Snow fell thick like veils of silence, each flake a signature of the cold atop the mountain in its most solemn form. The wind sliced across the slopes with the precision of a divine blade, carrying the ancient sound of nature warring against time itself.
At the top of the cliff, Vael stood watching.
Petrified like a statue carved from the night itself.
The white vastness was beautiful, if not stained by unworthy presences.
"You've grown too bold over the years" he said, his voice as calm as the ticking of an ancestral clock that knew each second would carry someone to their death
He turned. Behind him, the mist danced. Thick. Alive. And wrong.
"Has our house stayed quiet for too long? Long enough that even cockroaches think they can march on the throne"
Then, footsteps.
They emerged from the fog, one by one, like actors in a theater of ruin.
The first voice cut through like satin over glass.
"If we don't make our presence felt in the world... what legacy would we have? Isn't that right, Butler Vael"
The figure stepped into view. A man with white hair and predatory eyes. Black clothes stitched with runes, chest bare, and a massive bastard sword on his back that seemed to breathe with hunger. He smiled like someone who burns kingdoms just to watch the ashes.
Behind him, a procession of chaos:
– A brute wielding an axe that looked like a walking wall
– A golden duelist with two katanas gleaming like venom
– A boy with an innocent face and a cursed staff pulsing like a necrotic heart
And more. Many more.
A parade of armed nightmares, an orchestra of anarchy.
Vael looked at them as one would examine weeds in an imperial garden.
"Who had the unfortunate idea to send... this"
Then, a smaller figure spun through the snow like a jester at a royal funeral. In his hands, twin daggers, thin as inconvenient truths.
"Oh, crystal butler" the man said with an ironic smile "You know we won't say"
Vael snapped his fingers slowly, adjusting his gloves as if wiping dust from time itself.
"Protocol only" he replied
And then, he smiled.
The kind of smile that should be forbidden.
The kind that precedes massacres written in poetry.
"Your time is up, pompous butler" yelled the man with daggers, laughing as if unaware of the stench of his own grave
He charged.
Fast as a promise of tragedy.
The snow exploded beneath his feet. The air whistled with the cut of blades. Victory already danced in the assassin's eyes.
But time... hesitated.
The world stopped.
The man's eyes widened. His lungs froze.
And then he realized: he was already dead.
His body dropped without glory, without a scream, without even the sound of a blow.
Vael did not move.
He simply blew a fleck of snow off his shoulder.
"What a waste of oxygen"
The others froze.
From the back, someone muttered
"He used shadows... Clean. Silent. The soul didn't even have time to react"
The woman with the katanas narrowed her eyes
"Who was the idiot that brought that clown"
But no one answered.
Because the wind changed.
The shadows rose like furious serpents. They spun around Vael like war veils, like a king's cloak woven from fear itself.
He took one step.
And it was enough.
Five charged at once.
"Typical" sighed Vael, bored "Attacking as a group... no formation"
The first, a swordsman as fast as lightning, flew toward him. The katana sliced the air. A line of death.
Vael simply leaned aside.
A wisp of shadow wrapped around the man's ankle, snapping it with a dry crack.
The snow muffled his scream.
"Speed without purpose... is just wind"
Two came from the sides, trying to flank him.
Vael vanished.
He didn't run.
He disappeared.
As if reality itself forgot him for a second.
He reappeared behind them, hands like scalpels dancing through the air. One clean cut at the tendon. One precise touch between vertebrae.
Two bodies fell like leaves cut in autumn.
"Every attack reveals a weakness"
The brute came with the axe.
Vael raised one finger.
A drop of blood dripped from his nail, floated in the air like a living ruby, and unfolded into a crimson whip.
He cracked it.
The axe flew, and the man collapsed, eyes wide.
"In blood... lies the secret of the d'Argêntea nobility.
Tool.
Weapon.
Sentence"
The last one hesitated. Young. Trembling.
Vael stopped.
He looked at him like a master facing a student who entered the wrong class.
"Shame, boy. A weapon without intent is just wood. And you... are just fear"
He growled.
Just that.
But the whispered roar awakened the oldest terror in the world.
Not in the ears.
In the soul.
The boy dropped his sword. Fell to his knees. Cried.
Vael approached.
Knelt beside him.
Almost... gentle.
"You can still run"
And the boy ran. Without looking back.
As if his sanity depended on it.
Vael stood.
Faced the ones who remained.
And his shadow grew.
"You came to hunt a wolf..."
The shadows rose like living walls.
Spun around him like a storm.
Like a crown made of fear.
"...but walk like sheep"
He snapped his fingers.
The darkness shattered like a torn mantle.
The ground trembled.
The snow evaporated.
His eyes glowed like two buried suns.
"If you wish to continue... know that I am a teacher"
He opened his arms.
"But my lessons..."
The shadows armed themselves like spears.
"...have a price"