Chapter Seven

  Minutes earlier, at the main gate.

  One of the guards leaned against the stone ledge, yawning as he watched the pale morning light slip between the buildings. Work here was no longer what it had been; the warehouses that once roared with merchants and laborers now resembled tombs of forgotten metal.

  Beside him, the other toyed idly with his spear.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “New here? It’s the wind between the sheets of iron… or perhaps the head of Or-Jul howling inside.”

  “!”

  “!”

  It was not a sound that stopped them.

  It was a sensation.

  A sudden weight fell upon their chests. The air thickened, grew heavier—as if gravity had doubled for a fleeting instant.

  Then—

  The air folded.

  Their eardrums compressed, and the atmosphere rebounded like an invisible wall. They saw the iron gate bend inward—not as something shattered, but as something folded beneath the palm of a giant.

  No fire.

  No powder.

  Only a hiss… and dust.

  At last the iron fell, and the resonance split their heads from within. One staggered, blood spilling from his nose, while the other tried to raise his sword—but his hand would not obey.

  From the heart of the dust… he appeared.

  The steady tapping halted a few steps from them.

  The dust receded like a curtain drawn slowly aside, revealing a calm, cold face—and eyes that saw in them nothing more than an unnecessary detail in a greater painting.

  Karsu spoke in a low voice devoid of emotion:

  “Ordinarily… I would not use the Qaz to kill the likes of you.”

  A brief pause, as though the sentence were incomplete.

  “But…”

  Despite the ringing tearing at their hearing, the guards noticed he murmured something they did not understand.

  Then he raised his left arm.

  He opened his palm, fingers unevenly spaced—as though adjusting a precise angle only he could see.

  Nothing happened.

  No light.

  No wave.

  No movement.

  Only pain.

  A sharp pain split their faces at the same instant, as though an invisible cold blade had brushed them lightly.

  A thin red line appeared, beginning at the top of the forehead—straight… precise… perfect.

  They did not see what struck them.

  But they felt it.

  A white thread, faster than perception itself, sliced flesh and cleaved bone in a flash beyond time.

  Before they could comprehend—

  They were dead.

  ---

  Karsu did not move immediately.

  He stood for a moment, as though their deaths were nothing more than background noise in a larger experiment.

  He stepped past the bodies without looking at them and entered the wide courtyard. The warehouses stood aligned like massive graves, their doors half-closed, the air saturated with iron and old oil.

  He stopped.

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  His eyes did not wander aimlessly; they settled directly upon the deeper stone structure within—the one bearing no trade insignia, no transport markings.

  “Hmm…”

  The sound emerged low, like a measured exhale.

  He advanced slowly, each step calculated as though the ground itself were a web of flawless equations.

  At the outer wall of the structure, he extended his palm without touching it, leaving a hair’s breadth between them.

  Then he closed his eyes.

  The air did not tremble this time…

  It dimmed.

  Something beneath the stones…

  Not visible energy.

  But an old current—accumulated… unrefined.

  He opened his eyes.

  And in that moment—had anyone been close enough to observe—he would have noticed the faintest lift at the corner of Karsu’s eye.

  “Precise,” he murmured.

  Then, after a short silence:

  “Even the smallest details were precise.”

  There was no admiration in his voice.

  Only confirmation.

  He lowered his arm.

  If he wished, he could have crushed the structure in an instant.

  But he did not.

  Instead, he turned toward the inner gate leading to the lower corridors—where the workers labored… and where unregistered goods were stored.

  “Killing ends possibilities,” he said calmly, as one concluding a trivial matter.

  Then he moved.

  His steps were neither loud nor hurried.

  They were the steps of a man who had found what he sought…

  —or at least what was worth investing in.

  And as he disappeared into the depths of the facility—

  The air behind him felt slightly heavier than before his arrival.

  ---

  In the lower floor, beneath rows of crates sealed with black wax, Fashar sat behind a broad desk of dark wood, flipping through account ledgers with half-closed eyes.

  He was neither thin nor obese; his body bore the fullness of long comfort, and his fingers were adorned with a heavy ring bearing the emblem of Or-Jul.

  One guard stood at the door, the other near the stone staircase leading upward.

  “They’re late changing shifts,” one muttered.

  Fashar did not raise his head.

  “Let them learn the value of the wage they receive.”

  Then—

  The sound came.

  Not an explosion…

  But compressed pressure.

  The ceiling trembled briefly, and fine dust sifted between the stones.

  Fashar’s hand froze above the page.

  The guards looked at one another.

  “Sir…?”

  Then came the resonance.

  Not loud…

  But internal.

  As though the air itself had been struck.

  The oil lamps shook; one extinguished.

  This time Fashar stood slowly.

  “This is not a quarrel.”

  Fashar was no man of battle, but he had not reached his position through stupidity.

  He opened a side drawer and withdrew a small transparent crystal, gripping it tightly.

  “Go up. See what is happening.”

  The guards exchanged glances.

  A brief hesitation… then one rushed upward.

  He did not reach halfway.

  He froze.

  The air before him… was not empty.

  It was heavier.

  As though something unseen filled the corridor.

  Cold sweat traced his neck.

  Then he saw the shadow.

  Not the shadow of a person…

  But the shadow of a presence.

  Calm footsteps began descending.

  One step.

  Another.

  Each pressed upon the stone without clear sound, yet his chest felt them.

  The guard retreated one step.

  Then another.

  Below, Fashar narrowed his eyes.

  “A Qaz Master…” he whispered.

  He did not know who.

  But his instinct told him one thing:

  This was not theft.

  This was something worse.

  A clear intention to spill blood.

  When Karsu appeared at the final turn of the staircase, he did not look at the guard.

  He looked directly at Fashar.

  As though he had known his position from the beginning.

  And in that moment…

  Fashar felt something he had not felt in many years.

  That he was no longer the master of this place.

  ---

  Fashar’s lips trembled briefly before he regained control.

  He suddenly shouted, questions firing from his mouth like arrows loosed without aim:

  “What do you want? Money?”

  “Who sent you?”

  “How much did they pay you?”

  These were not the questions of a man seeking answers…

  But of a man buying time.

  Behind his outward confusion, his mind calculated with cold precision that belied his trembling flesh.

  He counted.

  One… a Qaz Master.

  Two… face obscured. A distortion array? Or a special ability?

  Three… clear intent to kill.

  Four… no companions.

  Five… has not attacked yet.

  He paused at the last.

  Not attacking… therefore not here for immediate killing.

  He wants something.

  Something from me.

  His breathing quickened, but his grip tightened on the crystal in his pocket.

  With this aura… at least at the boundary of the second rank… perhaps higher.

  If support delays… I will die.

  A heavy minute of silence passed, the air taut as a drawn string about to snap.

  Then he spoke again, this time less sharp—closer to a business offer:

  “Let us negotiate. It does not seem you wish to harm me for its own sake. Ask what you want… and I will certainly assist you.”

  On the staircase, Karsu stood motionless.

  His black cloak absorbed the light, his face concealed by a distortion array that unsettled the eye whenever it tried to focus.

  He understood precisely what Fashar was doing.

  Tension.

  Analysis.

  And… hidden pressure.

  Fashar’s grip upon the crystal was not random.

  Karsu’s voice finally emerged.

  Heavy.

  Thick.

  Stripped of tone—so that the threat came not from voice, but from words:

  “How foolish… to seek negotiation while summoning Qaz Masters.”

  The pressure on the crystal froze in Fashar’s hand.

  “Did you think I would not notice its fluctuation?”

  The blood drained from his face.

  This time he did not hesitate.

  “Kill him!”

  The guard by the desk rushed toward the staircase to join his comrade.

  But before the second could take a step, the first seized his shoulder violently.

  “Stop!”

  “What? What nonsense are you shouting? Afraid now?!” Fashar barked.

  The guard replied, voice strained:

  “No, sir… the staircase is already rigged.”

  A moment of silence.

  “He is… the Master of the Metal Thread Qaz.”

  “!”

  “!”

  Breath halted in the room.

  And for the first time…

  Fashar felt as though the very air had become a net.

  ---

  [At the Edge of the Forest]

  At the heart of the forest, where sunlight pierced through leaves like dancing golden threads, stood a man in his forties.

  He wore no heavy robe—only a sleeveless leather vest and a green scarf fluttering in the breeze.

  He was not a high-tier Qaz Master, merely a border guard accustomed to protecting small villages from invading beasts.

  He stood within a circle of stones he had arranged himself and closed his eyes.

  He was not silent.

  He breathed deeply, whispering words with each exhale:

  “O wind… do not rage against me.

  O fire… do not burn me.

  O earth… carry me.

  O water… cleanse me.

  And O Creator of wind, fire, earth, water, and my soul—guide me.”

  His method of charging the Jowf was entirely different.

  Instead of silent isolation and gathered coldness—common among Qaz Masters—his Jowf pulsed with warmth that expanded with every word, as though he nourished his spirit with speech before feeding his power with energy.

  Suddenly he opened his eyes and extended his arm toward a nearby tree.

  He whispered softly:

  “Grass Qaz… Grow.”

  From his palm, faint green light seeped forth, warm threads touching the tree’s trunk. Within seconds, blossoms unfurled upon its branches, and grass sprouted around it as though spring had suddenly arrived.

  The man smiled and wiped sweat from his brow.

  “The Jowf is like the heart, Rashid,” he reminded himself in his calm, resonant voice, repeating his teacher’s words. “It is not sustained by silence alone. Sometimes it needs words… life… and faith.”

  He sat beneath the revitalized tree and drew a small waterskin from his bag, drinking quietly before raising his gaze toward the sky through gaps in the leaves.

  “If all Qaz Masters were like my teacher,” he murmured warmly, “the poor would not need protection. True strength does not suffocate those around you… it grants them space to breathe.”

  At that moment, he heard rustling behind the shrubs.

  He turned slowly, hands relaxed.

  “Your back is to the sun, my friend. I have seen your shadow for two minutes. Come, the forest is wide enough for all.”

  From behind the branches emerged a small Ajjad—a pitiful simian creature, outcast even among its own kind. Rashid did not see in it “half a skull” of power as the beast manuals classified them. He saw hunger.

  “Hungry, little one?”

  With a gentle touch, Rashid focused the remainder of his Jowf’s energy into the tip of his finger, turning the light into thick green liquid and feeding the creature until it drifted into deep sleep.

  “Hmm… is it my imagination, or did my energy last longer than usual?”

  He frowned slightly, then studied the childlike creature in his arms.

  “Poor thing,” he whispered as he placed it safely upon a high branch. “In this world, even humans abandon their children… let alone beasts.”

  He cast one final glance at the quiet forest, adjusted his scarf, and headed toward the gates of the City of Adventurers to resume his duty as a border guard.

  Then his pocket shook violently.

  Rashid glanced down quickly and withdrew, tense, an almost transparent stone—save for a droplet of blood within, moving eastward.

  “This…”

  He paused before finishing:

  “An emergency summons from a noble!”