Magus Reborn-243. Valkyrie’s Tower (2)

Once the three orcs agreed to escort them, the atmosphere shifted. The desert didn’t feel the same anymore. The wind still howled and the sand still bit at their skin, but now they were moving deeper into enemy land—under escort, yes, but it felt more like being paraded by guards who expected to kill them the moment they proved useless.

The orcs flanked them like wardens. One kept spitting into the sand. Another cracked his knuckles every few minutes. They exchanged no words, so the only sound was just heavy footsteps and the sound of snorting bulls.

Kai didn’t really care.

The first step had worked. He had bluffed his way in. But getting close was one thing. What came next would decide on how well he could access the tower while cornering Khorvash at the same time.

As they crested a dune, he looked at Adil, who was in the middle of covering his face with a scarf, only his dark eyes visible beneath the folds. The orcs didn’t seem to care.

But Kai noticed. He kept noticing.

Adil didn’t seem like someone who’d sign up to die. Not for glory. Not even for revenge. He remembered the information they had gotten on him. He was sure that he had more reason to come with him as a guide rather than just wanting the orcs dead.

After all, there were always things at play.

As if feeling the weight of Kai’s stare, Adil turned his head just enough. “What?” he asked, the sound muffled by the scarf.

Kai gave a vague smile, eyes squinting against the sun. “Just thinking.”

Adil raised a brow. “About what?”

Rather than answer, Kai flicked two fingers near his hip. A breeze kicked up around them. Harmless to the eye, but layered with the subtle folds of a sound-silencing spell. A shimmer, then silence wrapped around them.

Adil noticed. His brow furrowed deeper, but he didn’t comment.

“Why are you really here?”

Adil answered directly. “I’m guiding you.”

“That’s not what I mean. You don’t strike me as the kind of man to sign up for a suicide mission based on a tower you don’t even believe in. Or have you changed your mind?”

“I still don’t believe in your tower,” he said.

“No?”

“No. But I believe it can only be two things.” Adil cast a glance sideways, eyes squinting in the heat. “Either you’re telling the truth, or you and your whole crew are absolutely insane. Since you haven’t turned tail yet, and the orcs clearly believe something’s out there… I’m leaning toward the first. But I guess you are insane in either case.”

Kai gave a soft grunt of amusement. “So, you're betting on the insanity being real.”

“Something like that.” Adil shifted slightly in his saddle. “Besides, even if it’s a lie, it’s too late to walk away. And if it’s the truth—if there’s really a tower and you really kill Khorvash—then I sure as hell can’t be left behind.”

“Why not?”

“Glory.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

“Let’s say you win,” Adil continued. “Khorvash falls. The orcs lose their grip. The balance returns to the desert… even tilts toward the humans again. Then what?”

Kai listened while they were moving.

“The tribes will celebrate. They’ll cheer your name. But soon enough, they’ll return to their old habits. Infighting. Grudges. Blood feuds between different tribes for reasons lost to time.” Adil shook his head slowly. “They might behave for a while, sure. But once the fear fades, they’ll remember why they hate each other.”

Kai’s brows furrowed at what the man was getting at.

“You’ll be the outsider who slayed Khorvash,” Adil added. “And since you’re not a tribal, no one tribe gets to take the credit. Which means no tribe will rise above the others.”

And that’s when it clicked.

Kai’s eyes widened slightly, realization dawning like a sunrise over dry earth. “You want to change that.”

Adil didn’t deny it. He let out a low laugh, dry and honest.

“I’m not trying to rule the desert, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s too messy. Too many old debts and complications. But I want my people to rise above that chaos. To be something more.”

“You want to lead your tribe to prominence,” Kai murmured.

“Yes,” Adil said simply. “The council was a bandage. It kept things from bleeding out after Khorvash broke half the desert. But when he dies, that structure dies with him. And if I’m one of the men who helped kill him… that would be enough to stall any past rumors about me and give me the reputation to create something never seen before in Ashari.”

Kai understood what Adil meant. There were things like reputation, power and legacy that affected things. It would be enough to silence the whispers of his past. Enough to make his tribe feared, respected. Enough to build something new.

Kai looked at him more closely now. He wasn’t just another arrogant tribal leader riding out to die. He was a man who saw an opportunity to rewrite everything.

“You know about the rumors,” Kai said.

“Of course I do.”

“Then why...?”

“Because I’m not stupid,” Adil interrupted. “Lots of men in high places pretend they don’t hear the talk. I am not one of those.”

There was a brief pause. Then, quieter, almost reluctant, he asked, “Are they true?”

“What do you think?” Adil asked back.

Kai didn’t get the chance to answer.

Big Nose suddenly pulled at his mount’s reins and grunted sharply. The other orcs followed suit, halting in a loose semicircle. Kai instantly dismissed the warding spell around him and Adil, the magic winded down. He kept his face neutral.

“We walk from here,” Big Nose growled, hopping down from his beast with a heavy thud. The creature grunted and stamped its hoof, discontent with being left behind.

“Why?” Kai asked, though he already had a guess.

The orc shot him a glare. “Because we’re going to the palace. This path isn’t made for beasts.”

That was all he offered before turning and marching ahead, boots crunching against sand and dried roots. The other two orcs pushed them to get down their own mounts and followed without a word.

They moved forward, feet sinking into the warm dunes. Around them, the landscape subtly changed. It wasn’t the sand—it was the trees.

Dozens of them.

Twisted, pale-limbed desert trees with leaves like cracked leather—Luvara trees. Hardy, drought-fed things that clawed into the land like bony fingers. Kai had seen them before, sparsely scattered across the Ashari, but never this many in one place.

They grew denser with each step. Then it hit him.

A pulse—like a ripple through his skull. His instincts screamed danger. His foot halted mid-step, body tensing. Magic? An ambush? No… not quite.

He knew that feeling. It was a redirection ward.

The moment his mind recognized it, it tried to turn him away, to reroute his path—make him walk back and forget why he came.

He gritted his teeth and shook it off.

Next to him, Adil slowed. He was already starting to turn back when Bald Head stepped forward and shoved him back in line. Kael and Claire stood stiffly, eyes narrowed and confused, clearly shaken by the same force.

Even the orcs weren’t immune. Their steps faltered—only for a moment—but they pushed through.

“Keep walking,” Big Nose snapped. “Don’t give in to Belkhor’s curse.”

Kai nearly snorted aloud. Curse? That was no divine will. It was a ward. Basic, even. But for people without training—or any magical resistance—it would feel like divine compulsion. No wonder they thought it was some god’s protection.

He kept moving.

The dunes around them grew steeper. The wind shifted. Every few feet, the taste of mana in the air grew stronger. It was faint like a whisper compared to what he was used to—but in a place where mana was scarce to the point of extinction, even the smallest thread stood out.

And Kai could feel it pooling, drawing them closer. It turned out he’d been right all along.

The tower was leaking it. Not enough to overwhelm the enchantments, but just enough for a trained Mage to feel its presence threading through the air like silver smoke.

The orcs ahead slowed, muttering among themselves. Every few dozen steps, one would kneel, claw into the sand with a dagger, then nod as if confirming something before moving on. Claire leaned in close from behind and whispered, “What are they doing?”

“Illusion ward,” he murmured. “They’ve marked the right path. Lose it, and you walk in circles. So, they are looking at the route marks.”

Understanding passed in silence between the party. The illusion wasn’t surprising—Kai would’ve done the same if he wanted to hide something important. He had enough mana to brute force his way through if needed, and his bag carried spare storage stones filled to the brim just in case. But it was better to just follow the orcs. Every drop of mana counted.

So, they continued forward. Then suddenly, Stinky grunted, “We’re close.”

Kai's gaze swept forward, hoping to see something. But, there was nothing.

The desert still stretched endlessly, dunes gently sloping beneath a pale, blazing sky. There was no tower. No structure. No sign of anything.

Then he took one more step. And it appeared.

It didn’t fade in like smoke or shimmer into view. One second the horizon was empty—and the next, it wasn’t. The tower was just there.

A collective gasp rang out. Kael’s breath caught, and Gareth stumbled back. Adil muttered a curse behind them, his voice shaken and full of something that sounded dangerously close to awe. “It’s… fucking real.”

Kai didn’t speak. His eyes locked on the structure before them.

Even from a distance, the tower exuded presence. It rose like a monolith from the sands, made of smooth black stone that shimmered faintly under the sun, almost mirror-like but etched with seals and circular sigils that pulsed faintly with embedded enchantments. The edges of each floor curved inward before flaring out again, giving it a shape like a rising flame—elegant, yet imposing.

The stone itself, he could tell, was a rare mineral highly conductive with mana. Most towers he had seen or heard about only used materials with high conduction in important areas—but here, it made up the entire structure.

Valkyrie hadn’t just built a tower. She’d poured everything into it.

It was taller than the Archine Tower by at least four floors, and somehow far more… complete. Not in size. In intent.

Even if the tower had been completely hollow—just an empty shell with nothing more than dust inside—Kai would’ve still accepted it.

The value of the structure alone was staggering. Every stone, every enchantment, every rune carved into the arkhite frame shimmered with the price of nations. His mother hadn’t left behind an inheritance. She’d left behind a kingdom disguised as a tower.

But there was no time to admire it for long.

Bald Head suddenly let out a throaty chuckle, and then another followed suit. Sneers pulled at their cracked lips as the orcs turned back toward the group, puffing their chests with pride.

“Feel blessed, humans,” Big Nose grunted. “You’re the first of your kind to lay eyes on the palace of Belkhor. Kneel before it.”

He dropped to his knees as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The others followed without hesitation, heads bowed, fists over their chests in reverence.

Kai barely suppressed the twitch in his brow. He hated this part.

But now wasn’t the time to stir chaos. One by one, he and his party mirrored the orcs’ movement, sinking down onto one knee. Even Adil bowed his head, though Kai doubted it was for Belkhor.

The desert wind whistled faintly as the orcs muttered low prayers, their words inaudible to comprehend in another language. Kai didn’t understand them, but the sound scraped at something primal—devotion so deep it stank of blood and conquest.

When they finally rose, the group began moving again, cutting across the sand without a word. Five minutes passed in silence before the true entrance of the tower came into view.

It loomed like a wall meant to keep gods at bay.

The gate was massive—twice as tall as any city gate Kai had ever seen. Inlaid within it were crystals—raw aetheum, each one pulsing faintly as if breathing with the tower itself.

Kai stepped forward, eyes narrowing in curiosity. The metal… it wasn’t something he recognized immediately. But the way it reacted—the hum beneath his skin as he approached—told him it was highly mana-conductive, far more than he had originally thought. Maybe a rare alloy like xelantium or a reinforced variant of soulsteel. It didn’t matter.

He had an idea on how to open the door. His hand was halfway up when a strong grip caught his shoulder.

Kai’s body tensed, instincts flaring. Wind gathered in his palm before he realized who it was. Stinky.

The orc’s foul breath hit him first—hot, heavy, rancid. Then came the snarl.

“You are not permitted to touch Belkhor’s gates,” he growled and pushed Kai behind. “Walk behind us. Do not get ahead of yourself, human.”

Kai's jaw tightened.

He stared into the orc’s eyes, his magic crackling beneath the surface like a blade half-drawn—but then, with effort, he swallowed the urge and gave a single, clipped nod.

“Understood.”

The orcs snickered, clearly amused at the show of supposed submission, and turned away, motioning for the group to follow as they veered off toward another path carved between the dunes.

Kai watched them go, his eyes flat, but he stayed muted. Let them laugh for now. Soon, they’d understand who they were really dealing with.

They trailed behind the orcs in silence, boots crunching over loose sand and gravel.

Kai’s gaze flicked toward the massive front gate they were leaving behind, brow furrowed. Why were they bypassing the entrance to the tower?

Before he could voice the question, Claire leaned in slightly. “Are you alright, Lord Arzan?”

He didn’t look at her, eyes fixed ahead. “Yes,” he said softly. “Let’s see where they’re taking us.”

The orcs led them around the tower’s curved flank, weaving through ridges of stone and dune until they came to an abrupt halt. One of them grunted something low, and the rest stepped aside to reveal what they had brought them to.

A split in the wall.

An ugly crack sliced through the otherwise perfect black stone—just wide enough for someone to squeeze through.

Everything clicked in Kai’s mind. They haven’t even breached the front gate.

He watched two of the orcs bend low, heads ducked, shoulders scraping as they wriggled through the opening like rats into a granary. Baldy looked back and waved a thick arm. “Move.”

The group obeyed without a word. Kai was the last to step through. He crossed the threshold and froze.

His breath caught.

They were standing inside what could only be described as the antechamber of a magical empire. The chamber spanned wide. It had high vaulted ceilings that were etched with seals that literally shimmered due to the mana crystals. A massive, pulsing Aethum core was set in the center of the floor, now dulled, giving off only a weak, lingering hum.

And everything, everything here clearly had been crafted for a Mage.

There were engravings in the wall, spiraling in a clockwise narrative. He could tell that they depicted battles—dozens of them. Flying figures, slinging spells, formations of strange symbols. But the faces… they were off.

It was the way the artist had made them, it was hard to say if it was humans.

No wonder the orcs thought this belonged to their god, Kai thought grimly. The artist must’ve had a flair for the dramatic.

He stepped deeper inside, boots echoing faintly against polished obsidian.

Then, curiosity prickling the back of his mind, he turned back toward the crack they’d entered from. Up close, he could see it more clearly—this wasn’t natural decay. The wall hadn’t crumbled from age or erosion.

It looked like an explosion.

The crack hadn’t come from outside. Kai could tell that much now. His eyes caught the rough fractures around the edges, but what really drew his attention was what lay just above it—a round, hollow cavity in the stone. A socket.

Something had once rested there.

Kai narrowed his eyes. An aethum crystal... and it exploded. He could still sense the faint echo of raw energy in the air, the kind that only came from a misaligned core breaking containment. That kind of burst could’ve fractured the wall, maybe even rattled the outer wards just long enough for someone to get inside.

Did Khorvash exploit that? A random failure or divine irony—either way, that crack had become the doorway to a decade of bloodshed for the desert tribes.

But there was no time to linger.

"Move," barked Big Nose.

The group fell into step again, weaving through arched corridors and winding stairways. The deeper they went, the harder it was not to stare. Intricate seals curled across every surface, faintly glowing like veins under skin. Rooms lined with relics of lost knowledge passed them by—many damaged, some still faintly humming with old enchantments.

Adil walked stiffly beside Kai, his eyes darting from wall to ceiling, a hand never straying far from the hilt of his blade. Out of all of them, he looked the most shocked. The man hadn’t even believed in the existence of the tower but now he was walking inside it. But something more shocking was around the corner.

They momentarily froze when they came across it.

It was only for a few seconds, but it was enough.

A large chamber opened to their left, lit by a dim crystal mounted high above. Inside, behind iron bars, dozens of figures sat slumped against the walls. Some looked up. Others didn’t move. Ropes bound their wrists and ankles. Dust covered their skin like a second coat.

Children. Teens. And they were all tribal.

Adil sucked in a sharp breath beside him, and his fingers twitched near his blade, but he didn’t draw it. No one did. They kept walking, heads low, faces tight.

Stinky muttered something under his breath with a snort, “Tried using them to open the gates. Thought they’d be smart enough.”

Kai kept his voice level. “They didn’t succeed?”

“Failed the Overlord,” Baldy replied with a shrug. “They’re lucky he’s merciful. He gave them time to think. And yes, to figure out how to open the gates.”

“What if they don’t know how to?” Kai asked.

“Then they’re useless.”

He pointed at Kai with one thick finger, eyes sharp. “Same goes for you. Talked big. Let’s hope you can do more than talk, or you’ll be joining them.”

On the inside, he felt the familiar burn in his chest—the rage curling quietly behind his calm face.

Kai dipped his head in a silent nod and kept walking.

The deeper they went, the more the tower pressed in around them. Dust clung to everything, and yet the mana in the air was undeniable—thick enough to taste, like lightning trapped in stone.

Then, without warning, the orcs in front dropped to one knee. Kai’s boots scuffed to a halt.

He and his party mirrored them, lowering themselves slowly, wordlessly while he wondered what was going on.

And then he saw him.

Khorvash.

The warlord sat just beyond the next archway, thick legs folded in meditation before a colossal gate carved into the far wall—one Kai hadn’t seen on the way in. He was bigger than any orc Kai had ever laid eyes on. His bulk was almost inhuman, the heavy slabs of muscle underneath his skin flexing even in stillness.

Kai took in his tattoos, red and black, and how his tusks had golden rings. His nose was filled with piercings and a thick bar of bone was pierced through one ear.

He was the book-description of an orc overload in every form. His eyes opened and his presence hit them like a raw wave.

“Why have you brought these humans to me?” He snarled, curling his upper lip in anger. “The ones we gathered have already proven useless!”

***

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