The Protectors: Rising from Ashes [Progression Fantasy | Action-Packed | Epic Battles]

The silence cracked, not with noise, but with presence.
Alaric stood.

The heavy scrape of his chair against the stone floor rang out like a drawn blade. His shoulders rolled back, spine rigid, the crimson trim of his coat catching the light as he moved with the restraint of someone barely leashing fury.

"That still doesn't change the fact," he said, voice sharp and cold as winter steel, "that because of their inadequacies… we lost so many vampire lives."

He turned toward Elias, slow, deliberate. Not just looking, targeting. His stare carved into the boy like a burn brand that refused to fade.

"We warned you," he said, the words low and venom-laced. "He is nothing like a Nightshade."

Elias stood rooted. He didn't flinch. Didn't shift. But the flicker in his eyes, quiet, hollowed, spoke volumes. As if bracing for a storm he knew too well.

Alaric's voice rose, slicing the air.

"He lacks the hunger, the precision, the ruthlessness of our bloodline. Even his siblings, Damien, Lucien even Selene, manifested their shadowmark transformations before seventeen. And this?" He gestured toward Elias, contempt dripping from every motion. "This boy hides behind others and dares to call himself Chosen?"

A flicker of motion, Elias's fists curling tight behind his back. The tremor in his knuckles betrayed the heat rising beneath his stillness. But he said nothing.

From the left side of Alaric, Morgana's eyes narrowed, sharp and watchful. Her expression didn't break into open judgment like Alaric's… but it wasn't neutral either.

In the next breath, Damien scoffed from one of the side chairs. Arms draped over the backrest, his smirk curled sharp.

"Well," he said, voice edged with lazy mockery, "maybe if we throw a tantrum hard enough, we'll all get to skip combat trials and just be handed a prophecy."

No one laughed.
Elias didn't blink. But his gaze lowered, burning low, not in shame, but in a quiet, simmering blaze that threatened to crack.

Then, from the other side of the chamber, Lady Vessara leaned forward, her pale eyes narrowing with surgical disdain.

"And he's not the only failure standing here."

Her gaze swept the five like a cold wind. Her voice didn't need to rise; the chill of it cut through the heat left in the chamber.

"Lyric, struggling with spells a ten-year-old acolyte could perform. Still unable to sustain even basic shielding magic."

Lyric's shoulders flinched. Barely. A pink flush crept up her neck, high and sharp, not soft with embarrassment, but scalded with humiliation. She looked down, arms folding in close, fingers digging into her sleeves like they were the only thing keeping her upright.

Lady Vessara turned her attention with cruel precision.

"Thorne," she said next, voice clipped. "Whose dragon form has yet to awaken. What kind of chosen one can't even summon what he is?"

Thorne's jaw set. His nostrils flared with a slow, silent breath. The faintest tremor passed through his frame, his fists clenched behind his back, knuckles paling as nails bit skin.

A pulse of heat stirred inside him deep, molten.

If they could feel even a flicker of me, they'd choke on their arrogance. Pyrix's voice was low, smoke and seething fire. I'm done being locked behind silence while they mock you like this.

Thorne's jaw clenched, the pressure sharp in his teeth.
I know, he answered, steady but firm. But this isn't the time to prove them wrong with fury. You see what's at stake. We move only when it matters.

A beat of silence passed before Pyrix's reluctant reply came, taut with restraint.
Then don't ask me to stay quiet forever.

Thorne exhaled slowly through his nose, just enough to anchor himself, while his knuckles whitened behind his back.

Another voice joined, drier, older, with mockery curled in the edges. Lord Thaeon.

"Aiden. Whose wolf form is better suited for being someone's pet. Is this your idea of a guardian beast?"

Aiden didn't react at first. His expression stayed still, unreadable. But a faint tension crept into his jaw, a flicker in his gaze. Then his eyes dropped, not in surrender, but as if pulled inward, staring down a memory that hurt to touch.

Then came the pause. Too long. Intentional.

"And Alice…"
The silence before her name was louder than the words that followed.

"She's not even worth mocking. Her spells never work. Not even once."

Alice didn't blink. Didn't twitch. Didn't show even a flicker of emotion.
But the stillness, the practiced, poised stillness, was too perfect. Like someone used to surviving by vanishing.

The air in the Solstice Chamber turned brittle. Each word had been a blade, and now, the five stood bloodless but cut.

Then—

Silence bloomed again, but this time it was heavy. Not empty, but filled with judgment. It wrapped around the chamber like a slow-closing door. Every breath felt thinner. Every eye watched.

At the center of the high table, Veyrion leaned back, expression unreadable at first. Then his lips curled, slow and deliberate, into a smirk. One not born of amusement, but satisfaction.

He looked straight at Sentinel.

The smirk deepened.

This was his doing, and he wanted it known. The raised voices. The unraveling control. The open challenge to Sentinel's decision. It was all playing out exactly the way he had planned.

Across the chamber, Sentinel didn't react. He saw it, the challenge, the signal, but he remained still. Composed. As if Veyrion's maneuvering was a move he'd already anticipated.

Then, at last, he stepped forward.

Not fast. Not loud. Just steady.

His cloak moved behind him like it had a mind of its own, drawn in silent threads across the floor. The chandelier's golden glow spilled down across the chamber, but it thinned as it neared him, dimming like even light chose to retreat.

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All eyes turned.

The weight of his presence pressed in. Not angry. Not loud. Just cold. Measured. Final.

He didn't lift his voice.

He didn't need to.

"Tell me," Sentinel said, calm and sharp, "what does a demon look like?"

Confusion flickered across each one of them. Even the five standing aside exchanged glances, their brows furrowed, trying to make sense of the question.

Veyrion, seated at the center of the table, tilted his head slightly. His lips curled, barely. Not with confusion, but with satisfaction.

But then, as Sentinel's question settled over the chamber, his smirk faltered. Faint, but there. His eyes narrowed, the calculation behind them sharpening. Whatever he'd expected, this wasn't it. And now, he was watching closer. Like trying to guess which piece Sentinel was about to move.

Lord Thaeon's eyes narrowed. His chair scraped as he leaned forward, irritation clear in every line of his face.

"What sort of question is that?" he snapped, frustration edging into his voice. "This is no time for riddles."

Sentinel didn't so much as blink.

"I asked you a simple question," he repeated, his tone still composed. "When you think of an invader, or of a demon, what image do you see? Fangs? Horns? Fire from their breath?"

His eyes scanned the chamber slowly, lingering on each face.

"Or do you imagine something else? Something that looks… exactly like you?"

None answered. So he turned toward Alaric.

"You. What should a demon look like?"

Alaric narrowed his eyes. "Grotesque. Physical corruption. Fire and bone."

Sentinel turned to another. "And you?"

"Shadow and rot," Lady Vessara said. "The old records show—"

"And what if the records lied?" Sentinel snapped, voice rising just enough to cut through the silence like a whip. "What if the thing that walked into Duskveil Mall, the thing that slaughtered your trained, bloodline-true vampires like wheat before the scythe, wasn't anything you imagined?"

He stepped closer to the table, gaze flicking across every face.

His eyes landed on Damien next. "What about you, Damien? What does a demon look like to you?"

Damien's smirk, ever-ready and razor-edged, flickered. Just for a moment. He opened his mouth, paused, then forced a shrug, voice strained beneath the weight of expectation.

"I don't know," he muttered. "Tall. Teeth. Maybe wings. I guess... something that reeks of fire."

But the conviction wasn't there.

Sentinel didn't respond to him. He didn't need to.

"This invader wasn't fire or rot or fangs. It broke the very laws of our world. It absorbed magic. Every strike made it stronger, not weaker. It could bend matter, echo spells, and shatter blood-pacts mid-battle. And It came from a realm none of you can name, a realm we still don't understand."

The Elders shifted uncomfortably.

From the center of the table, Veyrion's gaze remained fixed on Sentinel, but his smirk had vanished, replaced by a wary stillness. Like he was recalculating, trying to predict the next move. Whatever he thought would happen, this wasn't it.

Sentinel pointed, not gently, toward Elias. "And this boy, who you so easily discard? He killed it."

Alaric opened his mouth, but Sentinel didn't let him speak.

"Your most powerful vampires died in seconds. He held his ground. So if you're still clinging to bloodline fantasies, let me remind you, when the monster came, it wasn't Nightshade steel that stopped it. It was the blade of the one you dismiss."

Elias's jaw clenched, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes like he wasn't used to anyone speaking on his behalf—especially like this.

Sentinel turned his body fully toward the Elders now.

"And as for the others, Lyric, who can't control her spells, still stood firm. Thorne, who can't transform, threw himself into the front line. Alice, whose magic never listens, still kept fighting. And Aiden, yes, Aiden, who everyone treats like a joke… would've died for them. No hesitation."

He paused, letting the truth settle, not like dust, but like ash after fire, bitter and impossible to sweep away.

Then, four pairs of eyes slowly turned to Sentinel, wide, almost stunned. Lyric. Thorne. Alice. Aiden. Their gazes met his like he'd spoken in a language they'd never heard before, one that said: I see you. I believe in you.

In their whole lives, no one had ever said those words. Not like this. Not with fire and certainty.

"They are flawed," Sentinel said, voice level, deliberate, echoing like judgment in a cathedral. "But they're still standing. Which is more than I can say for most."

The words struck not with volume, but with weight. The silence that followed wasn't reverent.

It was rattled.

Even the lights above in the chandelier seemed to flicker differently, casting restless shadows over faces that had been confident seconds before.

Veyrion's fingers tapped against the table once.

A sound too casual. Too clean.

"Well," he said softly, each word dipped in smooth venom, "that was… quite the speech."

He leaned forward, elbows resting lightly, chin tilted.

"But despite all that fire and fight, they failed, didn't they?" His gaze drifted, first to Elias, then to the others. "They didn't save the innocents caught in the middle. The battle left more than a broken floor. It left corpses. Children. Families. Blood soaked through pavement while your Chosen stood there pretending they knew what they were doing."

Lyric flinched like something invisible had slapped her.

Thorne's jaw ticked hard.

Alice stayed still, but her fingers curled into the fabric of her sleeves.

Elias didn't blink. But the fire that lit behind his eyes burned deeper. Hotter.

Aiden turned his face away, swallowing down what he didn't say.

But inside him, Fenrik rumbled low, a sound more instinct than thought. It rolled through his chest like thunder under skin.

Say that again, Fenrik growled in his mind, and I'll make him choke on those words.

Aiden blinked, thrown by the sheer heat behind it.

Fenrik wasn't the angry type. He wasn't the one who picked fights. He was quiet. Steady. Grounded.

But not now.

Something in Veyrion's words had snapped that calm.

Aiden's gaze flicked to the man at the center of the table, his disbelief visible.

You're not usually the one threatening to tear someone's throat out, he replied inwardly, dry and wary.

Someone has to, Fenrik shot back. And you're still just standing here.

Aiden's jaw tightened. He breathed out through his nose, trying to steady the fire now pulsing in his veins.

Yeah, well, he muttered inwardly, as much as I'd like to… this isn't exactly the moment to show off your bravery, is it?

Fenrik didn't respond, but the growl didn't fade.

If anything, it got lower.

Then, calm. Controlled. Like frost crawling up glass, Sentinel replied.

"Then allow me to ask, where was your defense division?"

Veyrion's brows lifted, only slightly, but his smirk flickered like a lightbulb losing power.

Sentinel stepped forward, each movement grounded, voice dropping like an axe made of cold iron.

"Where was the elite response unit? The emergency wardens? The city strike team?" His gaze sharpened. "The forces you, not them, promised to dispatch for crises like this?"

He looked to each Elder, not just speaking, but exposing.

"When the invader came, it didn't knock. It didn't warn. It tore through your systems, broke your wards, fed on your magic, and left no prints. But the ones standing in front of it weren't your soldiers." He turned slightly, hand gesturing to the five behind him.

"They were."

A sharp breath caught in someone's throat, but no one owned it.

Alaric's brow twitched. The tips of his fingers, still resting on the arm of his chair, curled in. Subtle, but tense.

Morgana, usually unreadable, shifted slightly in her seat. Her jaw had gone rigid.

Lord Thaeon blinked hard, eyes narrowing like he'd swallowed something bitter. Lady Vessara leaned back slowly, as if retreating without rising.

And then Sentinel's voice cut deeper.

"They showed up. They fought with every last ounce of themselves. Not because they were told to. Not because they were ordered to. But because something greater chose them. The Eclipse Heart marked them. And whether you accept it or not, they stepped into that role knowing what it could cost."

He let the silence deepen, then shattered it like breaking glass.

"They nearly died to stop that demon. All of them. And still, they didn't run."

Damien had been silent the whole time, jaw clenched, arms crossed. But now… he looked at Elias. Really looked.

And for the first time, he didn't see the younger brother who needed protection. He didn't see the hesitant boy who struggled to control his powers.

He saw the fire behind his eyes. The scars behind his silence.
Something in Elias had changed.

Something permanent.

And Damien couldn't unsee it.

Sentinel turned fully now, voice slower. Measured.

"You say they failed to protect lives. I say they shouldn't have had to do it alone. The invader didn't come for them, it came to shatter us. And while five untrained Chosen held the line..."

He met Veyrion's gaze, solid and cold.

"Your trained warriors never showed."

The silence that followed wasn't just heavy.

It was damning.

No one moved.

No one dared.

Even the chandelier above seemed to burn quieter, like the room itself was holding its breath.

Veyrion didn't tap the table this time.

His fingers stayed still.

His smirk was gone.

Not in defeat.

But because, for the first time since the chamber doors had closed...

there was nothing left to say.