THE LAST KEEPER

The massive bronze-trimmed double doors of the High Throne Room blasted open under Kaka’s roaring axe strike, crashing against the frozen stone pillars.

Inside stretched a vast, vaulted hall of black marble and ancient glacial ice, illuminated by heavy iron chandeliers burning with sickly blue alchemical fire.

At the far end of the hall, seated upon a towering throne of jagged iron and mammoth bone, sat General Senraki (The Elder).

The General was clad in ornate, frost-etched plate armor, his weathered northern face carved with decades of ruthless war and absolute arrogance.

Twin heavy northern war sabers rested across his knees, while a dozen elite frost-armored bodyguards flanked the throne steps with drawn greatswords.

Seeing the intruders, the old General’s gaze swept past Sagiri and Kaka, locking directly onto the slender figure walking in white tactical robes.

”Look at you,” General Senraki sneered, his gravelly voice dripping with mocking condescension. ”The little bastard from the southwest actually made it to my throne.”

Grand Marshal Senraki stopped ten paces before the throne steps, his pale face eerily calm as he unclasped his flowing white cape.

He let the heavy cloth drop to the frozen floor, revealing the dark tactical vest beneath, his hands relaxed at his sides without drawing a single weapon.

”You haven’t changed, father,” Senraki said softly, his voice smooth and devoid of fear. ”Still hiding behind walls of iron and stolen lives.”

General Senraki laughed. A harsh, barking sound that echoed off the frozen rafters.

”Your mother was a weak, pathetic guide who died begging for my favor,” the General spat, standing up and gripping his twin sabers. ”I gave you the name Kero because you were filth then, and you are filth now.”

A suffocating, razor-sharp killing intent suddenly filled the throne room, so cold that frost began to crystallize along the marble tiles around Senraki’s boots.

Heavy footsteps pounded through the outer corridors as hundreds of Soulless reinforcements rushed toward the throne room doors.

Sagiri stepped back toward the entrance, the twenty Silver-Veined Void Blades behind his shoulders fanning out into an impenetrable orbital barrier.

Kaka planted his heavy bearded axes in the threshold, while Lady Kiana vaulted to the ceiling rafters in a feline crouch, her silver void needles ready to intercept any fliers.

”We will hold the doors, Principal,” Sagiri said quietly, his dual-colored eyes locking with Senraki’s. ”The room is yours. End it.”

Senraki did not turn around; he merely tilted his head in a quiet nod.

”Kill the brat!” General Senraki commanded, pointing a heavy saber forward.

The twelve elite bodyguards surged down the steps, their greatswords whistling through the freezing air in a synchronized execution formation.

Grand Marshal Senraki moved.

He did not draw a sword; he vanished from his spot in a blur of white light, stepping through the guards’ weapon arcs like a gust of wind.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His fingers struck with blinding speed, hitting the nerve clusters beneath their ears and the soft hollows of their collarbones.

Lethal Daziko neurotoxins surged from his fingertips into their bloodstreams, paralyzing their hearts in less than two seconds.

Before the first bodyguard hit the floor, all twelve elite enforcers collapsed in a heap of motionless steel, dead before their swords could touch the ground.

General Senraki’s sneer faltered for a fraction of a second, his grip tightening on his twin sabers as his dark aura flared with heavy kinetic pressure.

”So Salka taught you a few parlor tricks,” the General growled, descending the throne steps with heavy, ground-shaking strides.

With a thunderous roar, the old warlord launched a ferocious northern whirlwind strike, his twin heavy sabers cleaving through the air with enough force to split boulders.

The marble floor shattered beneath each swing, sending jagged shards of stone whistling through the room.

Senraki danced through the storm of steel with unmatched tactical geometry, his body bending and swaying by mere millimeters to let the heavy blades pass harmlessly.

Every swing the General took met only empty air, while Senraki’s sharp eyes tracked the subtle shifts in his father’s shoulder muscles.

”Too slow, father,” Senraki whispered calmly as he ducked beneath a decapitating horizontal slash.

Senraki stepped inside the General’s guard, his right index finger striking the nerve cluster at the old man’s right wrist with surgical precision.

Snap!

General Senraki’s right wrist went completely numb, his fingers involuntarily opening as his primary war saber clattered uselessly against the marble.

”You little rat!” the General roared in fury, throwing his massive left shoulder into Senraki’s chest to push him back.

The impact sent Senraki skidding backward five paces, his boots catching the frosted floor as he absorbed the kinetic shock with fluid ease.

General Senraki raised his remaining saber with both hands, lunging forward in a desperate, all-or-nothing overhead cleave aimed at Senraki’s skull.

Senraki didn’t retreat.

He stepped straight into the descending blade, tilting his head slightly as the heavy steel grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.

In that exact split-second, Senraki executed the Senraki Secret Art: Nine Needle Finger Strikes.

His hands became a flurry of white lightning, striking nine vital pressure points across the General’s torso in rapid succession.

One to the throat to cut off his breath.

Two to the shoulders to shatter the muscular tendons.

Two to the ribs to rupture the lung lining.

Two to the diaphragm to collapse the internal pressure.

Two directly over the heart, injecting the purest, concentrated dose of Black Shyflower venom.

General Senraki froze in mid-stride, his remaining saber slipping from his paralyzed fingers and clattering to the floor.

The old warlord staggered, his eyes bulging in sheer agony as his veins turned jet-black, the deadly venom burning through his cardiovascular system like boiling acid.

He fell heavily onto both knees on the shattered marble, coughing a thick spatter of black blood onto the frost.

The General looked up with trembling, terrified eyes at the son he had discarded in the dust sixteen years ago.

”How... how could a bastard... possess such power...” General Senraki gasped, clutching his failing chest with shaking hands.

Grand Marshal Senraki stood over his kneeling father, his face calm, serene, and completely devoid of hatred.

He reached out his right hand, extending two fingers straight toward his father’s forehead.

”You called me filth,” Senraki whispered, his voice carrying the eternal love of the mother who had raised him. ”My mother called me a gift.”

Senraki drove his fingertips into the center of the General’s forehead.

”This is for her.”

A final, silent pulse of Daziko energy surged through the skull, severing the General’s life force in an instant.

General Senraki’s eyes glazed over, and the towering warlord collapsed face-first onto the frozen throne room floor, dead.

Silence descended over the grand hall, broken only by the crackle of the blue braziers and the heavy breathing of the warriors at the door.

Grand Marshal Senraki stood still in the quiet hall, looking down at his father’s body as a single tear escaped his eye, glistening in the alchemical light.

The sixteen-year shadow that had haunted his life was broken forever.

Sagiri stepped forward, recalling his silver void blades as Kaka and Kiana lowered their weapons.

Sagiri walked up to Senraki, placing a steady, warm hand on his principal’s shoulder.

”It’s over, Senraki,” Sagiri said softly.

Senraki wiped the tear from his cheek, taking a deep, shuddering breath of the cold mountain air before turning around with a faint, peaceful smile.

”Yes,” Senraki answered, his voice lighter than it had ever been. ”It’s finally over. Now, let’s find Sir Black and King Vanka.”