Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 64: Rot Within continent

The Sylphyros Kingdom was a contrast to the cold, jagged mountains of Zephyros or the heavy stone walls of Solaris. It was a kingdom built deeply into the heart of a massive, ancient forest. The palaces were crafted from skewering, living trees and pale white marble, blending nature and elegant architecture into a beautiful, sprawling city.

But right now, the beauty of the forest was lost on Soltheia. She stood inside the grand Royal Infirmary of Sylphyros, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows. The room smelled strongly of crushed bitter herbs, clean linen, and copper blood.

Lying on the wooden cot in front of her was a seasoned royal guard. A Mana Aberration had brutally slashed his chest during their journey back to the capital two days ago. The wound was infected with a lingering, toxic black mist that refused to heal naturally. The dark magic was eating away at the man’s healthy flesh.

"Hold him steady," Soltheia ordered, her voice was surprisingly firm, lacking the cheerful, carefree tone she usually had.

Two junior medics grabbed the screaming guard by his shoulders, pinning him to the cot.

Soltheia took a deep breath. She closed her ocean-blue eyes and focused her mind. She didn’t have Luna’s terrifying gravity magic, and she couldn’t swing an iron sword like Kairos. Her magical affinity was Water, specifically the highly complex branch of cellular restoration.

She placed her bare hands hovering just an inch above the guard’s bleeding chest. A warm golden-green light flared from her palms.

"Extracting the rot," Soltheia whispered.

She didn’t just dump raw healing mana into the wound. That was what amateurs did. If she healed the skin while the dark mist was still inside, the corruption would just spread to his heart. Instead, she used her magic like a pair of tweezers. She sent tiny, precise threads of water mana into the man’s bloodstream, binding her magic to the invasive black mist.

With a sharp pull of her wrists, Soltheia extracted the corruption. A foul smelling glob of black liquid was pulled out of the man’s chest, hovering into the air. Soltheia quickly trapped it inside a sphere of clean water and tossed it into a nearby iron disposal basin. The black liquid hissed wildly, burning into gray ash.

Instantly, the guard stopped screaming. His breathing leveled out, and the angry red lines around his wound began to naturally close.

Soltheia stumbled backward, wiping a layer of cold sweat from her forehead. Her knees shook vehemently. Healing magic was taxing. It drained stamina just as fast as swinging a weapon.

"Precise work, Princess," the Head Medic said, bowing deeply. He looked at her with genuine awe. "You removed the dark root completely. The standard healers tried for hours and could not separate the mist from his blood."

"Make sure he drinks plenty of fluids," Soltheia panted, leaning against a wooden table to keep her balance, "and change his bandages every two hours. The corruption is gone, but his body is still terribly weak."

"Yes, Your Highness." Soltheia walked out of the infirmary, heading down the sunlit corridors of the palace, her hands were trembling.

She remembered sitting on the cold stone balcony in Solaris, holding Luna’s bleeding head in her lap while he nearly died to protect her. She remembered the crushing feeling of helplessness. She had sworn to herself on that terrible night that she would never be a burden again.

Luna was pushing himself to the absolute limit in a dark basement to keep his promise to her. Soltheia was going to do exactly the same thing. She was going to become the greatest support healer in the world. When the Great War truly began, her friends were not going to die. She simply wouldn’t allow it.

While Soltheia was fighting a war in the infirmary, her older sister was fighting an entirely different kind of battle in the council chambers.

Catherine Sylphyros sat still in a high backed wooden chair.

The grand Council of Leaves was in full session. The circular room was filled with dozens of the wealthiest, most powerful nobles in the kingdom. They wore elegant silk robes of green and gold, sipping fine wine from crystal glasses while they debated the future of their military.

Standing in the center of the room was Lord Malakor. He was a tall, perfumed aristocrat with precisely combed dark hair and an arrogant sneer.

"This is madness!" Lord Malakor shouted, slamming his fist against the central wooden podium. "King Raezon of Solaris is treating us like frightened children! He demands that we send half of our standing army to reinforce the neutral borders. He claims that Void Era phantoms are rising from the dirt!"

Several other nobles nodded in immediate agreement, muttering angrily.

"We have seen no such phantoms!" Malakor continued, pacing around the room. "The Sylphyros Kingdom is safe. The forest wards are intact. If we send our troops away, we leave our own cities defenseless against normal, everyday bandits. Solaris is simply trying to weaken our military presence to assert dominance over the continent. It is a pathetic political trick!"

Catherine watched him carefully, her silver blue eyes were sharp and devoid of emotion.

She knew Malakor was lying. Soltheia and her royal guards had been ambushed by a swarm of thirty Mana Aberrations just two days ago on the main road. Catherine had already presented the dead bodies of the corrupted beasts to this very council. Yet, Malakor was trying to convince the lords that the attack was a fake, orchestrated by Solaris mercenaries in disguise. He was trying to keep the Sylphyros army locked inside their borders.

Most politicians would argue with him. They would shout and present evidence. But Catherine was not a normal politician. She was a Vanguard General. The council room was lit by dozens of bright, hovering magical candles. Every single noble in the room cast a normal, shifting shadow on the marble floor. But Malakor’s shadow was still. It didn’t flicker with the candle light. It was too dark, too dense, and it seemed to slightly bleed into the cracks of the floorboards.

He is corrupted, Catherine realized with a cold, chilling clarity.

The Fallen wasn’t just sending mindless beasts to attack the roads. The ancient enemy was smart. He was planting agents inside the royal courts to spread doubt, delay the military response, and sabotage the kingdoms from the inside out.

Catherine didn’t say a single word. She stood up gracefully, smoothing the wrinkles from her pristine white dress.

"If the Council wishes to debate ghost stories, I will leave you to it," Catherine said smoothly, her voice cutting through the loud arguments. "I have a terrible headache. Excuse me."

She walked out of the council room without looking back, but she didn’t go to her private chambers. She walked down a quiet, secluded hallway that led to Lord Malakor’s personal study.

Catherine stood in the shadows near the doorway and waited with patience.

An hour later, the council meeting ended. Lord Malakor walked down the hallway, humming a cheerful tune. He unlocked the oak door to his study and stepped inside.

Before he could close the door, Catherine pushed her way into the room right behind him. She quietly closed the wooden door and locked it from the inside with a loud, metallic click.

Malakor jumped, spinning around in surprise. He placed a hand over his chest. "Princess Catherine! By the gods, you startled me. I thought you retired to your chambers with a headache."

"I lied," Catherine said.

She stood right by the locked door, blocking his only exit. Malakor offered a greasy, polite smile. "Well, how can I help you, Your Highness? If you have come to debate the military deployment, my stance remains firm. We cannot trust Solaris."

"I don’t want to debate," Catherine replied. She slowly took off her white silk gloves, tucking them into her pocket. "I want to know how long you have been taking orders from the black mist."

Malakor’s polite smile instantly vanished, his eyes widening slightly, but he forced a look of confusion onto his face. "I beg your pardon? I have no idea what you are talking about. Black mist? Are you feeling quite well, Princess?"

"You are a terrible actor, Malakor," Catherine sighed, looking at him with disgust. "When I presented the corpses of the Aberrations to the council yesterday, the other lords panicked. They screamed. They vomited. You didn’t even blink. You weren’t surprised by the monsters, because you already knew they were on the road. You gave them our travel route."

Malakor’s posture changed. The cowardly, arrogant aristocrat disappeared. He stood up straight. The skin around his eyes turned a bruised purple, and black mist began to slowly leak from his mouth as he exhaled.

"You are much too smart for your own good, little girl," Malakor hissed, his voice distorted, echoing with the same unnatural, heavy weight that the Black Mist Knights possessed.

He reached inside his expensive green robe and pulled out a jagged, corrupted dagger dripping with dark magic.

"The King promised me a throne in the new world," Malakor growled, taking a slow step toward her. "When the dark sky returns, this pathetic forest will burn to ash. But you won’t live to see it."

Malakor lunged forward with surprising, unnatural speed. He aimed the corrupted dagger directly at Catherine’s throat.

Catherine didn’t panic. She didn’t scream for the royal guards. She simply raised her right hand.

Catherine was a master of Ice magic. But unlike the wasteful blizzards that ordinary mages used, Catherine’s magic was refined.

She simply isolated the natural moisture in the air around Malakor’s body.

CRACK!!

In a fraction of a second, five thin, razor sharp needles of pure, condensed ice formed out of thin air. They shot forward faster than an arrow.

The ice needles drove straight through Malakor’s wrists, his shoulders, and his right knee, pinning him to the wooden bookshelf behind him. The corrupted dagger clattered harmlessly to the floor.

Malakor screamed in agony as the freezing ice bit deeply into his bones. He struggled wildly, trying to pull his arms free, but the ice was harder than solid steel.

Catherine walked slowly across the room. She stopped right in front of the bleeding, pinned traitor. She just looked terribly bored.

"You made a fatal miscalculation, Malakor," Catherine said, picking up the dark dagger from the floor with the tip of her boot and kicking it away. "You assumed I was just a politician. I am a Vanguard General. I kill monsters for a living."

She reached her bare hand into the inside pocket of his expensive robe. Malakor thrashed, his purple eyes wide with fear, but the ice held him still.

Catherine pulled out a small, jagged piece of black obsidian. It was pulsing with a toxic light. It was a corrupted communication stone, tied to the hive mind of the void army.

"Tell me," Catherine whispered, holding the stone up to his face. "What exactly were you ordered to do?"

"I will tell you nothing!" Malakor spat, black mist leaking from his teeth. "The King sees everything! He is already testing the lines! You cannot stop the eclipse!"

Catherine sighed. She casually flicked her wrist. Another ice needle formed, driving straight through Malakor’s left thigh. He screamed louder, tears of pain streaming down his face.

"I have a very busy schedule today, Malakor," Catherine said calmly. "I need to review troop deployments, and I need to visit my sister in the infirmary. I do not have time to play games. If you do not tell me the strategy of the shadow army, I will slowly freeze the blood inside your veins until your heart shatters like a cheap glass cup."

The sheer, terrifying coldness in her silver blue eyes broke him. Malakor realized he was dealing with a ruthless executioner.

"The leylines!" Malakor sobbed, his head dropping forward in defeat. "They are testing the leylines! They aren’t trying to conquer the borders yet. They are mapping the ambient magic flow connecting the three kingdoms!"

Catherine frowned deeply. She looked at the obsidian stone in her hand. She left Malakor pinned to the bookshelf and walked out of the study, locking the door behind her. She would send the royal inquisitors to deal with the traitor later. Right now, she has a puzzle to solve.

CRANK!!

Ten minutes later, Catherine pushed open the wooden doors of the royal library.

Soltheia was already waiting for her, looking exhausted but clean, having finished her shift in the infirmary.

"Did you find out what the council decided?" Soltheia asked, walking over to a large oak table.

"The council is compromised," Catherine stated bluntly, tossing the corrupted obsidian stone onto the table. "Malakor was a cultist. The Fallen is planting spies in our courts."

Soltheia gasped, taking a step back from the dark stone. "A cultist? Here in the palace?"

"It gets worse," Catherine said, unrolling an ancient parchment map of the entire continent across the table.

She picked up a red ink pen.

"Velanor contacted me earlier today through the jade stone," Catherine explained, pointing to the jagged mountains of the Zephyros Kingdom on the map. She drew a red circle. "He was attacked by a swarm of Aberrations at the Whispering Pass."

She moved the pen to the Solaris borders and drew another red circle over the village of Oakhaven. "Kairos and the others fought a swarm here yesterday."

Finally, she drew a third red circle on the main road leading to their own capital in Sylphyros. "And we were ambushed here."

Soltheia frowned, looking at the three red circles spread across the vast continent. "They are attacking random locations. They are just trying to cause chaos."

"No," Catherine said, her eyes narrowing as she studied the map. "The Fallen don’t do anything randomly. Malakor said they are testing the magical leylines. They are looking for the central weak point."

Catherine placed the tip of her red pen on the first circle. She drew a straight line connecting the Zephyros mountains to the Solaris village. Then she drew a line connecting Solaris to the Sylphyros road. Finally, she connected Sylphyros back to Zephyros, forming a triangle across the continent.

She placed a finger on the exact, dead center of the triangle. Soltheia leaned forward, her breath catching in her throat as she realized what was located at that exact spot.

"The Neutral Zone," Soltheia whispered in horror.

"The Great Dam," Catherine corrected her, her voice grim and devoid of hope.

The Great Dam was an ancient magical structure built in the dead center of the continent, long before the three kingdoms were officially founded. It held back an enormous reservoir of glowing, magical water. It was the heart of the continent. The dam constantly filtered and pushed ambient, natural mana through the underground rivers, supplying the lifeblood of magic to Solaris, Zephyros, and Sylphyros.

If the Great Dam was destroyed, the rivers would run dry. The ambient mana in the air would vanish. The entire continent would be plunged into a permanent mana vacuum.

"They aren’t trying to fight our armies," Catherine realized, a cold shiver running down her spine. "They are trying to cut off our air supply. If the dam falls, no mage in the world will be able to cast a single spell. We will be completely defenseless."

Catherine grabbed the polished jade communication stone from her pocket. She squeezed it tightly, sending a frantic pulse of magic into the network.

Velanor! Kairos! Catherine projected her thoughts loudly, dropping all of her usual polite composure. I need you to hear me right now! Forget the border patrols. The shadow army is marching on the Neutral Zone. They are going to destroy the Great Dam!

****

The Great War was no longer a distant threat hiding in the shadows. The enemy had finally revealed their true target, and the Vanguard Generals were entirely out of time.