Chapter 71
In the darkest, deepest part of the Barhad Palace stood a dungeon — a place from which no one who entered ever walked out on their own two feet again. Of course, it was a prison for criminals, but this particular one was especially revolting. The cold stone floor, freezing enough to make the chill seep into one’s bones, was covered in thick layers of dust and filth. Worst of all were the rats that scurried through the cracks in the walls day and night.
“Damn rats again,” one of the guards grumbled. The vermin never stopped squeaking, leaving droppings everywhere and spreading disease. Even in Barhad, rats were a constant nuisance.
“They’ve gotten worse lately…”
As he muttered, the guard froze. He heard unfamiliar footsteps descending the stairs.
Who’s there?
He had taken this shift in exchange for a comrade’s vacation. Otherwise, who in their right mind would come down to this gloomy dungeon while a splendid banquet was taking place above?
Under the faint light of the underground lamps, a shadow emerged.
“Who goes there! Identify yourself!”
But his vigilance melted away when he recognized the man stepping out of the darkness.
“You’re quite diligent. Perhaps I should reward you,” the newcomer said coolly.
“L-Lord Kaiza!”
The guard hastily saluted.
“What brings you here, my lord? The banquet should still be in full swing.”
“I just returned. It’s over.”
Indeed, Kaiza was dressed lightly — a dark-blue tunic of fine wool, long trousers, and his black hair, freshly washed, still damp.
“I have some business here. May I go in?” he asked with a casual tilt of his chin.
“O-of course, my lord.”
The guard stepped aside immediately. No one in the palace dared to question the ruler’s movements. Everyone assumed Kaiza never made mistakes in judgment.
“My thanks.”
Kaiza strode into the dungeon. The stench of blood and iron hung heavy in the air, but his elegant face betrayed no sign of discomfort.
Step, step…
His steady footsteps stopped in front of a cell.
“I was expecting you,” said a cracked voice from behind the bars.
“So that’s why you made such an obvious move,” Kaiza replied, his golden eyes cold.
The man behind the bars was Arceo, the High Priest — once a man of immense power and influence, now reduced to a mere prisoner.
“What do you think I’ve done?”
“You arranged Zaveni’s death yourself, didn’t you?”
The inspection of Zaveni’s belongings had been thorough. There was no way he could have possessed poison. Some claimed he had taken his own life, but Kaiza didn’t believe that for a moment. Having opposed him for years, Kaiza knew Zaveni too well — he was not the sort of man to commit suicide. The moment Kaiza heard the news, he could guess who was behind it.
“Cutting off the tail won’t change anything.”
“You’re mistaken,” Arceo said quietly. “I merely granted him salvation. A life with no hope left — it is better to rest in the arms of Lady Gaia.”
Such dangerous thinking was the reason Kaiza had locked him away before those ideas could spread among the faithful.
“I have no interest in your pitiful theories of salvation.”
His voice was low and velvety, deceptively soft. His long fingers wrapped around the iron bars.
“The Council has approved it,” Kaiza said.
“……!”
Even after years of imprisonment, Arceo’s composure cracked at those words.
“The assassination attempt made them realize something,” Kaiza continued.
The Council of Elders had long opposed punishing Arceo, relying on his noble lineage as justification. But after Zaveni’s failed rebellion, fear had changed their minds. Now, whenever they saw Kaiza, they wagged their metaphorical tails like obedient dogs.
“Prepare yourself to meet Lady Gaia soon.”
Arceo’s silver eyes widened.
“I don’t belong in this place!”
“You really think so?”
Years had passed since his imprisonment. The temple had been reformed with younger priests; Arceo’s influence had vanished. His noble family was ruined, and his former followers were gone. There was no place left for him in the world.
His body trembled before going limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. Kaiza looked down at him with detached indifference.
“Why have you come here?” Arceo rasped, lifting his head. “To personally inform me of my execution date?”
Red veins spread through his dim eyes.
“No! You’re afraid of me — afraid that I know the truth! You want to kill me and erase everything!”
He pointed a filthy, trembling finger through the bars.
“Everyone must know! You’re deceiving that poor rabbit-woman!”
For the first time, Kaiza’s cold mask cracked.
“Are you asking to die right now?” he growled.
But Arceo had already sensed his agitation.
“Wretched, vile creature! You’re the true sinner — mocking the gods and mankind alike!”
His deranged laughter rang through the dungeon.
It was pointless to argue with a madman doomed to die. Kaiza turned on his heel and left the cell. The dim light of the dungeon flickered across his hardened face.
Arceo’s words were all nonsense.
And yet —
Everyone must know! You’re deceiving that poor rabbit-woman!
That shrill cry clung to his ears like sticky tar.
That was when it began.
Kaiza closed his eyes tightly, memories of the distant past flooding back.
* * *
An age of war.
As the endless conflict over the Sephiros Plain dragged on, the head of the Barhad clan fell gravely ill and never awoke again.
“We need a successor,” someone declared.
Thus began the fierce battle for succession among his three sons — a ruthless struggle filled with schemes and betrayal.
“I can never tell what that bastard is thinking,” one of the brothers spat.
Kaiza was the odd one among them. His eyes were lifeless, devoid of desire. His brothers loathed those clear, glassy eyes that reflected nothing.
And as for his birth — that was even worse.
Legally, he was acknowledged as a legitimate heir, but everyone knew the truth. His mother was a nameless woman from the streets — not noble, not even of known origin. She had taken a large sum of money and fled Barhad, giving up all rights to her child.
“With filthy blood like that, what can you expect?”
Sometimes his brothers mocked him openly. Kaiza, however, remained indifferent.
“Do you even feel anything when I say that?”
And in truth, he didn’t. Beautiful flowers, fine food, gold and jewels, even beautiful women — nothing stirred his heart.
“You were a mistake from the moment you were born.”
Kaiza never denied it. His soul was barren, desiccated. No matter how much one watered dead soil, nothing would ever sprout.
Yet, regardless of his own will, others began to revere him — because of the prophecy spoken on the day of his birth.
“Thus speaks the Goddess Gaia: The barbarian who bears the blood of the progenitor shall descend upon the clan.”
In the central temple of Barhad burned the sacred, “Everlasting Flame,” an ancient fire said to occasionally reveal words of prophecy. Kaiza didn’t believe in such nonsense, but the prophecy nonetheless determined his fate.
“Him? The son of a whore? The one said to inherit the blood of the progenitor?”
A bastard of lowly birth should have remained in the gutter — yet he was hailed as the descendant of a divine ancestor.
“That filthy half-blood…”
The more people praised Kaiza, the more hatred his brothers felt. They, unlike him, were all born of the lawful wife — pure, noble bloodlines. To them, Kaiza was the greatest threat to their claim.
“Go to war. Meet an honorable death on the battlefield,” they said.
At fourteen, Kaiza was abducted and awoke on the front lines — a scheme his brothers had conspired together.
“Forward!”
The battlefield was the most merciless place on earth. No one cared who you were, how young you were, or how you died.
Even thrown into such hell, Kaiza remained calm. Life and death meant little to him.
“Die—!”
But perhaps because of that fabled ancestral blood, Kaiza’s instinct to survive was unyielding. Even without thought, his body moved — striking, killing, surviving. Each day, his hands were stained with blood, and yet he endured.
At first, soldiers mocked the boy, but over time, their eyes changed.
“Did you see that? He took down ten men by himself.”
“The way he moves his sword… I couldn’t even follow it with my eyes.”
On the battlefield — where pride, morality, and humanity meant nothing — survival was all that mattered.
And as the war dragged on, Kaiza’s reputation only grew higher and higher.
