The small, secluded chamber—a temporary sanctuary provided by the resourceful King Winston Fleming—was thick with the suffocating weight of the truth they had just received. The Shadow Ledger was not merely rebellious; it was a cult, sacrificing souls to the dreaded deity, Valeron.
Jai, James, and Zayn, though seasoned travelers and fighters, felt their foundations shake. They had underestimated the enemy's scope.
Jai, his mind grasping for the scale of the devastation, stepped forward. "King Winston," he asked, his voice rough with urgency, "did this demonic organization—the Shadow Ledger—only target your Linston Kingdom, or have they cast their blight upon other settlements?"
James, quick to temper, cut in with a touch of condescending impatience. "Hold, Arthur! Linston was unlucky, a secluded target ripe for exploitation. Do you truly think they could manage a simultaneous strike across a massive territory?"
Zayn, his hidden royal identity giving his words undeniable gravity, interrupted both. His loyalty to his father's realm compelled him to clarify the situation. "No, Clement. You misunderstand the sheer scope of the Dwarf Kingdom. My home, the realm under King Borin, is comprised of a network of many smaller, scattered settlements and fortified towns."
"How many?" Jai demanded, eyes wide with sudden calculation.
Zayn swallowed, the number itself a testament to the Dwarf Kingdom's historical dominance. "In total, including all territories and autonomous towns like Linston, there are one hundred and twenty-three distinct settlements."
Jai's composure fractured. "What the fuck?!" The expletive escaped him, a measure of his astonishment. He quickly reined in his shock, his sharp intellect connecting the dots. The Dwarf Kingdom occupies the largest landmass in Aetheleon. My own Human Kingdom has over seventy-five such towns. Of course, their territory was vast and their reach thinly spread.
He turned back to the King, his voice now respectful but insistent. "Forgive my lapse in manners, Your Majesty. But you must tell us: Do you possess knowledge of the Shadow Ledger's activities in these other hundred-plus towns?"
King Winston, seated regally despite his missing eye and humble attire, sighed, gesturing for calm. "Young masters, if you grant me a moment, I shall answer all your pressing queries."
Jai felt a sudden flush of shame for his impatience. He bowed his head low. "Please, Your Majesty. Continue. We are your audience."
The King began his explanation, detailing his solitary journey of investigation during his three months of exile.
"While in the capital, living as a ghost, I did not remain idle. I managed to establish contact and conduct discreet investigations across the borderlands. From my findings, I estimate the artifact's influence—and the Shadow Ledger's direct interference—has touched more than twenty major Dwarf Kingdom settlements."
Jai's eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Twenty towns? In a mere three months, operating alone, you managed to confirm such a massive scale of infiltration?"
A faint, almost arrogant smile touched the King's lips—the smile of a veteran of the highest Tier. He reached up, pulling aside the long silver hair that flowed past his shoulders, revealing something hidden just beneath his ear. It was a marvel of arcane technology.
From the depths of his white mane, he revealed a tiny, exquisite artifact. It was a perfect, miniature conch shell, crafted from shimmering arcane silver and inlaid with chips of luminous lunar quartz that pulsed with a faint, internal cerulean light.
"I possess influence, yes, but mostly, I possess this," King Winston stated, holding the device up. "This is a Tier 5 Sound Artifact, known as The Echoing Whisperer."
He then repeated the artifact's capabilities, reinforcing its critical importance: "This device is complex and usually comes in a paired set, though advanced networks can be forged. Its primary function is to permit instantaneous, secure audio communication across vast distances, bypassing the natural barriers between kingdoms and even planes. Its power is limited only by its required duration of continuous use, needing a brief recharge afterward."
Zayn, the Prince, recognized the complexity and rarity of such engineering. "Your Majesty, you said it is a set of two. Where is the other?"
The King fixed Zayn with an unwavering, knowing look. "Yes, it is a set of two. I possess one, and the other is safely held by a trusted ally in a distant, uncompromised town." He paused, his gaze intensifying. "Now, please refrain from any further unnecessary questions, Mr. Zayn."
The effect was instantaneous and electrifying. Jai, James, and Zayn froze, the air knocked out of their lungs. Their shock was total.
Zayn, his face draining of color, stammered: "How... how did you know my name?"
Winston Fleming settled back, the confidence of his rank fully restored. "I am a Tier 5 Master, young man. Do you truly believe a mere disguise could fool my senses? I saw through your concealment the moment you entered this chamber". He thinks himself: "I see through the disguises of both you and your friend, Mr. zayn."
He deliberately avoided mentioning the legendary Chenwongo family or the identities of the human youths. He saw their honor and good intentions, and to reveal their identities publicly would only endanger them further.
The exposure of their secret was a minor tremor compared to the King's next words. Jai, recovering quickly, pushed the tactical agenda.
"Your Majesty, we understand your power now. What is the immediate plan to destroy Lenard's efforts and prevent the resurrection of this dead king?"
King Winston lowered his head, his face contorting into a mask of devastating sorrow. His voice dropped to a barely audible rasp. "Young masters, the horrible truth is this: The people you saw in the town square—the throngs chasing you—represent only twenty-five percent of Linston's actual population."
A cold dread settled over the trio. James, his eyes wide with horror, voiced the terrifying conclusion. "Sir… are you saying the ritual… is already over?"
The King gave a slow, agonizing nod. "Yes, youngsters. The ritual is complete. The Shadow Ledger's King has already been rebirthed."
The weight of this failure crushed the air out of the room. Sweat beaded on the youths' brows. The organization was already far more powerful than they imagined.
Jai, driven by the desperation to find any sliver of hope, tears stinging his blue eyes, grabbed the King's collar with both hands, his noble demeanor momentarily shattered. "Sir, you must tell us! Are they truly dead? Or did Lenard simply hide them? Please, tell me they are hidden!"
The King's composure finally broke. He looked back at Jai, not with anger, but with an echoing depth of shared pain, the raw, vivid agony of his personal loss erupting to the surface.
"I saw them," King Winston choked out. "I saw the bodies myself. They threw them like refuse at the edge of the town—the corpses of my people, left like garbage for the scavengers."
He pulled away from Jai's grasp, his own hands trembling as he recounted his private hell.
"I risked my life, waiting until Lenard's mercenaries left the town unguarded. I buried every single soul, granting them the dignity of the earth. I paid my respects. And then… I found her."
The King's strong body shook. "I found the body of my own mother—my mother, Venessa. The one person I swore to myself I would find and embrace after liberating this kingdom. I saw how she died—a sacrifice to that monstrous ritual."
He then recounted the feeling of that moment, the trauma of seeing his loved one murdered using a artifact and being unable to act, the emotion he had held back for months:
"The scream that tore through my chest never made it past my lips. It was trapped—a solid, burning cinder—right behind my teeth. I remember the cold. It wasn't the cold of the weather, or even the cold of fear. It was the internal, metallic chill of failure, freezing my muscles in place, locking my jaw, blinding my eyes to everything but that single, final, sickening detail... I did nothing! That thought is the new rhythm of my heart; it pumps guilt. I was reduced to a statue of shame, a useless, breathing piece of meat watching the only good thing in my life get extinguished."
His resolve hardened, replacing the grief with iron determination. "I swear upon the Ancestral Stonehead! I want to kill that entire organization with my own hands! I will rip the very heart from Lenard's body!"
Jai gently placed a hand on the King's shoulder, pulling him back from the precipice of madness. "Sir, what is done is done. We must honor the dead by securing the future. Tell us: Who is this King they resurrected?"
The King took a deep, shuddering breath, composing himself, and finally uttered the name that would change the destiny of the entire Dwarf Kingdom.
"I only know the name they chanted, the name they worshipped. It is Zeron."
The name Zeron fell like a massive stone into a deep well, sending painful, reverberating shockwaves through the chamber. Jai and James instantly turned, their gazes locking onto Zayn, the Prince of the Dwarf Kingdom.
Zayn's face was utterly ravaged, white as bone. That name, that single, abhorrent name, belonged to the legend he had always tried to live up to, the ghost that haunted the King's court—the name of King Borin's elder son, the Crown Prince who was dead long ago and also killed by the king's borin own hands .
Zeron was Zayn's blood brother.
The final, devastating secret has been revealed: The new enemy king is the Prince's own resurrected kin. Now, the battle is intensely personal.