The Gate of Solgar

The Golden Gate rose before him, a monument of staggering wealth and arrogance. Its colossal arches were plated in thick gold, each panel catching the sun and hurling it back in blinding shards of light. Before it, travelers stood in ragged, weary lines, merchants barked over the clamor, and guards in polished armor watched it all with lazy, predatory eyes , wolves waiting to be fed.

Akhen walked alone. His boots struck the dust with an even rhythm, calm, unhurried. He wore his dark cloak loose, the hood casting a shadow over his eyes. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of the sword at his side , the blade wrapped, silent, as if sleeping.

As he neared the gate, two guards stepped forward. Their eyes flicked over him, calculating. The taller one sneered.

“Coin,” he demanded, his voice loud enough for those in line to hear. “Nobody passes without tribute.”

The crowd shuffled, heads turning, eager for spectacle. Akhen gave them nothing. His expression was unreadable as the guards circled him like hyenas. One pressed a gauntleted hand against his chest, then began patting him down. Another tugged at his cloak, peeling it back.

“Strip him,” one laughed. “Let’s see what treasure he hides.”

Before the eyes of merchants, peasants, and pilgrims alike, Akhen was reduced to a spectacle , his worn clothes tugged at, his weathered appearance weighed and measured against their crude amusement. He did not resist their prying hands or their mocking laughter; he stood still, a statue of patience in the midst of their noise. And then, as the last curious hand slid across his arm , they noticed something.

The guards faltered. Something told them the truth they had tried to ignore: this was not a man to strip bare, this was not a lamb to fleece. This was something else. Something terrible.

A ripple of silence passed through the onlookers.

The leader of the guards stepped forward, broad-shouldered and scarred, a veteran of many battles. He met Akhen’s eyes and instantly regretted it. His throat tightened. His heartbeat quickened. It was as though a great abyss had opened , and he was staring down into it.

Then his gaze fell lower, to the sword at Akhen’s side. For just a moment the wrappings seemed to breathe, and a faint red shimmer pulsed like a heartbeat. His eyes widened further as he glimpsed a faint tattoo on Akhen’s hand, barely visible, but enough. He knew. This was not a wanderer. This was one of the inner circle.

The guard leader stepped back immediately. His voice shook as he raised his hand to halt his men.

“Let him through.”

“But—” one started.

“Now!” the leader barked.

The others froze, confused but unwilling to question. The crowd whispered, curious, but no one dared speak too loudly.

Akhen pulled his cloak back into place, gave the leader a nod that was half mockery, half gratitude.

“My thanks,” he said softly.

As he stepped past the gate, the leader exhaled, his hands trembling. He would not forget this encounter for a long time.

The Golden Gate opened into a world of blinding light and gilded lies. Solgar, the Shining City , Statues of saints and heroes lined the boulevards, their smiles frozen, their eyes vacant.

But to Akhen, the city did not shine , it burned.

As he took his first steps into the capital, his vision blurred. The gilded arches of the Golden Gate seemed to waver, the brilliant gold peeling back like a lie rotting from the inside out. In jagged, painful flashes, he saw the truth beneath Solgar’s shimmering skin:

Money changing hands in shadowed backrooms, whispers sealing the fate of kingdoms.
Women displayed like polished trinkets in lamplit taverns, their worth measured in coin.
Dice rolling across stained tables, fortunes and lives lost between sips of bitter liquor.
Hollow-eyed children shivering in filth-strewn alleys, ignored by silk-draped lords whose bellies were never empty.
Opium dreams and poisoned promises - every vice, every betrayal, veiled by grandeur.

This was the true heart of the empire. Not glory. Not order.

Decay, dressed in gold.

His head throbbed, a drumbeat of buried truths pounding behind his eyes. Akhen pressed a hand hard against his temple, teeth grinding as the golden illusions of Solgar peeled away like gilded rot. Around him, the very light seemed to rebel , lantern flames recoiled, torches dimmed as if strangled, and the radiant glow of the capital twisted into something cold and watchful.

The statues, those proud sentinels of Solgar’s glory, seemed to shift without moving. Their holy gazes now looked down not in blessing, but in scorn. Triumphant smiles sharpened into sneers. And at the center of it all, the great marble angel - its face once a mask of divine grace , now wore a grin. Not holy. Hungry

A grin that whispered recognition.

A grin that said:” The Fallen One has come home.”

All across Solgar, powerful men stirred like prey sensing a predator.

In a gilded hall of silk and wine, a man draped in jewels froze mid-laugh. His goblet slipped from his hand, spilling red wine like blood across the marble floor. The women on his lap shrieked, but he heard nothing. Sweat ran down his brow as his body trembled, his instincts screamed at him , Something has entered the city .

In the tallest tower, among stacks of scripture and forbidden tomes, a scholar jerked awake. His candle sputtered black. He stumbled to the window, eyes wide, pupils shrinking as he felt the change in the air. Slowly, with dread and a twisted smile of pure horror he whisphered ,

“Heaven's worst nightmare... is paying a visit.'"

Deep beneath Solgar, in catacombs that had never known light, a gathering of shadows fell to silence. Rats scurried away as if chased by fire. And at the center of that abyss, an old man with eyes of molten gold lifted his head. His grin split wide, savage, joyful, ancient.

“At last,” he rasped, voice echoing like a hymn of war. “The day has come. The feast of ruin begins. Let it tear this heaven apart.”

And above them all, across every corner of Solgar, unseen eyes wept, unseen mouths whispered, unseen hearts broke. For the city had shone bright in arrogance, but the moment Akhen’s foot crossed its threshold, its golden flame dimmed, and in its place, a black fire was born.

Akhen shook his head, clearing the visions. The pain lingered, a knife twisting in his skull, but his steps did not falter. He wandered deeper into the city until narrow alleys closed around him like jaws. He felt it before he saw it , the presence. Dozens of them, above, below, all around.

Assassins.

He entered a narrow passage The air turned sharp and cold. From above, a blade dropped - a silent, venomous streak, its edge glistening with a poison. Others followed, spilling from the shadows, from rooftops, from doorways left ajar. Steel whispered death from every direction.

Akhen moved like water flowing through stone - swift, fluid, inevitable. His cloak snapped like a banner as he twisted, deflected, parried. Daggers meant for his throat met empty air. Swords meant to pierce his heart clashed harmlessly against his own. But even water can be pierced.

One blade, quicker and crueler than the rest, slipped past his guard. It buried itself deep in his chest, just below the collarbone. A cold fire spread instantly, and the world narrowed to the feel of the poisoned steel lodged within him.

He did not cry out. He did not stagger.

He simply looked down at the hilt protruding from his body.

“Not bad… you bastards.”

With a single, brutal motion, Akhen ripped the poisoned knife from his chest. A wave of agony washed over him, replaced by something darker, something awake.

His eyes flooded with blackness, no whites, no iris , only depthless night. Beneath his skin, his veins ignited with a faint crimson glow, like embers seen through ash. He held the blood-slicked knife, studied its cruel curve for one cold heartbeat, then hurled it back into the shadows. A wet thud, then a strangled cry, cut short.

Silence fell, heavy and waiting.

And then, Akhen drew his own daggers.

The assassins hesitated. They had come to hunt a man.

They had found something else.

The alley became a slaughterhouse.

He moved like a storm given form.

The first assassin lunged. Akhen sidestepped, his left dagger parrying the poisoned blade upward while his right slashed horizontally, severing the man’s throat before he could blink. Blood arced through the air as the body fell.

Two more came from behind. He dropped low, spinning—a sweeping kick shattered the first’s knee. Before the man could scream, Akhen drove a dagger through his eye. The second thrust a thin blade toward Akhen’s lower back; Akhen twisted, catching the weapon between his crossed daggers, wrenching it free, then ramming it back into its owner’s heart.

Four attacked at once. He became a blur of motion,

A downward slash deflected into a upward gutting strike.

A poisoned dart meant for his neck was knocked aside with a flick of his wrist before he buried a dagger in the shooter’s temple. He used an attacker’s momentum against him, throwing the man into another, before finishing both with precise thrusts to the spine.

They were skilled , twenty of Solgar’s deadliest, each strike meant to kill. But Akhen read them like open scrolls. He broke elbows, slit arteries, shattered jaws. His movements were brutal, efficient , no flourish, only function. One assassin managed to slice his forearm , the cut sizzled with poison. Akhen didn’t flinch. He grabbed the man by the hair, yanked his head back, and opened his throat from ear to ear.

Another slipped behind him, plunging a serrated blade into his side. Akhen roared , not in pain, but in fury. He elbowed the man in the face, seized his arm, and broke it over his knee before slamming a dagger through his skull.

When the last assassin fell, Akhen stood alone in the narrow passage, drenched in blood and breathing heavily. His body was a canvas of wounds , slashes, punctures, the deep stab in his chest still weeping dark blood. Poison burned through him, making his muscles tremble, his vision blur at the edges.

Yet he remained upright, daggers still gripped tight. The ground around him was a slaughterhouse. And in the silence that followed, his shadow seemed to stretch longer and darker than any other.

One assassin still breathed, pinned to the ground with his weapon lost. His eyes bulged in terror as Akhen turned toward him, each step heavy with menace.

The survivor scrambled back. “N-no… stay away—”

Akhen said nothing. His daggers dripped. His eyes were pools of black. He looked at the man not as prey, but as something already dead.

“Who sent you?” His voice was low, guttural, touched by something inhuman.

“Speak, and die without more pain.”

The assassin’s lips quivered. He could not speak. Terror bound his tongue.

Akhen sighed, almost disappointed. “Then suffer.”

The blade flashed. The assassin screamed as Akhen sliced through his leg at the knee. Blood spurted, pooling fast.

“Name,” Akhen whispered.

The man shook his head violently.

Another cut. His arm hit the ground.

Another scream.

Akhen’s face did not change.

“Name.”

The assassin’s eyes rolled back. His words tumbled out at last, cracked and broken. “The… the Five Lords…”

Akhen tilted his head. For a moment, the black in his eyes shimmered red. His blade rose one last time and, with effortless grace, removed the man’s head.

Silence.

Collapse

The alley stank of blood. Bodies lay in heaps, twenty killers reduced to crimson ruin. Akhen stood among them, swaying. The venom had spread through his veins, clawing at his nerves, slowing his limbs. His breath rasped. His vision blurred.

His sword hung at his side, it was no longer gold. Its wrappings had fallen away, and it glowed bright, blood-red, as though forged from the living . The weapon pulsed, and for a heartbeat, the alley seemed to breathe with it.

Akhen’s black eyes flickered. Was he still himself? Or something else entirely?

He staggered, dropped to one knee. The poison flooded his chest, choking him. His fingers clawed at the stones. His vision narrowed to a tunnel of shadows.

And then he saw him.

High above, on a rooftop bathed in moonlight, stood a man. White-haired, tall, not human but godlike. He radiated power calm yet crushing, like the silence before a storm. His eyes met Akhen’s across the distance, piercing, ancient.

Akhen’s strength fled all at once. His legs gave way, his body folding like a broken marionette. He hit the wet stone with a heavy, final sound , the clatter of steel, the gasp of breath leaving him for what felt like the last time. His cheek pressed into the cold, blood-slick cobblestones, the metallic scent filling his senses.

His vision dimmed, tunneling inward. The last thing he saw was the figure standing at the end of the alley - tall, cloaked, haloed by distant lamplight. It did not approach. It did not speak. It only watched, its gaze holding something deeper than curiosity… something like recognition.

And then everything went black.