and flinging it aside before it crushed him.

The rubble was no longer terrain — it was a weapon.

Each movement was chess played at a brutal pace. Crept used the debris like levers and shields. He anchored himself to falling platforms. He swung between shattered pillars and narrow shafts of light, his spear catching the glint of flame.

Henriech matched him bomb for bomb.

He turned a fractured column into a trap, detonating it to throw Crept off course. Another blast redirected — not toward the Artem heir, but toward the rubble above him, trying to bury him in collapsing ruin.

Chains snapped out just in time. Crept spun, rolled, and launched upward again — a blur between collapsing beams.

> "Running again?" he called out, voice sharp beneath the dust.

Henriech paused. His gaze sharpened.

> "Provocation. Glib tongue," he murmured. "So you take after your mother."

Crept didn't rise to it. But his grip on the spear tightened.

He dashed.

Henriech fired.

The air trembled as another volley of precision blasts burst through the corridor. Shattered floor tiles exploded underfoot. Crept landed hard, chains bursting behind him in a whip of force — binding rubble and redirecting momentum.

He closed the gap.

Fast.

Faster.

Spear and chain in tandem — a dance of pressure and precision. Henriech tried to create space. A blast erupted — but Crept was already within arm's reach.

The spear pierced through.

Henriech staggered.

Light cracked across the debris like thunder through fog.

But he didn't fall.

Instead — he laughed.

> "You should welcome me," he said, voice thin but clear. "Not pierce me."

Crept's eyes didn't blink.

> "You're no father of mine."

> "You're the filth in Artem's name."

Henriech's smile cracked wider — too wide.

> "Blood. Blood. Blood. That's all this cursed house ever speaks of."

His breath trembled — and then steadied.

> "You cling to honor… but our roots were always betrayal."

> "We — the Seven Great Families — were never born to build. We were born to devour."

---

Then it happened.

A strange light flickered behind Henriech's eyes — and the ground warped beneath him.

His Phantasia awoke.

Bomb Paradize.

A silent storm spread — not fire, not heat — but pressure. Invisible yet undeniable.

The world around them shifted.

Walls shook. Rubble hummed. The very air felt like it might fracture.

Forty meters around Henriech — stone, metal, shadow — all of it began to crackle with unseen force.

Not explosions in the literal sense — but energy, coiled and pulsing, threatening to become detonation.

Crept realized what was coming — not with fear, but understanding.

Henriech had turned the battlefield into a maze of potential destruction.

---

But Crept did not run.

He stepped forward.

Chains spread out behind him like wings.

> "You always needed something to destroy."

> "But I've stopped needing something to prove."

He raised his spear.

The chains surged.

And the war resumed — not with fire, but with judgment.

---

Some time ago…

Markarov Artem had received a distressing report — one that chilled him far more than any battlefield news.

An intrusion.

In the Secret Inventory.

A location buried beneath ANSEP's inner sanctum, known only to a handful of the highest-ranking members. Not even most of the Fourth Corps had access. And now, someone was down there.

He didn't hesitate.

Crept was still engaged above. Mobilizing the main force risked exposing the Inventory's existence. Markarov, younger brother of the famed Marcaella Artem and former Head of Shadow Security, made the decision swiftly.

He would go alone — save for a handful of trusted operatives.

Down, down, into the underlevels they descended. The corridors grew narrower, darker, more silent — walls etched with ancient warding seals, lit only by strips of faint blue flame. Yai currents swirled subtly in the air. The further they went, the more the place whispered.

When they reached the Inventory Vault, Markarov felt the tension leave him for a brief moment.

> "All intact…" he muttered.

But the relief was short-lived.

A sudden snap echoed behind him — too quick, too sharp.

Then, pain.

A shot ripped into his shoulder. Sharp. Precise. Coated in something bitter and burning. Markarov staggered, turned—

—and saw him.

> "You…" he growled.

The man stepped from the shadows, lowering his smoking firearm. His eyes were cold, grey, and utterly unrepentant.

Carl Artem. Younger brother of General Basen of the 3rd Corps.

> "So it was here," Carl said, inspecting the sealed vault door behind Markarov. "Thanks for leading me in."

Without another word, he turned — and gunned down the few guards who'd come with Markarov. They collapsed before they could scream.

Markarov dropped to one knee, blood soaking into the floor, poison freezing his veins.

> "Your family… traitors," he spat through gritted teeth.

Carl merely smiled.

> "Not traitors. Just loyal to someone else now."

Markarov's vision swam, but he forced out the words.

> "Who…?"

Carl stepped closer. His expression was calm — too calm.

> "The Empire of Astradar."

A pulse of silence. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath.

Markarov's heart twisted.

> "You won't get past that door," he said. "Only the branch head has the key. There's only one."

Carl shrugged, amused.

> "Lord Astradar foresaw that."

He held up a small object — metal, but fluid, like mercury sculpted into the shape of a key. Its surface rippled.

> "This isn't a key. It's every key."

Carl stepped forward, knelt, and traced a circle in the dust before the vault. With practiced ease, he activated a sequence — a spell — old, deep, and void-infused.

Symbols flickered to life, glowing faint purple against the floor. The key pulsed, resonating with the door.

The seal groaned.

Lines of light stitched across the vault's surface — hexagonal glyphs aligned, one by one, unraveling the protection layers.

Then, the door moved.

It didn't open like a regular vault. It unfolded.

Panel by panel, folding inward like flower petals turning to ash — revealing the inventory chamber within.

The scent of ancient power wafted out.

Carl stood at the threshold, smiling.

> "Let's begin."

Behind him, Markarov could only watch. Paralyzed. Helpless.

As the traitor stepped into the heart of their secrets.

---

The smoke curled around him, thick and bitter, reeking of blood and ozone. Henriech hovered above the ruined platform, chest rising and falling with each strained breath. His arms trembled. Ash caked his boots. And yet—

He smiled.

> "Two birds with one stone," he muttered.

The battlefield was quiet. Crept was gone — reduced to rubble and blood, if even that much remained. And now, from his communicator, the final seal of success:

> "The Book of Voyages has been retrieved. Carl Basen has secured the artifact."

Henriech's smile widened. The Artem had been broken — first their boy, then their vault. All as planned.

From below, a voice rang out — hoarse, but alive.

> "You bastard…"

It was Shilial.

He didn't answer. His eyes remained fixed on the smoke beneath him.

And then—

A shadow moved.

A silhouette took form in the dust.

At first, nothing but a blur. But then the smoke parted — and a figure stood within it.

Burned, cracked, bloodied — but alive.

Crept Artem.

---

In this world, to rise meant more than just strength.

It meant dominance. Scope. Authority that stretched not across mere battlefields, but across the very fabric of civilization.

There were those who ruled cities. Those whose presence could command regions. That was the mark of the Dominion Tier — influence like an empire's whisper, able to freeze rivers, crumble fortresses, or silence entire factions.

But beyond that lay those whose every step shifted the fate of a continent — the Continental Tier.

Earthquakes answered their fury. Storms moved for them. Nations fell because they willed it so.

Crept Artem… was one of them.

Not by bloodline alone. But by battle. By wrath. By the chain-bound weight of his silence.

---

The last of the smoke curled away.

His armor was fractured. His chains hung loose, one arm barely moving.

But his eyes were cold.

Henriech's smile froze.

> "No... you should be dead."

Crept did not answer.

The chains lifted behind him — slow, steady, shimmering like vipers stirred from slumber.

His spear returned to his grip — rebuilt, reforged by sheer will.

The wind shifted.

Shilial felt it too.

Not just survival.

But return.

And reckoning.

---