Chapter 542: The Blade at the Gate
Ethan had already returned to his VR capsule half an hour earlier.
At the foot of Dragonvault Ridge, where the Whitmore family’s Hidden Territory lay concealed, four figures stood waiting, scanning the road below with anxious eyes. Markham, Victor, Leo, and Williams had been there since early morning.
It was eight o’clock.
The night before, they had received a message from Lyla inside Ethereal. After calculating when she would arrive, they decided to leave the Hidden Territory early and wait at the base of the mountain. Someone unconscious was being brought along, after all, and it would take several men to carry him up the steep climb.
"Why aren’t they here yet? Nothing’s gone wrong, has it?" Leo muttered as he paced.
"They’re here... they’re here."
Even as he spoke, a Cadillac Escalade van roared into view. The vehicle sped straight toward them and braked hard right in front of where they stood. The driver’s door opened, and out stepped the woman Ethan had been waiting for—Lyla Silverwood.
She had driven all night. Her delicate face showed the faint exhaustion of a sleepless journey. She had left Ashwick the evening before, taken a few minutes during the night to log into Ethereal and contact Markham’s group, then immediately continued the long drive without rest.
"Lyla..." Victor stepped forward.
"Victor, you... you’re all here!" she greeted, her voice weary but warm.
"Yeah. Let’s get up the mountain quickly."
For reasons he couldn’t explain, Victor—once a top-tier special forces operative—felt an uneasy prickle under his skin.
"Alright," Lyla said, moving to the rear door. "This is my mother."
A woman stepped out, her resemblance to Lyla so striking that, if not for the introduction, the men might have mistaken her for Lyla’s older sister. She looked only a few years older, her beauty almost unnervingly preserved.
"Uh..." The four men exchanged bewildered looks, momentarily robbed of words.
"Just call me Dragonia," she said with a graceful smile.
"Dra... Dragonia," they echoed quickly, tripping over the odd name but too polite to hesitate.
Eager to shake off the awkwardness, they peered into the car. The back seat had been converted into a makeshift bed, thick blankets covering the still figure lying there. That could only be Ambrose Silverwood—patriarch of the Silverwood family, Lyla’s father, and soon enough, Ethan’s father-in-law.
Victor, Leo, and Williams climbed in first to lift him out. Markham was last. The moment he entered, he heard a low rumble. Snoring.
He froze. Didn’t they say he was unconscious? Then who’s snoring?
The sound was coming from the passenger seat. Markham leaned over, and his face darkened at once.
"Lars, I’ll make you sleep properly..."
With a crack like a gunshot, his hand lashed out.
"Ah!"
Lars body jolted sideways and tumbled clean out the open passenger window, landing hard on the dirt. He scrambled up, clutching his stinging cheek.
"Who the hell hit me?! My brother is Markham, and my boss is Ethan! Don’t you know I can have you killed?!"
But his outrage rang hollow. No one answered him. Lyla merely rolled her eyes in exasperation.
A moment later, Markham and the others carried Lachlan Silverwood carefully out of the car. Only then did Lars grasp the situation. His puffed-up arrogance shriveled, leaving him deflated. That slap, he realized with painful clarity, had been for nothing.
...
High above, near the entrance to the Hidden Territory at the ridge’s peak, a lone figure stood, watching the scene below. His gaze lingered on the moment Lyla stepped out of the vehicle.
It was Liam Silverwood—the very man Lyla had been trying so hard to avoid.
Unbeknownst to her, Liam had been following her since she left Ashwick.
The "news" Lars Silverwood had delivered was bait, deliberately leaked by Liam. After sending his pawns to the Silverwood family’s Hidden Territory, Liam had led them as far as the Ironvale Mountains. There, he eliminated them all, leaving only their GPS trackers behind to mislead Donovan into chasing a false trail.
Meanwhile, Liam circled back to Ashwick, lying in wait, watching Lyla’s every move.
It was all for one purpose: to find Ethan.
In the message he left for Lars, his obsession was obvious. His thoughts narrowed to a single cruel point—Ethan had to die. And not only Ethan, but everyone connected to him.
"Why hasn’t that kid Ethan shown himself?"
From the mountain peak, Liam swept his high-powered binoculars across the group below. His eyes glittered with bloodthirst when he saw Lyla, but Ethan was nowhere in sight.
He shifted his gaze toward the Whitmore family’s Hidden Territory. His body flickered once, and then he vanished, slipping back into concealment.
...
Above, a thin wisp of cloud drifted past. From it, tiny, inconspicuous insects dropped silently, scattering near the entrance. Several wriggled into a crack in the rocks, disappearing from sight.
...
"Victor, what’s wrong?"
Among the group climbing the mountain path, Leo noticed the deep furrow in Victor’s brow.
"Something feels off," Victor murmured.
The words instantly sharpened Leo and Williams into alertness. They had heard that phrase countless times before, back when Victor was their captain. More than once, those three words had been the reason they survived missions that should have killed them.
Williams glanced at him, voice low. "Bro... are you sure? This is the US territory, not some foreign battlefield."
"That’s exactly why I kept it to myself," Victor replied under his breath.
"Then why do you think Lyla brought her parents here?" Leo asked suddenly.
Both men looked at him. Leo pressed on. "If she only wanted to see Ethan, she wouldn’t drag her father and mother along. Something else is going on."
Last night, when Lyla contacted them in Ethereal, she hadn’t explained her true purpose. Now that he said it aloud, the detail felt wrong. Suspicious.
The three men silently raised their vigilance to its highest point.
Markham carried the stretcher without complaint, while Lars Silverwood had been roped in as unwilling extra muscle. With their hands free, Victor, Leo, and Williams spread into a triangular guard formation, eyes constantly scanning the surroundings.
Lyla noticed their shift in posture. She gave a small nod, wordlessly acknowledging their caution.
The group reached the top without incident and stood before the concealed entrance of the Hidden Territory. But Victor’s frown only deepened. The closer they came, the stronger the pulse of danger grew.
At the threshold, Leo took over the stretcher. Markham set it down briefly, raised his hands, and formed the seals to open the gate.
A low hum vibrated through the air. Ripples shimmered across the stone, and the Hidden Territory stirred. Markham gestured them forward.
Leo stepped inside first, carrying Ambrose Silverwood. Lars shuffled in behind him. Then Dragonia followed with unhurried steps, her poise as composed as ever. Lyla and Williams entered after her.
Only Victor and Markham lingered outside.
Victor’s eyes swept the treeline one last time. He gave a short, bitter laugh under his breath. ’Had it been too long since I fought? Are my instincts fading? Am I just getting old—and cowardly?’
He exhaled and stepped through the gate.
Markham followed, turning immediately to form the closing seals.
But the prickle in Victor’s gut didn’t fade. It surged. A crushing wave of danger slammed into him.
"Move!" he barked.
He threw his shoulder hard into Markham, shoving him aside.
A sharp glint of steel tore through the air, whistling past the threshold.
The blade buried itself squarely in Victor’s chest with a sickening thud.
In the same instant, a figure burst through the opening, crashing into the Whitmore family’s Hidden Territory.