Meanwhile, just at the gate of the massive eastern wall of Silver Blade City, beneath the pale hue of the dying sun, Nolan was once again at odds with authority.
"Let me through," Nolan said, arms crossed, his voice insistent but somehow still casual, the way someone might demand a coffee refund after one too many wrong orders.
"No," replied the knight guarding the gate, voice like a brick wall.
"But I have to leave."
"No."
Nolan narrowed his eyes. "Listen, I'm not asking to leave forever. I just need to head out, take a stroll, touch some grass, feel the world, contemplate life outside this cursed rock of a city for a couple hours."
"No."
"Do you speak anything else besides 'no'?"
The guard stared at him blankly. "Yes."
"Then use it!"
"No."
"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF?!" Nolan half-shouted, throwing his hands up.
"Look, I understand duty. I understand loyalty. I even understand strict gatekeeping protocols and magical lockdowns—somewhat. But I don't understand this level of inflexibility unless you're secretly a golem built to be annoying."
The guard, expression never changing, replied, "There is a Level Three containment order placed by the Tri-City High Command due to a regional catastrophe involving unexplained annihilation of adventuring parties across key borderlands. All cities including Silver Blade, Derrazel, Fentanon, and Vashon have received instructions to restrict all outbound and inbound movement unless sanctioned by top-level clearance."
"That doesn't even SOUND real."
"It's real."
"Who died?"
"Everyone."
Nolan blinked. "...Excuse me?"
The guard's tone remained level, almost eerily so. "All parties sent to investigate the phenomena have not returned. Diviners have reported signal loss. Surveillance devices disintegrated upon approach. Mages sent as observers lost all spiritual contact within minutes of crossing certain unknown perimeters. The phenomenon has no visual or elemental profile. Anyone who enters, disappears."
"Oh, great. So the whole kingdom is turning into a cosmic horror novel." Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I'm stuck in it. In this city. Full of judgmental nobles. Tomorrow is the event. If my class fails—"
"Then it would not be surprising. They are terrible."
"I KNOW they are terrible!" Nolan exploded. "But they're my terrible students now! I told them to stand up, fight, represent! If they lose, I lose. They'll say I corrupted them, manipulated them, misled them! Do you know what happens to people in this world who do that kind of thing and don't have a family name?"
"Execution?"
"No, worse—reputation loss."
The guard blinked. "That… is not worse."
"It is to me!"
Nolan's voice dropped, frustration curling around every word. "On Earth City where I came from, if someone fails a job, they change careers. In this city? They change species. Via dark rituals. Or die in caves filled with flesh bats and sentient vines that speak Latin."
"Sounds exaggerated."
"It's NOT!"
Another guard walked by, stared at Nolan, whispered, "Is that the weirdo teacher named Nolan?"
"I heard that!" Nolan snapped.
"You were supposed to!" the guard called back.
Nolan groaned. "This place… this cursed, unfair, unreasonable, and mana-obsessed wasteland…!" He pressed both palms against the cold metal gate. "Damn it. What timing! What kind of world pulls this kind of timing on a guy trying to survive?!"
He turned away from the gate, defeated. His plan to escape before dawn, to disappear quietly before his students faced the trials, was crumbling.
He didn't expect them to pass. No, he had only wanted to show them the starting line, then vanish. Let them stumble. Let the city mock them. It'd be better than dying because some noble child couldn't accept failure.
"I'm going to die," Nolan muttered to himself. "And I haven't even spent all the money I scammed off them. Life is unfair."
He rubbed his face.
Then, something shifted.
A sound.
Barely there.
Like a whisper.
"...open the gate…"
Nolan paused.
He looked up at the wall.
Nothing.
The guards were standing as they had before—silent, unmoving, bored.
"...open the gate…"
It came again.
Faint. Like the voice of someone out of breath. Desperate. Wounded.
Nolan turned sharply to the nearest guard. "Hey, hey—did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That voice. Someone's asking to open the gate."
"No one said anything."
"I'm telling you—someone's out there!"
The guard looked through the slit in the gate window. "I don't see anyone. There's nothing."
"But I heard it," Nolan insisted. "I'm a Ninth Stage Mana Knight. You think I don't know what I hear?"
The guard snorted. "Plenty of Mana Knights hear things after too much Silverroot brew."
"I'M NOT DRUNK!"
And then—
The voice came again.
But this time, not a whisper.
A roar.
"I SAID… OPEEEEEEEEN… THE GAAAAAAATE!"
The words thundered through the stone. The gate shook. Dust fell from the hinges. Every single guard froze. The man beside Nolan dropped his spear in shock.
The entire wall's atmosphere changed.
That wasn't just a voice. That was mana-powered speech—shouted with force, with urgency, with sheer overwhelming willpower.
"Holy hell," Nolan muttered. "That's not a normal voice."
"No… it's not." The captain of the wall guard appeared suddenly, cloak flapping. "That was vocal reinforcement… at the peak of the Eleventh Stage, maybe higher."
And from beyond the gate—footsteps.
Heavy, controlled, yet rushed.
A group of knights ran to the lever mechanism.
But the captain raised his hand. "Wait! Don't open it yet."
Within moments, the gate's latch creaked.
And from the other side, a figure stepped through—a cloaked man, perhaps middle-aged, with wind-swept hair, dust-covered armor, and a chestplate etched with the high sigil of Vashon City.
Blood trickled from his left gauntlet, and mana steamed off his body like mist on a forge.
He stepped forward, eyes burning.
"Whatever you do," he growled, "do not let anyone enter or let anyone leave this city. Not tonight."
The wind howled through the high stone ramparts of Silver Blade City's eastern wall, echoing with a low, unnatural groan.
Nolan stared at the cloaked figure who had just entered the city, whose voice had nearly torn apart the mana fibers in the air minutes earlier. His chest still rattled from that sheer force of will.
He took a step toward the captain of the wall guard. "What the hell just happened? Who is that guy? And what did he mean—don't let anyone in or out?"
The captain didn't even glance at Nolan. His gaze was locked forward, sweat beading across his forehead despite the cold night wind.
Nolan pressed again. "Oi. I'm asking you a question."
The captain finally turned, his eyes bloodshot, his aura strained. "Go back, sir. This is not your concern."
"I'm not a civilian," Nolan growled. "I'm a teacher—well, kind of. That's not the point. Just tell me what that guy meant. What's breaching the barrier?"
The captain's voice was stone. "If the barrier is broken, we die. And if you want to help, then stay here. Guard this wall. Maybe swing that little sword of yours around when the unknown creature of the night tries to make a chew toy out of us." He glared. "So, are you going to help, or are you going to run?"
"In hell," Nolan said, his voice sharp and immediate. "Do I look like the kind of person who volunteers to die for a city that charges ten silver a night just to exist?"
The captain scoffed. "Then go. Leave. Coward."
Nolan flipped him off with perfect form—middle finger pointed like a wand, wrist cocked at the exact angle for maximum insult.
The captain didn't understand the gesture, but the weight behind it tickled something in his instincts.
Some kind of curse, maybe. He narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
"What a weird ass outsider," he muttered under his breath as Nolan turned and walked away.