I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1485: Black Sand

The heavy iron anchors of the vanguard flagship plunged into the surf.

Up and down the line, chains screamed against their winches as the surviving warships of the Sixth Legion settled into the shallows of the Northern Continent. After six months of fighting the Grey Sickness, the deep-sea Leviathans, and the crushing pack ice, the Empire had finally reached the edge of the world.

The longboats were lowered immediately.

The regular imperial infantry scrambled down the rope netting in a frantic rush. When the first wooden hulls scraped onto the black sand of the beachhead, dozens of legionaries threw themselves over the sides. They splashed through the knee-deep water and collapsed onto the shore. Some of them kissed the cold ground. Others simply lay on their backs, staring up at the unbroken iron-grey sky, weeping because they were finally off the murderous ocean.

The Eleventh Squad did not weep.

They stepped out of their longboat with the grim precision of border veterans. Above the beach, jagged snow-capped ridges looked down on every inch of open sand. It was perfect ground for an ambush.

Han trudged onto the dark sand with his arms wrapped tightly around his heavy wool coat.

”I preferred the ice,” Han complained, his boots sinking an inch into the wet volcanic grit. ”At least the ice was flat. Look at those ridges. You could hide a thousand archers up there and we wouldn’t see them until we were entirely full of arrows.”

Doron stepped onto the shore beside him, his Shadow Soul fog spreading out across the sand to map the faintest tremors.

”Keep your mouth shut and your shield up, Han,” Doron said flatly.

Baletta did not speak. She stood perfectly still near the breaking surf with her hand resting on her sword hilt. Her eyes moved across the towering rocks that framed the beachhead, stopping on each chokepoint and each heavy drift of snow. Iren flanked her, rigid and silent, watching the empty beach the way he would watch a live battlefield.

Rian walked up the beach behind them.

He kept his hands buried deep in the pockets of his frayed black uniform coat, his boots crunching steadily against the strange, granular sand. The wind coming down off the tundra was bitterly cold, and it carried the scent of old pine and undisturbed frost. His Shingan stayed locked down. For now, he relied on his ordinary senses to map how the imperial forces were spilling across the shore.

Captain Ysolde Vaertia stood fifty yards down the shoreline, hammering the chaos back into order.

The Ascendant commander of the Winterward stood on a flat slab of volcanic rock, her dark blue coat whipping in the wind. She barked orders in short, flat bursts, hauling the exhausted infantry up off the sand and driving them back into strict legion formations. She did not care about their feelings. She cared about the flag and securing the perimeter.

Another longboat ground onto the sand directly in front of her.

Inquisitor Mourne stepped out into the surf.

The Ascendant priest wore the livery of El Fach’s Order, and the gold and white of her robes was the only clean colour on the whole black beach. She did not look at the shivering soldiers or the jagged ridges. Instead, she watched the four heavy-set wardens dragging the cold-iron chest out of the longboat, their boots sliding in the wet grit under its weight.

The ledger of the eyes had arrived on the Northern Continent.

Ysolde stepped down from the rock with her hand resting on the silver pommel of her sword.

”Inquisitor,” Ysolde said, her voice dry as parchment. ”My quartermasters are establishing the staging ground. Standard doctrine dictates we hold this beachhead for forty-eight hours to acclimate the infantry before we send the scouting cohorts inland.”

Mourne turned only her head.

”The ledger dictates we march immediately,” Mourne answered. ”We are not here to acclimate, Captain. We are here to cleanse. The coordinates for the first valley are absolute. You will form your vanguard and move inland before the sun sets.”

Ysolde stared at the priest for three long seconds.

She knew marching exhausted men into a blind, hostile valley was tactical suicide. But she also knew that defying an Inquisitor who held a direct mandate from the Hall of Truth was treason.

Ysolde tipped her chin half an inch.

”Form the columns,” Ysolde ordered her lieutenants.

Rian watched the exchange from a distance with an entirely flat expression. The Emperor was not wasting time. The harvest had already begun.

A sharp gasp drew his attention back to the surf.

Nyssira was stepping out of a newly arrived longboat. The Princess of Narthrowe wore a heavy auxiliary cloak with the hood pulled up high against the wind. But the moment her leather boot touched the black sand of her homeland, her whole body locked rigid.

The Transcendent compulsion seized her.

Nyssira dropped to one knee in the shallows. She shook violently, her gloved hands clawing at the wet sand. Rian did not need his Shingan to know what was happening. The imperial curse was clamping down on her throat, punishing her simply for standing on the continent she was forbidden to speak of. A thin line of dark blood ran from her left nostril.

Pam threw herself forward instantly.

”Oh, careful, careful!” Pam shouted, her voice pitched high and chatty enough to carry over the wind. She grabbed Nyssira by the shoulders and hauled her upright before the nearby legionaries could notice the blood. ”The sea legs are always the hardest to lose! Just breathe, just look at the horizon, you’ll be fine!”

Over Nyssira’s shoulder, Pam’s eyes found Rian and stayed there.

Rian did not move toward them. Any sudden intervention would only draw the Inquisition’s eyes. He simply gave Pam the smallest of nods. And so Pam dragged the shaking princess up the beach, shielding her face with the heavy wool of the cloak, babbling loudly about seasickness to cover the ragged, choking sounds Nyssira was making.

For a moment, the sheer cruelty of the board settled over Rian.

The Emperor had broken a girl’s mind, strapped a bomb to her soul, and sent her home just to watch her people die. It was malice on an architect’s scale, the kind Rian could almost admire, if it were not currently standing in his way.

”Eleventh Squad,” Rian called, his voice cutting cleanly through the wind. ”Form up. We have the point.”

And so the vanguard began its march inland.

They left the black sand behind and climbed the steep embankments toward the frozen tundra. The jagged ridges towered over the imperial columns, laying long shadows across the trail. The higher they climbed, the colder it grew, until the sea wind dropped away behind them and left only the dead stillness of the northern valleys.

Rian walked at the front of his squad.

He kept his hands in his pockets. He pushed his perception down, locking his aura tightly behind his soul gates so it would not flush the fading dye from his irises. But he let his passive Shingan seep out just a fraction, pressing his awareness into the structure of the rocks above them.

He did not look for magic. He looked for the physical displacement of snow.

High up on the western ridge, Rian felt it. A single heartbeat, incredibly slow, hidden somewhere in the grey stone and the white frost. It was disciplined. It was waiting.

The Beija were already here.

’The welcoming committee.’

Rian did not break his stride. He did not signal the squad. He kept his eyes forward and watched the snow-capped peak from the very corner of his vision.

The native scout on the ridge did not draw a bow. They did not trigger an avalanche.

Instead, a small flash of light winked from the rock. The scout had turned their wrist just enough for the dull grey sun to strike a small piece of silver. Rian’s eyes caught the shape before it vanished.

It was the unblinded eye of the Astrinites.

Then the scout melted backward into the snow and was gone, leaving no trace at all on the white face of the ridge.

Rian smiled faintly.

The Empire was marching into a slaughter, but they were not the ones holding the knife.