That place isn't on any map. Not in the capital's sewers, not in the mountain caves. It is The Void Canvas—a pocket dimension created between the folds of reality. The ceiling is a slow-moving gray mist, and the floor is a black water mirror that never wets the feet of anyone who steps on it.

  In the middle of the emptiness, a round table made of Obsidian floats. Six chairs surround it. One chair is empty.

  Laich stepped in from nowhere. Here, he was not the cold academy art teacher in a paint-splattered robe. Here, he wore a formal jet-black suit with elegant asymmetrical cuts. His long silver hair was neatly tied with a red silk ribbon. His playful aura had evaporated, replaced by a pressing gravity, as sharp as a newly sharpened palette knife.

  He is Artvou. The leader of the Leftborn Guild.

  “You're late, Artvou,” a soft but venomous voice greeted him.

  Sitting in one of the chairs was a stunning Elf woman. Na'Arra. Her skin was as white as alabaster, contrasting with the thin, transparent emerald green silk dress she wore. The dress clung to her like a second skin, provocatively revealing her curves, and her back was completely exposed down to her waist.

  “Art takes time, Na'Arra,” Laich replied calmly, taking his seat in the main chair. “And messing with the perception of an entire battalion of Asnaven soldiers so that they get lost in the forest is not a five-minute sketch.”

  “Reason,” snorted the man across from him. Nagashi. The assassin from the east. He was sharpening the blade of his curved sword with a whetstone made from human bone.

  “We're not here to discuss your tardiness,” interrupted Elodie, Princess of Vsnava. She sat upright, her hands clenched on the table until her knuckles turned white. Her beautiful face was pale and tense, her eyes bearing faint dark circles that makeup couldn't hide.

  Her eyes kept glancing at the empty chair to Laich's right. The chair with the number eight.

  “That chair is still cold,” Nagashi said flatly without lifting his face from his sword. “Accept it, Princess. He's dead.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Elodie snapped. Ice vapor rose from the table in front of her, freezing the air within a one-meter radius. “He's not dead!”

  “Elodie,” Nagashi looked at her with a bored expression. “Eyewitnesses say there was an explosion on King’s Cliff a week ago. An explosion that wiped everything out. No bodies. No traces of the Indians. That’s the definition of dead.”

  “I was there, you fool!” Elodie stood up, her stone chair scraping roughly across the floor. Her breath was ragged.

  The atmosphere in the room tensed. All eyes were on the Ice Princess.

  “You don't know what we faced that night,” Elodie's voice trembled as her memories returned to that hellish night at Bukit Raja. “They weren't ordinary bandits. They were the Order of Golden Angels. The Hunter Division.”

  Amala, the burly dwarf woman, raised her eyebrows. “The Order of Balance? They intervened?”

  “They cornered us on the cliff,” Elodie continued, her eyes glazing over in horror. "They were clever, cornering Kars by lowering the oxygen level there so that Kars couldn't move freely. Besides that... He couldn't win against them while protecting me. So he... he activated that power."

  “He blew himself up?” asked Na'Arra.

  “No,” Elodie shook her head, tears welling up in her cold eyes. "He glowed. Not the light of fire, but the Absolute White Light. When that light came out of his body, the reality around us shook. And those Golden Angels hunters... they weren't burned. They disappeared."

  Elodie stared at her hands. “Then he opened a Star portal behind me. He pushed me in. He saved me. But when I turned around one last time... I saw his body being swallowed by the light itself. He was gone.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Gone,” Nagashi concluded, a little more respectfully this time. “Deceived by its own light. A classic case of Intian Overload.”

  “Wrong,” Laich's voice cut in, calm and authoritative.

  Laich placed his hand on the table. The black water on the table surface trembled. "What Elodie saw... That White Light... was not death. It was Zenith."

  Laich snapped his fingers. In the center of the table, an illusion of a mini galaxy formed. The stars spun, then merged into a single human figure made of solid light.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “You underestimate Kars,” said Laich. "You think he's just a powerful wizard. But he is a Stealix—the term for a Star Magic user. And every Stealix has the potential to achieve the final evolution: Zenith."

  “Zenith?” asked Esugen, the mind wizard. “I've read that term on ancient tablets. The union of the physical and the cosmic?”

  “Exactly,” Laich nodded. “Zenith is the level of the Gods. At that stage, the physical body and cosmic energy merge into one. Its users are no longer bound by the laws of physics in this world. Kars opened the gate to Zenith many years ago.”

  Laich stared at the empty chair with a mysterious smile. “So if Elodie saw him disappear in the light... it wasn't because he was destroyed. It was because he moved. He used the same portal he used to save Elodie.”

  “Moved where?” Amala asked.

  “Somewhere in this world,” Laich replied, his eyes flashing purple. “Perhaps on the highest mountain peak, or at the bottom of the ocean trench. A place where he can prepare something far greater than just a civil war in Asnaven.”

  Nagashi snorted in disbelief. "So he ran away? Leaving his student and us to clean up his mess?"

  “Not running away, Nagashi. He's delegating,” Laich chuckled. “Kars is setting up the chessboard for a greater threat—something that makes the Golden Angels look like Boy Scouts. And for Asnaven... he's leaving this trivial problem to us. And to his student.”

  “He wants to see if Rhea is worthy,” Elodie muttered, her eyes sparkling again. “He's testing Rhea.”

  “That's right,” Laich agreed. “Kars won't die that easily. He's waiting at the finish line, seeing if his student can catch up to him.”

  Esugen cleared his throat, opening his notebook again. “Speaking of Kars' test, Artvou. We have a situation on the ground. Our members are already moving on their own.”

  Esugen threw the intelligence report onto the wet table. “Beth—she dropped the code name Beevou and reverted to Queen Fasheart. And Jax, he's become her bodyguard.”

  “And there's one more thing,” Esugen pointed to the schematic drawing of the Glider used by Rhea's forces. “These wings. Jax did assemble them in the field, but the core design... the aerodynamic structure that defies the logic of gravity without levitation magic...”

  Esugen tapped the image. “This isn't Jax's design. It's not the Dwarves' design. It's Dalt Ashart's.”

  “Dalt?” Nagashi raised an eyebrow. “The scientist who's obsessed with mechanical machines? Not surprising. He's a mechanic hiding behind the titles of nobleman and merchant.”

  “Jax only supplied the materials,” added Esugen. “But the brain behind those wings is purely Dalt.”

  “Technically, two of our senior members—Beth and Jax—are already active in Rhea's camp,” said Esugen. “They are ahead of the orders of the Order of the Fourth.”

  Amala spun a coin between her fingers. “What do we do, Artvou? This guild was founded to observe, not to take sides in a coup.”

  “We divide our forces,” Na'Arra suggested pragmatically. "One team searches for Kars' physical location—if he truly exists in Zenith form, his energy must leave a trace. And one team passively helps Rhea so that the Guild isn't destroyed if she loses."

  “Logical,” commented Laich, swirling his thick red liquid. “Very safe. Very... boring.”

  Instantly, the glass in Laich's hand shattered. Red wine spilled, mixing with the black water on the table, creating a pattern like blood spreading across an ocean of night.

  Laich stood up. His shadow lengthened, swallowing the crystal light in the room. “Art is not born from safety, Na'Arra. Art is born from total destruction. From the courage to jump into the abyss without a rope, as Kars did on King's Cliff.”

  Laich walked around the table, his footsteps causing the surface of the water to vibrate violently. “You ask what my orders are? I say: We follow Kars' crazy game to the end.”

  “We will not search for Kars,” Laich said firmly. “He does not want to be found. If he is in Zenith mode, he can see us now. Searching for him would only be a waste of time. The only way to summon him back is to complete the mission he left behind.”

  Laich pointed at Mira's face in the table illusion. “This girl. Rhea. She was Kars' last project before he disappeared. If Rhea succeeds in conquering Arlen... it will prove that Kars' methods are correct.”

  Laich looked at Esugen. “Esugen, use your Mind network. Block Arlen's communications. Make his generals blind and deaf. Mislead their orders. Make them suspicious of each other.”

  Laich looked at Amala. "Amala, make sure Dalt's design works perfectly. Send your best stabilizer components to Fasheart via the smuggling route. Let Rhea think it's her father's own cleverness."

  Laich looked at Na'Arra. “Na'Arra, the forest on the border is your element. Use your poison. Make sure Arlen's troops who try to pass through the forest never come out again. Make it look like the wrath of nature.”

  “And you, Princess,” Laich turned to Elodie. Elodie straightened her back, her eyes burning with new resolve. “Keep playing your role at the palace. Be the sweet poison in Arlen's ear. Support him, but lead him to the abyss. Make him paranoid. Destroy him from within.”

  “Gladly,” Elodie replied coldly. “For Kars.”

  One by one, the members of Leftborn disappeared from that dimension. Nagashi melted into the shadows on the floor. Na'Arra turned into flower petals blown by the wind. Esugen and Amala stepped back into the fog. Elodie stared at Kars' empty chair for a moment, whispered something, then her body shattered into gold crystals that vanished.

  Only Laich remained in The Void Canvas. He took a silk handkerchief and wiped the wine spilled on the table, which resembled blood.

  “Zenith...” Laich muttered into the silence. “You cheated, Kars. You reached the level of a God and left your friend to take care of this worldly trash.”

  Laich stared at his reflection in the wine puddle. His face changed into Kars' for a moment.

  “You're preparing something big out there, aren't you?” Laich chuckled. “You're letting Arlen and Asnaven be training grounds for your student. You want to see if Rhea can become the next Kaosser.”

  Laich flicked his cloak, preparing to leave. “Alright, Old Friend. I'll make sure your student doesn't die before her final exam is over. But you owe me a painting.”

  Laich snapped his fingers. The pocket dimension collapsed, folding itself into a tiny point, then vanished. Leaving a mystery in a place that no longer existed.

  In the real world, a new war was about to begin. And the shadow players had already chosen their sides, ensuring that Rhea would never truly be alone, even if she felt that way.