The air in the Flower Promenade was thick with the suffocating tang of ozone, blood, and the cloying, sweet rot of Black Dandy.
For Rivas, it tasted like failure.
Panic was for people who had lost control of a situation. He had spent years ensuring that he was never one of those people.
Yet now—
Lin Feng was staring at him.
Baiden was staring at him.
Even Cardinal Ljudevit had turned his attention toward him, his usually gentle expression sharpened by suspicion.
Rivas kept his face composed.
Mostly.
His knuckles were white as he balled his hands into fists under his robes as he stood alert with the rest of the nobles within Kingsley Amberose's protective barrier.
'This wasn't supposed to happen.'
That was right, this wasn't supposed to happen. Rivas' plan was to let the attack happen during the final day of the Hydrangea festival as preperations were being made towards the Continental Congress. That was the time he though they would be able to fully milk the situation and make Viola the firts runner up for the throne.
So why was the Revolutionary here now when Rivas had told him specifically to lay low and prepare for the operation that specific day?
Rivas's gaze drifted past the knights to the royal carriage infront where the princes were. Prince Viola sat within, a picture of chilling, unnatural serenity. It was as if she were watching a play rather than a massacre.
"Why isn't she reacting?" Rivas wondered, his heart hammering against his ribs.
His primary concern was the Revolutionary. Every second the man stayed in the public eye, the closer he came to being unmasked. To gain the title of 'Sir' and become Knight Captain of any of the sixteen squads that guarded Aerthos, one would need to atleast need to reach the Saint stage of ascension. While the Revolutionary was dangerous, he was no Saint. If he were caught, he would be broken, interrogated, and stripped of his secrets. If the Revolutionary fell, Rivas fell with him.
Rivas was not happy about this.
His gaze drifted to Lord Alaric Dukker, who was standing protectively near the King. Rivas felt a surge of hatred so intense it nearly made him tremble.
'This is his fault. If he hadn't been investigating, if he hadn't been so suspicious, I wouldn't have had to rush this. I wouldn't have had to use the Revolutionary as a weapon.'
Rivas's hand drifted toward his concealed dagger. It would be so easy. A single strike. A moment of chaos. Alaric would be dead before anyone could react.
He took a subtle half-step toward Alaric, a gaze like a cold needle pricking his soul. Gyan was watching him, her eyes tracking his every movement. She knew. Or she suspected his intentions.
Rivas froze, the impulse dying in his throat. It was a suicide mission.Rivas's hand fell away from his dagger. He forced himself to look back at the battle, his heart pounding.
'Not now. Not yet.'
The Revolutionary was locked in battle with Sir Damtse Okko and Captain Emma Gable. The knight commander was a blur of motion, his sword flashing with energy as he sought to end the fight with the explosive attacks to overwhelm the Revolutionary with the Sunbreaker Sword Style. His sword clashed with the Revolutionary's Flow Reinforced arms sending sparks cascading across the stone pavement. The knight commander pressed his advantage, his strikes precise and relentless.
Damtse was a Saint of the Judgement Trait, the same Trait that Minerva Lukas possessed. His authority lay in Transfiguration—not the physical reshaping of matter, but the spiritual and conceptual manipulation of essence.
His First Resonant, Analysis, allowed him to perceive the truth of anything—the composition of an object, the history of a being, essentially, the shape of a 'soul'. As he fought, he could see the Revolutionary's form, its layers of meaning peeling back like the skin of an onion. But at the center, where the soul should have been, there was only a void. An absence. A nothingness that defied his perception.
His Second Resonant, Substitution allowed him to transfer properties from one thing to another. He pulled the weight from a building nearby and transferred it to his sword at the exact same moment he was landing a downward slash. The revolutionary dodged as the ground he had been standing on broke apart. Damtse then pulled the destruction from the shattered ground and substituted it with the Revolutionary's position. Again he dodged and the side of the building beside him shattered.
Damtse then used his third Resonant: Reconfiguration which allowed him to unravel and reshape the structure of things to reach out and unraveled a section of the ground and reconstruct it as limb like formations which he attempted to use to capture the Revolutionary. He could have caused a lot more devastation but he kept that to a minimum for the sake of the royals he was protecting.
Emma and able fought alongside Sir Damtsemoved with precise, measured strikes, Of he Stellar Aegis style his blade seeming to appear and disappear in the gaps between heartbeats. The two men took up postions on either side of the Revolutionary and made up for openings in each others techniques.
They were operating within the nascent stages of the Notions . Where concepts represent the "what"—the tangible forms of a blade or a body—notions govern the "why." These are the unyielding, foundational truths of reality: the absolute mandate that a heart must beat, that steel must surpass flesh in hardness, and that momentum must never be lost.
Despite this, the Revolutionary had been pushing them back. Every time they seemed to gain ground, he would twist and flow like smoke, his movements impossible to predict.
'Why can't we hit him?' Emma thought, his frustration mounting.
He had stolen a moment from the Revolutionary, creating a lag in his attack sequence. The Revolutionary's punch should have been slow, off-balance.
But the Revolutionary had simply adjusted, his body moving as if the lag had never existed.
Emma tried again. He stopped a moment, freezing the Revolutionary's kick mid-swing. He stepped in and drove his sword toward the Revolutionary's exposed side—
And the Revolutionary moved.
His body twisted, somehow breaking out of the stopped time and parrying Emma's strike with impossible speed.
"You are a plague," Damtse roared, his sword glowing with the pale, searing yellow light as he Infused his blade with energy. He swung, the air itself screaming as the notion of 'things being cut when they are struck by a blade' was applied to the sword.
The Revolutionary dodged, allowing the force of the strike to launch him backward only to lunge foward immediately. Emma took advantage of this and stole the moment of the Revolutionary's upcoming counterattack. This caused him to appear nearer than he was supposed to. Emma restored the moment, causing there to be a lag in the Revolutionary's movement. Without hesitation he struck, his blade smashed into the side of the Revolutionary's mask, shattering the upper-right section into porcelain shards.
CRACK.
And then Emma saw it.
The Revolutionary's eye.
It was not human. It was a swirling, chaotic pattern—a Celtic five-fold knot design that seemed to pulse with living energy.
An Arcane Eye.
Emma's blood ran cold.
The Revolutionary leaned forward, the eye glowing. He began to heal the minor injuries he had managed to land on the two saints. Then, he shifted his posture. He began to move exactly like Emma, his first blow striking Damtse in the signature Aegis style, then transitioned into the brutal roundhouse kick of the Sunbreaker style striking Damtse in the neck and sending himflying.
Emma wiped blood from his mouth and grit his teeth and rushed to attack again. The Revolutionary on the other hand had other plans and pivoted, lunging toward the King.
But Lord Alaric Dukker was there with a speed that seemed to ignore the laws of physics. His blade flashed, and the Revolutionary was driven back.
"Enough," Alaric said, his voice cold. "This ends now."
The Revolutionary laughed—a high, manic sound that echoed across the plaza.
He summoned two automatons from the shadows—patchwork creatures of flesh and metal, their eyes glowing with a sickly light converging on Alaric from both sides.
But Heidi and Genji were already there, moving like shadows in the light. Heidi's daggers wove a web of sonic vibrations that shattered the automatons' joints, while Genji channeled his aura into massive, sweeping strikes that forced the Revolutionary back.
The Death Three had arrived.
Heidi's presence was a weight that pressed down on the battlefield. The air grew heavy. The sounds of battle seemed to fade.
"You've caused enough damage," she said, her voice calm. "Stand down."
The Revolutionary tilted his head. "I don't think I will."
More automatons appeared.
It was brutal.
The Death Three—Alaric, Heidi, and Genji—fought as one. Their coordination was flawless, their attacks relentless. The Revolutionary was pushed back, his automatons destroyed, his mask cracking further.
The Revolutionary, seeing his window closing, retreated. His mask was half-shattered, his breathing ragged. He looked at the trio of Alaric, Heidi, and Genji.
"The script is flawed," the Revolutionary laughed, a sound that tore through the air. He slammed his hand against the ground, and a geyser of black smoke erupted, concealing him entirely. "But the stage is already set."
Damtse shouted.
"Don't let him escape!"
When the smoke cleared, he was gone.
"Search the streets! Seal the gates! Check every rooftop!"
The knights scattered in search of him.
Genji stood over the debris, his blade dripping with a viscous, oily residue. Heidi stood beside him, her hair disheveled, her eyes scanning the rooftops. Alaric stood in the center, his blade still faintly glowing with heat from the exertion of his strike.
"The festival is ruined," Heidi said quietly, breaking the silence. "The blood on the stone... it won't wash off by morning."
Heidi nodded. "But the royal family is safe. That's what matters."
"And the people?" Genji asked.
Nobody answered.
The king's speech had seemed to reach them.
For a moment.
They had laughed. They had listened. They had hoped. Now this attack had shattered that fragile feeling and affirmef their fears.
Alaric didn't speak. He looked out over the crowd, watching as the survivors clung to each other.
"Why did they even attack?" Genji's expression hardened.
Damtse walked over.
"What do you mean?"
"This whole thing." Genji gestured toward the ruined promenade.
"They had every opportunity to kill more people or concentrated their forces to attack the royal family directly. But they didn't."
Before anyonr could answer—
KaBOOM.
a shockwave hit them, strong enough to knock the wind out of their lungs. They looked toward the docks.
A mushroom cloud of fire, smoke, and shattered timber rose high into the summer sky. It was a sickening, beautiful pillar of destruction, glowing orange against the blue sky.
Alaric's face went white. The color drained from his skin, leaving him looking aged, brittle.
"The warehouses," He whispered, the sound barely audible over the distant thunder.
The distant screams of the dockside workers echoed across the city, a chorus of terror that cut through the lingering chaos of the Flower Promenade. The warehouses of the Rustmark Trading Company, those towering monuments to commerce and prosperity that had stood for generations, were now pillars of flame, their contents—grain, textiles, metals, and treasures from across the continent—reduced to smoldering ruin. The ships moored at the harbor, vessels that had braved the treacherous waters of the Endless Sea to bring goods to Aerthos's shores, were either sinking or ablaze, their masts collapsing like fallen trees.
"It was a distraction," Alaric realized, his voice trembling with a rare, visceral dread.
"The promenade... the Revolutionary... it was all a shadow-puppet show to keep us looking at the stage while they burned the foundations."
The economic fallout would be staggering. The Rustmark warehouses held the liquidity of half the city. With them gone, the currency would collapse by morning. The bread riots would begin before the sun set.
Alaric gripped his sword, his knuckles turning white. The Revolutionary hadn't come to kill the King; he had come to gut the city.
And as the smoke continued to plume over the horizon, Alaric knew that the true war had not begun with a sword, but with the sudden, catastrophic theft of their future.