Chapter 166: The King of... Blackwood
When Krax and the Titans set foot once more on the soil of Kalpa, a strange, unsettling feeling washed over him.
The place was... too still.
Where the familiar din of barbarian camps should have echoed across the land...
The barking of orders, the clang of sparring blades, the booming laughter of warriors who thrived in chaos and blood—there was only silence.
It was the kind of quiet that felt heavy, smothering, like a thick cloth pressed against the ears.
Krax’s scarred brow lifted in wary curiosity as he pushed forward, crimson eyes scanning the once-familiar ground with an unease that grew with every step.
’...Barbarians are never silent,’ he thought, the observation sharp and unsettled.
’What... has happened since I’ve been away?’
With that thought, he made his way toward the elevated stone platform that served as his throne, each heavy step echoing louder than it should have in the hush.
The Titans followed at a respectful distance, their massive forms casting long shadows across the packed earth.
Once he reached the throne, he lowered himself onto it with deliberate weight, the ancient seat creaking beneath his recovering frame.
"Jurgen... come."
Krax spoke without raising his voice, yet the single name echoed through the eerily silent camp, heavy with unquestionable authority.
In the next moment, footsteps approached almost at once.
The highest-ranking subordinate among the barbarian forces entered the open space before the throne and dropped to one knee without hesitation.
Dust still clung to the plates of his armor; the usual fierce pride that had always marked his posture was tempered now by something closer to caution, as if he already sensed the storm waiting behind his lord’s silence.
Krax leaned in, one thick, scarred forearm resting on his knee, his crimson eyes locking on the kneeling man with a slow, deliberate intensity.
"Report," he said. The word left his throat low and rough, still carrying the grit of long disuse.
"How goes the conquest of the Eastern Continent? Did the Academy of Truth give you any real trouble, or did they fold the way we expected?"
Before departing for the world of Noxara, Krax had given Jurgen clear instructions to follow during the decade before his return: conquer the remainder of the Continent.
Jurgen kept his head lowered, offering no immediate response.
For several long, tense heartbeats, he remained silent, the weight of the command hanging heavy in the air.
The silence lingering between them felt like its own quiet admission. When the subordinate finally broke it, his voice came slow and deliberate, each word seeming to carry a heavy price.
"My lord... we never confronted the Academy of Truth." He swallowed hard, the movement along his throat plain to see.
"And we haven’t taken the Eastern Continent. Not yet."
Krax’s crimson eyes narrowed to hard, gleaming slits. The unnatural quiet of the surrounding camp pressed inward around those words, making them land with far greater force than simple failure should have carried.
"So... you’re telling me," He began, the change in his tone unmistakable.
"In the ten-plus years I was away," he continued, each word slow and sharp as a blade, "you couldn’t manage to follow through on the one order I left you?"
In that moment, his anger began to rise behind his scarred ribs—a slow, molten heat that threatened to crack the careful control he still needed while his body finished healing itself back together.
Before the full force of that fury could erupt, Jurgen raised his head just enough to catch the sharp edge of his lord’s gaze.
"It’s not for lack of effort, my lord. We fought hard, without pause, for eight relentless years. But these last two... no, these last three... everything turned against us."
Krax’s hand clenched around the arm of the throne, the stone groaning as if it might crack under the strain.
He forced down the surge of anger, offering only a terse nod, one that spoke more of threat than agreement.
"Go on."
Jurgen’s tone sank, gravelly with the weight of countless defeats.
"Millions... upon millions of our people are gone. Every inch of ground we had claimed was torn from us, lost once more.
But... it wasn’t the Academy that brought us to our knees. It was one man."
He hesitated, as though even uttering the name bore a heavy burden.
"The King of Blackwood."
Krax’s scarred brow arched more, certain there was no way the King of Blackwood could have done such a thing.
Before leaving for Noxara, the Blackwood and Loria Kingdoms had only recently allied, and neither had anyone strong enough to turn the tide of an entire continental campaign.
"You mean both of them?" he asked, voice still low but edged with sharp confusion. "Blackwood and Loria together?"
Jurgen shook his head once, firmly.
"No, my lord. Only the King of Blackwood. He is... not the same man as before."
Krax leaned further forward on the throne, his frustration and anger steadily boiling over, especially as Jurgen continued to withhold information instead of just coming out with the whole story.
His crimson eyes locked on his subordinate with an unblinking, piercing intensity.
"Well, get to the damn point, Jurgen. What the hell happened while I was away?!"
Jurgen drew in a slow, steady breath before speaking.
"It began eleven years ago, not long after you left. We carried out your orders to the letter, advancing across the Eastern Continent, seizing territory wherever possible.
But we never moved to conquer the Blackwood Kingdom itself fully—our task was only to stall whatever it was they were creating."
He paused, inhaling deeply again.
"That day was the first time we saw him... and for many, the last.
He appeared out of nowhere in the middle of our march... completely alone—and by the time the sun set, he had slaughtered more than a hundred thousand of our warriors."
The subordinate’s voice grew hoarse as he recounted everything to Krax, holding nothing back.
In short, the King of Blackwood—more precisely Melvin, the First Disciple of Akasha—had seized control of the Eastern Continent, save for the Barbarians who were barely hanging on.
After guarding the kingdom’s border for a time, he stopped defending and turned his sights outward.
With that move, the Academy of Truth became the first faction to fall in the East, in a manner eerily similar to the fall of the Academy of Revelations.
"Then he started claiming every territory we had taken, and more besides, pushing us back piece by piece across the entire continent."
Krax sat motionless through the entire account.
Only the slow flex of his scarred fingers against the arm of the throne betrayed the storm building behind his silence.
When Jurgen finally fell quiet, the Titan’s voice emerged colder than the void between stars.
"And the state of our people now?"
Jurgen’s answer came without embellishment.
"Only... half remains."
For several long heartbeats, the only sound was the distant wind moving across the unnaturally quiet camp.
Krax closed his eyes once, then opened them again with decision already settled in their depths.
He turned his head toward the waiting Titans.
"Go with Jurgen. Rest. Recover what strength you can. I will call for you when I am ready."
The massive warriors inclined their heads in silent acknowledgment and began to withdraw, Jurgen rising to lead them away.
Krax remained alone on the throne, crimson gaze fixed on the space where his subordinate had knelt, the name King of Blackwood turning over and over in his mind like a blade that refused to dull.