The war raged across the plains before Khazad-Dar. The initial chaos had settled into a brutal, tiered meat grinder. The genius of the Enclosure Technique—the strategy of creating borders, clearing the zone, and moving—was paying dividends. Borin's loyalist troops were advancing, eliminating enemy forces with surgical speed and efficiency.
At the epicenter of the carnage, the leaders remained locked in a tense, silent standoff. King Borin (Tier 2 God Seeker), floating high above the city, watched his troops. A slow, knowing smile touched his lips. The plan was working; they were winning the war of attrition. Across the bloody expanse, Zeron, Zevan, and Leora made no moves, their high-tier confrontation postponed by the King's sheer spiritual pressure.
The Enclosure Technique continued relentlessly. Dwarf Masters flashed into view, erected shimmering barriers, and unleashed devastating, contained attacks, then vanished to fight elsewhere.
Sometime later, the Vanguard—Jai (Arthur), James (Clement), Zayn, Minister Brokk, and King Winston—moving in their tight, two-kilometer communication radius, spotted a serious breach in the loyalist line.
A new enemy contingent, radiating savage power, was operating with terrifying efficiency, systematically dismantling Borin's other Tier 6 minister troops. This was a force capable of shredding the organized defense.
"That's enough," Jai commanded through the Spark artifact, his voice tight. "We stop them now."
Jai moved with his trademark blinding speed, his Tier 8 Swift Artifact turning him into a golden streak. The others followed his lightning-fast trajectory. They slammed to a halt directly in front of the advancing enemy team—a group of powerful, highly coordinated Shadow Ledger masters.
Jai immediately commanded the barrier: "Winston, Brokk! Form the Enclosure! Tier 5 Standard!"
Brokk, the Tier 6 Void Master, and Winston, the Tier 5 Light Master, briefly hesitated. Building a sustained barrier this close to high-tier enemies was dangerous, but they immediately realized the need for the contained fight. Their combined elemental powers—Winston's Earth and Light providing the physical structure, Brokk's Void providing the psychic camouflage—flared to life, erecting the opaque, shimmering border around the two fighting teams.
As the enclosure solidified, Jai's team faced their opponents. James and Jai scanned the enemy leaders, but Zayn—the Prince with the striking silver hair and eyes the color of glacier ice—looked upon one face and froze.
His eyes widened in recognition. His battle-hardened stance dissolved. A wave of profound shock and sorrow washed over his face, quickly followed by a heartbreaking surge of overwhelming fear and shame. His control vanished, and he collapsed to the ground, not from exhaustion, but from an internal, psychic implosion.
Jai and James instantly moved to him, their protective instincts overriding the threat before them. "Zayn! What is happening? Who is he? Do you know him?" Jai urgently questioned, pulling at Zayn's shoulder.
Zayn slowly opened his eyes, now moist with unshed tears, and nodded, his voice choked. "He... he is my cousin. The youngest son of my uncle Zevan." He explained the painful history: his uncle Zevan and his family, including his cousin, were kicked out of the kingdom by King Borin's orders years ago. "His name is Zenos Stonehead."
Zenos Stonehead, a dwarf master with hair the color of polished basalt and eyes like chips of malicious emerald, stepped forward, a vicious smirk spreading across his face.
"Hey! Zayn! How are you?" Zenos's voice dripped with poisonous familiarity. "Still the small kitten who always cries and runs? That's why you were always bullied by me and my elder brother, Rezo."
The words triggered an immediate, devastating cascade of memory fragments in Zayn's mind:A cold spike of panic would seize him; he remembered the stifled laughter echoing from the high forge as his soft, silver hair had brushed the rising heat, realizing his clumsy human shoes were hopelessly tied, forcing him into a desperate, humiliating hop across the stones.
During moments of public scrutiny, his mind flashed to the sickening lurch when Rezo's foot would suddenly appear, sending him sprawling, his expensive tunic ruined by the palace dirt, knowing the court's eyes were fixed on the mud-stained shame of the half-blood prince.
The pressure of elemental attacks always conjured the memory of standing alone on the central drill ground, forced to bellow the sacred Dwarf war chants; the sudden sting of the wet sand hitting his face when he faltered, cementing the painful title of 'clumsy human' in the minds of the guards.In the deep, chaotic shadow of the battle, his breath hitched, recalling the absolute blackness of the smithy cellar, realizing his cousins had successfully spread the tale that the Prince was terrified of shadows—a cowardice that had haunted his every move for months.
And the sharp, localized pain of a strike always brought back the thwack of the small leather belts—not enough to break stone, but enough to leave a sharp, burning reminder on his vulnerable human skin, an emblem of his inferior lineage that never truly healed.Jai, seeing the raw, paralyzing fear etched on Zayn's face, moved with purpose. He hauled Zayn to his feet, gripping his armor tightly. "Zayn, look at me. What happened in the past is past. We cannot move forward if we still let fear dictate our actions."
Jai's voice was a sharp blade of confidence, cutting through the haze of trauma:
"Zayn, your worth isn't measured by their leather belts or their broken words. It's measured by the power in your core. You are the only one who can manifest the beauty of the Ice Powers and the strength of the Stonehead lineage—you are both, not half."
"Every time that old shame surfaces—that memory of the sand or the sneering—you don't run from it. You use it. Take that humiliation, compress it, and cast it out as pure Ice Law. Make their mockery fuel your defense."
"They tied your shoes to the forge because they feared your speed. They mocked your accent because they couldn't understand your mind. Your cousins saw the humanity in you as a weakness; I see it as the flexibility they lack. You heal faster, you adapt quicker, you are the bridge."
"You are a Prince who commanded a Tier 9 communication artifact and rallied the ministers—not a scared boy in the smithy cellar. Let the boy stay in the past. The man who commands the Ice Bow is here, and he fights for five million people."
"The Stonehead lineage is built on stone, but stone breaks. Your lineage is built on ice and spirit. Embrace the cold, Zayn. It doesn't break; it cuts. Let the purity of your mother's blood and the strength of your father's house forge you into the unbreakable winter that saves us all."
Zayn, his silver hair shaking as he took a deep, shuddering breath, felt the truth of Jai's words. The sheer force of the loyalty and respect in the human prince's eyes finally broke the spell of shame. He stood tall, his elemental energy stabilizing. He was ready to fight and, more importantly, ready to overcome the crippling trauma of his past. The attack began.
While the personal battle raged within the enclosure, the vast war outside continued. In the center of the conflict, a single figure dominated the battlefield—a man riding a massive warhorse, cutting a devastating path through the Shadow Ledger army.
This man was a force of nature. In the mere three hours the war had been raging, he had single-handedly killed approximately thirty thousand enemy soldiers. He moved relentlessly, his energy core seemingly bottomless, his charge unbroken. Tier 5 and Tier 6 enemy masters attempted to intercept him, only to be cut down with the ease of swatting insects.
His appearance was magnificent and terrifying: Thrain Ironhand. His hair was the color of dark steel, braided with ancient copper rings, and his eyes were a piercing gold-brown, reflecting the unwavering focus of a veteran.
Zeron, observing the unparalleled loss of life from his distant command post, asked in a dangerous, low hiss, "Who is that person on the horse? He moves with the speed of a Tier 8 but kills with the efficiency of a Tier 4."
Zevan, his voice filled with grudging respect and fear, explained: "That is the Grand Marshal of the Dwarf Kingdom, the top commander after the King. His name is Thrain Ironhand. He is a Tier 3 Elemental Master." Zevan paused, the memory painful. "He has immense experience. Killing Tier 5 and 6 masters is child's play for him. He was the only one who truly threatened the Human Queen Beatrice during the Great War—she is the only person who defeated him in the history of the Human Kingdom. He didn't use his full power as you can see he only move like a tier 8 person but the precision in killing is huge."
A cold, calculating light entered Zeron's eyes. This was not a foe to be trifled with. "Thrain Ironhand," Zeron repeated, a hint of admiration mixed with deadly rivalry. "He is the reason your brother looks so calm, even when outnumbered. He is the true spine of this kingdom."
Thrain, the silent, unyielding general, charged on, his figure disappearing and reappearing through the choking dust fog, holding the line with a brutal, single-minded focus that defied the combined might of the Shadow Crown. His presence was the absolute proof that Borin's confidence was not a bluff, but a cold, hard fact resting upon the shoulders of the second strongest power in the kingdom.