Chapter 279: The Cult of the Spiral
Voranthar paced the stone floor of his private vault. He stared at the row of glowing soul-link crystals resting on the marble pedestal. He waited hours for a magical transmission from Julian, praying the Earthlings had successfully reclaimed Aethelgard.
Suddenly, four of the crystals shattered into fine dust.
Voranthar stumbled backward. The destroyed crystals belonged to Derek, Brittany, Zach, and Sarah. They were entirely gone.
He immediately looked at the two crystals representing Julian and Julia Vance. The twin stones did not shatter. Instead, their magical signatures completely vanished from the tracking grid. The Vance siblings had fled the battlefield and stolen the crimson artifact.
’They took the souls of Aethelgard and ran,’ Voranthar thought, gripping his hair in absolute terror. He was entirely blind and defenseless.
While Voranthar panicked inside his vault, Novus and Hawl moved through the quiet streets of the capital.
They bypassed the outer patrols with ease and slipped into the lavish estate of Lord Aris. Aris funded the majority of the military border defenses and served as Voranthar’s most vocal loyalist.
Hawl materialized from the shadows directly beside the bed. He dragged a poisoned dagger across Aris’s throat. Aris died before he could even open his eyes. Novus stepped forward with a branding iron superheated by his own magic.
He pressed the metal into the wooden headboard, permanently burning the geometric spiral of the Vanguard into the crime scene.
"One more target tonight," Novus whispered.
Hawl nodded and melted back into the darkness. They navigated the palace rooftops to reach the royal tactician’s quarters.
Soros sat at his wooden desk, desperately rewriting troop formations by candlelight. The royal mage frantically crossed out defensive lines on his parchment to compensate for the shattered alliance. He rubbed his temples in frustration, entirely unaware of the assassins entering his study.
Hawl dropped from the ceiling rafters and landed directly behind Soros.
Soros opened his mouth to scream for the guards. Hawl quickly covered his mouth and drove a blade straight through the back of the wooden chair. The steel pierced Soros’s spine and instantly paralyzed him. Soros slumped forward onto his desk, bleeding out over his ruined battle plans.
Novus walked up to the desk and grabbed a vial of ink. He dipped his fingers into the black liquid and painted the Vanguard spiral across the blood-soaked parchment.
They successfully crippled Voranthar’s military strategy and severed his most trusted advisor in a single night.
At the dawn of the next day, Voranthar marched down the stone corridor because he desperately needed a new strategy.
He pushed open the wooden door to the royal tactician’s study. Soros sat slumped over his desk in the dim candlelight. Voranthar called his name, but the royal mage remained completely still.
Voranthar walked closer and saw the massive pool of blood soaking into the floorboards. The hilt of a dagger protruded directly from the back of the wooden chair. A geometric spiral painted in black ink stared back at the King from the ruined parchment.
A royal knight suddenly ran into the study, out of breath and panicking. The guard reported that Lord Aris was dead. An assassin had slit his throat in his sleep and burned the exact same spiral into his headboard. Voranthar stared at the black ink on the desk.
He realized the Vanguard was already inside the capital walls.
Over the next three days, Novus and Hawl aggressively escalated their campaign. They moved through the shadows of the city and systematically dismantled the King’s remaining support structure.
On the first night, they infiltrated the estate of Lord Putor. The wealthy noble funded the majority of the city’s remaining artillery divisions. Hawl assassinated him silently and carved the Vanguard spiral directly into the Putor estate’s pristine marble floors.
On the second night, they targeted General Murde. Novus painted the geometric spiral in the general’s blood across a massive tapestry depicting the Tarnstead crest.
On the third night, they successfully etched the symbol right into the interior side of the palace gates to ensure every single royal guard saw it at sunrise.
Crucially, the two assassins completely ignored Duke Lupis. They intentionally walked right past the estates of any noble who secretly opposed the war. Novus and Hawl only slaughtered the loyalists.
Voranthar stood inside his locked solar on the fourth morning. He looked at a map of the capital marked with red ink to track the murders. He noticed the pattern immediately. Lupis and the dissenting politicians remained perfectly safe while his most loyal supporters died in their sleep.
Voranthar gripped the edges of his table as his sanity fractured. He concluded his own court was actively harboring a Vanguard cult. Lupis and the opposition were clearly working with the assassins to orchestrate a coup.
"Lock down the palace," Voranthar commanded the captain of the royal guard. "No one enters or leaves. Do not let any of my advisors near this room."
He barred the doors and refused to trust his own military commanders. The King successfully trapped himself inside a cage of his own paranoia, exactly as Rubedo had planned.
Marcus paced across the stone floor of their suite while the frantic ringing of the lockdown bells echoed through the palace. Elena sat on the edge of the bed and nervously wrung her hands.
"Soros is dead," Marcus said. "The King barred the doors and completely trapped us inside."
Marcus grabbed his golden broadsword and walked into the grand foyer of the Earthling wing to gather the remaining survivors. The other twelve Heralds quickly joined them. Noah and Mia stepped out of the shadows, having used their scouting abilities to verify the barricaded corridors.
Ethan and Olivia arrived next, confirming their magical radar showed hundreds of Tarnstead knights mobilizing inside the palace walls. Liam and Emma stood near the back, looking ready for a fight.
Mason, Sophia, Logan, Ava, Lucas, and Isabella filed into the room with terrified expressions.
Only fourteen of them remained from their original high school class. Red was the twenty-ninth one. And the thirteenth one, the Catering Server, was the one who was missing.
Perhaps, he was never summoned.
