Chapter Title: "The House of Nightmares"
Chaos surges on both gates of SUHA . New threats appear in the south with Silas and his Voremortis, while in the north, Drondaya walks into a trap beyond imagination.
"The Butcher-General"
The southern sky dimmed not from clouds, but from the sheer scale of bodies that advanced across the snow-strewn battlefield. A legion of red ice walkers marched in sync, footfalls crunching the frozen earth in a rhythm that mimicked drums of war. Their glowing eyes pulsed like dying stars. In front of them, the commander's figure stood—unmoving, pristine in his menace.
Silas.
Once a hunter. Now a herald of carnage.
His silhouette cut a militant line across the horizon, draped in a futuristic reinforced coat the black steel plates along his chest splattered in streaks of red. Each step he took left behind smoldering frost. A blood-drenched bandage wrapped around his right eye, the crimson stain still fresh, still wet, a reminder of some sacrifice no one had yet named.
One arm hung forward, slick with blood, not his own—fingers curled slightly, as if tugging on invisible strings of flesh.
Beside Silas, another figure walked in calm cadence—lean, masked, and deadly.
Jabari. One of the hidden Omegas of The TEN.
"How long do we have to keep marching into this damned area?" Jabari asked, voice flat, eyes sweeping the enemy territory.
Silas didn't turn his head. His voice was low and cold. "We follow our orders. Nothing more."
As if summoned by fate itself, a sudden column of smoke fell from the sky—not rose, but fell, as though spat from the heavens. It slammed into the ground with a deep thud, whipping snow into a spiraling wall.
The red walkers halted.
The smoke cleared—and revealed three silhouettes standing in formation, cloaked in authority.
At their center stood Sir Caelum, knight of Suha, a towering figure wrapped in the pristine silver regalia . Beside him, the enigmatic Madagascar, his features unreadable beneath his high collar and obsidian armor and beside him was Osiris.
And then—Asger.
Her boots pressed firmly against the frost, eyes unblinking, head slightly tilted forward like a predator gauging prey. Her long braid shimmered under the ice-lit sky.
Silas stepped forward.
For the first time since the invasion, his expression changed—eyes narrowing, lip curling upward into something resembling joy.
"You survived my Blood Parasite Virus Technique," he said softly. "I'm… proud of you, little sister."
Asger's fists clenched once. "Let me handle this one," she said to Sir Caelum without taking her eyes off Silas.
Caelum eyed her carefully. "Are you certain?"
"He's family," Asger said. "And this technique of his … it's ours."
Caelum nodded once. "Very well." He shifted his gaze. "Madagascar, you're on me. Support only. You're already ranked S, so I'll trust you to cover gaps."
Madagascar didn't speak. But in his mind, a memory whispered like falling ash.
The scroll at the graveyard. The ice. Kenzo's body. The red frost… Could it be the same energy?
Caelum turned to the youngest. "Osiris. I heard Suha cleared you to use your family's Monarh power. You'll engage the red ice walkers. Clear them fast—then assist Asger if she starts to fall."
Osiris nodded once, eyes flaring faintly with white light. "Yes, sir."
Behind the formation, the walkers began to growl.
The battle was seconds from reigniting.
The wind at the northern gate had changed.
It no longer howled—it listened.
Sir Drondaya stood still for a breath, the hem of his white coat fluttering lightly at his knees. Before him, not fifty meters away, stood two silhouettes—the traitor artist, Hirito, and the cold-eyed Kazuki. The snowy winds curled lazily between them, disturbed only by the slow shimmer of Shen.
Drondaya's voice was sharp, cutting through the stillness. "So… you're the ones they sent."
Kazuki didn't blink. "I need you to focus on me," he said calmly to Hirito . "Buy me the time."
Hirito dipped his hand into the small pouch at his side and withdrew a parchment—its surface already marked with an intricate drawing of something grotesque and architectural.
Drondaya's eye narrowed. "Shen manifestation user." His tone was measured, but within it simmered disdain. "Inkbound. You draw, and it lives."
He turned his head, gaze flicking to Kazuki. "And you… mass manipulation. You bend pressure, weight, gravity. A decent technique… if you're suicidal."
Drondaya took a step forward, unsheathing his weapon—not a blade of metal, but a hilt of nothing. Shen shimmered along it, forming a ghostly blade in midair.
"I shall end this quickly."
Kazuki didn't move. He raised his hand.
A dense ball of something formed in his palm—not visible, but felt. The very air buckled as the sphere expanded, then compressed. The dirt beneath his feet fractured. A pale, formless white mass hovered—pulsing.
"Mass Manipulation: Mass Extraction."
He fired.
The sphere shot forward in utter silence. As it moved, the very weight of it bent the battlefield—stones flattened, snow liquefied, and the air behind it stretched like thin plastic.
Drondaya walked into it.
He didn't dodge. He didn't deflect.
He raised his free hand and muttered softly, "Sage Form: Kumination."
A ripple passed across his body like a wave of silk. Sage energy cloaked him—calm, balanced, immovable.
The sphere disintegrated on contact.
No explosion. No sound. The mass simply unraveled, becoming mist, weightless dust, nothing.
Kazuki's eyes widened. "What—?"
Drondaya continued walking. "You're wondering what happened."
His voice remained calm, but there was now an edge—education tempered by cruelty.
"My ability creates a field. Anything physical that the eye can comprehend—dissolves inside it. Blade, fire, gravity, weight—it all dies at the threshold."
He stopped ten feet away from Kazuki.
"That was your best technique. Now what?"
Kazuki staggered back slightly. "Hirito… are you ready?"
Hirito stood. The parchment was now unfurled, pressed to the ground beneath his feet.
"Yes," he whispered.
His hands came together—clap—in the shape of a tiger seal.
"Inkbound Manifestation," he intoned, "Nightmare of Special Tier: Demon House."
The paper ignited—not with fire, but with dark Shen. The lines shimmered, melted, and suddenly leapt into reality.
Drondaya's head whipped down.
"No—"
He blurred forward, blade raised—too late.
A pulse of darkness exploded from the page.
The world snapped.
Drondaya's feet hit wood.
He landed in a dim room. The air was stale, ancient. He reached down—wooden floorboards. Dust. Not snow. Not the field.
A house.
But not a house—something built to contain souls.
The lights above flickered. Monstrous carvings lined the walls—beasts, demons, amalgamated horrors carved from bonewood. They watched with hollow eyes.
Drondaya rose slowly.
"Where am I…?"
He turned.
The door behind him was gone.
The outside world—the battlefield—gone.
The Demon House had consumed him.
At the northern gate, Chiro, Vincent, and Wei witness the sudden vanishing of Drondaya, Kazuki, and Hirito. Confusion grips the defenders as a new wave of Red Ice Walkers begins to rise from beneath the snow.
Snowflakes drifted gently through the northern air—but the silence felt wrong.
Chiro stood just above the battlefield, ribbon coiled beneath her feet like a throne of silk. Her eyes were locked on the space where, moments ago, Sir Drondaya had been walking forward like an executioner.
Now?
Nothing.
Not a trace.
Just a warped black scar on the earth where Shen energy had violently burst outward.
She lowered herself slowly, touching down beside Vincent and Wei.
"Where did they go?" she asked, voice sharp, eyes flicking from the ground to the air and back. "Where the hell are they?"
Wei stepped forward, scanning the area with a twitch in his jaw. "It wasn't a teleportation… at least, not a basic one. There's no displacement heat, no anchor seal…"
"They're gone," Chiro growled. "Even Sir Drondaya."
Vincent crouched and touched the edge of the scorched ground. He narrowed his eyes. "This isn't ordinary Shen casting. It's spatial displacement layered with domain creation. They weren't just moved—they were placed."
Chiro's voice cracked. "Placed where?"
Vincent stood slowly. "Somewhere else. Not here."
But there was no time to think further.
A sound erupted from beneath them—not a rumble, not a growl—a cracking.
Wei's head snapped to the side. "Damn it"
CRACK!
A blood-red hand burst from the snow, fingers gnarled and glistening with ice. Then another. And another. In the span of seconds, hundreds of Red Ice Walkers clawed their way up from the frost-covered earth like a cursed crop finally sprouting.
"Here we go again," Vincent muttered.
Wei bared his teeth, throat bulging again as he began another Shen transformation. "These bastards just keep popping up!"
Chiro's ribbon lashed forward, already slashing through three walkers as they emerged—but there were too many. Far too many. For every one cut down, two more replaced it.
The field was being swallowed again.
Back at SUHA's war command center, Minister Tenzy and General Soren assess the battlefield chaos. As red ice walkers multiply and Drondaya vanishes, new strategies are deployed—including an airborne offensive and a desperate call for the Shaman Hunters.
The war control room buzzed with quiet panic.
Glass screens flickered, each one locked on a separate quadrant of the battlefield—northern gate, southern lines, internal barracks, city outskirts. The visuals fed in live, holographic overlays showing movements, losses, and abnormal Shen spikes in real time.
Minister Tenzy leaned over the central command table, one hand braced tight on the edge, the other gripping a cup of untouched tea now gone cold. His eyes were sunken, brows drawn together as he stared at one particular feed—Northern Quadrant: Drondaya's Last Coordinates.
He exhaled through clenched teeth. "Shit."
Across from him, General Soren turned away from a tactical wall screen. "Something's wrong. Red walker emergence patterns are inconsistent—they're not just regenerating anymore, they're re-birthing. Mutating with each reappearance."
"Because they're not alive," Tenzy muttered. "They're constructed. This isn't necromancy. It's architecture."
Soren's jaw flexed. "So what do we do? Direct contact equals death. They freeze anything they touch."
"The military is ineffective against them on foot," Tenzy said, eyes flicking toward a rapidly declining soldier survival graph. "We need to change the angle."
Soren squared his stance. "Permission to deploy naval air force for high-altitude bombardment?"
Tenzy didn't hesitate. "Granted."
Soren saluted, then barked commands across the command floor: "Deploy Units Kilo and Tundra from the carriers. We strike from above. No direct engagement—load fragmentation shells with magnesium coating. Airstrike patterns in concentric rings!"
Tactical officers scrambled.
As Soren left to command deployment, Tenzy remained behind, silent for one long moment, eyes returning to the frozen frame of Drondaya's last known location.
Gone.
The number two strongest Knight of SUHA—missing.
Tenzy whispered, more to himself than anyone, "Where are you, Drondaya…?"
He turned toward another monitor, one still marked pending: Anumari family – Shaman Division.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Where the hell are you, Sir Varion? What's keeping you and the Shaman Hunters?"
His fingers drummed against the edge of the table.
The war wasn't going well. And SUHA's heaviest hitters had either vanished… or hadn't yet arrived.