CH1433 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1433: The Three Big Wigs of the Western Front

“You want to enter the Realm of Mind here?” Hackzord surveyed the hillside, then let his gaze drop to the earth beneath his feet.

Silent Disaster nodded.

“I think the human king won’t come again.” He conjured a Distortion Door the size of a finger behind him, barely visible, and reached through — his fingers touched only soil. “And once the Deity of Gods begins its descent, that’s irreversible. You’re wasting what little time we have.”

“If you don’t want to come, leave first.” Serakkas remained unmoved.

“And how exactly would you get out?” He rolled his eyes, just barely. You already moved openly against Mask — saying this is pure spite. The King would have noticed his absence by now. The unapproved conversations. The memory-reading. The omitted reports. The charges were clear enough without a prosecutor. But Hackzord had calculated the arithmetic: standing beside Silent Disaster, should the King dispatch other senior lords to deal with them, was better odds than standing alone.

He opened another Door a hundred meters deeper. Still soil.

“It doesn’t matter whether I can leave. And your being out of ideas doesn’t mean Valkries is.”

Oh, forgive me — and who was it that found Valkries in the first place? “What if she fails as well?”

Silent Disaster said nothing.

At five hundred meters, the Door opened into a hollow. Hackzord adjusted the angle and his fingers found something viscous.

He knew immediately.

“Have you considered simply taking the human king by force?”

Serakkas’s eyes moved — the briefest flicker — then stilled. “I might manage to carry him. Keeping him alive would be harder. You and I both know how fragile they are. Until I’ve confirmed where Valkries is, I won’t risk it.”

“As you say.” He answered without inflection. Regardless, he couldn’t leave her here to be pulverized when the Deity of Gods fell. That calculation held for the race and for himself equally.

“Someone’s coming,” Silent Disaster said, turning. “More than one.”

Hackzord opened a Door.

Three humans crested the hill — one of them the soldier who had handled the letter exchange before. More bodies this time, but not enough to threaten Serakkas. Not even close.

“His Majesty has agreed to your request for a meeting.” The leader walked forward and spoke plainly. “In a moment, the two of you will enter the Realm of Mind. His Majesty has one condition.”

He actually agreed. Not a coward, then. “What condition?”

“You are to be separated before entering the Realm of Mind. And the one who is not the Magic Slayer must wear this.” The human opened a box and lifted out a metal bracelet.

On the bracelet sat a God’s Stone of Retaliation.

The fury was immediate, a heat behind Hackzord’s eyes. His tone dropped. “What does this mean? Do you think I will shackle myself so that you humans can slaughter me at leisure?”

The soldier’s face showed fear. He did not step back. “Magic power is a weapon. Disarming at a crucial meeting is conventional practice. This is not restraint — His Majesty believes you have brought vital information and taken considerable risks to do so. That is precisely why he has no desire for accidents.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You are free to leave. You must simply remain well clear of this mountain before the next meeting.”

“Just do it.” Serakkas turned to him. “Stay within your ability’s range the same as last time. I don’t understand why you insist on accompanying me.”

Because I have to say it directly before you understand! Hackzord stood momentarily without words. Serakkas’s rationality had clearly deteriorated after encountering the Nightmare Lord. He wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone — not now, not with everything at stake. Confirming that this wasn’t a human trap and that Valkries was truly accessible was too important to leave to chance.

Before he could negotiate further, Serakkas walked to a spot, closed her eyes, and settled into stillness.

He watched the Deity of Gods continue its ascent, the helplessness of it sharpening into something like contempt — for the situation, for himself — and put the bracelet on.

This thing probably isn’t built to hold me. They’re hoping to slow me down if I try to pull Serakkas underground. That’s all this is.

He looked at the two soldiers standing behind the leader. Unarmed. But something in their posture raised the back of his neck. Not easy, those two.

Serakkas’s breathing slowly quieted.

It’s beginning.

Hackzord kept his expression neutral and raised the multicolored magic stone disguised as a ring to his eye —

The pillar of light appeared without preamble, wide as a city wall, stretching in both directions farther than a single glance could hold. It hit him like a physical thing: the memory of the island in the Bottomless Land.

This is the Realm of Mind domain Serakkas called city-sized? She was describing it modestly.

He began to believe the humans. Whatever else they were, they carried something real.

To wield power like this — perhaps they truly had found a path through the Battle of Divine Will.

He took a measured breath. Then closed his eyes.


When Sky Lord opened them again, he stood inside a cramped house — a room plainly unfit for a king’s audience by any standard he knew. Silent Disaster appeared to be explaining things to Valkries, who sat across from her.

To see the mobile Nightmare Lord again — standing, speaking, present — drew something in him back, pulled taut, to a time that felt very distant now.

“You’re finally here.” Valkries nodded. “Come, sit. The coffee is getting cold.”

After everything — she says that. Of course she does. That quality was always hers.

This was the first meeting of the three senior lords since the Western Front had opened. An event of consequence for the race by any reckoning.

The only presence without standing was the human seated beside Nightmare Lord.

He had heard the name from Serakkas: Roland, King of Graycastle. The architect of every setback the Western Front had suffered. Yet also, through some mechanism Hackzord still found half-absurd, the reason this meeting was possible at all. The irony was thick enough to set.

He took a proper look at Roland before settling beside Serakkas. The chair absorbed him in a way that registered, somewhere, as the particular luxury of a ruler. A few empty paper cups sat on the table. He had entered less than a minute behind Serakkas, yet already the three had the look of a longer conversation behind them.

Coffee. Was that what Serakkas was yearning for? Strange. She has no use for food outside of Red Mist.

“If I’m reading this correctly, both of you understand the situation.” Hackzord let the tangential thought go and focused. “Personally, I disagree with Serakkas’s position — it will only exhaust the little time we have — but she insists.” He looked to Valkries. “Once the Deity of Gods descends, vast swaths of the human kingdoms are destroyed. The only path of survival is evacuation. Immediately.”

Roland spoke. “How much time do we have?”

Hackzord held his gaze. “No more than seven days.”

Discussion

Suggest a change