The Great Upheaval was weeks behind them. Weeks since the Nobodies crawled out of the gutters to demand their freedom. Today, the Ward was a hybrid monster of rust and glory. The air hung heavy, a sharp cocktail of wet mud and freshly forged bronze mixed with the intoxicating scent of Anima fluid steaming from market stalls. Where the stench of rot once ruled, there was now the smell of ozone and industry. The city had been rebuilt with scrap and spirit, a sprawling labyrinth of copper pipes running like veins across ancient stone walls. Flickering crystal lanterns cast an ethereal light on the bustling crowds.
Through this sea of shifting bodies, two figures cut like polished blades through aged leather.
Silarias was fifteen now, but he carried the silence of a man who had already ended a hundred lives. His shoulders had broadened, tempered by the forge and the bone-breaking training with Juro and Beat. He moved with an economical grace. No motion was wasted; every step was a calculation of lethal intent. His face had sharpened into a mask of calm intensity, his eyes reflecting the golden hue of a sun that refused to set.
But his true weight was carried upon his forearms: Frey and Freya.
They were not mere weapons. They were sentient parasites of gold and iron bonded to his nervous system. Frey, the left gauntlet, was a sun-drenched gold that absorbed light even in shadows. It felt feverish, pulsing with the solar fury of the Bansaday Lion. Freya, the right, was cold blackened steel etched with runes that seemed to weep. The scent of hot oil and ancient blood clung to the metal, a permanent perfume of the sacrifice required to wield the God-burden.
“You are walking awfully tall today, Princess,” Silarias remarked. His voice had dropped into a low, gritty baritone that vibrated with suppressed power. He did not look at her; his gaze was fixed on the horizon where the towers of the Solar Hegemony shimmered. “Afraid your crown of invisible silver might tumble into the muck if you look down?” making silly faces.
Nyx, sixteen and radiant as a black diamond, tossed her hair back with practiced nonchalance. She moved with a regal authority that her Shadow role could never fully hide. “Someone has to maintain the standard among all this scrap, Nobody,” she countered, her voice like silk over unsheathed steel. “And besides, Frey and Freya are screaming today. I can hear the metal grinding from here. Are you losing your grip, or are they just hungry?”
“They smell work,” Silarias replied curtly, his fists clenching. The sound of the gauntlets rasping against each other was like a dying dragon baring its teeth. “And when they are hungry, I do not like to keep them waiting.”
They passed Mama Ghoul’s Tavern, the unofficial headquarters of the Ward’s spirit. The stench of rancid fat was overwhelmed by the pungent tobacco smoke of Juro. The old Smoke Goat sat on a crate, eyes half-closed as if dreaming of battlefields. Vespera stood beside him, her gaze as sharp as a surgical scalpel.
“Look at them,” Juro rasped, exhaling a cloud of smoke that twisted into a screaming skull before dissolving. “The cubs think they own the world because they have smoothed out a few wrinkles in the Ward. Listen to me, boy. The trade is blooming, the city is rich, but your pockets are still as empty as a traitor’s heart. Mama Ghoul does not feed grown hounds for free anymore.”
“The Adventurer Guild waits for no one,” Vespera added, her tone flickering with a hidden spark of pride. “Go get your stamp. Prove those few weeks were not just playing in the mud. The Prince’s shadow is stretching long over Datal, and soon, playing won’t be an option for anyone.”
Silarias did not answer with words. He touched the metal of Frey, and a low golden hum resonated—a silent promise to the mentors who had raised him from the dirt.
Their path took them through the Shadow market, past the cluttered stall of Pawn Shop Pete. The air here tasted of sulfur and static. Pete peered over his magnifying glass, his mechanical eye spinning wildly like a trapped moth.
“Origin Cores, Silarias! Bring them to me from the Deep Veins!” Pete croaked, his voice cracking like dry parchment. “The rest of these fools bring back nothing but rusted hinges. I need the true essence to keep those gauntlets of yours from eating you alive. They are ticking, boy. I can hear the clock inside them!”
Silarias ignored the warning, though he felt the truth of it in the heat of his palms. They reached the massive iron doors of the Adventurer Guild, the bastion where legends were forged in ink and blood.
When they heaved the doors open, the roar of the city was abruptly severed. The Guild Hall was a cathedral of violence. The smell of expensive leather, stale sweat, and polished steel was thick. In the center of the hall stood the sun itself: Sir Galahad. His golden armor was so radiant it seemed to banish every shadow. Beside him was Lady Yra, a silent statue of deadly elegance.
“The cubs have finally become wolves,” the voice of her sword, The Resonance, vibrated directly into their skulls. “I hear the God-burden thumping in your blood, Silarias. It is famished for a challenge.”
“Silarias! Nyx!” Galahad bellowed, his laughter shaking the banners. “I thought you had lost your nerve! You’ve grown, boy. You almost look like someone I’d hesitate to fight.”
But the warmth was an island in a sea of cold loathing. From the balcony, Lord Valerius looked down with a mask of practiced disgust. He represented the Silver Spoon Elitists, those who viewed the Ward’s prosperity as a personal insult.
“Galahad, why do you waste your breath on this gutter trash?” Valerius sneered, his voice carrying like a whiplash. “The Guild is a sanctuary for those with lineage and honor, not for two-bit orphans who think they can lead because the King had a moment of senile mercy.”
Krieg, the titan of the Iron Fist Mercenaries, let out a metallic, wheezing laugh. His arms were massive mechanical cylinders that hissed steam. “Fifteen years old and he thinks he is a man. I’ll break his spine over my knee before the noon bell rings, just to hear the sound of the Liberator snapping.”
Silarias walked toward the registration desk, ignoring the insults as if they were nothing more than rain on a tin roof. He looked the officer in the eye. The officer felt an inexplicable shiver. There was an ancient gravity behind Silarias’s gaze that did not belong to a teenager.
“Do you have any actual work here,” Silarias said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble, “or is this just a social club for retired knights who prefer the sound of their own legends over the sharpening of their blades?”
The officer snorted, hiding his unease. He grabbed a stamp and slammed a red “C” onto their passes with a heavy thud.
“C-Rank. Starters. Fledglings,” the officer declared. “And there’s more. The S-Class contracts for the Magma Veins require a team of five. You’re a duo. Incomplete. Go catch some rats in the sewers and call me when you hit puberty.”
Nyx stepped forward, a cold, calculated smile playing on her lips. “Incomplete? You’ve forgotten your own bylaws, bureaucrat. A team is counted at the moment the contract is signed. And we aren’t alone.”
Silarias slammed his fists onto the counter. The impact sent a shockwave of golden and black energy through the wood. Frey erupted in a white-hot solar brilliance; Freya pulsed with a dark, suffocating shadow that drowned the nearby lanterns.
“The rest of the team was just waiting outside,” Silarias said, his eyes locked on the officer. “They find the air in the Upper City a bit stifling.”
The entrance doors were thrown wide. Three shadows cut across the marble floor.
First came Aurelius. He moved with the terrifying precision of an executioner. His attire was black silk, but his hands were a map of scars earned in places the sun never reached. He radiated an aura of Old Blood so potent that Valerius’s laughter died in his throat.
Behind him glided Jane. She was a wraith, a ghost given form. She did not seem to walk so much as flow across the tiles, her eyes like glass marbles analyzing every vital point and structural weakness in the room.
And then came the fifth figure.
He was a stranger, shrouded in a heavy, battered travel cloak that smelled of old earth and ancient lightning. He walked with a desperate determination, as if running from a ghost only he could see. As he stood behind Silarias, the air began to shiver. A soft hissing resonance emanated from beneath his hood, causing the crystal chandeliers to chime in a frantic rhythm. He uttered no word, but his presence made the veterans reach for their hilts.
The five stood in a perfect, lethal formation. A monolith of raw, untamed power.
The officer, trembling so hard he nearly dropped his stamp, looked at Galahad. The Golden Knight was no longer laughing. He was staring at the mysterious stranger with a look of profound, wary curiosity. Galahad nodded once, slowly and gravely.
The stamp landed heavy on the black parchment.
“Registered,” the officer managed to choke out, his voice cracking. “Team name?”
Silarias did not look at the officer. Instead, he raised his gaze to the balcony where Lord Valerius and the other elites watched. The runes on Freya pulsed in a rhythm like a gathering storm.
“From this day forth, we are the law you chose to forget,” Silarias said, his voice cold and unyielding. “The 5 Commandments.”
The silence was suffocating. It was not a team name; it was a sentence. These were not orphans looking for a job. This was a unit come to rewrite the rules of Datal.
Silarias snatched up the contract. On the balcony, the air thinned as The 5 Commandments turned their backs on the elite. The name hung in the rafters like a heavy curtain.
Lord Valerius stood frozen, his gloved hands gripping the marble railing so hard the stone began to fracture. His face was flushed with a toxic shade of crimson. It was not just hatred; it was the stinging realization that gutter trash had just outclassed him in the one arena he claimed to own: image.
He turned sharply to his right-hand man, Caspian, who was staring at the stranger with wide eyes.
“The 5 Commandments,” Valerius hissed, his voice trembling with bile and jealousy. He struck the railing. “Damn them! It’s clean. It’s authoritative. It makes our name, The Solar Hegemony Vanguard, sound like a bureaucratic council meeting!”
Caspian blinked, taken aback. “My Lord, it is just a name. They are still…”
“It is NOT just a name, you fool!” Valerius snapped, leaning in until his nose nearly touched Caspian’s. “It’s a brand. It’s a declaration. People will whisper that name in the taverns before they even see their faces.” He gestured wildly toward the closing doors. “Why couldn’t you think of something like that? I pay you to be my strategist, my creative architect, and the best you could give me was The Vanguard? I look like a common foot soldier compared to them!”
Caspian opened his mouth to defend himself, but Valerius silenced him with a sharp wave of his hand.
“Shut up. Just shut up,” Valerius growled, his eyes narrowing as he watched the last of the dust settle where Silarias had stood. “If they want to be the Law, then let them. But laws are meant to be broken… and I’m going to make sure they snap in those Magma Veins before the sun sets.”
“Look at this absolute heap of s***, Caspian. Take a good, long look.”
Valerius spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the muddy cobblestones, his arm sweeping in a wide, loathing gesture toward the horizon.
“This was supposed to be the goddamn crown jewel of Ward. The place where history is carved into the earth, where blood and glory actually mean something. Oak-haven. The name alone sounds like a retirement home for senile elves who’ve downed too much cherry blossom tea. Oak-haven! This is where it’s supposed to happen, where power should be bleeding from the very soil.”
He whipped around to face his right-hand, eyes burning with pure frustration.
“And instead, we’re stuck here. In this s***-hole with a name that sounds like a soft-boiled egg. How the hell am I supposed to command fear and respect when our base of operations is in so-called Oak-haven? It sounds like we’re here to weave wicker baskets instead of forging an empire. It’s a shame of a name, Caspian. A limp, flavorless, pathetic name. We are saddled with the most uninspired pile of garbage in the entire region and you’re just standing there nodding like a prick. I want fire, I want steel, and instead, I get a f****** oak grove. It makes me sick.”
As the group turned as one and left the hall, the music of the Ward rose to meet them. A deep, thrumming bass; a song of rust, rebirth, and the coming storm.
The adventure had begun.
