Chương 422: Chapter : 422

The day began with a bright, generous sun. The Kingdom of Bluemoon had always been a peaceful land — the kind of place where mornings felt like a quiet promise. The sky stretched wide and blue. The clouds drifted soft and unhurried. The citizens moved through the streets the way they always did, with the comfortable ease of people who had never truly known fear. They smiled at neighbors. They argued cheerfully over prices. They pressed fresh fruit to their noses and breathed in the smell before buying it.

The white stone walls of the city shone in the morning light like something out of an old painting. It was, by every measure, a perfect day. Inside the grand palace, King Justin sat on his carved wooden throne. The throne was old — older than his grandfather's grandfather — its surface worn smooth in places and etched deep with ancient symbols that nobody living could fully explain anymore. The throne room was vast and solemn. Tall stone pillars rose toward the ceiling like patient giants.

The polished marble floor reflected the window light in long, wavering ribbons, almost like water. Then, without warning, something broke the peace wide open. The magic bells on the outer walls began to ring. The sound came in urgent, overlapping waves — not the gentle chime of ceremony, but the violent clang of alarm. Everyone in the palace knew what those bells meant. The bells only rang for danger. A young guard burst into the throne room. His boots struck the marble in sharp, panicked rhythms.

His face had gone the color of old ash. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, and there was fresh dirt smeared across the shoulder of his uniform, as though he had fallen and not stopped to care. He dropped to one knee before the King.

"My Lord." His voice struggled to stay steady and failed.

"The valley is turning dark."

"The Black Magicians are coming." King Justin rose from his throne slowly, deliberately. There was no panic in his movements, but something in his eyes — a deep, old worry — told a different story. He turned his gaze to the five men standing near him. These were the elite grandmasters of the kingdom. Not just powerful — legendary.

Men who had spent entire lifetimes in pursuit of mastery, who had pored over ancient texts in dusty academies, who had bled and sacrificed in wars that younger people only knew from stories. They carried themselves with the quiet dignity of people who had earned every scar they wore. There was Grandmaster Thomas — a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested man who commanded fire the way a conductor commands music. He could melt steel with open hands and barely break a sweat doing it.

There was Grandmaster Roger, lean and precise, whose mastery of water was less about force and more about understanding — he could read the movement of a river the way others read a face, and summon crushing waves with the calm focus of a man pouring a cup of tea. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

There was Grandmaster Brandon, built like the earth itself, a quiet and deliberate man who could reach down and reshape solid bedrock as easily as a child pressing fingers into wet clay. There was Grandmaster Sylas, whose gift for barrier magic had saved more lives than any sword in the kingdom. His shields of golden light were said to be unbreakable — a claim that had never yet been tested to its limit.

And there was Grandmaster Kaelen, the youngest of the five, whose control of wind made him move with an almost unsettling speed, there and gone again like a thought you couldn't quite hold.

"The Neitherworld Devil Seed must be protected," King Justin said. His voice was steady, measured — the voice of a man holding fear at arm's length through sheer will.

"It is hidden in the deep vault. The enemy wants it." He paused, letting the weight of his next words settle over the room.

"The seed holds a massive, dangerous power. It must not fall into their hands."

"Go to the outer walls. Stop them." The grandmasters bowed in silence. No speeches, no reassurances. Just the quiet resolve of people who understood exactly what was being asked of them. Their boots echoed down the long marble corridor as they walked out. When they reached the outer walls and looked down into the valley, the sight below stripped the air from their lungs. The beautiful green valley — the one every child in Bluemoon grew up running through — was dying in real time.

The grass was yellowing and wilting, curling inward as though recoiling from something invisible. The flowers were already gone. The trees stood perfectly still, as if they had stopped breathing. A thick, dark fog moved across the ground in slow, deliberate waves. It smelled like rot and something older — like blood that had been sitting in the sun for days. And walking through that fog were the Black Magicians. Dozens of them.

They moved with the calm, unhurried confidence of people who already knew how the day would end. Their black robes were tattered and old, but their posture was rigid with purpose. Pale, expressionless masks covered their faces. Their hands glowed with a sickly purple light that crackled and spat like wet wood catching fire.

"They are moving fast," Grandmaster Kaelen said quietly. Wind magic curled restlessly around his fingers as he studied the approaching line with narrowed eyes.

"We must build our defenses now," Grandmaster Sylas said, already raising his hands. Sylas poured his focus inward, gathering his mana into something vast and stable, and cast his most advanced barrier spell. A massive golden shield bloomed over the outer gate — solid, radiant, almost blinding in the morning light. It stretched across the entire entrance like a wall of captured sunlight. Grandmaster Brandon stepped forward and pressed both palms flat against the stone wall.

Something changed in his expression — a stillness, like a man planting roots.

"Earth Wall!" he shouted. The ground answered him. A giant wall of solid rock surged upward from the earth, blocking the entire valley path with a sound like distant thunder. The stone was dense and heavy and utterly unyielding. Grandmaster Thomas raised his hands, and a wall of roaring fire ignited in front of the rock barrier. The heat was extraordinary — the kind that makes the air itself seem to shimmer and distort. The flames turned everything orange for thirty feet in every direction. The defenses stood.

From where they crouched on the outer walls, even the grandmasters allowed themselves a moment of grim satisfaction. It looked, genuinely, unbreakable. The Black Magicians reached the fire wall and did not slow down. Not even a hesitation. Not even a flinch. The leader stepped ahead of the group. His mask was distinguished from the others by red lines cutting across the pale surface like old wounds. He raised one hand with the casual ease of someone opening a door, and his dark purple magic surged forward.