SILAS

Aildrin disconnected the call and activated Defensive Blade. But no sword lights hummed to protect him.

He was on his knees, and heavy chains weighed him down to a damp floor. The dagger was a foot away from his face, and it was too late to dodge. It cut across his cheek. Aildrin howled in pain while blood gushed out before clotting on his face.

"It should have been a small cut, but you resisted like a pig," a female voice said.

Aildrin scowled. "Who are you?" He double-checked the figure's details, and it was indeed SleepNot who stood before him but with a feminine voice.

"If I were you, I'd stop moving around lest I speed up my death. You are now in the second phase of Zaldor's Curse. Blindness first, then followed by mana depletion. And guess what's next?" The thief gestured an explosion with his free hand.

But Aildrin did not listen. He kept on struggling his way out of the chains despite the sting in his face. He was in a dimly lit and narrow space, an underground cave he guessed.

The thief removed the hood of his cloak, revealing the glowing face of a female.

Aildrin's spine shivered. His instincts told him to run and that he should avoid this type of person at all costs.

SleepNot smiled with amusement. Her long tongue slithered and licked a portion of the blood on her dagger. She then fished out an item from her cloak, the one she stole. A polished circular black stone glistened. "And now, to complete the ritual."

Murmurs from SleepNot's mouth echoed. One by one, hidden torches on the walls lit up. The light cast long shadows on the rough edges of the cave and continued to crawl through the flight of stairs leading to a stone door with engraved markings. There was a circular hole in its very middle part.

SleepNot took careful steps. "For thousands of years, the citizens of this world waged war against each other in search of the Empty Throne. Who would have thought an ordinary person like me would be the one to find it?" She then chuckled before reciting a verse:

"Beneath the flood,

Let there be two drops of blood,

Mixed as one in stone,

To reveal the Empty Throne."

SleepNot ran the dagger to the surface of her palm, merging Aildrin's blood with her's. "Have you heard those lines before Ilidran? It's written back then on the base of Alistor's statue. But it's long gone, only passed down from generation to generation through the ancient tongue. The King's Return, they called it. Fools! Fitz needs no king! Ah, yes, those fools. After all this time, it's just been here...in the darkest part of the most useless city in Fitz!" she said before laughing triumphantly.

"Are you listening, or are you already dead?" SleepNot let the blood drip on the circular stone and stirred it well with the tip of her dagger. She then carefully placed it in the wall's hole.

Anticipation filled her eyes. But nothing happened.

She tried rotating it, but the result was the same. "I might need more blood..." Just when she was about to turn around, there came an explosion.

Not of the flesh, but the clang of chains breaking loose.

Ilidran's clothes changed. It was pitch black and in his hand was a bow with eight bulbous eyes glowing in crimson—the Weaver's Amalgam.

SleepNot hissed. She returned the stone to her inventory and brandished her dagger. "You should have been dead!"

"The throne is mine alone," Aildrin said in a deep voice. Crimson energy gathered in his bow and formed an arrow. It then shot out without warning.

Before SleepNot could react, the arrow pinned her head on the wall.

A circular black stone shimmered on Aildrin's hand. It was the one he had received for slaying the Ranzac. In a blur, he traversed the stairs and appeared before SleepNot's lifeless figure. He then grabbed her body and threw it to the side.

Blood splattered on the wall, and some got stuck in the middle hole. Aildrin scraped the wounded part of his face and added his red stuff to the hollow space. He then inserted his stone key.

The earth rumbled, dust fell from the ceiling, and the wall shone in crimson.

A cavernous space opened. It was bright, with many candelabras mounted on its smooth walls. And sitting inside on top of a barrel was an old man with a flagon in his hand. "Ah, you don't know how to knock properly, do you?"

"Silas," Aildrin said.

"Krasas Kain Krecious!" The mead in the flagon bubbled when the old man's body glowed in white.

A violent force swept Aildrin to the sidewall.

"Krasas Kain Krecious!" Silas moved out of the barrel and kept on chanting while moving towards Aildrin.

Aildrin howled in pain. His eyes kept on changing colors between crimson and brown.

After a minute, he fell. His memories were once again a blur and his head throbbed in pain.

"Take this mead, young man. It soothes the troubled heart," Silas said.

The familiar voice made Aildrin look up. He almost forgot the pain. "Old man...you tricked me!" He tried standing up, but his legs felt like jelly.

Silas cracked peals of laughter. "Drink," he said before pushing the flagon to Aildrin's mouth.

The aroma of honey and fermented water flooded Aildrin. His body calmed.

Like a parched soul, he drank with reckless abandon. Warmth flowed from his throat to his stomach, restoring energy and numbing the pain.

After a breather, Aildrin said, "Where am I? And where's the thief? He, no, she tried killing me! And who are you?"

"Calm down. One question at a time, young man."

"Who are you?"

"I am nobody, but a thousand years ago, they called me Silas," the old man said.

[Silas, Level (?), Rank (?), Human (Class Unknown).]

"Silas? A thousand years ago? Are you some god or what?" Aildrin ruminated on the implications of the old man's answer. "Where are we? You promised to show me the Empty Throne!"

"And that promise I have kept. Welcome to the Empty Throne."