From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 50: Heirbound

The First Lord did not speak at first.

Leon felt the weight of him—more than height, more than his imposing presence. It was years of history layered into form. The cloak of ash moved without wind, and where the figure stepped, the stone blackened and whispered old names.

Vaerin Thorne.

Marien raised her blade.

Leon didn’t move.

The mirror behind him still shimmered, the reflection smiling faintly, though Leon’s own face remained grave. In that moment, he understood. The mirror wasn’t showing him—it was showing what came before. Or what could become of him.

"So you are the one," Vaerin said at last. His voice was layered and raspy—one tone beneath another.

Marien shifted forward, in a protective stance. "You’re supposed to be dead."

"Yet i stand before you," the First Lord said.

Leon stepped forward. Ashveil flared in his hand.

Vaerin’s eyes moved to the blade. "Ah. My mistake made steel."

The stone pulsed beneath them. Faint tremors echoed like footfalls below the chamber. Something was still moving beneath.

"You opened the seal," Leon said. "Why?"

Vaerin studied him, and for a moment the shadows eased around his figure. Not fully, but enough to glimpse the ruin beneath: armour rent by time, a body stitched together by grief, and bound by ritual.

"Because what I fought never died," he answered. "It only slept. And the longer we sealed it, the deeper it learned about us. I rose because the chain broke from the outside—not from my own will."

Marien frowned. "Then why stop us?"

"Because you carry the key," Vaerin said, eyes on Leon. "And the door’s already open. I cannot let you release that beast."

The chamber groaned. From the stone mirror, lines began to glow—radiating outward in sigils that burned brighter with each passing second.

"The rite completes when the blood of Thorne remembers our history, our past, our duty." Vaerin said quietly. "We were sealed and all made forgotten so the beast may be sealed for an eternity."

"And you, Leon Thorne... you’ve remembered more than you should."

Leon didn’t flinch.

He simply nooded.

He understood. That he would not be allowed to leave alive, so he must fight his way out.

Vaerin lowered his hood.

What lay beneath was not a corpse, not truly. It was memory given form—his features blurred between ages, shifting from the proud general in the portraits to the broken commander in legend. His voice carried no hatred, only inevitability.

"I bled this stone to seal it. My oath etched into every threshold. But time wears down even sacrifice."

Ashveil’s glow sharpened, as if answering an unspoken challenge. Leon’s grip tightened.

"They said you vanished," Leon said. "That you abandoned your post. But you didn’t leave. You were buried down here with it."

"I was never meant to be a martyr," Vaerin said. "But the others needed someone to blame. And the ones that came after needed something to forget."

Behind him, the sigils spun faster around the mirror. The chamber’s pressure rose like a tide.

Marien whispered, "Leon. That mirror—it’s drawing from you."

He felt it. Like a string pulled taut inside his chest. His memories—not just of this place, but of every fight, every doubt—bleeding forward. Into the reflection.

Vaerin’s gaze darkened. "If it is allowed to finish copying you, it becomes you. Then it does not need your consent. It can open what I died trying to seal." freewёbnoνel.com

Leon raised Ashveil. "Then we stop it now."

A second pulse surged from the floor, and from the far wall, the stone cracked open. Not a door. A mouth.

From within, something crawled—a silhouette draped in robes stitched from whisper and shadow. It had no eyes. No face. Only hands. Twelve of them.

Vaerin stepped between it and Leon. "This is what waits beyond the seals. It’s not a god. Not a demon. It’s the thing that remembers before either were named. A beast of the darkness."

Marien braced at Leon’s side. "How do we fight something like that?"

Vaerin looked over his shoulder. "You don’t."

Then he turned and charged.

The First Lord moved like ash in the wind—blade drawn from nothing, his steps leaving scorch marks. He clashed with the creature at the edge of the light, metal shrieking against darkness-made-flesh.

Leon felt the mirror pulse again.

The reflection moved.

It stepped forward.

Not out of the mirror.

But out of him.

A perfect copy.

Ashveil in hand.

Eyes calm.

And smiling.

Marien gasped, backing into Leon. "Leon—"

"I see it," he said.

His reflection tilted its head. "You were never meant to live. You were only needed to remember."

Leon’s real blade sparked to life.

Then he lunged.

Steel met steel. Light met shadow.

And the crypt became war again.

The mirror’s edge rippled with each blow. Leon’s reflection fought like him—but without hesitation, without fear. Every strike was refined, as if distilled through all his victories, stripped of doubt.

Leon stumbled once, and the reflection pressed in. Ashveil scraped across Leon’s guard, nearly splitting his shoulder. He rolled clear, panting.

From the far end, Vaerin roared—a broken sound, like bones grinding through a battlefield. He drove his blade into the robed creature’s chest, but it didn’t fall. Its arms scattered and reformed, crawling across the walls like insects, reaching for Marien.

"Leon!" she cried, swatting at the spectral limbs.

Leon feinted low, then brought his blade upward, slicing through his doppelgänger’s side. The reflection staggered. For the first time, it bled—not red, but memories. Images leaked out, flickering in the air: his first duel, his father’s death, the oath before the Vault.

The reflection hissed. "You are not perfect Leon Thorne, and you never will be."

Leon drove Ashveil through its chest.

"I don’t need to be."

The mirror cracked.

The chant faltered.

And the robed creature paused—just enough for Vaerin to plunge his sword deep through its spine.

Light burst.

The seal shuddered.

But the battle wasn’t over.

Not yet.

Smoke coiled up from the crypt floor, not rising but falling—dragged toward the cracked mouth in the wall. The robed creature twisted as if sensing something had shifted. It hissed, a sound that bent the air, and its limbs flared outward, lashing in every direction.

Marien spun, steel flashing, severing three of the grasping hands. They evaporated midair, reforming again like smoke—slower this time.

Leon stood, blade still buried in the heart of his reflection. Ashveil pulsed, dimming with the strike’s aftermath. But something within him burned brighter now. Not fire. Resolve.

He turned.

Vaerin staggered from the creature, his shoulder ripped open, bloodless but raw. "It’s drawing from the seal again," he growled. "We need to sever the link entirely."

Leon glanced to the mirror. It was splintered—cracks running like veins across its surface—but not broken.

"What happens if we shatter it?" he asked.

Vaerin met his eyes. "Then you decide what comes next."

Leon didn’t hesitate. He raised Ashveil again.

And this time, he swung not at the shadow.

But at the mirror.

It screamed without sound.

The walls and the ground shook violently.

Pieces of the walls and ceiling began to fall.

The sigils ruptured.

And everything went white.