In the upcoming days, Astra barely slept. He didn't need to. Something inside him—perhaps his mythical core, perhaps something else—kept him burning, kept him moving forward, even as his muscles ached and his mana circuits throbbed from overuse. His tent was more of a formality than a resting place. He was rarely in it, and when he was, he was pacing, meditating, or charting formations in the dirt with a gloved finger while his food went cold nearby.
The war camp was a world unto itself: hundreds of tents arranged in precise order, supply caravans rolling like arteries through the main roads, giant elemental braziers lighting up intersections where commanders barked orders into the night. Warforged siege engines lined the distant ridge. Training fields clattered from dawn till dusk. Aether-lanterns flickered in blue and gold, casting long shadows against the smoke-stained sky. Thousands moved with purpose.
Astra trained with all five of the company's high command platoon leaders—veterans that even seasoned rank threes deferred to. Battle-scarred and sharpened by decades of war, each carried the weight of command like a second skin. And yet, Astra did not fall easily to any of them.
His curse—the so-called Blessing of Curiosity, bestowed by The Harbinger of Twisted Truths himself—made every sparring session more than a duel. It was a revelation. Astra's eyes often drifted to the threads. He saw them—lines of mana, intent, and consequence. Glimpses hurt, left him dizzy or bleeding from the nose, but even half-seconds gave him insight. A twitch of hesitation, a curve of fate—his body adapted even when his mind burned.
Vael Dornis was the first. His arrival was heralded by tremors in the stone, the scent of scorched rock in the air. Stonefire Mana bled from him like a volcanic tide, rupturing the earth beneath his boots. Columns of magma hissed from the cracks, casting orange and red light against the dusk-hued sky. Each of his footsteps struck like war drums, the very ground responding to his fury.
The training coliseum, a vast obsidian-ringed arena built into the southern end of the war camp, came alive. Hundreds gathered on the blackstone terraces and arched balconies: officers, aides, recruits, and veteran soldiers alike, their armor reflecting molten light. Some leaned forward in hushed awe, others whispered bets, but all fell silent when Astra stepped into the ring.
The training duel began with a roar. Fissures erupted, spewing molten fury. Lava burst skyward like flaming serpents. Astra moved without hesitation—celestial mana surged through his veins as he activated Orion's Mantle, the Shadows curling around him like loyal wraiths, striking with uncanny precision. He danced through the chaos: pillars of flame missed him by inches, slag hissed off his blade as he parried, and Celestial Wave pulsed outward to cool the blistering air. Shadows blocked molten fists, but Vael pressed harder—his onslaught a storm from all angles.
Then Astra answered.
His domain ignited.
Blackmoon unfurled above him hovering, a black Orb of Shadow and will—vast, cold, inevitable. A shimmering veil that bent light, distorted mana, and swallowed sound. Shadows deepened, and his power spiked. Gravity thickened until even motion groaned beneath it. Vael's Stonefire flares crawled like syrup through air turned to velvet. The Shadows struck like silent predators. The curse of the Blackmoon sank its fangs into Vael's reserves, draining mana with every breath. Debris floated, stilled midair, then tumbled like falling stars.
This was no mere domain spell. It was a Rank Three domain—and it eclipsed all doubt.
Vael, who did not have a domain spell struck with a magma-encased fist the size of a buckler. Astra's counter came fast—his forearm cloaked in Heat of the Stars, Shadows entrapping Vael, the celestial flame melting stone just enough to redirect. He stepped inside, driving his elbow under the commander's ribs. Then a follow-up with Weight of the Stars, slamming down into Vael's exposed side with crushing force. He tried to follow up with his shadows manifesting into spikes as, Vael staggered back, eyes narrowed, as his aura exploded and magma ash and stone bellowed. The courtyard murmured.
"You fight like a true warrior," Vael said lowly. "As if the stars themselves taught you the rhythm of war."
He offered no laughter, only a slow nod.
"Let's stop now lest we truly hurt each other. Draw" he declared. None contested it.
Astra ordered his rank three officers to also train and work on troop movements, issuing drills that mimicked battlefield chaos. He coordinated night marches through simulated smoke, surprise attacks on fortified tents, and rotating leadership exercises. At dawn, he would leap between squadrons mid-simulation, correcting formations, shouting over detonations of mock spells, altering battle lines with the intuition of someone who had bled for every insight. He didn't just observe—he fought alongside them, walked with the frontlines, and stood among the wounded.
In every simulation, he tested how his domain influenced large-scale combat. Blackmoon was not just a dueling tool—it warped morale, seeing a commander attack lines with a Blackmoon overhead and armor as dark as the void shimmering with constellations and stars raised morale and added to his myth, it disrupted enemy formations as well when Astra penetrated lines, even collapsed sound-based signals. He took notes after every skirmish. How long before a commander's resolve cracked in his gravity? How did illusions break within its hush? How far could he push his troops without breaking them?
Blackstar was even more shocking. It did not merely empower—it transformed a battlefield, it hung high in the sky and blanketed an entire area, soldiers from outside the camps can even see the white corona of the dark object floating in the shadow vieled skys above training grounds. Those he called allies were cloaked in celestial resonance and shadow-born clarity, their strikes enhanced, reactions sharpened, minds calmed under its radiant pulse not to a major extent but many can still feel the effects. And those he named enemy? They buckled beneath the exile of stars, shadows coiling around them like silent verdicts leeching mana and stamina. Every clash, every motion, carried an echo of something larger—The Blackstar that clashed with Hunts champion.
Veteran knights, grizzled rank threes who had fought in far more battles than he, could not help but pause. Even they, hardened by blood and fire, felt the awe creep in. Two domain spells. Celestial and shadow in perfect synthesis. At Rank Two. Impossible. Unprecedented. They had seen his performance its all in the mana network, but feeling it, seeing it, was different, seeing how this seventeen year old, a literal teenager rapidly evolved and rose was astonishing.
Astra made it real. He made it visible.
And his status—no longer a courtesy of nobility—became a fact forged in battle. The respect his squad leaders offered after that was no longer conditional. It was instinctive. Earned.
He held impromptu war councils beneath the elemental braziers. Maps were laid on crates, hands traced over river crossings and bottlenecks. He listened more than he spoke, learning how his lieutenants saw threat and opportunity, How his captains thought and acted. Once, he ordered a mock siege against the 18th eclipse platoon, border ops and realm transfers on their own supply lines simulations—caught them completely off-guard, forced them to reroute under pressure.
And after every simulation, after every breathless hour under shadow, he returned to the field. Never quite satisfied. Always adjusting. He knew just how chaotic battles can be when high tier personnel were dispatched.
Command was more than charisma. It was repetition. Obsession. Presence.
Strangely enough Astra was enjoying himself, he was granted power, real power and authority through his hard work and lineage, something he would dream and fantasize bout for hours. Now he actually gets to lead powerful beings, into the fray of real combat, train and give them orders, and the best part, He had the actual means and power to support his command.
Through the many sims failures and triumphs it was time for him to train with another high company platoon commander.
Captain Ilhera Vance came next, and their clash unfolded within the heart of the southern training coliseum—a smaller obsidian-ringed arena ringed with storm wards and sigils flaring with defensive power. Nearly fifty tacticians, spell architects, and field lieutenants watched from the archways above, breaths held as the combatants stepped into the warded ring.
Ilhera struck first—flickering into motion with Storm and Illusion Mana. Dozens of mirages sparked across the battlefield, each one blurring between motion and falsehood, lightning coiling at their heels. She blurred forward in twin arcs, blades slicing from the flanks, then again from above. Astra, grounded within the orbit of his domain, remained still.
Blackmoon answered her chaos with silence. The shadowfold dimmed her illusions—not destroying them, but distorting them. Astra saw through her illusions, the truth granted to him by his curse of curiosity, he can see the threads.
The speed she relied on was trimmed by half a heartbeat, slowed just enough for Astra's Astral Sight to cleave truth from mirage. One copy was an echo. The other held weight. He turned, redirected, countered.
Their blades clashed with sparks, but Astra gave no ground. He layered his reactions with Astral Sense as well, allowing for near-instantaneous reads on her next sequence. Starfire pulsed beneath his skin, charging through sword and step. Shadows leapt like hunting beasts, striking at angles unseen, while stormlight whirled in erratic bursts.
Ilhera pivoted through the air, riding wind currents, launching a storm-fused feint meant to bait him into opening. Astra ducked, used Weight of the Stars to anchor her trajectory mid-air, then followed with a precision cut through her storm clone, forcing her to disengage.
The fight pressed on, trading tempo and tempo again—storm arcs against stellar flame, illusions against domain-born silence, intellect against instinct.
Until, with a burst of overlapping spells and a flicker of blade-light, they came to a dead halt—steel to throat, breath sharp. Each had landed a lethal strike, if carried further.
Ilhera was the first to exhale.
She sheathed her sword slowly. "You fight like you were born for the battlefield, Prince Astra. You've earned their respect, and mine."
A beat passed. Then another. The tacticians above erupted into murmurs. They had witnessed not just another duel—but the ascension of a commander.
In the hours that followed, whispers spread like wildfire across the camp, many that still doubted him were silenced. Astra, still Rank Two, had not only held his own against the phantom of storm and illusion—but had dissected her strategy mid-combat. Officers began adjusting how they looked at him. Not as a noble placeholder, but as what he truly was, A fallen Prince on his war path.
Astra also found himself entangled in a dense web of high-level command meetings, where strategy was more cipher than conversation. Discussions ranged from layered troop formations, dynamic mana battalions, signal refractors, cross-realms communication rituals, to even tactical illusions meant to obscure whole squadrons. But the most arcane—and arguably most important—topic was the deployment of the mana chain: an ancient battlefield lattice woven from stabilized concept-thread mana, used only during major campaigns.
The mana chain operated like a supernatural beacon network—each combat mage was marked not just with alliance coding, but detailed identifiers like mana signature resonance, spell archetype, and even last known movements in combat space. It could track who was a true ally and who wore stolen colors. Uncrackable without divine-tier interference, the system was a nightmare to maintain, requiring Anchor-Scribes, Continuum Wards, and an uninterrupted ley pulse from a relay tower. But its clarity in chaotic combat was unmatched.
It turned fog-of-war into something measurable, gave Astra and his captains the ability to issue targeting orders in seconds, and made mana impersonation nearly impossible. Yet even with all this, espionage never stopped. New threats emerged daily—illusion-crafted saboteurs, corpse-walked informants, enemy shadowcasters mimicking resonance. The chain gave order, but the war was still very much a tangle of hidden blades and veiled truths.
As the days passed, Astra was to face another Company platoon commander.
Out of all the commanders Astra had faced so far, none matched the overwhelming presence and sheer might of Brigadier Major Drevan Kal—a living legend within the war camp and the heart of the training coliseum's darkest tales. Drevan was ancient, stoic, and utterly without warmth, a Graveseal priest-mage whose high-tier Rank Three status came not just from raw power but from the suffocating weight of his domain.
When Drevan unleashed his domain Seal of the Grave, the very fabric of reality within the coliseum warped. Magic dulled to a faint whisper; threads of mana and fate vanished into shadowed voids. Astra's carefully honed spells—Star Cannon, Celestial Wave, even the creeping tendrils of his shadows—fizzled and faltered the moment he crossed the boundary of Drevan's influence. The air itself thickened, resistance suffusing every movement.
Desperation bloomed. Astra called upon Blackmoon, pouring gravity and darkness into the fight, yet even this potent force bent, twisted, and shrank beneath Drevan's oppressive aura. His physical strikes became sluggish, each blow feeling as if wading through molasses. It was a crucible unlike any Astra had known—every avenue of power and strategy constricted, every option seemingly exhausted.
But Drevan, for all his dreadful might, was not invincible. Astra held back his ultimate ace—the Blackstar—an explosive celestial force with the power to reshape the battlefield. He knew better than to rely on it recklessly; some battles demanded patience and precision over brute force.
The crowd in the training coliseum watched in hushed awe as Astra staggered, finally dropping to one knee beneath the unyielding gaze of Drevan.
Without a word, the priest-mage spoke, his voice cold and absolute: "I don't fight. I remove the need. You are indeed powerful, young prince, to compel me to summon my domain as a Rank Two."
The words echoed—a challenge, a warning, and a measure of respect all at once. Astra's defeat was undeniable, yet the fight had only deepened the gulf he sought to cross, sharpening his resolve to one day overcome even this formidable foe. as a rank two."
Astra fell into a routine, as he faced the other company commanders
With Captain Seth Oran and Lord Thorne Vail, Astra held his ground. Seth's Fluxfire changed constantly—wild and beautiful. It roared as a beast, coiled as mist, struck like thought. Astra adapted, rotating between Heat of the Stars, Weight of the Stars, and tight, unrelenting melee. Blackmoon wrapped them both, dulling flame edges, slowing erratic bursts.
Witnesses saw something new then—how Astra began predicting shifts in Seth's mood, matching tempo not just of flame, but of spirit. They fought like kindred warriors, and when it ended, both stepped back, winded but standing.
Thorne Vail was quieter, more surgical. Their duel was a test of will and control, Astra locking into rhythm and punishing even the smallest missteps with precision spellwork and celestial pressure. Blackmoon again served as his anchor—his shield and scalpel.
Thorne yielded with a slight incline of the head.
"I understand now why you wear the special insignia," he said. "You've earned the title, and then some."
The upper brass were not the only ones he faced. His own soldiers—those of the 20th Platoon—received no less of his attention.
He fought Elric Vorn in the training pits before over seventy witnesses. Spear and shield met sword shadow and starlight. Astra overpowered Elric with Sword of the Stars and under his domain Blackmoon, his blade erupting in luminous force that broke Vorn's defense in a single, devastating strike.
Jessa Myne tried assassination techniques in the mist, wind-thread blades gliding for his throat. Astra expanded Astral Sense and countered mid-swing. No words, no flair—just control.
Even Rellik Sorn, glaive-wielding assassin, drew blood in their duel. It ended in a tie, both panting, both still standing, surrounded by silent watchers.
He trained with all of them. Selia Norr and her fog—countered by pulses of Celestial Wave. Dren Kelthas's smoke-knives—negated by predictive motion through Astral Sight. In every fight, Blackmoon rippled outward—a mantle of gravity and silence.
Sometimes, Astra's curse overwhelmed him mid-battle, forcing him to stare into a spell's unraveling threadform. He would pause, transfixed, as if dissecting the cause-and-effect of a single flicker of magic. His opponents would lunge. He would snap back into form just in time.
He didn't just fight them. He learned them. And slowly, they followed.
Astra had not asked for command. He had been given it.
Not just because of his title—Prince of House Shadow—or the special wartime authority of a Special Major. But because every time he bled beside them, every time his mythical cores weight pulsed like a black sun deep inside his inner soul, it reminded them that he bore more than name or rank.
He bore weight.
And none could ignore it.
On the twelfth day, Astra sat in his tent beneath the cold flicker of aether-lanterns, skimming and signing yet more documents Merry had passed his way. The administrative burden of command was no less punishing than training with a war priest or outmaneuvering an enemy platoon. Stacks of paper sprawled across his desk—unit provisioning, mana-chain calibration requests, simulated supply shortages, ceremonial permissions for inter-realm deployments. Mundane, yes. Necessary, unfortunately.
And this time, it wasn't just ink on paper. The mana network needed acknowledgment too—signature glyphs carved with his core's resonance, validations pressed with sorcery and authority. He hated it. It made his head throb worse than a botched spellcast.
He sipped from a crystal cup filled with his favorite indulgence: chilled, alcoholic lemonade laced with mana-soaked citrus. The bitter-sweet tang bit back as he sighed into the silence.
Then the message came, flickering onto his mana slate with a ripple of familiar sigils.
"Sir, Bishop Diladay has requested your presence. It seems the Master of Arms, Saint Incar Cruse, has time for you."
Merry's tone, even in script, carried that hint of dry amusement.
Astra blinked. That name stirred something inside him—reverence and curiosity both. Incar Cruse was not just a smith or a relic curator. He was a sanctified artisan of blades, one who forged for both the holy and profane-touched alike. If he was being summoned now…
Then it was time.
Time to receive a sword worthy of the road he was carving through heaven and abyss alike. Something stronger. Deadlier. Personal.
He already carried a relic—his Odinson Steel blade, gifted from an angel. And his armor, the Nightshroud, now NightSky, still swathed him in its starlit defense, woven of shadow and celestial force. When fully adorned, he didn't just look like a prince—he looked like myth incarnate. But even that wasn't enough. Not anymore.
He stood, muscles aching under layers of command, tension, and training. But excitement stirred beneath the fatigue. A blade forged by Saint Incar Cruse could mean more than power—it could be legacy.
Then he saw the location.
Down near the Abyss.
Astra groaned.
Shadowkeep's lower vaults—those cursed, sunless hollows deep beneath the Keeps marrow—always unsettled him. The Abyssal Foundry lay just above the sealed levels, near where light forgot the world existed. Few treaded there without reason.
He downed the last of his drink, grimacing at the bitterness now coating his tongue.
"Of course it's down there," he muttered, grabbing his cloak.
Because nothing in House Shadow came without a descent into darkness.
The Abyssal descent began in silence.
Astra stepped past the enchanted shadowglass that veiled the stairwell beneath Shadowkeep, the hush of the hall swallowed by a deeper, older quiet. Before him coiled a spiral staircase—obsidian, ancient, veined with glowing strands of gold that pulsed softly beneath his boots. He paused only once to glance upward. The keep above felt like another world.
This place was sacred.
The air thickened with every step downward. Mana clung to the stone like breath held too long. The weight of history pressed against his shoulders.
His coat of woven night trailed behind him, its embroidered constellations turning slowly—quiet lights orbiting in eternal rhythm. Every thread shimmered with meaning: rank, heritage, promise. The sword at his side pulsed faintly with starlight, as if sensing the forge below.
As he passed beneath the final archway, the two guards flanking it—the Obsidian Paladins of the Abyssal Order—bowed, weapons lowered. Rank Three sentinels, disciplined beyond pride. They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Astra didn't look at them directly. Just nodded once, sharply. Respect acknowledged. He walked on.
He wasn't just a prince anymore. Not here. Not now.
Then the heat hit him.
It didn't rise. It engulfed. Not like fire—but like a truth, too massive to ignore. The Abyssal Forge revealed itself not as a smithy but as a sanctum—a cathedral of molten dusk stretching wide beneath the keep. Obsidian columns jutted from the earth like the bones of sleeping titans, each ringed with glyph-etched gold that hummed with raw mana. Magma rivers flowed across the cavern floor, casting reflections that danced across blacksteel bridges and floating forgewalks held in place by ancient anchor-runes.
Astra inhaled.
The air reeked of fire, metal, and something holy. Divine. It tasted like judgment.
And at the center of it all stood Incar Cruise.
A Saint of House Cruise. The Master of Arms for all of House Shadow.
Astra's steps slowed as he approached. The dark dwarv stood tall—massive. His skin was dark grey, almost black, with faint veins of emberlight glowing just beneath the surface. His beard, thick and heavy, hung to his chest in rings of dusk-gold. Scars crisscrossed his arms, flesh like etched steel. But it was his eyes that stopped Astra—molten gold, unblinking, eternal.
The hammer beside him was larger than a coffin, embedded in a glowing anvil marked with names etched deeper than time.
"Aye," Incar said, voice rolling like thunder through stone. "So the shadows finally send me a star."
Astra bowed his head, just slightly. "Greetings, my Saint."
Incar stepped forward. The heat rippled around him. Even the flames bowed in his presence.
"So," he said, eyes gleaming, "what does the young prince require? A repair? An upgrade?"
Astra lifted his hand. A flare of mana, subtle and clean, summoned his longsword—a weapon forged of Odinson steel. The blade appeared in a shimmer of light, broken but dignified. cracks and fissures as well as a break marked its once-pristine edge. But it still held weight. Still carried legacy.
Incar stepped closer, his massive hand running along the sword's side. He murmured as he touched it, "Would you look at that. A blade from House Steel... and an Angel's hand, at that."
Astra nodded. "His Lordship Odinson Steel," he confirmed.
Incar grunted, low and reverent. "A fine blade. It's seen you through Knight-level clashes, hasn't it?"
"That it has."
"I can repair it. Upgrade it. Honor it." His voice cooled. "But that's not all you came here for, is it?"
Astra held his gaze. "No, my Saint. I need more."
He let the words hang for only a moment. Then he said them.
"I require a bastard sword. One that can withstand the full force of my power—both starlight and shadow. A sword forged for battle, but also for destiny."
Incar's smile faded. His brow furrowed.
"A Rank Three Knight blade... for a Rank Two Squire," he murmured, as if tasting the idea. "It's been long since someone dared ask that of me."
He turned toward the heart of the forge. As if on cue, the fires began to rise.
"You ask," Incar said, "and you shall receive. Your longsword will be reforged—a Rank Two blade worthy of Odinson's legacy."
He paused.
"And a bastard sword... forged to contain both your stars and your darkness. A Rank Three weapon. A rare task. A sacred one, I see my time has not been wasted."
Behind him, the Abyssal Forge exhaled.
Flames surged upward in spirals of gold and violet, licking the edges of the vaulted chamber. Chains groaned. Crucibles flared with celestial heat. The forge itself seemed to awaken.
Astra bowed, slow and deep.
"Thank you, Saint Cruise. May your hammer strike true."
Incar nodded and turned, walking toward the flame like a mountain in motion. Heat shimmered off his shoulders, and shadows danced across the forge walls like silent witnesses.
Astra turned back toward the staircase.
Each step upward felt different. Lighter. Sharper. As if something old had been left behind and something greater had been promised in return.
He allowed himself one quiet thought.
What an awesome dwarf.
...
Two days later, deployment loomed.
But Astra wasn't in Shadowkeep—not entirely. He was deep within his inner world, meditating in silence.
Inside his soulscape stretched a domain unlike any other: an eternal ocean of midnight below, still and vast, while endless galaxies spiraled above—each star a memory, a fragment, a truth. Along the horizon, the shadows curled at the edges of everything, as if even they weren't sure what lay beyond. And in the heart of it all pulsed his star core, radiant and eternal. Above it floated two additional cores, orbiting slowly—his second mana cores. One shimmered with high-density mana, dense and layered, unmistakably Mythical.
He was seated on the surface of the ocean—on it, not in it—legs crossed, eyes closed, yet fully aware. Beneath him, the water felt… different. It wasn't just shadow, and it wasn't just liquid. It was something deeper. Older. It whispered secrets he could almost hear but not quite grasp.
Mysteries. That was what he'd come here for.
It was a side project, admittedly. Something personal. After all, there were three known types of mana manifestations:
First, the elemental—basic and foundational. Fire, wind, water, earth. Simple, common, necessary. Most beings wielded one or two at best.
Second came the conceptual. These were rarer, especially at lower ranks. Concepts like death, emotion, memory, weight. Abstract forces wrapped around elements—life through water, gravity through mass, rebirth through fire. Most who reached Rank Four and higher unlocked this depth. Concepts weren't inherently stronger—but they demanded more understanding, more clarity of self. Anyone could reach the pinnacle with elemental or conceptual mana. It depended on the person, not the power.
And then… the hybrids.
The rarest.
The dangerous.
Astra. Vesper. Aster. They were all unique mana hybrids—beings whose powers straddled both elemental and conceptual domains. The advantage? Immense. The downside? Even greater. Madness. Isolation. Obsession. Vesper often spiraled into chaos and madness. Aster apparently couldn't see meaning beyond life and death from his brief but very memorable encounter with her. Astra himself—he didn't talk about the loneliness the way he'd talk to himself when he was younger and even now. He just didn't even admit it out loud.
There was a reason few hybrids ever ascended to sainthood, angelhood, or divine status. The power was great. The burden greater.
Recently, after weeks of study and training and a few long and unserious conversations with Vesper, Astra had come to an unsettling realization: Vesper was more attuned to the soul and mischief sides of shadow, while Astra leaned toward curses… and mysteries.
He could barely sense souls, honestly. His curse allowed him to see them vaguely, like echoes through stained glass. A poor substitute. But it was something.
And it was through that same curse he'd begun to sense the ocean below—this strange combination of shadow and water, deep and dark and unexplored. His affinity with water had always existed, but he rarely used it anymore the same as his other affinities, Light was useful at times, but what can his light mana do when faced with Lucien Solaris it would be a waste of mana to use his other types when a more mana effective and powerful types existed. It was too niche. Not suited for war the way his star and shadow were. Water as long as his other affinities had been shelved—not forgotten, but set aside from his main battle strength.
No. Now he hunted something deeper.
Mysteries.
The very idea of "mystery" was abstract—slippery, unstable. The way darkness unnerves because it hides. Because the unknown terrifies the same way people were in awe at the vastness of the cosmos, the infinite possibilities. That was the angle he'd read somewhere. "Fear is born from what cannot be seen." Maybe it was true. Maybe it was poetic nonsense. Either way, Astra didn't care. He wanted results.
If he could master it, cloak himself in the mana of mystery, then even the sharpest diviner would have trouble finding him and he may even be alerted. Anti-tracking at its highest form. But more than that... maybe, just maybe, it could offer glimpses into fate. Possibilities. Echoes of futures. He didn't trust prophecy or seers, but if mystery allowed him to see fragments—patterns—then that was power.
He had this ability already after all, due to The Devil that blessed him the harbinger of twisted truths, truly a fitting name for such a being, but Astra can see the infinite thing silver sometimes golden threads of fate, he accidentally does it for even a split second and he either passes out or gets a head splitting headache, he was afraid to see what longer exposure can do
"Probably blow my head up" he chuckled
Still, as he sat in the black sea, he exhaled sharply.
Progress was... minimal. He was learning. Just not fast enough.
He rose from his meditation and let his inner domain fade.
Time to return.
—
The world outside was far less quiet.
Shadowkeep's First Army command was alive with movement. Maps hovered in midair. Messengers moved like shadows. Tactical reports flickered across enchanted glass. Battalion orders shifted by the hour.
Astra stood in the center of the Seventh Battalion's Reserve Headquarters. His coat was clasped, dark and refined, bearing his insignia. He had just walked out of a meeting with the Bishop General of the reserve corps—Draxen of Shadow, one of Shadow's own adopted. The man didn't speak like a politician. He spoke like a war priest. Direct, cold, calculating. Astra left that room with his orders, his expectations—and the current state of the realm.
The war had begun weeks ago, but now it was fully in motion.
Battles raged across the fractured realm. Second Battalion had begun its assault across the Umbral Plains, piercing Solace territory with hammer-like precision. But Astra had read enough war doctrine—and lived through enough chaos—to know one thing: war plans always broke. First contact changed everything. Blade meets bone, and nothing goes the way it was drawn on paper.
His role? Insurance.
The Seventh Reserve Company, under his command, was being deployed to Castle Velhor—an old fortress pressed between Shadow and Solace lands. A natural bottleneck. It once served as a neutral ground during former conflicts, but neutrality was a luxury now. Velhor had become a forward base—a staging ground for Shadow's campaign into Solace.
If Second Battalion failed in their push, Velhor was the fallback. If things crumbled, he would be the one expected to hold the line.
Three other reserve companies would join him, but Astra held the highest tactical authority among them. A new designation: brigadier general. Not an official rank, but a role. A title that meant he would be the one at the front of Velhor's defense. House Vela, the minor noble house in control of the fortress, had been briefed. They'd be given operational roles and privileges—after all, no one knew the castle better than them.
Astra reviewed the debrief again.
They were to be teleporting in—short-range mana gates, one-way transport only. Expensive to maintain, rarely used. Most major houses could only deploy them within their own borders or for certain special missions across borders, and even then only around developed hubs. Cities, fortresses, supply points. They were unreliable over long distances and easily blocked. Every proper town or fortress had a defensive ward, specifically designed to counter unauthorized teleportation. Miles of anti-jump space. Velhor was no different.
So their jump would land them just outside its boundaries as the castles teleportation hubs were shutdown due to solace interference early on.
From there, it would be a march—several hundred miles across desert terrain. Luckily, the transport corps was already mobilized. Hopefully. Otherwise, Astra would have to walk. Again.
Velhor wasn't isolated. The world was shifting. Fast.
To the South and much of the West, Shadow had formally declared independence from House Dune. Strange politics. For centuries, Shadow had served as a vassal under Dune's dominion. And now? Now they were "allies." Equal. That's what the decree said. A royal letting a former servant call themselves sovereign—it baffled half the realm. The other half didn't care. War doesn't wait for clean titles.
The capital of the Umbral Abyss, Penumbra, was where it all began. Shadowkeep—the military heart—was Astra's new home.
To the southeast lay Solace. Too quiet. The followers of Death, loyal to both Dusk and Dawn. The frontier guild a neutral power also called this place home, were they actually neutral? No one could say. Their capital, Peace, was more temple than city. Surrounded by sacred ground and mercenary guilds. They'd been still for too long. That made them dangerous.
To the East, House Dawn ruled the southern and middle-eastern stretch of the realm. Their capital, Sunrise, was the third-largest city in the continent. Radiant, divine, and utterly insufferable. They believed the sun belonged to them—and so did the future.
North of them, House Kadir. Stoic, cold, fate-bound. Their capital of the same name was quiet as the grave, their people loyal only to destiny. Strangely enough, they'd sided with Shadow. But Kadir was under siege—Dusk and Dawn both surrounded them. They wouldn't last without help.
To the center-west sat House Dune. The golden empire. Their capital, Paradise, was the second-largest city in the realm. A beacon of trade, power, and arrogance. They called themselves royalty. Gods, even. But now? Surrounded. Dusk attacked from the east, Dawn from the south, Solace from the rear, even Steel from the mountains. Their pride was bleeding.
House Steel—Astra had done the reading and also had a favorable impression even though their enemies. They lived in the mountains between Dusk, Dawn, and Dune. Isolationist. Brutal. Their capital, Forgehaven, was forged in magma and war. Their weapons were legendary. Their allegiance was with Dusk and Dawn.
And to the north? House Luna. Followers of the twin moons. Quiet. Ancient. Their capital, Moonshine, glowed softly beneath lunar rituals and celestial madness. They claimed allegiance to Dune—but no one could ever be sure with Luna. Not even Luna.
The realm was cracked and burning.
Shadow was on the move. Solace stood at the edge of the storm. Dawn and Dusk clawed at each other like twin beasts.
So there he stood at the threshold. Between war and history.
Velhor wasn't just a wall. It was a gate.
And he was the one expected to hold it.