Dawn Walker

Dickoff returned to the Iron House mansion shortly after sunrise.

The black wooden box never left his hands.

He had a storage ring. He had servants who could carry anything he ordered. He had guards, though far fewer than yesterday. None of that mattered. Mihos had told him to be careful with the thing inside the box, and Dickoff was frightened enough to take that warning seriously. He held it against his chest during the entire carriage ride back to the city, with both hands wrapped around it as if someone might reach through the carriage wall and steal it.

No one did.

That did not make him relax.

Every wheel that struck a stone made his fingers tighten. Every rider passing nearby made him glance toward the window. Once, when the carriage slowed behind a broken delivery cart, Dickoff nearly shouted at the driver to run the whole thing over before he realized the obstruction had nothing to do with Dawn House.

He hated that.

Sekhmet had not even appeared, yet Dickoff was already seeing him inside every delay.

By the time the carriage reached Iron House, the morning had properly begun.

The mansion looked worse in daylight.

At night, darkness had hidden some of the weakness. Morning did not have that kindness. Several outer guards were missing from their usual positions because they were dead. Two replacement men stood where four had once stood. One side banner had been taken down after ash from the city fires stained it. The gate itself remained intact, but the road leading toward it felt too empty for a house that had once received merchants from sunrise onward.

No wagons waited outside.

No supplier argued with a clerk.

No buyer stood under the shade.

No runners moved in and out carrying sealed orders.

Nothing.

Iron House still had walls.

It no longer had business.

Dickoff stared at that from inside the carriage and felt the humiliation return all over again.

Then he looked down at the black box.

Ten minutes.

That was what Mihos had promised.

Almost ten minutes of power, bought by burning through one hundred million low-grade chaos stones.

Dickoff’s breathing steadied slightly.

Ten minutes was enough.

He did not need to rebuild his business today. He did not need to regain merchants, hire guards, or repair warehouses. He only needed Sekhmet to come to him.

Then he needed to kill him.

After that, everything could be repaired.

That was what he told himself.

The carriage stopped in the inner courtyard. Dickoff stepped out and immediately found the remaining house steward waiting for him. The older man looked as if he had aged several years during the night. His clothes were still proper, but his face had lost the careful calm expected from a house servant.

"My lord."

Dickoff did not answer the greeting.

"Close the estate."

The steward hesitated. "My lord?"

"No visitors. No merchants. No messengers unless they carry Mihos Dawn’s seal. Anyone else stays outside."

The steward looked toward the box in Dickoff’s hands, then quickly lowered his eyes. "Yes, my lord."

"Gather every chaos stone remaining in the treasury."

That made him look up again.

"All of them?"

Dickoff’s face hardened. "Did I speak poorly?"

"No, my lord."

"Then move."

The steward bowed and hurried away.

Dickoff entered the mansion.

This time he did not hide in the underground treasure room.

There was no point anymore.

Fear had sent him below last night because he had not known what came next. Now he had an answer. A terrible answer. An expensive answer. But still an answer.

He walked directly toward the central receiving hall.

The hall was one of the largest rooms in Iron House. It had been built for merchants, lesser nobles, contract negotiations, and public demonstrations of wealth. Dark polished pillars supported the high ceiling. Iron decorations ran across the walls. A wide carpet stretched from the entrance toward the raised sitting platform where Dickoff normally received people he considered beneath him.

Today, most of the servants had been ordered out.

The room felt enormous without them.

Perfect.

Sekhmet would have plenty of space to die.

Dickoff placed the ancient black box on the main table and stared at it for several seconds before touching the lid.

He did not open it.

Not yet.

Stephen had not explained exactly how the thing worked. Mihos had only said that pure chaos energy was needed to wake it and that low-grade chaos stones could make up the difference through quantity.

That meant preparation came first.

He called for the steward again.

The man returned with six servants carrying storage cases.

They placed them on the floor one after another.

Then more arrived.

And more.

Storage rings were added too. Some belonged to Iron House directly. Others had held emergency reserves meant to repair trade losses or pay guards during war. One ring had been sealed by Dickoff’s father years ago with strict instructions that it should only be opened if the family faced destruction.

Dickoff broke that seal without hesitation.

What did destruction mean if not this?

The servants began unloading chaos stones.

At first they came in neat sealed cases.

Then sacks.

Then larger storage boxes.

Low-grade chaos stones gave off weak light individually, but when hundreds of thousands were placed together, that weak light became a pale ocean. When millions gathered in one hall, the air itself began feeling different. The stones were small, but together they filled the room with a steady pressure.

Dickoff watched the pile grow.

Ten million.

Twenty.

Thirty.

More storage rings were emptied.

Fifty million.

By the time they passed seventy million, several servants were sweating despite doing little more than opening containers. Raw chaos energy filled the room heavily enough that even ordinary people could feel it against their skin.

The steward approached carefully.

"My lord, if we empty all the reserves, the house will have almost no operating chaos stones remaining."

Dickoff looked at him.

The steward immediately regretted speaking, but the truth had already escaped.

Dickoff answered, "What operation?"

The man said nothing.

Dickoff spread one hand toward the silent mansion around them.

"What exactly are we operating? Our warehouses? Burned. Our shops? Gone. Our transport routes? Broken. Our guards? Dead. Our buyers? Hiding." His voice rose slightly with each answer. "Tell me what business you are saving these stones for."

The steward lowered his head.

There was no answer.

Dickoff looked back toward the growing pile. "Use everything."

"Yes, my lord."

The final reserves came after that.

Private family stones.

Emergency payment stones.

Long-term investment reserves.

A hidden box of high-purity pieces that Dickoff almost kept aside before remembering Mihos’s expression.

He added those too.

By the time the count was finished, the total crossed one hundred million low-grade chaos stones when converted by energy value.

A fortune.

Enough money to rebuild estates.

Enough to hire armies in poorer territories.

Enough to make many lower nobles murder brothers in their sleep and call it inheritance law afterward.

Dickoff was about to burn it all for ten minutes.

He dismissed everyone except the steward.

Then he changed his mind.

"You leave too."

The old man looked surprised. "My lord, should I not remain in case..."

"No."

Dickoff’s eyes moved toward the box.

"No one sees this."

That order carried enough fear inside it that the steward did not argue.

The door closed behind him.

Dickoff was alone.

Only then did he open the black wooden box.

The black seed-like stone lay inside exactly as before.

Small.

Silent.

Almost unimpressive.

That was the part he hated most.

Things powerful enough to change the world should look powerful. They should burn. They should shake. They should make weak men kneel just by existing.

This thing looked like a dead seed someone had dug out of a grave.

But Mihos had said it was worth more than an Origin Class artifact.

Dickoff believed him.

He had seen Mihos arrogant.

He had seen Mihos angry.

He had never seen him treat an object with that degree of care.

Dickoff slowly reached into the box.

His fingertips touched the black surface.

Nothing happened.

He frowned.

Then he lifted it.

The first surprise was the weight.

It should not have been heavy. It was barely larger than the first joint of his thumb. Yet it pressed into his palm with the strange weight of something much denser than stone.

Dickoff turned it over carefully.

No mark.

No rune.

No visible activation point.

"How am I supposed to use you?"

The seed did not answer.

He almost laughed from nervousness.

Then he remembered Mihos’s words.

Pure chaos energy.

Dickoff looked toward the enormous collection of chaos stones around the hall.

He took one stone in his free hand and pushed energy from it toward the black seed.

Nothing happened at first.

Then the chaos stone cracked.

Dickoff froze.

The pale energy inside it did not enter his body.

It went straight into the seed.

The low-grade chaos stone became gray in less than a second, then broke into powder between his fingers.

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