The Genius Mage Was Reincarnated Into A Swordsman Family-Chapter 217: The Forgotten One

The fragments shifted once more in the darkness of Klaus's fractured consciousness. The memories of Klaus Zagerfield and Tomas Veil—clear and structured despite their temporal distance—faded into the void as other lives began to surface, each more distant and obscured than the last.

General Valkus of the Iron Empire.

A flash of memory—standing atop a hill overlooking a burning city, the screams of the conquered rising like music to his ears. A sword drenched in blood, an army that followed him without question, a reputation for ruthlessness that made kingdoms surrender at the mere news of his approach. Three decades of conquest, of cruelty disguised as necessary violence, of building an empire through terror and strategic brilliance.

The memory dissolved before any details could solidify—a life of bloodshed and power, lived centuries before Tomas Veil had ever drawn breath.

Morvane the Heretic.

Another fragment—kneeling before an altar of black stone, leading a congregation in forbidden worship. Knowledge of dark rituals, of sacrifices that granted power beyond mortal limitations. A cult leader whose charisma drew hundreds into his service, whose visions guided them to commit atrocities in service to entities they couldn't possibly understand.

This too faded, leaving only the impression of fanatical devotion and misguided purpose.

Kell, advisor to the Child-Queen of Nairuva.

A life of political manipulation, of whispered suggestions that shaped a nation's destiny, of poisons administered with a kindly smile. Power wielded from the shadows, a reputation for wisdom that masked calculated self-interest, a legacy written in the blood of those who stood against his hidden agenda.

The fragment lingered slightly longer, carrying the weight of unresolved guilt, before dissolving back into the void.

Brother Thamin, healer and scholar.

A brief glimpse of a life devoted to knowledge and service. Hands that healed the sick, a mind that preserved ancient wisdom, a heart that genuinely sought to elevate those around him. A rare lifetime of relative peace, of purpose aligned with compassion rather than ambition or violence.

Each memory arose and subsided like waves upon a shore—dozens, perhaps hundreds of lives lived across millennia. Some noble, others monstrous. Some powerful, others humble. No clear pattern connected them except the gradual sense that these fragmented identities stretched back further than human civilization itself.

And beneath them all, something older, more powerful, and infinitely more complex rose from the deepest recesses of his being. This wasn't merely a different life. It was a different existence altogether.

No name emerged at first—only sensations, images, and a profound understanding that transcended language. Power beyond mortal comprehension. Knowledge that spanned millennia. Purpose as fundamental as the elements themselves.

Then, from the chaos of these half-formed impressions, a designation materialized. Not quite a name, more a concept given form:

Arkadius.

* * *

The great hall of Vatheron stood empty save for seven figures arranged in a perfect circle. No servants attended them, no guards protected the massive obsidian doors. None were needed. The beings who gathered here existed beyond conventional threat, their powers so vast they could reshape reality with a thought.

They were not gods—they had never sought nor accepted worship. But to the primitive civilizations that occasionally glimpsed them, no other word would suffice.

Arkadius stood in the position of honor, facing the hall's single window—a massive opening that revealed not the physical landscape of Vatheron, but the swirling energies of the cosmic void beyond. His form was humanoid by choice rather than necessity, tall and imposing with features that might be considered handsome if not for the otherworldly light that emanated from his eyes.

"The seal weakens," he stated, his voice resonating with harmonic undertones that made the very air vibrate. "Faster than we anticipated."

"Your calculations were flawed," replied Seridian, her fluid form rippling with barely contained energy. "As I warned they would be."

"Not flawed. Sabotaged." Arkadius turned from the window, his gaze sweeping the circle. "Someone among us works to undermine the containment."

The accusation hung in the air, heavy with implication. The seven had ruled Vatheron as equals for millennia, maintaining the delicate balance between their realm and the chaos that lurked beyond the seal. The suggestion that one among them might betray this trust was unprecedented.

"A serious charge," observed Malachai, the eldest among them. His physical form appeared more weathered than the others, though age meant nothing to beings of their nature. "What evidence supports it?"

"The pattern of degradation is non-random," Arkadius explained, gesturing toward the window. A complex mathematical structure materialized in the air, glowing symbols rotating slowly. "Here, and here—targeted weaknesses introduced systematically over centuries."

The others studied the pattern, their inhuman minds processing the implications with perfect clarity. None disputed his analysis—the evidence was irrefutable to those with the capacity to comprehend it.

"If this continues," Arkadius continued, "the seal will fail within three cycles. What lies beyond will enter our realm, and from here, gain access to the lower worlds."

"The consequences would be... unfortunate," Veraxis noted, his tone so detached it bordered on indifference. Of the seven, he had always shown the least concern for realms beyond their own.

"Catastrophic," corrected Nyria, the youngest of their order. "The lower worlds lack the fundamental protections of Vatheron. They would be consumed entirely."

Arkadius nodded, his gaze lingering on each member of the circle in turn. "The question remains—who among us benefits from such an outcome?"

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Silence fell over the hall, broken only by the faint hum of energies beyond the window. Each studied the others, calculating possibilities, assessing motives with the cold precision of beings to whom emotion was a distant memory.

"Perhaps," suggested Lysandra after a long moment, "the sabotage comes not from among us, but from beyond. The seal works both ways, after all. What lies on the other side has attempted to breach it before."

"Impossible," Malachai dismissed. "Nothing outside the seal could affect its internal structure without first passing through it—a fundamental paradox."

"Unless," Veraxis interjected, "it had help from within. Not necessarily from one of us, but from a lesser entity under our authority."

The implication shifted the focus of suspicion away from the seven themselves to the countless beings that served them throughout Vatheron—entities powerful in their own right, though insignificant compared to their masters.

Arkadius frowned slightly. "Possible, but unlikely. The mathematical complexity of the sabotage suggests one of our level. A lesser being would lack both the knowledge and the lifespan to implement such subtle changes over centuries."

"Then we return to your original accusation," Seridian said, her form pulsing with agitation. "One of us betrays Vatheron and all it protects."

"So it would seem."

"Yet you offer no evidence pointing to a specific suspect," Veraxis noted. "Merely the assertion that one must exist."

"Because I have not yet determined which of you it is," Arkadius admitted. "Only that it must be so. The pattern is unmistakable."

Nyria, who had remained silent during this exchange, suddenly straightened. "There is another possibility we have not considered." All eyes turned to her. "What if the sabotage was implemented long ago, by one who no longer sits among us?"

The implication was clear. In the millennia of their existence, others had once numbered among their ranks—beings equally powerful who had either departed Vatheron voluntarily or been removed by collective decision.

"Isandros," Lysandra whispered, the name carrying weight even after so many centuries.

Malachai shook his head. "Isandros was unmade. His essence dispersed beyond recovery."

"So we believed," countered Nyria. "But if any could find a way to preserve consciousness beyond such a fate, it would be he."

Arkadius considered this possibility, his mind racing through calculations and probabilities at speeds incomprehensible to lesser beings. "The signature of the sabotage does bear certain hallmarks of his work. The elegance of the mathematical progression, the reliance on prime number intervals..."

"If Isandros somehow survived," Seridian said, "and has been systematically weakening the seal for centuries, then our situation is far more dire than we realized."

"Agreed," Arkadius nodded. "We must implement emergency countermeasures immediately."

"What do you propose?" asked Malachai.

"A reinforcement of the seal using our combined essence. Direct infusion rather than the standard maintenance protocol."

The suggestion was met with visible concern from several members of the circle. "Such a procedure would temporarily weaken each of us," Lysandra noted. "If this is indeed Isandros's work, the timing could be deliberately designed to make us vulnerable."

"A risk we must accept," Arkadius insisted. "The alternative is certain failure of the seal within three cycles."

After brief deliberation, all agreed—even Veraxis, though his reluctance was obvious. The seven moved toward the window in unison, extending their hands toward the swirling void beyond. Energy began to flow from their forms, tendrils of pure power reaching into the cosmic membrane that separated Vatheron from the chaos beyond.

Arkadius led the ritual, his contribution greater than any other's. As the essence of his being flowed outward, he maintained perfect focus, directing the combined power of the seven into the weakened points of the seal. The precision required was extraordinary, the consequences of error unthinkable.

For what seemed like an eternity but was merely moments to beings of their nature, they poured their collective power into the seal. Gradually, the mathematical irregularities that Arkadius had identified began to resolve, the pattern of degradation reversing under their concentrated effort.

As the ritual neared completion, Arkadius sensed a subtle shift in the energies around him—an infinitesimal hesitation in the flow from one of the others. Before he could identify its source, a sudden, violent disruption tore through the carefully structured energies.

The seal convulsed, its carefully balanced forces thrown into chaos. Arkadius tried to compensate, pouring more of his own essence into stabilizing the fluctuations, but the sabotage had been perfectly timed. The other six pulled back instinctively, protecting themselves from the backlash, leaving Arkadius alone at the focal point of the catastrophic energy surge.

"Betrayal," he managed to communicate through the maelstrom of forces tearing at his essence. "The traitor moves among us."

The seal's structure inverted, creating a temporary pathway between realms that should never connect. Arkadius felt his consciousness being pulled into the vortex, his essence stretched beyond its natural boundaries. The pain, if such a concept could apply to beings of their nature, was beyond description.

In his last moments of coherent thought, Arkadius identified the source of the disruption—recognized the signature of the one who had orchestrated this trap using the seal's own energies against him. Not Isandros, as they had been led to believe, but one much closer.

One still standing in the circle, watching his destruction with cold calculation.

"Veraxis," he projected, the name carrying all his understanding of the betrayal. "Why?"

The answer came as his essence began to fragment across dimensions, a cold statement of purpose from the being he had trusted for millennia:

"Because balance is stagnation. Because what lies beyond offers evolution. Because Vatheron has stood unchanged for too long."

Arkadius had no opportunity to respond. The vortex consumed him completely, scattering his consciousness across realities so disparate they should never have touched. His essence, too powerful to be destroyed entirely, shattered into countless fragments—each carrying a portion of his knowledge, his power, his purpose.

As the seal restored itself, as the six remaining rulers of Vatheron steadied the cosmic barriers, pieces of what had once been Arkadius drifted through dimensions beyond their reach. Most would dissipate over eons, returning to the fundamental energies of creation. But some—the strongest, most coherent fragments—would eventually coalesce, forming newer, lesser versions of the original.

Echoes of a being once nearly divine, now reduced to shadows of his former self.

Occasionally, over the vast spans of time that followed, these remnants would achieve enough coherence to manifest within the lower worlds. Never at full power, never with complete memory, but carrying deep within them the purpose that had defined Arkadius since the beginning:

To protect. To preserve. To maintain the barriers between realities that should remain separate.

And always, always, to oppose Veraxis—though that name and the betrayal it represented would be lost to conscious memory, preserved only in the deepest instincts that drove these fragmented incarnations.

In one such lower world, on a continent called Runiya, the fragment that had once been part of Arkadius would eventually be known by many names across many lifetimes. A humble scholar. A talented mage. A young swordsman with silver hair and powers beyond his years.

Each believing themselves to be distinct individuals, unaware of the ancient power that flowed through their veins, the ancient purpose encoded in their very being. Each drawn inevitably toward the weakening barriers between worlds, guided by an instinct they could neither understand nor resist.

* * *

The memory—if such a profound, existential revelation could be called merely a memory—faded back into the void. Yet unlike the previous fragments of consciousness that had emerged and receded, this one left a lasting imprint on the darkness, a permanent alteration to the patterns of Klaus's shattered mind.

I was... more. Something greater. Something older. A being that existed beyond human comprehension, yet was betrayed and shattered.

Arkadius.

The name resonated through the fragments of his consciousness, connecting disparate pieces that had previously existed in isolation. Klaus Lionhart. Klaus Zagerfield. Tomas Veil. General Valkus. Morvane the Heretic. Kell the Advisor. Brother Thamin. Dozens of others whose names and lives had briefly surfaced only to submerge again. All echoes of something vaster, reflections of a power once nearly divine now reduced to fleeting mortal incarnations.

And with this realization came another, more disturbing insight: if he was the fragmented remnant of Arkadius, then somewhere, somehow, Veraxis still existed. The betrayer. The one who had orchestrated his destruction and sought to break the seal between realms.

The one whose purpose aligned perfectly with the entity that had possessed Klaus at Northwatch.

Gluttony.

In the Frost Chamber of the Lionhart Estate, the preservation runes surrounding Klaus's motionless form flared suddenly, their steady pulsations disrupted by a surge of energy emanating from within rather than without. The temperature dropped precipitously, frost forming across the chamber's floor in intricate patterns that resembled mathematical formulations of impossible complexity.

For a single moment, Klaus's closed eyes opened—revealing not the familiar blue of his Lionhart heritage, but a depthless void filled with swirling galaxies and dying stars. Then they closed again, the surge of power receding as quickly as it had manifested.

The chamber returned to its previous state, the only evidence of the momentary disturbance being the frost patterns slowly melting on the floor and the uneasy expressions of the guards stationed outside, who had felt the temperature drop even through the sealed doors.

Inside the fragmented consciousness that was once Arkadius, once Klaus Zagerfield, once Tomas Veil, and now Klaus Lionhart, something had fundamentally changed. The scattered pieces had not yet fully reassembled, the complete awareness had not yet returned, but a core understanding had been established—a foundation upon which recovery might eventually be built.

He had been shattered, but not destroyed. Fragmented, but not lost. And somewhere deep within, the ancient purpose that had defined his existence across countless incarnations began to stir once more:

To protect the barriers between worlds that should remain separate. To oppose those who would break those barriers for their own purposes.

To stand against Veraxis and all who served his cause, whatever names they might now bear.

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