Ascendant of Shadows: The Monarch and The Eminence

The news spread through the Midgar Kingdom's intelligence networks like wildfire. Princess Iris Midgar, leader of the Crimson Order and the nation's strongest sword, had confronted the two phantoms of the academy. The encounter had resulted in the confirmation of a terrifying new reality: one of them, Sung Jin-woo, was a hostile, otherworldly entity of immense power, while the other, Cid Kagenou, was an innocent victim and the apparent key to the entire mystery.

The official narrative, carefully crafted by Iris to avoid mass panic, was that a dangerous "spirit" had possessed the foreign student Jin-woo, and that the brave student Cid Kagenou, who had shown incredible resilience, was now under protective custody after a daring escape.

In reality, Cid was not in a dungeon or a fortified castle. He was lounging on a velvet sofa in the Mitsugoshi penthouse, sipping a rare tea served by a maid who was, in fact, a deadly member of Shadow Garden's combat unit.

"Protective custody," Cid mused, reading a copy of the official report that Alpha had procured. "They've painted me as the damsel in distress. The kingdom is now mobilizing its entire military and intelligence apparatus to 'protect' me from Jin-woo. They'll be watching my every move, trying to shield me from the 'big bad'." He let out a soft, delighted chuckle. "It's the greatest disguise I could have ever wished for."

Alpha, standing beside him, nodded in agreement. "It is a masterstroke, Lord Shadow. By casting the Monarch as the singular threat, you have made yourself the focus of their protection. They will watch you so closely, they will never see what you are truly doing. You have hidden yourself in the very center of their gaze."

"Precisely!" Cid declared. "While they're busy assigning knights to watch me 'buy groceries,' we will be dismantling their enemies from the shadows. And Jin-woo..."

 his voice echoed in Cid's mind via the resonance link. Jin-woo was in a separate, equally luxurious room in the penthouse, meditating. 

Jin-woo sent back a mental image of a fist clenching.

The new status quo was quickly established. Shadow Garden, under Alpha's brilliant command, leveraged the situation perfectly. They "leaked" information to the Crimson Order about Cid's daily routine—a routine that was entirely fabricated. They would report that Cid was at the library, and Iris would dispatch a squad of elite knights to covertly secure the perimeter, watching a random brown-haired boy (a Shadow Garden agent in disguise) read a book for six hours.

While the kingdom's best were busy watching decoys, the real Cid—or more often, members of Shadow Garden acting on his "behalf"—were free to operate. They dismantled a Cult of Diablos cell operating in the capital's sewers, raided a corrupt noble's illegal smuggling ring, and gathered intelligence on their real enemy, the Weavers, all under the noses of the very people hunting them.

The legend of "Shadow," the mysterious entity who fought the Cult, grew stronger. At the same time, the legend of "The Ashen Monarch," the silent, terrifying entity that hunted the poor boy Cid Kagenou, also grew, becoming a boogeyman story told to frighten trainee knights.

Meanwhile, Iris Midgar was growing increasingly frustrated. Her life had become the "Cid Kigenou watch." Every morning, she received reports. "Subject Kagenou purchased a loaf of bread." "Subject Kagenou spent three hours trying to skip stones at the city lake." "Subject Kagenou took a nap under a tree."

Every action was mundane. Every movement was pointless. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being played.

"This makes no sense," she fumed to her lieutenant in her office, a map of the city covered in pins marking Cid's reported locations. "He shows no power, no special skills, nothing. He is the most boring person in the kingdom. Yet the Ashen Monarch, a being who can warp reality, is obsessed with him. Why?"

"Perhaps... the Monarch is biding his time, Princess?" the lieutenant offered. "Waiting for the perfect moment to strike?"

"No," Iris said, slamming her fist on the table. "We are missing something. The boy, Cid... his very mediocrity feels... weaponized. It's a form of camouflage so perfect it's infuriating."

Her frustration led her to seek out her sister. Alexia was in the academy's vast library, surrounded by books on forbidden magic and dimensional theory.

"You're still chasing ghosts, sister," Iris said, her voice tight.

"And you're chasing a boy who buys bread," Alexia retorted without looking up from her book. "At least my ghosts are interesting. I've stopped trying to understand Cid Kagenou. He is a walking paradox, a black hole of logic. The key is not him. It's the organization Jin-woo named. 'Shadow Garden'."

"We've investigated them," Iris sighed. "Their public face is the Mitsugoshi Company. Flawless financials, beloved by the public, impeccable business practices. There's nothing there."

"You're looking for a military organization," Alexia said, finally closing her book. "You need to be looking for a cult. A group bound by an ideology, not a command structure. And every cult has a god. I don't think their god is the boy who buys bread. I think... I think their god is the one they are pretending to fight."

Iris stared at her younger sister. The idea was insane. A conspiracy so vast and convoluted that it involved staging a war between two god-like beings to throw the world off their scent? It was the stuff of madmen.

But as she remembered the cold, amused smile on Jin-woo's face in the alley, a sliver of doubt entered her mind. What if the war wasn't real? What if the mountain was just pretending to fight the pebble, all for the benefit of the ants watching?

Deep in the penthouse, Jin-woo opened his eyes. His meditation had been fruitful. The Seed of the Void was not just a prison or a skill-tree. It was a communication device. By focusing his will, using his new 'Conceptual Severance' skill in reverse, he could briefly connect to the consciousness of the beings trapped within.

He focused on the Jester-Weaver's essence. He didn't speak to it, but he listened to its 'memories.' He experienced its perspective—the silent council, the directive to separate the "two great flames," the logic behind the psychological attack.

He learned the enemy's name for them. The Eminence and the Monarch.

He learned that their goal was not just destruction, but a form of "auditing." They saw reality as a flawed story, and their job was to edit it back to a pristine, silent blank page.

And he learned something else. Something crucial. The Weavers were not infinite. There was a set number of them, a council of "Primes." They were powerful, but they were finite. They could be defeated, one by one.

 he sent through the link, his mental voice grim. 

As if on cue, the Seed of the Void in Jin-woo's hand began to pulse violently. It wasn't reacting to something in this world. It was reacting to an event across dimensions.

He focused on the Seed, and an image flooded his mind. It was a vision of his own world, of Seoul. But it was wrong. The sky was a sickly green, and strange, alien structures made of bone and shadow were erupting from the ground. Gates—but not the Gates he knew—were tearing open, and from them poured creatures that were not magic beasts, but twisted parodies of them, things born of whispers and doubt.

At the center of it all, floating above a corrupted Seoul Tower, was a new Weaver. This one was regal, clad in what looked like shattered mirrors, and it held a twisted scepter. It was Weaver-Prime-Five, the Weaver of Dominance and False Realities. It wasn't just observing. It was conquering. And it was doing so by creating a dimension-wide hallucination, a nightmare version of the Gate-era, to prey on the population's collective PTSD.

Cid stood up, his teacup placed gently on its saucer. The time for games and hiding was over. The plot had just taken a sharp, aggressive turn.

His mental voice was cold, stripped of all its theatricality. It was the pure, undiluted will of Shadow.