Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 117: Where You Thought You Stood

Chapter 117: Where You Thought You Stood

There was a blur.

No wind. No flash. Just the sensation that something had moved—and the human body hadn’t evolved fast enough to record it.

Amari swung.

His blade cut air, but the air pulled away too late, as if reality itself was still catching up to the fight.

She whispered behind him—not close, just wrong enough.

"You thought I’d be there."

He pivoted. She wasn’t behind him.

Shylo lunged from the left, twin knives forward, shadow-stitched to his limbs—but she was already beside him before the second step finished. He twisted to parry, caught nothing, and a laugh echoed where her feet never were.

The Guardian wasn’t rushing.

She was tuning them.

Amari stepped forward and back in the same breath. He didn’t mean to. It was like his body had gotten new instructions somewhere between breath and blade. He spun. Caught a blur. Swiped.

Nothing.

His dagger met Shylo’s shoulder by mistake—barely nicked him—but the pain was real.

The Guardian tilted her head from across the tent, smile wide like an artist admiring brushwork.

"See, that’s the part I like," she murmured. "Watching men who trust their instincts... realize their instincts lied."

She walked between illusions. Or they walked between her.

Shylo tried again—short dash, pulse-silent movement, blade aimed center-mass.

He landed the hit.

Or thought he did.

Until Amari gasped—and the blade had somehow stopped inches from Shylo’s own rib, turned sideways. The room shuddered as two realities overlapped. Their breaths collided like echo chambers folding in on each other. Both men stumbled back.

"You’re not in a fight," the Guardian said lightly. "You’re in a hall of decisions you never got to make."

Amari gritted his teeth. Blood throbbed in his ears. His vision started fracturing—one image of her by the lantern, another in the corner, a third whispering behind his own shoulder. He turned. Wrong again. She was in none of them.

He focused.

Hard.

Listened to footsteps. But even they began to betray him—sounding twice, three times, layered over each other like something was replaying her existence out of sync.

Shylo tried to anchor—slid one shadow blade into the dirt, hoping to ground his Unco into stillness. But even the shadows bent differently now. The silhouettes of the trees outside bent wrong. One moved before the wind hit it.

"She’s distorting perception," Amari hissed under breath. "Not just what’s real—what feels real."

"And if we can’t trust where she is," Shylo said tightly, "then we make her move."

He flared his own shadow—but it smeared, unsteady. It showed five versions of himself and none moved when he did.

Amari’s breath caught again. The ground under his foot pulsed—one step too long. He stumbled forward, right where he swore she’d been.

A boot hit his side.

Hard.

It sent him spinning across the tent, blade skittering, blood in his mouth.

He was up again in a blink. Not because he wasn’t hurt—because she was watching.

Because every second they hesitated, she was smiling more.

They tried again—Shylo circling wide, Amari pressing forward, both moving like they were sketching possibility instead of attacking outright.

She didn’t dodge.

She simply wasn’t there.

"You’re already running," she said, arms open like a benediction. "You just haven’t realized the circle closed yet."

...

The forest gave way to cliff.

Not a sharp drop. Not dramatic. Just—a dead end. A wall of stone, moss-veiled and towering, with no outcroppings, no slope, no clever route through. The kind of ending that didn’t scream "trap" so much as whisper "checkmate."

Maverick stared up at it, chest heaving, blood on the ridge of his cheek. "This can’t be it."

Milo reached the base and stopped, turning slowly in a circle. "There’s no ridgepass. No hollow. We’re boxed."

Johnny dropped to a knee, pulling his breath into slower waves, listening—not to air, but to intention. And Kenneth, still thunder in boots even half-broken, pressed a forearm to the wall and muttered, "We waited too long."

Behind them, the forest stirred.

Voices. Orders in tight formation. Crackling energy—not raw Unco, but disciplined charge. Weapons angled, not drawn. The sound of men who weren’t afraid.

Then—the circle closed.

Soldiers emerged between trees and roots and slope. Dozens. No rushing. Just cold, clear containment. Every angle covered. Every step rehearsed.

And in the middle of them—

Kael walked forward.

Not running. Not barking orders.

Just walking. Blade unsheathed but down. Hair tied back. Eyes steady.

He was smiling.

That calm kind of smile that belonged to kings when the throne room lock clicked behind you.

"No formal lines?" he asked casually, nodding toward the four of them. "Not even a wall to cover your rear. Must be tiring, keeping ahead of fate."

Maverick spat red onto the ground. "We didn’t take your princess."

Kael’s eyebrow twitched. "You moved her. Off territory. Into crossfire. I don’t care what justification you’ve spun between yourselves—what you did is war."

They tightened. Blades half-raised. Not for battle. Instinct.

Kael’s eyes flicked over them.

"You know you’re outnumbered. Undercharged. And nearly spent. If you were smart—"

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Because that’s when the sky cracked open.

A shock of wind burst downward like the air had been pulled inside-out. A blast detonated above them—screaming into their center without sound, just force—and hit all four like a hammer swung by God’s memory.

Explosion.

Flash.

Dirt and fire in every direction.

They hit the ground as one.

Rocks flung up in bright arcs. Branches bent backward with pressure. Gravel pinged off armor like bullets. The earth inhaled from the blast, then settled in a shudder.

Maverick rolled over, coughing up more dust than breath. His shoulder screamed—ligament or crack, he couldn’t tell. His vision blurred—and through the smoke, a silhouette emerged. Not charging. Just walking through fire like he’d let it bloom around him.

Kael.

Still smiling.

Now with that same blade twirling lazily in his hand, the edge humming like it knew the rules here.

"You boys made a mistake," he said softly.

He stopped over Maverick. Looked down. Not with rage. With certainty.

"You touched royalty. Dragged her across the lines. Thought silence would mask the crime."

He raised the sword slightly.

"Now silence follows you."