Chapter 30
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Karsu shot between the branches like an arrow that had missed its target—but felt no regret.
His threads extended from his fingers to distant trunks, pulling him through the sky above the dying forest. The wind whistled in his ears, and the trees beneath him blurred into streaks. He was almost flying. He was almost escaping. He was—observing.
A tremor.
Not an ordinary tremor. The ground was shaking beneath itself, as if something massive was running in the opposite direction. Not far from him. Toward him. Then—away from him.
He looked down.
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He saw it.
An animal.
Massive. Black. Its horns curved backward like arcs of molten iron, and its eyes burned with a red glow unlike any creature that had ever walked the earth. It was running. Not like something fleeing—like something charging.
Everything in its path vanished.
A giant tree, centuries old, stood in its way. It did not go around it. It did not leap over it. It simply—went through it. The trunk split in two as if it were paper, and the beast continued without slowing.
A boulder the size of a small house. It collided with it. Stones scattered in every direction, and the beast did not look back.
The forest animals—those hiding in their burrows—had no time to escape. They vanished beneath its hooves as if they had never existed.
And the ground—it remembered every step. It trembled. It cracked. It groaned.
One and a half skulls.
Karsu knew this rating. The scavengers he had killed earlier—their strength had been only one skull. They had not yet reached their full evolution.
But this creature… this beast… was in a different category. One and a half skulls. Not an ordinary monster. A monster built for a battle that would only end with death.
It could not be tamed except by defeating it physically. One against one.
Karsu pieced it together quickly. This bull—for it was a bull, though its description surpassed anything humans knew of bulls—was heading toward the source of the collapse. Toward Cox. Toward its master.
It seems the gorilla has found a loyal friend.
Karsu smiled a cold smile. He did not stop. He continued his flight between the trees, leaving the bull behind to destroy everything in its path toward a man still standing on his rocky platform, laughing.
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Minutes passed. Long. Heavy.
The trees began to thin. The shadows began to fade. The light—that cold moonlight that had not been visible for hours—began to return to the scene.
Karsu reached the edge of the forest.
But he did not step out. He stopped. Hung in the air for seconds, his threads still tangled around the last standing trunk. His eyes—those eyes that saw better in darkness than in light—swept the area ahead.
Then he felt it.
Fargas.
The same sensation. The same presence that had followed him through the forest. The same man who read his absence, not his trail. He was here. At the edge. Waiting.
He knows I will come.
Karsu descended slowly. He did not jump. He did not land abruptly. He simply—descended. His feet touched the ground quietly, as if he were walking on soft sand rather than the soil of a dying forest.
He stood there. Breathed. Then—he removed his cloak.
He did not simply throw it to the ground. He took it in his hand and placed it beneath a nearby tree trunk. He pressed his palm over it. The Qaz of stone—that Qaz everyone knew, yet no one truly understood—worked in silence. The soil around the cloak shifted, wrapped around it, covered it, hardened into stone. The cloak disappeared. As if it had never been.
Karsu now stood in only his underclothes: loose black trousers and a thin white shirt. Sweat had soaked the shirt, clinging it to his skin, revealing a hint of his well-defined abdominal muscles. There were no clear signs of blood. No open wounds. No bleeding. Only—fatigue. Only—sweat. Only—two cold eyes searching for a man running in place hundreds of meters away.
He began to walk. Slowly. Quietly.
His right hand rose to his face. It did not touch it—it hovered just centimeters away. His fingers began to move, a precise, calculated motion, like one playing an instrument only he could hear.
He whispered words. They were not Arabic. Not a human language. Just sounds, vibrations, frequencies.
Then—he heard it.
A faint ringing. Like a glass plate breaking slowly—but not shattering. Just cracking, enough to change its shape, enough to become something else.
Karsu's features changed.
Not drastically. But anyone who had seen him moments ago—if anyone had been watching—would not recognize him. His face was less sharp. His eyes less deep. His lips less cold. His voice—had he spoken—would have been different.
Karsu had returned to what he was before becoming the Lord of Threads. Before becoming a killer. To his natural form. To his real face.
As dawn broke and the darkness thinned, Karsu stood observing the scene.
Then—he released his Sadeem.
It was not a normal release. It was insane.
Waves of invisible energy burst from his body in all directions, like lightning striking the ground without warning. The Sadeem was dense, suffocating, as if it wanted to cover the entire forest, as if it wanted to choke everything within it.
But it was directed. Focused. Toward one target.
Toward Fargas.
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Fargas felt it before it reached him.
The Sadeem. Dense. Powerful. Intentional. It was not an ordinary attack—it was a declaration. A declaration of presence. A declaration of challenge. As if its sender were saying: I am here. Come.
He sensed the location. Not far. At the edge of the forest. Where he had been looking moments ago. Where he had seen nothing.
Trying to weaken me before the fight.
He did not hesitate.
He released his Sadeem.
The waves collided in the space between them. They were not visible. Not audible. But anyone close—if anyone had been close—would have felt it in their chest, in their head, in their bones.
Karsu did not move. He stood in place, looking ahead.
Fargas did not move. He stood in place, his feet never stopping.
Hundreds of meters separated them. But in the world of the Sadeem—they were face to face.
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On the opposite side of the city, where the alleys began to widen and the voices of wandering vendors grew louder, two people were walking.
They were not truly together. They were merely—heading to the same place.
The man was broad-shouldered, a black scarf wrapped around his neck with deliberate care, and a dark medallion of Viraline metal hung over his chest, glinting with a faint green shimmer whenever it caught the sunlight. He walked with heavy steps, as if the ground beneath him owed him a debt for allowing him to stand upon it.
The woman was slightly behind him. Her dark gray coat was carefully fastened, and her black hair was tied with deliberate carelessness—not messy, but not perfectly neat. Around her neck, barely visible, a symbol was engraved with a thin silver thread: the number one.
Her eyes—those calm eyes—were observing the road ahead, not him.
"Do you still remember?"
Her voice was calm, devoid of any clear emotion. But the question was directed at him.
The man stopped for a moment. He looked at her with a hint of irritation.
"Are you mocking me?"
She did not answer.
"I fell. Me. In a filthy tavern. In front of a handful of commoners." His voice rose slightly, then quickly lowered, as if he remembered that no one cared. "I haven't recovered yet. My head is still ringing."
"He was a third-level Qaz Lord, and you were not the only one who fell in front of commoners in that tavern."
"I know," he replied curtly.
"And there was another. That investigator," she continued.
"I know!"
Silence. Then he added in a lower voice:
"He ignored me. I saw it with my own eyes. He sat there, drinking water, and looked at me as if I were—"
"As if you were nothing."
She finished the sentence for him. She was not mocking. She was merely—reminding.
He looked at her. He wanted to be angry. But he could not. She was telling the truth.
"That's why we're here."
He gestured forward with his chin. A few steps ahead, there was a small stone tower, old, neglected, unremarkable. At its top, there was a carrier pigeon. Only one.
"The message."
He pulled a small piece of parchment from his pocket, carefully folded, sealed with red wax that bore no signature.
He extended his hand toward her. She looked at the parchment, then at him.
"Why don't you send it yourself?"
"Because they trust your description more than mine."
She was silent for a moment. Then she took the parchment.
She climbed the stone steps slowly, her steps light, barely touching the stone. She reached the top. The pigeon stood there, cooing softly, waiting.
She tied the parchment to its leg with a practiced, familiar motion. The pigeon looked at her with its small eyes, then—flapped its wings and took off.
She stood there for a few seconds, watching the sky.
Then she descended.
"It's done."
"What did you write?"
She looked at him. A long look. Unreadable.
"What I was asked to write."
"That's not an answer."
"That is the only answer."
Silence. He knew he would get nothing more.
"Fine. I'll go. I have—"
"No."
She cut him off.
"Wait here."
"Why?"
She looked at the sky again. Toward the distant horizon where the pigeon had vanished.
"Because the reply from last time will arrive today. And you will be the first to see it."
His eyes widened.
"Today?! How—"
She did not finish. She knew. And he knew she would not tell him.
They stood there. In silence. Waiting for a pigeon that might never come.
But it came.
After minutes—no more than ten—a small dot appeared in the sky. It drew closer. Grew larger. Until it became a pigeon landing on the edge of the tower, cooing in exhaustion.
The man looked at the woman. The woman looked at the pigeon.
She untied the message from its leg. Opened it. Read it.
Her expression did not change.
Then she closed it.
"What did they say?"
She looked at him. Then at the message. Then at the sky.
"They will come."
"Who?"
She did not answer. She simply turned her back and began to walk.
The man stood there for a moment, wavering between anger and curiosity. Then he followed.
"At least tell me how you know things I don't know—"
"Not now."
"When?"
She stopped. Looked at him over her shoulder.
She slipped a small piece of paper into his pocket.
"Read it yourself."
Then she walked away.
Leaving him standing in the middle of the road, looking at her, looking at the sky, looking at the small tower that now held nothing but a pigeon cooing in exhaustion.