The abyssal frost of the void dimension rapidly evaporated alongside Arka’s long, rattling inhalation. The youth slowly forced his eyes open. His vision, previously suffocated by necrotic, ashen fog, now adjusted to the sterile, bright light reflecting off the vaulted ceiling of his chamber. He had been violently wrenched back into the mortal coil.

  However, the agonizing silence of his sanctuary had been fractured. A monolithic silhouette eclipsed the majority of the sunlight bleeding through the reinforced window. There, occupying a chair that abruptly appeared terrifyingly fragile beneath his sheer mass, sat an ancient man boasting shoulders as broad as temple pillars.

  Gauss Renville. His grandfather.

  The unforgiving visage, meticulously chiseled by the relentless march of time and marred by the deep trenches of historical warfare, betrayed not a single fraction of wrath. Conversely, the gargantuan elder offered a smile radiating profound, unadulterated warmth and absolute comprehension.

  "Son... has the burden of your days grown so intolerably heavy?" Gauss’s voice was a dense, vibrating rumble, echoing through the ether akin to the subterranean grinding of tectonic plates. The old warlord leaned heavily forward, his piercing gaze locking dead onto his grandson’s face. "Your grandfather has perpetually maintained the watch for you here."

  Arka fell entirely silent, his throat instantly constricting. The apocalyptic gravity of the Death Gate he had just abandoned within the astral plane seemed to violently overlap with the crushing weight of the past that had eternally shackled his feet in the waking world.

  "I am acutely aware that your steps toward this fortress have felt leaden, ever since your mother vanished into the ether alongside Anagata..."

  Upon hearing his father's name invoked, Arka’s jaw locked into granite by pure, autonomous instinct. A flash of raw, unfiltered agony slashed across his irises. Gauss released a heavy sigh, his massive, calloused hand descending to pat his own knee with a slow, metronomic rhythm.

  "I received the intelligence directly from Rajendra," Gauss continued, the timbre of his voice softening marginally. "You harbor a profound, suffocating guilt toward House Renville. You condemn the Sagara bloodline for inextricably entangling your mother, Arlene. You harbor the absolute conviction that her marital union with the Sagara lineage was the sole catalyst that dragged apocalyptic ruin upon her head."

  Gauss offered a slow, deliberate shake of his head. He fixed Arka with a stare that effortlessly bypassed every single psychological barricade the youth had meticulously erected. "But heed my words, Child. Not a single soul residing within these walls subscribes to that fallacy."

  The ancient eyes of Gauss began to gleam, radiating the eternal, unyielding pride of a race that had once exercised absolute dominion over the globe. "I maintain the absolute certainty that your mother continues to draw breath. And presently... you have borne witness to it yourself, have you not? You have unearthed the monolithic secret of House Renville—the blood of the Ashgada that currently surges with violent ferocity through your very own veins."

  Gauss leaned his massive back against the chair, causing the timber to groan in violent protest beneath the titan's weight. A deep, resonant laughter began to rumble from the depths of his chest, vibrating upward to thoroughly butcher the nocturnal silence.

  "We, the denizens of an epoch that has long since passed into myth, refuse to bow our heads before mere adversity! And we shall absolutely refuse to perish over trivial grievances!" Gauss’s laughter detonated with crisp, unchained ferocity—"Hahahahahah!"—a roar saturated with such sheer pride and indomitable optimism that it aggressively scoured away the residual aura of death clinging to Arka’s shoulders.

  Seated before this specific grandfather, for a fleeting microsecond, Arka was stripped of his title as the cursed warden of the Death Gate, reduced merely to a grandson who had finally successfully navigated his way home.

  The biting, hostile chill within the chamber ceased to feel predatory. Arka exhaled a long, measured breath, permitting the radiating heat of his grandfather's immense presence to thaw the glacial ice encrusting his heart. For the very first time since he had been condemned to bear the name Sagara and face the apocalyptic shadow of the Death Gate, he experienced genuine, unadulterated relief. The invisible, crushing weight upon his sternum—the mountainous guilt and the paralyzing terror of rejection from his maternal bloodline—seemingly shattered, akin to rusted iron chains finally snapping and dissolving into dust.

  He stared back at the gargantuan silhouette looming before him. A fresh, brilliant spark of newfound resolve ignited within his eyes.

  "Grandfather," Arka called out, his voice low yet saturated with an uncompromising iron will that utterly refused to be ignored. "If I choose to draw my blade... if I definitively resolve to wage absolute war against those who orchestrated the ruin of my father and mother. Will you stand beside me?"

  The silence hung suspended like a guillotine blade for one full heartbeat, before an explosive detonation of laughter violently ruptured the night.

  BWAHAHAHAHA!

  Gauss’s mirth was so astronomically immense, so deep, and so saturated with raw, kinetic energy that its vibrations visibly rippled across the flagstones and up the structural pillars of the chamber. The booming baritone physically dislodged centuries-old dust that had rested peacefully within the crevices of Dum-Shadd's masonry. The very architecture of the room seemingly vibrated in autonomous response to the resurging martial bloodlust of the ancient patriarch.

  Gauss slammed his massive palm against his thigh with a deafening crack, his eyes flashing with a feral, unchained euphoria—the lingering, primordial brutality of the Ashgada that the slow crawl of time had never truly managed to extinguish.

  "Son!" Gauss thundered, a massive, predatory sneer carving itself across his battle-scarred visage. "If that ancient fossil Rajendra hadn't actively restrained my hand, Carta would have been pulverized into ash eons ago!"

  The titan leaned aggressively forward. His gaze transmuted into something instantly lethal, fixing Arka with a philosophy of warfare that was terrifyingly absolute.

  "If it proves excessively tedious to identify exactly which flies are buzzing behind the curtain... if their political machinations are too convoluted to meticulously unravel..." Gauss offered a snort of profound disgust, dismissing the concept with a wave of a hand the size of a legionnaire's shield. "Then the systematic eradication of everything is undeniably the most pragmatic and efficient countermeasure. Incinerate the entire field to ash, and every single pest festering within it shall perish alongside it."

  Absorbing that staggeringly barbaric doctrine of war, Arka froze completely rigid. His Adam's apple bobbed violently as he swallowed a mouthful of suddenly dry air.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Gulp.

  Cold sweat began to trace a slow, agonizing path down the youth's temple. He undeniably gripped the reins of the Death Gate, but the strategic solution currently being proposed by his grandfather...

  "Is... is such an absolute measure truly necessary, Grandfather?" he inquired, staring at the warlord with a gaze steeped in partial disbelief, horrifyingly realizing exactly how apocalyptic the cognitive architecture of this First Human race became when provoked to wrath.

  "Is it truly necessary, Grandfather?" Arka repeated, his brain desperately striving to process the sheer, unadulterated barbarism of the titan race. The cold sweat was now actively dripping from his brow.

  Gauss sneered broadly, the remnants of his booming laughter subsiding into heavy, rhythmic snorts that noticeably vibrated the ambient air. His shield-sized hand descended to pat Arka’s shoulder—a gesture intended to be gentle, yet harboring sufficient kinetic force to make the youth physically stagger.

  "Do you genuinely believe I would march forward entirely alone to challenge the globe? If this grandfather of yours stamps his boot and mobilizes for war, my brothers in the West shall unquestionably mobilize alongside me, Son."

  Arka’s brow furrowed deeply. His previously encyclopedic comprehension of the Northern alliances suddenly felt agonizingly myopic. "Brothers? Whom do you speak of?"

  "The Bani Alhassar," Gauss answered. The tenor of his voice instantly shifted, shedding its feral bloodlust, replaced entirely by an aura of dense, absolute reverence.

  A moniker recognized by every single soul drawing breath upon the continent of Carta. The Sovereign Duke known as Hassan Alhassar.

  To the denizens inhabiting the southern territories—residing precisely to the west of Dum-Shadd’s looming shadow—that name was no mere aristocratic title. Hassan Alhassar was the physical incarnation of a desert hurricane and a raging tsunami forged into human flesh. He was the absolute sovereign dictator who reigned from the zenith of the High Tower, the Burj Assayeed.

  That gargantuan spire violently pierced the clouds, standing with imperious arrogance, as if actively challenging the heavens themselves. The Burj Assayeed was the architectural manifestation of the Duke's absolute authority; the aura of sheer intimidation radiating from its walls was so suffocatingly dense that its elongated shadow seemingly choked the very earth every time the sun sank toward the western horizon.

  It was from that fog-shrouded throne at the apex of the tower that the glacial hand of Hassan Alhassar maintained a crushing, vice-like grip upon the jugular of Gant City.

  That monolithic port city functioned as the beating heart of all global ambition. Thousands of galleons bearing massive sails cleaved through the ocean daily, hauling staggering fortunes of raw gold, exotic silks, priceless spices, and the weeping souls of shackled thralls. Yet, that boundless ocean of wealth possessed zero value without the explicit, nodding approval of the Duke. Within Gant City, the atmosphere was perpetually saturated with the sharp sting of salt, the intoxicating musk of spices, and the coppery stench of blood spilled from those foolish enough to defy the absolute law of the Bani Alhassar.

  Bani Alhassar was no mundane, mortal administrator rotting behind a desk. Much like Gauss, the terrifying majesty of ancient blood surged violently through his veins. If Gauss Renville was the physical manifestation of a granite mountain designed to pulverize adversaries with sheer, blunt force, Hassan was a gargantuan, predatory hawk—his gaze as razor-sharp as an executioner's blade, reputed to possess the capability to cleave the ocean and flay the skin from treasonous intent from thousands of miles away. The spiritual pressure enveloping him was so astronomically massive that the very tides of the Gant harbor were said to rise and fall in perfect synchronization with the Duke's own breathing.

  Visualizing these two primordial entities—Gauss, the titan of Dum-Shadd, and Hassan, the sovereign of the Burj Assayeed—fusing their apocalyptic might and descending from their respective thrones solely to exact blood-vengeance for House Sagara, Arka stood completely paralyzed. The youth abruptly realized that the threat to reduce Carta to an expanse of ash was no mere boast from his grandfather.

  "Son, it shall not merely be Hassan," Gauss continued, his voice dropping into a register so low it actively rattled the stone masonry of the chamber. The giant elder locked his gaze intensely onto Arka’s eyes, ensuring his grandson comprehended the true, staggering scale of the bloodline he had inherited. "Every single Ashgada currently drawing breath across the four corners of this world shall mobilize. An enemy of your grandfather is instantly designated an enemy to every Ashgada still walking the earth of Carta."

  Gauss clenched his massive fist until the musculature in his forearm bulged like braided steel cables. "We share singular blood, Arka. We are all vital organs beating within the chest of one gargantuan body. Not a single one among us will permit a fraction of this family to be maimed without executing absolute, disproportionate retribution. If that fateful day arrives, the ancient war banners shall fly once more, in numbers sufficient to blot out the sun. We shall violently uproot this world... down to its very bedrock."

  Absorbing the scale of such massive, apocalyptic retaliation, Arka swallowed heavily. His vision, previously choked by the necrotic fog of the Death Gate, was instantaneously swept clear by the terrifying majesty of his family's history. Yet, a singular, nagging anomaly snagged in his mind.

  "Grandfather..." Arka murmured softly, his tone saturated with extreme caution. "Throughout all this time... across the thousands of years since the epoch of the first heroes, have we, the Ashgada, perpetually chosen to hide?"

  Gauss’s feral smile slowly dissolved, usurped by a gaze heavy with ancient, melancholic wisdom. The old patriarch drew a long, ragged breath, an exhalation that seemingly carried the crushing weight of millennia of history.

  "Yes, Son," Gauss answered. His voice now resonated with a profound serenity, akin to a god lulling a hurricane to sleep. "But we do not hide out of cowardice. To the souls of the Titans surging violently through our blood, this fragile, mortal humanity are merely our little brothers. We purposefully exile ourselves to the shadows to safeguard them from our own destructive nature, and from horrors infinitely worse."

  Gauss rose from his heavy chair. His titan frame towered so high his crown nearly scraped the vaulted ceiling of the chamber. He strode toward the open stone window, allowing the biting night gale to lash his hardened face. Gauss’s gaze drilled straight into the pitch-black void of the absolute north.

  "Our true adversary has never been mortal man, Arka. Petty political intrigue, the curses of Rahessa, the squabbling over a rusted throne... all of it is nothing more than infantile playthings," Gauss rumbled. His hand extended, pointing out the window, piercing the veil of the night. There, far beyond the limits of mundane human perception, slumbered the genuine terror. "Our true enemy is the ancient adversary of the Titan progenitors from that forgotten epoch."

  Arka stood and took his place beside his grandfather. Though his Aksesa eyes lacked the capacity to pierce the darkness as deeply as Gauss’s gaze, he knew precisely what festered at the northernmost edge of the continent. A geographical nightmare designed to shatter the sanity of any living creature: The Iron Mountains, jutting violently upward like the serrated fangs of a dead god, barricading the Valley of Death, a cursed expanse that had never once tasted sunlight. And beyond that, the yawning maw of the Black Canyon that actively devoured all sound, and Mirror Canyon, which flawlessly reflected the absolute despair of the damned souls lost within.

  The ambient temperature within the chamber abruptly plummeted, feeling tenfold colder. Arka stared into the starless northern firmament, then violently butchered the silence with a fact that froze the blood in his veins.

  "Grandfather..." Arka whispered, his eyes locked onto the absolute void of the northern horizon. "In approximately three hours... the dark gate shall be torn open."

  Upon hearing the apocalyptic countdown, Gauss Renville did not so much as flinch. Rather than succumb to terror, the old patriarch's features hardened into a mask of pure, feral pride. He puffed out his broad, massive chest, presenting it like an impenetrable shield of forged steel. The northern gale, carrying the undeniable stench of impending death, whipped fiercely at his heavy mantle, yet Gauss stood resolutely defiant, actively parading an absolute, uncompromising valor inherited from an era before the world had even conceived of the written word. He was actively welcoming the gaze of his primordial enemy with the bloodthirsty sneer of impending war.

  Witnessing the silhouette of his grandfather towering like a monolith of black coral amidst the encroaching apocalyptic storm, Arka could no longer suppress the violent surge of pride detonating within his own chest. The youth murmured softly, his voice instantly swallowed by the howling wind, "It is the absolute truth... Grandfather, and the Ashgada... are the true, unadulterated heirs of the Titans."