The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

At that same moment, by the river that cut through the capital.

The water’s surface remained calm beneath the lamplight lining both banks—before it suddenly swelled from within, as though something massive had surged through the channel beneath it.

Splooosh!

The water exploded upward, and five people emerged one after another, hurled out by the force of the current through a submerged opening at the base of the river’s stone wall.

Isabelle was the first to recover her balance.

She planted one foot on the water’s surface, and the instant she was about to sink again, a thin layer of ice shot out from beneath her boot, spreading rapidly to form a stable platform under her.

She spun in the air and reached out, catching Lysandra by the arm and pulling her onto the ice, just before Elias emerged behind them and slammed to his knees on the platform.

Kael came out curled around himself before landing flat on his back, while Evelyne was the last one the channel spat out. She crashed into him, sending both of them tumbling across the ice platform.

”Get away from me!” Evelyne shouted, shoving Kael off her before sitting up and pushing the wet strands of black hair out of her eyes.

”I’m glad you’re all right too, Evelyne,” Kael said, coughing up the water he had swallowed before rolling onto his side and thumping his chest with his fist. ”But if anyone ever suggests using a secret waterway as a shortcut again, I’m shoving them in alone first.”

”No one asked you to swallow half the river along the way,” Evelyne replied, wringing the water from the ends of her hair.

”The transfer mechanism activated before I could hold my breath. What happened to me could have happened to any of you,” Kael said, his stomach swollen with river water.

”You certainly drank plenty of it. Did it taste good?” Evelyne asked, openly mocking him.

”Yeah. I don’t recommend it,” Kael replied, coughing up even more water.

Isabelle paid no attention to their banter. Instead, she ran her eyes over the members of the team one by one, making sure none of them had been lost or injured during the passage.

”Lysandra?”

”Fine,” Lysandra answered, straightening on the ice platform.

”Elias?”

”Nothing broken,” Elias said as he rose, then checked the sword and shield strapped to his back. ”But I have no desire to take that route again on the way back.”

”Kael and Evelyne can still argue, so they’re fine too,” Isabelle said before moving her hand.

The ice extended from the platform to the river’s stone edge, forming a narrow walkway across the water.

Isabelle moved first, and the rest followed until they reached the bank, where they stood in a side passage away from the main street.

It was close to midnight, but the capital wasn’t fully asleep. A few carriages still crossed the bridges, the lights of luxury shops, taverns, and hotels continued to reflect across the river’s surface, and a handful of passersby moved along the nearby roads.

Isabelle removed the wet cloth wrapped around her bow, then checked the string and the arrows stored inside a tightly sealed quiver.

Lysandra paid her soaked clothes no mind. She quickly checked the sword at her waist, then turned to look at the spot they had emerged from.

The channel’s opening was completely hidden beneath the water’s surface, with nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the river’s stone wall.

”If Commander Thorvin’s calculations are correct, this is the only exit the intruder could have reached after entering the evacuation passage,” Lysandra said, her amber eyes watching the current carefully. ”There are no other branches after the point where the barrier collapsed.”

Elias approached the river’s edge and crouched, examining the wet stones surrounding the exit.

”But the current is strong. He may have been thrown far beyond this point before he managed to get out.”

”Or he left the river somewhere else entirely,” Kael added, running a hand through his short hair to shake off the water. ”We’re searching for someone whose name, appearance, and even gender we don’t know—and they passed through here almost a full day ago. This is absurdly difficult.”

”If it were easy, they wouldn’t have sent us,” Isabelle said coolly as she secured the bow to her back once more.

Kael stopped grumbling and looked at her.

Although their journey had begun with a joint order from Karius and Thorvin Valhalla, Isabelle was the team’s official leader. None of them objected to that. She wasn’t merely Karius’s daughter—she was also the finest archer in the camp, one of the Eighth-Rank squad captains, and the most familiar of them all with the capital. In truth, refusal had never been an option; this was a military order.

Evelyne pulled out a small cloth and began drying her face.

”I still don’t understand why Sir Karius was in such a hurry to send us to the capital when the search teams haven’t found Ravian yet,” she said, then glanced at Lysandra for an instant. ”We could have stayed and helped comb the forest.”

Lysandra’s expression didn’t change, but her fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of her sword.

Since Ravian’s disappearance into the forest, there had been no sign of him. No body had been found, no traces of a battle—not even a single drop of blood that could prove he had been attacked.

It was the first time she had lost someone under her command, even if only informally. It was as though the forest had swallowed him whole.

And yet Karius had pulled them away from the search operation and sent them after a mysterious figure who had infiltrated the fortress, slipped through every layer of protection, then escaped through the private evacuation passage of the fortress’s own commander, Thorvin.

Sheer madness.

”My father’s orders were clear,” Isabelle said, cutting through the silence that followed Evelyne’s words. ”The search teams will continue combing the forest for Ravian. Our mission is to find the person who infiltrated the fortress of the City of Light—and determine what they took or saw inside.”

”Do you think the two matters are connected?” Elias asked.

Isabelle turned to him with a steady look.

”There is nothing that proves it.”

Her answer was precise—but it was not a denial.

Kael looked between her and Lysandra, then exhaled as he swept his gaze over the surrounding streets.

”Fine. Let’s assume the fugitive reached the capital through here. What’s our next step? Do we ask every shopkeeper and tavern owner whether they saw a soaking-wet man climbing out of the river?”

”We start with both banks,” Isabelle answered. ”Then we check the city guard’s reports for any stranger who appeared in the area since yesterday. Someone who came out of a passage like this would not arrive in the capital with dry clothes and a normal appearance, no matter how high their rank.”

Lysandra’s eyes dropped to the wet stones, then moved in the direction of the current.

”If the fugitive was injured, they may have sought shelter nearby or tried to change clothes before entering the main streets. The cheap hotels and taverns would be the best places to start.”

”We move together until we know the area, then—”

Isabelle’s words stopped abruptly.

Hummmmmmm!

A deep echo passed through the capital.

It wasn’t loud at first. It felt closer to a faint vibration born somewhere very far away. Yet it didn’t reach their ears like an ordinary sound—it pierced straight through their bodies, reverberating within their bones and souls.

Everyone froze.

Then the ground shook.

Boom!

The river heaved violently, and the ice platform Isabelle had made only minutes earlier shattered into dozens of pieces. The lamps along both sides of the road swayed, the doors of the shuttered shops slammed against their frames, and several windows cracked under the force of the sudden tremor.

Carriages stopped in the streets, and the neighing of panicked horses rose all around them.

The terrified cries of the people began ringing through the capital’s streets as well.

”An earthquake?!” Evelyne exclaimed, widening her stance to maintain her balance.

”No,” Isabelle replied at once. ”An earthquake doesn’t strike with that kind of force out of nowhere.”

She rested a hand on the bow behind her back, her eyes rising toward the northern side of the river and settling on the heart of the capital.

The tremor that had struck the ground was nothing more than a side effect.

There was something else.

Something had arrived in the capital.

Or rather—it had descended.

Kraaaaaaaaaaaa!

The echo exploded for the second time.

This time, it was strong enough to make the air itself tremble. The passersby in the street ducked their heads, and some fell to their knees, clutching their ears. A man driving a carriage near the bridge collapsed unconscious, while his horse reared in a frenzy and nearly plunged into the river.

Elias pulled the shield from his back and instinctively stood in front of the others, though he didn’t know what he was supposed to protect them from.

Kael gripped his twin daggers and swept his eyes around, searching for an enemy that wasn’t there.

Lysandra felt an immense pressure descend upon her soul.

It wasn’t aimed at them, and they were nowhere near its center—yet it still made her breathing heavier for a moment. The soul energy inside her body seemed to shrink back of its own accord, refusing to draw near the presence that had appeared somewhere within the capital.

”That is not the aura of a human,” Lysandra said, her usual calm absent from her voice.

”Nor a beast,” Evelyne added, her face pale.

Isabelle stared toward the buildings stretching out ahead of them.

She couldn’t see the source of the echo, but she could pinpoint its direction. It was coming from one of the inner districts, far from the nobles’ quarter—and with every passing moment, its presence grew heavier.

”It’s coming from over there,” Kael said, pointing toward the center of the capital.

”No,” Isabelle murmured, her eyes narrowing slowly. ”It isn’t coming from there...”

The others looked at her.

”...It is descending upon that place.”

In the streets surrounding the tavern, the effect of that presence was not limited to shaking ground or loss of consciousness.

Several city guardsmen rushed toward the source of the echo after hearing the people’s screams, but they covered only part of the distance before their steps began to slow.

Blood streamed from their noses and ears.

The first of them dropped to his knees, then fell face-first without making a sound. The second followed a few steps later, before the rest of the patrol collapsed one after another.

Even the lower-ranked Awakened fared no better.

The closer any of them drew to the tavern, the more pressure mounted upon their souls—until their endurance broke and their hearts stopped, or their souls collapsed inside their bodies.

The Taboo itself had not descended into the world in its entirety.

This was merely a Descent—a minuscule fraction of its presence extending into the material world.

But that fraction alone was enough to turn the area around the tavern into a death zone that no ordinary human—or anyone of low rank—could enter and remain alive.

From their distant position by the river, the members of the team couldn’t see the corpses beginning to fill the streets.

But they heard the screams.

Then they heard them fall silent, one after another.

Isabelle lowered her stance slightly, and frost began spreading beneath her feet as she released her soul energy without realizing it.

”Stay close to me, and none of you is to move forward alone,” she ordered firmly, without taking her eyes off the direction of the echo. ”We will not approach the center of that presence until we understand what we are facing.”

”And our mission?” Kael asked, though his tone made it clear he already knew the answer.

Isabelle steadied her bow in her hand.

”Our mission has changed.”

Lysandra moved to stand beside her, her amber eyes staring into the depths of the capital.

”Let’s try to survive this catastrophe first,” Isabelle finished, her pupils trembling as the earth continued to shake beneath them.

As for the fugitive whose trail they had come to the city to follow, it never crossed any of their minds that he stood at the very center of the catastrophe itself.

Or that the presence which had set the entire capital trembling...

...had descended because of him alone.