Chapter 27 - 26. Grand Findel
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On the Monster Wall – Sparks Empire, Zera Sector
Leo stood at the edge of the towering blackstone battlement, his obsidian boots soaked in blood, ichor, and ash. He stared at the receding tide of undead—grotesque things of bone, rot, and cursefire—with a strange glint in his crimson eyes. Their retreat wasn't natural. The shambling abominations weren't afraid, weren't routed. They simply obeyed the undead king's orders, vanishing back into the necrotic fog that constantly loomed beyond the border.
His thoughts, however, weren't on the enemy. They drifted—to the past, to a quiet garden in the Steel Heart Manor, just a few days ago.
"Power, Leo," his grandfather Louise Steel Heart had said, voice brittle with age but steady with authority, "cannot be inherited. It must be seized. You follow my path in this war, and I will surrender all—my name, my chair, my influence. You shall become the core of the Chamber."
Louise Steel Heart wasn't just the patriarch of a noble house—he was the founder and master of the Steel Heart Chamber of Commerce, which controlled 60% of the empire's mana crystal refinement. In a land where magic was currency and war, that made him one of the most powerful men alive.
And yet, Leo could not move freely.
The chamber owed allegiance to the royal family of Sparks. Louise had fought beside them in the Pale Wars—the same war that saw the rise of the Topis family, who ascended from barons to Counts of the Araclo Empire by holding a city against a twentyfold siege. They later betrayed Araclo and founded the Sparks Empire.
The old man's bonds with the throne were strong. His loyalty, unshakeable. That loyalty was the shackle around Leo's neck.
But now... now Louise had offered to break that chain.
Leo had a plan—one that demanded chaos, not order. A radical dream that would either reshape the empire or grind it to dust. And for that, he needed power. Unchecked, uncontested power.
The clash of swords and the screams of the dying dragged him back to the present. Behind him, the militia scrambled to drag their wounded from the wall's edge. Fires burned in several watchtowers. Bone shards and fragments of black armor were scattered across the granite like cursed snow.