Chapter 17: The left guardian (3)
"Young lord. The Left Guardian wants to see you."
The head butler, Edwin, stepped into Naoki's room and bowed with his usual grace as he delivered the message.
"Yes. I'll wait for him in the next room."
Naoki didn't hesitate. It wasn't a request—it was an announcement. One simply didn't refuse an audience with the Left Guardian.
As he made his way into the next room, his personal maid silently served him tea. The porcelain cup was warm in his hands, the steam rising gently as he took a slow sip. His mind, however, was already elsewhere.
'The Left Guardian… one of the Eight Blades.'
In the Empire, strength defined everything.
At the absolute top stood the Six Supremes., the continent's strongest warriors. Among them were leaders from only three of the Seven Great Families, including the Noctvain family. These Supremes represented the Empire's martial pinnacle. unrivaled, unquestioned, and nearly untouchable. Their power was not inherited through bloodline alone, but earned through relentless strength and unyielding will.
Beneath them were the Eight Blades, the next strongest warriors in the Empire. Not as powerful as the Supremes, but still forces to be reckoned with, feared wherever they went.
The Left Guardian was one of these blades.
"A warrior just below the pinnacle… and he's here to see me?"
Naoki set the teacup down, his eyes sharpening.
"What could someone this strong want with a thirteen year old boy?"
The Left Guardian had just returned from a three year long expedition. he should've gone to rest or reported to the Vice Patriarch first. Instead, he came straight to see him.
Naoki narrowed his eyes slightly.
"It's probably about Aether's father…"
The Patriarch had been missing for three years now. If the Left Guardian came back and headed directly here, he might've found something or brought bad news.
"Well… I'll find out soon enough."
Naoki set the cup down, his expression unreadable. If the conversation went somewhere dangerous, he already knew what to do.
"If he asks anything strange, I'll just act like I've lost my memories. Just like I did with the Vice Patriarch."
The tea had gone cold. But his mind was sharper than ever.
While Naoki was lost ij thoughts
Creak
The doors opened with a low creak, and footsteps echoed through the quiet room.
Naoki turned his gaze toward the entrance.
A tall man stepped in, clad in a flowing crimson robe marked with the sigil of the Noctvain household. His presence alone would have frozen most men in place. This was the Left Guardian, one of the Eight Blades, and the personal shadow of the current Patriarch.
His reputation stretched across the continent. A man like him didn't bow to anyone lightly.
But the moment his eyes met Naoki's, everything changed.
His steps halted.
His breath caught.
His pupils trembled and then, as if the weight of the heavens had dropped on his shoulders, he dropped to his knees.
Both hands slammed onto the floor, palms flat. His crimson robes pooled around him as he bent low, his forehead nearly touching the ground.
His body trembled.
The Left Guardian, one of the Empire's strongest warriors was on all fours, before a thirteen year old boy.
Naoki blinked, caught off guard. He stood up immediately, his heartbeat skipping.
"Left Guardian…?" he called, confused.
There was no response.
The man's face had gone pale, beads of sweat trickling down his jaw. He didn't dare look up.
Naoki stepped forward slowly, then crouched down and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Are you alright…?"
Still no answer.
Only the quiet sound of shallow breathing and a tension so heavy it pulled the entire room into silence.
What's going on? Why is someone like him acting like this…?'
The silence dragged on.
Then, slowly, the Left Guardian lifted his head.
His pale eyes met Naoki's once more.
And just like that the invisible weight pressing down on the room vanished. He exhaled sharply, breathing more steadily now, as if waking from a nightmare.
And then, he spoke.
His voice was low, trembling with awe.
"My lord… this insect bows before his master. A loyal servant… a worthless blade in the presence of divinity."
Naoki stood frozen for a moment, eyes narrowing.
'He thinks I'm… who?'
It happened twelve hundred years ago, during the chaotic founding era of the Empire.
A young martial artist named Ryn, desperate, powerless, and wounded was saved by the man who would later become the Founding Patriarch of the Noctvain household. That single act of compassion changed Ryn's fate forever.
Ryn, who had lost everything, found purpose in that moment. Out of loyalty and gratitude, he swore his life and the lives of all his descendants to serve the Noctvain bloodline until the end of time.
But loyalty alone wasn't enough.
Knowing he was too weak to stand beside the man who saved him, Ryn sought strength in desperation. He bowed before a mysterious figure, a man cloaked in power unlike any mortal he had ever seen. A human, yet something far more.
No one knew his name. Only whispers remained. But it was that man who placed a cursed weapon 'the Evil Commandment Sword' into the Noctvain Patriarch's hands.
Ryn, witnessing that moment, begged the being for strength. He was granted a sliver of the man's power, along with ancient martial teachings. That energy, the distinctive mana flowed into his body and was passed down through the Ryn bloodline.
Now, twelve centuries later, that bloodline lives on in Caldus, the Left Guardian of the Noctvain family.
And the moment his eyes met Naoki, the mana inside him trembled violently.
"This… this is the same mana…"
Caldus's breath hitched.
That strange moment earlier, when he first laid eyes on the boy. his body had gone numb, his knees collapsing, sweat pouring down uncontrollably. He had dropped to the floor not by choice, but as if something inside him had snapped.
No...awakened.
The mana inside his body had violently trembled the moment he saw the boy...no, the moment it recognized him.
As if the energy in his veins was screaming:
"This is him. This is the Primordial God."
To be continued...