Shadow Weaver: Sole Heir Of The Night-Chapter 179: Happenings

"I will take my leave now."

The old royal rose slowly from his seat, joints creaking beneath layers of ceremonial silk, his expression carved from something far colder than courtesy. He did not wait for permission. He simply turned and walked out of Captain Vincent’s office as though the room itself were beneath him.

The heavy doors shut with a muted thud.

Clearly, he had no intention of divulging any real information to the royal guards.

After all, the royal guard was a force, not a family. And in a kingdom like this, forces fractured easily. Even men in the same uniform could kneel to entirely different masters once the armor came off.

Vincent in particular was an enigma.

He never displayed loyalty in public. Never praised the crown too loudly. Never opposed it either. He smiled at everyone the same way, offered the same polite nods, kept the same steady tone. It was impossible to tell whether he was devoted to the High God, to the throne, to the kingdom, or to something else entirely.

"Okay, fortune to you."

Vincent leaned back in his chair and shook his head faintly, the smile on his face thin and unreadable. The air in his office felt heavier after the old man’s departure, as though something invisible had been left behind.

Gods were a rare commodity in the entire universe.

To stumble upon a divine being was a probability so absurd it bordered on myth. One in a billion, some scholars said. Others claimed even worse odds. Entire civilizations could rise and fall without ever witnessing one.

And yet on Gaia, under the dominion of Her Highness, the official count stood at 1028 divine beings.

One thousand and twenty eight gods.

Not myths. Not legends. Not distant stars in scripture.

Living forces.

Each of them aligned to a faction.

Some pledged openly. Some quietly. Some were compelled. Power gathered around banners, and banners gathered around power. The stronger the faction, the more gods it held, and the more gods it held, the more its shadow stretched across the continent.

The strongest faction was naturally the royal guard.

With a staggering 512 gods within its retainers, it was not merely a faction. It was a controlled force. A weapon forged and held directly by the High God herself. Anyone from the myriad of forces could be mandated to join or leave at her discretion. Allegiance there was not requested. It was assigned.

Half of Gaia’s divine population stood under that banner.

The ground itself felt steadier knowing it.

The second force was the Freedom Party.

It possessed 128 gods within its ranks. A far cry from the overwhelming dominance of the royal guard, yet still terrifying in scale. One hundred and twenty eight divine beings bound by shared ideology rather than direct mandate.

They were organized. Vocal. Strategic.

And if they truly desired it, 128 gods could reduce a solar system to drifting ash within a handful of revolutions. Not through chaos, but through careful, deliberate annihilation.

The third faction, to which the old bastard who had just departed belonged, was the Royal Frost Alliance.

Fifty seven gods.

The number dipped sharply after that. Smaller factions followed, some led by demi gods, some by ancient bloodlines clinging to relevance, others by ambitious upstarts who had secured a single divine patron and called it influence.

Politics on Gaia was not fought with speeches alone.

It was fought with beings who could bend oceans, fracture moons, and rewrite climates.

The old man had been careful.

He knew better than to reveal anything about the Terra Turtles. The chances that any given god belonged to the Freedom Party or some rival faction were far too high. Information was more volatile than any divine artifact. In the wrong hands, it could ignite wars.

Vincent drummed his fingers once against the desk.

"Contact Minister Fin and tell him he should bring his boys in for a round of questioning."

His voice was calm, almost casual, but his eyes had sharpened. The matter felt deeper than a simple report. There were too many silences. Too many convenient omissions.

If the Terra Turtles were involved, then someone powerful was shielding them.

And that alone was dangerous.

Unfortunately,

This was exactly what the old man wanted.

Somewhere in the streets below, far from the polished floors of the captain’s office, the old royal had already settled into a modest inn. It was positioned deliberately, its highest balcony hovering almost directly over the guard outpost.

He stood there now, robes stirring in the wind, looking down at the movement below. Guards entering. Messengers rushing. Orders being relayed.

A slow smile crept across his aged face.

The bait had been swallowed.

.

.

.

.

However

"You’re Enzo Malvaran?"

Inside an official building buried somewhere within the slums, a man with aged eyes flipped through a stack of documents. The room smelled faintly of ink and damp wood, sunlight leaking in through a cracked window that barely pushed back the gloom.

His gaze lingered on the parchment before him, then lifted slowly, studying Enzo with quiet amusement. A warm, almost nostalgic smile tugged at his lips.

He was an old friend of that bastard Fin.

Back in the day, when the Lokian faction still carried weight and its name stirred unease, the two of them had roamed the territories like untamed storms. If someone offended them, they did not forget. They did not forgive. They simply returned the insult tenfold.

Those were reckless years.

"Good. Your vetting process is concluded."

He stamped the document with deliberate care, the sound echoing softly in the otherwise empty office.

"You are number 120 on the participants list. Here’s your badge. It will allow you to cross into the main city and Ice Castel concurrently."

The badge was heavier than it looked. Cold metal, etched with divine script that shimmered faintly under the light. It was not just permission. It was recognition.

Being friends with your fellow gods was a blessing.

Doors opened faster. Procedures shortened. Suspicion thinned. A single name could cut through weeks of bureaucracy like a blade through silk.

Of course, having friends also meant having enemies.

Influence was never neutral. It tilted scales. And those on the losing side always remembered.

"Thank you."

The three of them bowed in unison, gripping their badges tightly as they stepped out of the building together.

The slums greeted them with noise and dust. Narrow streets twisted between crumbling structures, vendors shouting over one another while children darted through the crowd like restless shadows. The polished authority of the main city felt worlds away from here.

Number 120.

It was not the highest rank, nor the lowest. But it was enough. Enough to step onto the stage. Enough to be seen.

What remained now was simple.

Wait for the competition to begin.

When it did, they would showcase what they had in stall. Not borrowed strength. Not borrowed names. Their own power. Their own claim to relevance in a world ruled by gods and politics.

Of course, the world typically had more in store for them than they anticipated.

"Halt!"

The sharp command sliced through the street noise.

Two royal guardsmen stepped forward, armor polished, cloaks falling neatly behind their shoulders. Their presence alone caused nearby pedestrians to scatter instinctively, conversations dying mid sentence.

"You are being required at the royal guard office. Please make yourself available."

Their tone was calm, measured.

But there was no mistaking it.

This was not a request.

Unfortunately for them, they weren’t the only ones searching for Enzo and his friends at that moment.

"Move!"

The shout came like thunder.

Three tech augmented horses burst down the narrow street, metal plating fused into muscle and bone, hooves striking sparks as they tore across the stone. Steam hissed from vents along their flanks. Their eyes glowed with a mechanical crimson that did not blink.

They blew past the royal guards in a blur.

Robes snapped violently in the wind as three masked riders leaned low over their mounts, laughter spilling from behind carved masks. It was not sane laughter. It was sharp, delighted, almost eager.

The guards barely had time to turn.

In the next breath, ropes shot outward, coiling around armored torsos with unnatural precision. The world flipped for them. Steel screeched against stone as they were dragged across the street, crashing into stalls, scattering fruit and splintering wood.

The crowd erupted into screams.

Before Enzo or the others could draw a weapon, before instinct could even settle into motion, cold flooded their bodies.

It started at the spine.

A freezing pulse that spread outward through nerves and veins, locking muscles in place. Their limbs refused to answer. Their vision dimmed at the edges as a heavy drowsiness crushed down on them like deep water.

This was not natural sleep.

It was forced.

Their knees buckled. The world tilted sideways. Darkness swallowed them whole.

"Confirm."

A fourth figure stepped from the alley behind them. Calm. Methodical.

He held a small device no larger than a palm, its surface lit by faint blue lines of script. One by one, he positioned it before their faces. The device emitted a soft chime each time, flashing green.

Identity verified.

"Bag them up."

His tone carried no excitement. Only business.

Bounties from the Freedom Party were always lucrative. Generous enough to retire on if one was careful. Generous enough to risk offending the wrong people.

He did not know why they wanted exalted weavers.

He did not care.

Coin was coin.

His men moved quickly, practiced hands sealing suppression cuffs around wrists and ankles before hauling the unconscious trio into reinforced transport sacks lined with insulating runes. Even in sleep, divine blood could be troublesome.

"Let’s get out of here."

He scanned the rooftops once, unease prickling faintly beneath his composure. The city crawled with divine beings. Eyes everywhere. Agendas layered upon agendas.

One could never be too cautious.

Within seconds, the riders mounted again. The augmented horses reared, metal limbs flexing, before launching forward in a spray of sparks and smoke. They vanished down the winding streets as quickly as they had arrived.

Silence crept back in slowly.

Shattered wood. Groaning guards. Whispers spreading like wildfire.

And above it all, from the shadowed edge of a distant rooftop, a figure watched.

His smile was not a smile.

It curved his lips without warmth, without joy.

He did not interfere.

After all, this was precisely what they all wanted.