NOVEL WEB Chapter 106: Luring!
The dawn of another day had broke with an unsettling calm.
It had been a week since Damon returned from the Valley of Dreams, yet the Dragon Clan's fortress remained shrouded in a fragile quietness. An unnatural stillness. Like a predator, crouched, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Damon stood in the upper spire of the Eastern Watchtower, overlooking the sprawling expanse of the Dragon Clan's lands.
The fractured moon, though dim beneath the morning sun, still cast its silent judgement from the heavens. His thoughts were not idle. Every step, every breath inside this fortress echoed with deception.
He knew, he knew better than anyone like Varus and Antares were waiting on him to leave, and now it seemed like they had prepared the perfect excuse.
A summons had arrived that morning, dressed in the formalities of duty, but its intentions were as transparent as glass.
"Damon."
The familiar voice belonged to Malik, his father, who entered the spire's chamber with a parchment in hand, his usual stoic expression marred with a trace of annoyance as he handed Damon the parchment.
"They want you to investigate the Skyreach Fault. Alone."
Damon didn't respond immediately. He merely extended his hand, accepting the parchment.
The orders were as expected: a routine mission, thinly veiled as a Leyline Stability inspection, but isolated enough to launch a full scale attack on him.
How Convenient~
"They want me out of the fortress, isolated, far from allies." Damon's voice was quiet, but each syllable was a sharpened blade.
Malik gave a curt nod, "They've orchestrated this with precision. Even Sapphire and I have been assigned to the Northern Sanctums to deal with a supposed Abyssal incursion. Talia has been asked to oversee internal security while you're away. They're moving the pieces carefully."
"The perfect stage for an ambush," Damon muttered, folding the parchment and slipping it into his cloak. His gaze sharpened, yet his lips curled into a smile that didn't reach his eyes.,"But they're not the only ones who can set the stage."
Malik's expression softened for a fleeting moment, not out of relief, but approval. His son had always been sharp from what he'd heard, but now… seeing him in person?
Now Damon was beginning to outmaneuver the very clan that had sought to control him.
"What's the plan?" Malik asked, already falling into a battle strategist's rhythm.
"I'm going to Skyreach, as they expect," Damon said, stepping toward the strategy table where a detailed map of the Dragon Clan's territories was laid out, "But they're betting on me walking in blind. They don't realize the Seed of Aether reshaped more than my power. I saw their strings, father. And I've already started cutting."
He tapped a spot beyond Skyreach, a hidden ravine where Leylines intersected in chaotic spirals, "This is where we strike back."
Malik's brow arched slightly. "An ambush for their ambush."
"Precisely." Damon's tone was cold with precision. "I've already contacted Killian through the Spirit Nexus. He'll create a counter-seal formation to suppress the Dominion Beast's summoning. Artemis will stay hidden in the Spirit Veil, ready to intervene if the worshippers show their hand."
"And Astralene?" Malik asked.
"She'll handle the Rift Anchors. No Dominion Beast can materialize if the Rift is unstable. She's already deciphering the Abyssal Nodes they'll attempt to plant." Damon's gaze flickered with lethal clarity, "This won't be a battle. It'll be a dissection."
Malik crossed his arms, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, "You're more like Sapphire than you realize."
"I take after mother's precision, but your ruthlessness," Damon said, glancing back with a grin, "And this time, we play to win."
As if on cue, a gust of wind swirled through the spire's open balcony, and Astralene emerged, her form coalescing from shimmering strands of Aether. Her starlit cloak fluttered gently, but her expression was sharp, all business.
"It's as you suspected," she said without preamble. "Varus and Antares have already dispatched their shadow agents to prepare the Rift Nexus at Skyreach. They believe they're moving unseen. They're wrong."
Damon nodded,"Good. The longer they think they're holding the dagger, the deeper we let them lean into the kill."
Astralene's lips curled into a slight, dangerous smile, "And when they overextend…"
"They'll find the blade was never theirs." Damon finished.
Malik's gaze shifted between the two, a rare glimmer of pride softening his granite features. His son was no longer the hunted. He had become the predator.
"Be careful, Damon," Malik said, clapping a hand onto his shoulder, "We've always known the Abyss's reach was insidious. But family? Blood? That's where they aim to wound the deepest."
"I know, father." Damon's voice dropped, a quiet promise, "But I'll carve the truth into them. With or without their consent."
Astralene gave a small nod, her tone quieter, more personal, "This is the pivot point, Damon. After Skyreach, there will be no middle ground. The Abyss will know your name as its undoing, or as its greatest weapon."
"I choose the former," Damon said, already turning toward the exit. "Let's go tell Artemis it's time to hunt."
The two of the them quickly headed to the Dragon Clan's private courtyard, and spotted Artemis already waiting beneath the grand spirit lily tree, her eyes catching the light as she paced.
Her Spirit Sight flickering like soft lanterns around her. She had sensed the shift in Damon's aura the moment he'd made his decision.
"You're going, aren't you?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.
"I am," Damon replied, stepping into her radius of calm. "But we're not walking into their trap. We're setting our own."
Artemis's gaze sharpened. "Tell me what you need."
"You'll be shadowing me, concealed in the Spirit Veil," Damon began, his tone brisk and calculating. "Astralene will dismantle their Rift Anchors as they attempt to stabilize them. Killian will create counter-seals. But your job is precision intervention. The moment their summoning ritual fails, they'll panic. That's when you strike. Assassination-grade accuracy. We don't let any of their leaders escape."
"And you?" Artemis's voice dropped, a dangerous edge lining her words.
"I'll face whatever they unleash, Dominion Beast or otherwise," Damon said, a flicker of anticipation burning in his gaze. "The Seed's resonance is still growing. I need a real fight to test its limits. They've graciously offered one."
Artemis didn't smile, but her tail twitched, betraying her excitement. "Fine. But don't expect me to let you hog all the fun."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Damon said, extending his hand.
She took it without hesitation, their fingers intertwining, not as a gesture of romance, but as a binding pact.
Behind them, Astralene stepped into the light. "Preparations are complete. The next move is yours, Damon."
He exhaled, the weight of the moment settling across his shoulders like a mantle he'd chosen long ago.
"Then let's begin."
By the time Damon crossed the threshold of the Dragon Clan's gates, with Astralene and Artemis concealed in his shadow, the game was already in motion. Varus and Antares believed the strings were in their hands.
But they would soon realize,
Damon was no puppet. He walked for a while before finally reaching the SkyReach Fault's perimeter.
The air felt… thinner. Not due to altitude, but existence itself seemed stretched, frayed at the edges like ancient parchment left to rot.
Leylines pulsed beneath his feet, erratic heartbeats of a wounded world, their glow fractured and stuttering like a dying star's breath.
The Skyreach Fault was not a place.
It was a wound. A scar carved deep into the bones of reality, where the boundary between dimensions had been thinned to whispers.
Towers of stone jutted upward like the ribs of a dead leviathan, spiraling into the sky, but they carried no life, only the residue of forgotten sins.
Damon stood at the precipice, BloodReaper resting dormant across his back, though its pulse was aligned with his own. The Seed of Aether within his core resonated faintly, as if warning him, this wasn't just an ambush. This was a message.
A hundred meters ahead, upon a jagged plateau of obsidian shale, they waited. Figures cloaked in abyssal regalia, their forms veiled in shadow-flame, shifting and unstable. There was no need to count them. He already knew.
Thirty-six. The number wasn't a coincidence.
A subtle breeze cut across the Fault, but no dust stirred. Even nature seemed reluctant to breathe here. Yet, amidst the silent ensemble of Abyssal Worshippers, a figure stepped forward.
He wasn't cloaked like the others. He wore no mask and showed Damon exactly who he was, it was Antares Flandre.
His long hair cascaded like molten mercury, and his eyes gleamed with arrogant precision. Draped in robes that shimmered between noble regality and abyssal decay, Antares looked every bit the 'Crownless King' he fancied himself to be.
His smirk was sharp enough to wound, "You came alone."
Damon didn't respond immediately. He merely took in the stage.
The rift anchors, they were already positioned. Sigils woven into the earth in a lattice of corrupted geometries, pulsing like cancerous tumors.
Damon's eyes flickered with spatial resonance, observing the thin threads of his own aether signature tangled within the Rift Nexus.
Varus had done his work well. The Dominion Beast was moments from birthing.
Antares extended a hand lazily, as if inviting a casual stroll. "I must admit, you've exceeded expectations, Damon. The Council sings of your victories. The Clan youth speaks of your rise as if it were a legend in the making." His smile darkened. "But the Abyss does not deal in legends. Only truths."
Damon's lips curled faintly, "Is that what you told yourself when you decided to sell our clan's soul for scraps of borrowed power?"
Antares's expression didn't falter, but Damon caught the flicker of annoyance beneath the arrogance. "We do what is necessary. Weak bloodlines are culled. Tradition is but a leash for the fearful. But you, Damon… you are not weak. That is why your death must be exquisite."
Behind Antares, the ground groaned.
A tear in space widened, the Rift Nexus awakening fully as abyssal vapors poured out, curling upward in spires of inverted starlight. A pulse, like a heartbeat from beyond comprehension, echoed through the Fault.
The Dominion Beast was near.
"I will offer you a mercy," Antares said, gesturing as if bestowing charity. "Kneel. Submit the Seed of Aether to the Abyss. In return, I'll make your death swift."
Damon laughed. The sound was quiet, but it carried across the fractured landscape with a weight that silenced even the abyssal winds.
"I didn't come here to kneel, Antares. I came here to bury you."
His words cut sharper than any blade, but it was the unspoken weight behind them that shifted the air.
From the spiraling rib-like cliffs above, Damon felt the presence of Astralene cloaked in the Spirit Veil, her Aether threads already tampering with the Rift Anchors' integrity.
Artemis was somewhere unseen, her Spirit Sight weaving through the battlefield, marking the key cultists in preparation for the strike.
Antares's eyes narrowed, not in comprehension, but instinctive unease.
"You've always been delusional," Antares said, his voice curling like venom. "But delusions end here."
As if on command, the earth beneath the Rift split open, a vast limb tearing through the veil of reality, scaled, malformed, a limb that wasn't meant to exist in this world.
The Dominion Beast began to rise, its form an ever-shifting labyrinth of eyes, teeth, and wings that bled starlight in reverse.
It was a mindless, perpetual birth, the Abyss incarnate.
Damon didn't flinch. His left hand hovered above his chest, feeling the Seed's pulse. It was truth. And in truth, the Abyss had no right to exist here.
He took a single step forward. The Worshippers began their incantations, a discordant choir that clawed at reality, amplifying the Rift's expansion.
But Damon had already made his move.
Space trembled as his aura unfurled, not like a blast of force, but a suffocating silence that pressed into every corner of the Fault. The fractured moon overhead seemed to pause in its orbit.
Damon's voice, when it came, was quiet.
"Let's end this charade."