Chapter 552: Hunted By The Sand...?

Chapter 552: Hunted By The Sand...? [Bonus Chapter]

Before Kara could even formulate a retreat, Captain Leona stepped up beside Maya.

RUSTLE!

Leona unzipped her high-collared service jacket, pulled her arms free, and dropped her trousers in two fluid motions.

Unlike Maya’s athletic bulk, Leona’s body was slender, wiry, with pale olive skin, taut shoulder blades, and long toned legs, standing in matching black tactical undergarments.

And then, down on the sofa, a small flustered rustle joined them.

Aki, seeing the two seasoned soldiers stripping down to prepare for combat gear, bit her lower lip.

Her cheeks flushed a delicate embarrassed pink, but not wanting to look like an amateur who didn’t understand military etiquette, she reached behind her back, pulled down the concealed zipper of her heavy navy velvet gown, and let the voluminous fabric pool around her ankles.

She stood in a delicate white-silk chemise that clung softly to her small, slender waist with her pale thighs exposed to the cool air and her shoulders shivering slightly.

Maya reached down to pick up the void-ivory cuirass, paused, and looked over her shoulder at Kara with complete unbothered professionalism.

"Lord Vespera," Maya asked, holding the chest plate against her ribs. "Did the armor come with matching enchanted compression undergarments? Or do we wear our standard military-issue under-layers?"

Kara’s throat hitched.

Her violet eyes darted frantically between the three half-naked women standing in the middle of the Persian rug as even with the female body provided by the disguise ring, Silas’s eighteen-year-old male soul was currently undergoing a meltdown.

Why did it have to be so random?!

"O-Oh," Kara managed to stammer, her voice pitching up a bit before she forced it back down into that cool detached drawl. "Yeah... Right... Undergarments."

She reached into her Lord Inventory with her single hand, rummaging through the dimensional space with speed.

Leona cracked her neck, stepping toward the table and picking up the greaves as she glanced sideways, noticing the frozen tension in Kara’s posture, and let out a soft amused chuckle.

"Don’t be shy, Lord Vespera," Leona said, waving a hand casually. "We’re all women here... Frontier deployments mean you sleep eight to a tent so you get used to it."

Kara let out a high-strung hysterical chuckle that sounded unnatural.

"Haha... yeah! Totally! You’re so right! We’re all... women! Just a bunch of gals hanging out in our underwear!"

Down on the floor, Aki’s cheeks turned an even brighter shade of scarlet.

’All women... huh?’ Aki thought, her large blue eyes flicking from Maya’s toned abs to Leona’s lean shoulders, and finally locking onto Kara’s sharp, beautiful disguised profile.

Aki’s mind immediately began racing again.

’She says all women... but Silas is underneath that! He’s looking at them! He’s looking at me!’

The thought made Aki’s knees feel weak with her toes curling into the wool of the rug as she clutched the hem of her white chemise.

Kara quickly pulled out two bundles of pitch-black, enchanted silk compression gear, tossing them directly into Maya and Leona’s arms to break the visual line of sight.

"Put these on first," Kara instructed rapidly, gesturing with her chin. "The compression fabric actively regulates internal body heat so the void-ivory doesn’t chafe against your skin when you’re cycling mana. Snap the lateral latches along the ribs, then slide the cuirass over the shoulders. Make sure the spine rune sits directly over your lumbar vertebrae or the wind acceleration won’t trigger..."

Maya and Leona nodded, immediately stepping into the dark compression suits and beginning the meticulous process of fastening the overlapping plates.

Kara exhaled a long, silent breath, turning her attention down to Aki.

The First Princess was standing beside the sofa, looking completely lost.

She had the third set of void-ivory armor resting on the cushions beside her, staring at the straps and buckles as if they were an ancient, unsolved cipher.

"Need a hand, Princess?" Kara asked, stepping over.

"P-Please," Aki whispered, keeping her eyes firmly averted from Kara’s chest with her face still radiating heat.

"Alright, turn around," Kara said, stepping behind her.

Aki obeyed, her back facing Kara.

Kara reached out with her single hand as her long calloused fingers brushed lightly against the bare skin of Aki’s upper back as she smoothed the delicate white chemise down, reaching for the rear buckles of the lightweight breastplate.

SHK!

Aki’s entire frame jolted at the touch.

The heat of Kara’s palm against her bare skin was electric, sending a fierce shivering ripple of goosebumps cascading down her spine.

Aki gasped softly, her shoulders hunching inward with her hands coming up to nervously clutch her own collarbones.

"Relax," Kara murmured, her breath fluttering against the back of Aki’s ear as she leaned in to align the shoulder strap. "You’re stiff as a board. If you don’t relax your lats, the breastplate isn’t going to seat properly..."

"I-I am relaxed!" Aki squeaked, her heart hammering so violently against her ribs she was terrified Silas could hear it through her skin.

Kara pulled the top buckle tight, clicking the void-ivory strap into place.

She worked with surprising dexterity for someone with only one arm, using her chin to hold the strap steady while her fingers threaded the brass tongue through the loop.

CLICK!

"Now the waist," Kara said, moving her hand down.

Her fingers slid around Aki’s ribs, brushing against the soft curve of her waist as she hauled the lower flank-guards into position.

Aki’s breath caught in her throat.

The scent of Kara was completely drowning her senses as she felt clumsy with her balance wavering as she tried to lift her foot to step into the thigh-guards.

"Whoa... careful," Kara warned, reaching out to catch Aki’s elbow as the princess wobbled.

"I have it! I have it—" Aki insisted, trying to regain her footing on the slick silk chemise.

She didn’t have it.

The void-ivory armor, while lightweight for an Awakened warrior reinforced by mana, was still fifty pounds of dense treated beast-bone.

To an Unawakened civilian whose muscles were entirely mundane, the sudden shift in center of gravity was catastrophic.

Aki’s slipper caught the edge of her discarded navy gown.

SWOOSH!

"Ah—!"

Her legs tangled and her knees buckled under the weight of the breastplate then with an ungraceful yelp, the First Princess went pitching forward.

OOF!

Aki hit the Persian rug face-first, landing flat on her stomach like an upturned turtle with the heavy void-ivory cuirass pinning her to the floorboards as her legs kicked out in useless pathetic circles.

"I can’t get up..." Aki groaned into the wool with her voice muffled and her pride completely shattered.

Maya and Leona, who had just finished clicking their own greaves into place, froze, staring down at the fallen princess in stunned silence.

Kara stood above her, looking down at the small, armor-clad lump struggling against the floorboards.

For two seconds, Kara’s mouth hung open.

Then, she burst out laughing.

"Oh, man," Kara chuckled, crossing her single arm over her chest and shaking her head with deep fond amusement. "I forgot about the mass differential. Yeah... that set was forged for an Awakened frame. Don’t worry, Princess. We packed a completely different lightweight mesh suit for you."

"You... you told me to put this on..." Aki whimpered from the carpet, her face buried in her arms, refusing to look up at the world.

...

The private waiting suite reserved for the sovereign nation of Khemet was vast, styled after an ancient desert sepulcher.

Heavy drapes of deep crimson and gold-threaded linen hung from the sandstone arches, and braziers of blue chemical fire cast flickering, dancing shadows across the low marble tables laden with imported figs, roasted meats, and chilled palm wine.

This was the waiting room of the Sun-Crown of Khemet.

Standing before his divan were the two combatants chosen to carry Khemet’s standard into the Exhibition of Succession.

On the left stood his second son, Prince Tariq... a tall muscular youth with broad shoulders, clad in polished bronze scale-mail with his fingers resting casually on the hilt of a curved khopesh.

On the right stood Lady Samira, the daughter of the Vice President, an elite sand-weaver dressed in flowing desert robes of woven serpent-silk, her eyes lined with heavy black kohl.

Pharaoh-President Menes Al-Mansur raised a heavy golden goblet of wine, his deep baritone filling the sandstone room with pride.

"The Exhibition of Succession is our stage," Menes Al-Mansur declared. "The Nine Major Powers believe House Castellian holds the apex of this generation... They look to Europa’s artillery, to Borealis’s frost, to Amazon’s shock-corps and they forget the sands of Khemet."

He leaned forward, his hawk-like eyes locking onto Tariq and Samira.

"Your youngest brother, Malikar, is currently concluding our exclusive pharmaceutical negotiations with Sterling Bio-Dynamics in Valoria City," the President continued, a satisfied smirk touching his weathered lips. "Once that contract is sealed, our legions will possess the finest cellular regeneration serums on Earth and when the two of you break the northern bracket today, that place will belong to the desert!"

Tariq banged his armored fist against his bronze breastplate. "We will not fail the sands, Father! The crown will recognize our blood!"

Menes Al-Mansur smiled, raising the goblet to take a deep, celebratory draft of the sweet wine.

TICK!

A strange unnatural feeling vibrated against the President’s ribs as Menes Al-Mansur stopped.

The goblet paused inches from his lips and a sudden freezing prickle of cold intuition crept up the back of his thick neck.

He reached into the inner pocket of his suit with his heavy fingers pulling out a small ornate box crafted from solid star-iron, sealed with an ancestral blood-lock.

CLICK.

He opened the lid.

Inside the velvet lining rested a smooth polished sphere of translucent amber... a Life-Orb of the royal house, bound directly to the soul-core and heartbeat of his third son, Prince Malikar.

Menes Al-Mansur looked down and his breath stopped.

The amber light inside the orb was not glowing... at all... It just looked pitch-black and stagnant.

And right before the President’s widening eyes—

CRACK!

A jagged hairline fracture split the sphere down the center.

SHATTER!

The ancient relic exploded into a shower of dul lifeless glass shards, disintegrating into a fine gray powder that spilled between his trembling fingers and scattered across the sandstone floorboards!

"NO!"

Pharaoh-President Menes Al-Mansur surged to his feet with an ear-splitting agonized roar that shattered the crystal wine flutes on the table!

"MALIKAR!"

The golden goblet slipped from his hand, crashing against the stone, splashing dark-red wine across his leather sandals like freshly spilled gore.

Tariq and Samira recoiled with their weapons rattling in their grips as they stared at the President in horror.

"Father?!" Tariq stammered, his face draining of all color. "What... what has happened?!"

"MALIKAR IS DEAD!" Menes Al-Mansur wailed, clutching his own chest, his powerful frame shaking with violent sobs of raw grief. "My son! My boy! The pride of Khemet!"

Tears carved clean, pale lines through the dust on the sovereign’s dark cheeks.

Of all his children, Malikar had been his masterpiece.

He had been born with the purest and most terrifying Sand Affinity the royal lineage had witnessed in three centuries...

He was a prodigy whose soul naturally harmonized with the earth, capable of dissolving physical barriers and manipulating microscopic particles with terrifying elegance.

How could he die in the middle of a civilized and secure metropolis like Valoria City?! An assassination?

Menes Al-Mansur looked down at his trembling open palm, where the gray powder of the shattered life-orb still clung to his skin.

His sobs hitched as his hawk-like eyes narrowed, staring intently at the dust.

’Wait...’

The powder wasn’t normal glass residue, instead the fine gray particles were shifting and granulating into tiny coarse flakes of pale-yellow sand.

’It turned into sand...?’ Menes Al-Mansur thought, his mind racing through the ancestral grimoires of his house. ’A broken life-orb dissolves into pure soul-vapor. It never manifests physical elemental residue. That has never happened in the history of our bloodline...’

A terrifying icy chill traveled down his spine as the hairs on the back of his arms stood up straight, his spiritual pathways locking up in sudden panic.

’Why does it feel...’

The President’s breath caught in his throat.

’Why does it feel like we are being hunted...?!’

HSSSSSSSS!

A dry sound echoed from the shadowed corner of the ceiling.

Tariq’s head snapped upward. "What is that?"

On the far wall of the sepulcher suite, mounted near the heavy stone lintel, was an iron ventilation grate leading into the Citadel’s exhaust shafts.

Through the narrow diamond-shaped gaps of the iron grate...

Something was moving.

A thick undulating stream of coarse, pale-yellow sand was seeping silently through the metal slats, pouring down the vertical sandstone wall like a waterfall of grinding earth, pooling on the floorboards with a soft persistent hiss.

Menes Al-Mansur’s pupils contracted into microscopic pinpricks, his voice choking in his throat.

"Sand...?"

SPLAT!

[Author’s Note]

I want to thank everyone for the support you’ve given this book so far! Thank you for the GT and the gifts, it helps a whole lot! Well I’ve released 5 Chapters now and I’ll release 5 Chapters later so send more of your golden tickets!

Also, our Discord server will fully be prepared by the next time I post so make sure to hop in if you want, I’ll be dropping the link soon!