Sagat stood motionless in the meeting hall, a tower of red Crocodile Abyss armour, Rank 6 plates still scarred from the Rhodarian Prairie. A one-metre battle-axe hung across his back, its Tiger Claw blade glinting like it was already thirsty.
Twenty hardened mercenaries knelt or stood trembling before him. The ones who had chased a curly-haired thief through half of Coronas looked ready to piss themselves.
Jackal — face swollen, lip split — finished his report.
“…so I paid the Major every coin we collected this year just to walk away without cuffs.”
Sagat stared at him, saying nothing. The air itself grew heavy with silence, thick and agonising. Then, Sagat moved, his hand raising, lazy as a cat stretching.
BAM!
The backhand detonated like a cannon. Jackal flew, crashed, and embedded half a foot into the stone floor. When he crawled up on shattered knees, the right side of his face was a ruined mask: cheekbone caved, half his teeth scattered like dice, eye a red-purple balloon.
Sagat didn't look down. His gaze swept the terrified faces of Jackal's men. Two mercenaries, losing control of their bladders, broke ranks and bolted toward the door in a blind panic.
Sagat didn't move from the spot. His hand merely twitched, his fingers forming a claw in the air. Outside of his body, a giant, ghostly claw, like that of a great celestial Tiger, materialised, the size of a wagon. It swiped once in the direction of the fugitives. The men were immediately crushed against the wall, all their bones snapped like dry kindling, and they died in a matter of seconds, despair clear in their eyes.
No one else moved.
Sagat began to walk among the rest, voice low and patient, the tone a butcher uses with livestock.
“Mistake one.”
CRACK — a mercenary’s arm bent backwards at the elbow.
“You left the jade box unguarded. You trusted your own lair was safe”
“Mistake two.”
RIP — an ear and half a nose torn away in one pull.
“The rest of you grew negligent. You grew lazy in your own lair.”
“Mistake three.”
SQUELCH — an eye popped free between thumb and forefinger.
“You ran all over Coronas, and still couldn't capture a petty thief.”
One by one, hands, feet, knees, and faces were ruined. The floor became a butcher’s canvas. Above Sagat’s head, the phantom of a roaring tiger flickered, his Will made manifest, hungry.
“And worst of all, you were tricked by a twerp and failed to capture three other brats and a nobody, forcing me to endure that imbecile Apollos coming to blackmail me!”
When the screaming stopped, Sagat turned back to Jackal, who was dragging himself up, bloodied and broken.
“Do you at least know who they are?”
Jackal spat blood and teeth. “Captain Apollos gave us names. The three brats and the tall one arrived today with Raye’s caravan. Staying at the Broken Wheel Inn. The thief is Ailan, twelve, a slum rat. Sister Eliana works as a maid in House Renato.”
A man nearby, one of Sagat’s men who had returned from Radon Woods, dared to speak. “Boss, we can go to that inn and finish them off now.”
Sagat looked at him like he was something stuck to his boot. “I am truly surprised we haven't had problems before with imbeciles like you. Major Serena is watching us closely. The tall one, Elisha, is Army-bound. Any accident now falls back on us. We cannot afford any setbacks.” Sagat contained his rage and muttered. “Don't believe that because a Tiger doesn't roar, it's a sick kitten. We will have our revenge. But only after the business with Rhodar is finished.”
He leaned in, voice dropping to a lover’s whisper.
“Right now, the only thing that matters is the jade box. We get it back tonight, quietly, or Rolando Du Sakar will skin every last one of us and use the hides for drumheads.”
Sagat straightened.
“Jackal. One last chance. Take four men. Kidnap the sister. She sleeps outside the Renato estate; we already own the night guard; just use the usual contact. Bring her to the cave hideout before dawn. The boy will come running.”
Jackal bowed, blood dripping from his chin. “And after?”
Sagat’s smile was all teeth.
“After the deal is closed and Rolando pays us in Sakar gold, we vanish across the border. Coronas can burn for all I care. These streets will remember the Ferocious Tigers as the last thing they ever feared.”
The mercenaries scattered to obey.
Jackal, fueled by contained fury and the agony of his broken face, left toward the Renato Family Mansion. The preparations were simple: bribe the guard, seize the maid.
Jackal thought with contempt.
Captain Apollos left Sagat’s compound with a satisfied smirk. He had given the Tiger everything: names, inn, caravan route.
Now it was time to collect his own interest.
He descended three flights of damp stone stairs beneath a nondescript tavern in the old quarter and knocked twice on an iron door. A slit opened, a hooded eye inspected him, then the door swung inward.
The basement smelled of ink, smoke, and old blood. Shelves of ledgers, maps pinned with red thread, hooded figures moving like ghosts. Apollos didn’t know this was one of the hidden posts. To him, it was just 'the Exchange'
Apollos’s mood was black. His official channels had yielded next to nothing on "House Casas". The Army’s record implied the line was either lost or fabricated.
He slid a fat purse across the table.
“Everything you have on a tall youth named Elisha and three orphan boys travelling with him. They claim to be from ‘House Casas’.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The hooded broker disappeared behind a curtain. Minutes later, he returned with a thin folder.
“House Casas — extinct minor noble line from the Frontier, records burned two decades ago. No living members registered.
The youth, however… We know him. Calls himself Elisha of Radom. Orphan. Spent the last year bouncing between Teras, Karpatia, and Coronas. Worked security for Raye’s caravans more than once. Distinctive lion mane, Praetorian talent already showing. Unless he’s a master of disguise, the boy is lying about his house.”
Apollos’s smile widened, slow and cruel.
“Perfect.”
He leaned forward.
“I can’t touch him directly, since Major Serena has her eye on him. But I want a message delivered. Something… permanent. The orphanage in Radom, where he grew up. Burn it. Make the children disappear. Leave no witnesses.”
The hooded man didn’t even blink.
“Money solves everything, Captain. Consider it arranged. Personal attention from us. Half price, even. Call it professional courtesy, a shadowy smile barely visible under the hood.”
Apollos dropped another purse, heavier this time.
“Make it hurt.”
The broker bowed.
A sealed order was already being written:
Team dispatched to Radom:
- 1 Centurion
- 1 Grandmaster
- 3 Masters
More than enough for a backwater orphanage.
They were certain of their assessment. They were already sending men to Radom to investigate the sudden silence from their trusted agents (Francis, Kael, and Rhys), and eliminating a minor threat for a future Army asset was an efficient use of resources. This mission was overkill, a simple exercise.
Man Proposes.
They did not know the orphanage sat in the shadow of Myra’s kitchen. They did not know the children had already survived worse than fire. They did not know that in trying to bury Elisha’s past, they were walking straight into a monster’s den.
AEON disposes.
In the Broken Wheel Inn, the orphans were already gathered around a rickety table, heads together, voices low.
Mikael spoke first. “Best move: reach Commander Sebastian through Major Serena at the garrison. Tell him everything about Sagat, Rolando, and the Fruit. Sebastian is usually at Mount David Fortress, but with Dragon General Varona in the region, we don’t know his exact position. Speed is everything.”
The others nodded. If Serena couldn’t be reached quickly, Plan B was to hire the Night Crows through Raye: spread word the Tigers had found treasure in Radon Woods and let the two bands tear each other apart while the orphans followed the winner to the lair.
Everyone was calm, thinking they were in the dark while the Tigers were in the light.
They were wrong. They were too late right from the start.
Word did not spread slowly… it was announced. All the guests on the first floor of the inn were talking about the same thing: an assault had occurred at the Renato House. “Eliana, the Renato maid, was kidnapped last night. Blood on the sheets. They say she fought hard.”
Curiously, the rumour had spread too quickly for something the noble family would usually suppress. Ailan went white as chalk.
“Eliana… Eliana…”
He bolted before anyone could grab him, bare feet slapping cobblestones, tears already flying.
Nerion and the others sprinted after him. Mikael vanished onto the rooftops. He knew there was foul play involved.
Ailan was fifty meters onto the main thoroughfare when he spotted him: a man, standing rigid in his path, about fifty meters away. The mercenary’s face was half-bandaged, a mask of resentment, and one eye was a grotesque, bloodshot red balloon.
Ailan didn't need to guess. He knew it was Jackal.
Elisha stopped the kids before they could burst onto the avenue. Mikael, faster than the eye could follow, melted onto the roofs and concealed himself, observing the whole scene.
Jackal slowly raised his hand. A lock of soft brown hair fluttered between his scarred fingers.
Ailan’s world shattered. In that moment of visceral, sick recognition, he understood: the Ferocious Tigers had not just found him—they had already acted. Before Ailan could even carry out his plans against the Rhodarians, Sagat had countered with a terrifying, masterful move.
Jackal didn’t speak. He simply pointed to a narrow alley, turned, and walked toward the city gate.
Ailan stood rooted, repeating the same broken mantra. “My fault… my fault… my fault…”
Mikael, invisible on the tiles above, flicked a small leather pouch down to Elisha and melted after Jackal like smoke.
Nerion, Lucca, and Silvestre broke their cover and approached the distraught Ailan, leading him back into one of the alleys, preventing him from running blindly after Jackal.
Elisha slipped into the alley once the street cleared. A scrap of parchment waited, weighed down by a pebble.
Elisha read it twice, face grim, then tucked it away.
Ailan, now slumped against the cold stone, was inconsolable. All their planning, all their moralising, had been wiped away by Sagat’s preemptive strike. They could not ask for help from Serena or the Night Crows now.
However, Sagat didn't know the full reality either. He didn't know Ailan now had the support of the orphans. He certainly didn't know that Jackal was being followed by Mikael, who was being led directly to the very hideout prepared for the deal with Rolando Du Sacar.
Nor did Sagat know that Commander Sebastian De Renato was currently just a few kilometres from Coronas, on his way to the Radon Woods with Dragon General Varona in tow, keen to investigate the explosion craters. The information about the incident at his own mansion would soon reach his ears, which would lead the Commander to order an exhaustive search while continuing toward the Forest.
Fifty kilometres deep in Radon Woods, where the air itself tasted of ozone and old blood, Mount Karol’s northwestern flank hid a scar in the rock. A narrow fissure, half-covered by hanging vines and the bones of beasts that had wandered too close, marked the only open entrance to Sagat’s lair.
Two sentries lounged at the mouth, half-asleep, until the crunch of boots on gravel snapped them upright. Sagat strode out of the dawn mist, red armour dulled by dew, twenty veterans at his back. They moved like they owned the forest, because, for years, they had.
Inside, the tunnels glowed with soft blue-white light: luminous pearls the size of fists, pried from abyssal leviathans, set into the walls every ten paces. The air was cool, damp, laced with the iron stink of old blood and the faint rot of things left too long in the dark. Echoes carried far; every footstep sounded like a warning.
Sagat never slowed. He knew every twist by heart: the false dead-end that dropped into a spike pit, the narrow choke where a single man could hold off a hundred, the flooded gallery that hid a second exit straight into Rhodar territory. Five kilometres of labyrinth, carved and shaped by his own hands since the day he was still a Praetorian chasing glory.
He reached the southernmost chamber.
The guards there straightened, eyes sliding away from the cage in the centre.
She was chained to an iron ring bolted into living stone. Star-metal links, Rank 7, worth more than most towns, bit into wrists already raw. Long black hair spilt over pale shoulders like spilt ink. Even bruised, even starving, she looked carved from moonlight and murder: high cheekbones, copper-flecked eyes that promised ruin, lips made for sin or slaughter. A nation-ending beauty, bound and furious.
Several fresh corpses lay crumpled nearby, necks twisted, limbs torn free. No one stood closer than four metres anymore.
Sagat stopped just outside that invisible circle. “You know, if you keep looking at me like that, I might not resist mounting you.” His voice was mild, almost affectionate. However, not even three times more courage would make him dare touch her. For good reason as well.
Sagat’s mind flashed back to the day of her capture in the Radon Woods, moments after the explosion.
His mind flashed to the day of her capture, moments after the explosion in Radon Woods.
He had found only a small dark-pinkish stone in the first crater. Deeper in, they had spotted her: staggering, half-dead, pulling a large dark-golden stone from the rubble. Easy prey, they’d thought.
Two men were dismembered in the blink of an eye. The third, blinded and screaming, meridians scorched by searing light. Sagat himself had barely walked away alive. Only her catastrophic wounds had let him bind her with Star Metal.
Arbak lifted her head. The chains rattled. Her smile was slow, sharp, and utterly without warmth.
“If you come close, I might just let you,” the woman said with a melodious voice, capable of arousing the lowest instincts.
, Sagat thought to himself.
Sagat laughed under his breath. “You’re getting weaker. No Qi-rich air, no food, no water. My men haven’t let you sleep all these days. Soon, even the runts will be brave enough to try their luck.” He leaned closer, voice dropping. “Tell me where the rest of the fell and what it really does. Or I let them queue up.”
For the first time, something flickered behind her eyes — not fear, but calculation. Out of the corner of her vision, she glanced at the far corner.
There, slumped against the wall, wrists bound with common rope, was a second prisoner. Curly brown hair, baby-fat cheeks, maid’s dress torn and bloodied. Eliana. Unconscious, dried tear-tracks cutting pale channels through the grime on her face.
Arbak’s gaze lingered on the girl, then returned to Sagat.
“You brought a child into this,” she said softly. “That was… unwise.”
“Keep silent then. Rolando wants you gift-wrapped. I’m sure you both will have ‘good times’ together” Sagat only grinned and turned away.
He never saw the faint golden light that pulsed once, deep inside the female’s body — the last ember of a dying star, waiting for the right breath of wind.
One chained beast.
One terrified girl.
One mistake neither Sagat nor the orphans had counted on.
Time was ticking.
Man proposes.
AEON disposes.