***
{Outside The Projection}
After the projection paused, the silence stretched. Stretched too long.
Until it wasn’t silence anymore.
Until it became a weight.
A pressure pressing down on the crowd.
And then—
“What the Hell?!”
A disbelieving voice cut through.
Then another.
“She’s dead? Madam Layla—just like that?”
“No, no—this doesn’t make sense! Why are they targeting her?”
“I—I don’t understand… How could she die so easily?”
“They… they really got involved in a conspiracy.”
Someone’s breath hitched. Sharp. Quick.
“One that required their deaths.”
“Wait…”
A pause.
A shift.
“Wait, wait, wait—this explains everything.”
Realization. Blooming like poison.
“We all know Madam Layla remembers it differently.”
“We all know the Sultan had to run this shit on repeat—God knows how many times—just to wipe out every last bastard coming after them.”
“And we all know these bandits? Yeah, they’re just one of many tools.”
“But the real question is—”
An exhale.
“Why the Hell do they want one of them dead so badly?”
“Because let’s be real here.”
“This ain’t just some petty revenge shit.”
“This ain’t some random bounty.”
“No way.”
A murmur. A shift in stance.
“This? This is calculated.”
Someone crossed their arms, another tapped their foot.
“This is organized.”
“This is way bigger than just some caravan ambush.”
A breath. Someone clicked their tongue.
“And I think…”
“I think it ties back to that rumor. Their origin.”
A hush.
“The Dark Continent.”
Those words, though slow and pretty long, hit like a punch to the gut.
A collective shudder rippled through the crowd.
Even through the clueless Magi who had no idea what the rumor actually was.
Because both sides—those in the know and those not—just confirmed something.
The clueless ones? Everything now made much more sense to them. The gaps in the story. Pieces missing that shouldn’t be missing.
Layla had seen nearly nothing because Malik had made sure there was nothing TO see.
At least nothing too traumatizing.
If her words were true, they still battled the bandits in one final battle.
But the ones who did know? They weren’t just connecting dots anymore.
They were staring at the whole picture.
And the picture?
It was ugly.
Much more than anyone was ready to admit.
So they kept quiet, giving the rest time to realize the truth themselves.
“The Sultan. He must’ve blinked again and again.”
“Now… we’re back asking the same question.”
“How many times did he die?”
“And how many times has he watched them die?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
No one could answer.
Only a man burdened by the weight of too many yesterdays could do so.
A man burdened by the weight of too many endings he refused to accept.
Silence again.
The unbearable kind.
The kind burdened with too many thoughts.
…Then—
A sharp gasp.
A body swaying.
“Layla?!”
Someone called her name.
Maybe more than one person.
Their voices blurred together, distant, muffled—like they were shouting from the other end of a tunnel.
But she couldn’t hear them.
Not really.
Not over the rushing in her ears.
Not over the way her world had shrunk down to one thing and one thing only.
The projection.
The moment.
There… she saw it.
What she prayed to God she’d never have to see.
What she dreaded.
Little Layla.
Broken. Limp.
Dead.
A father mourning a child.
Her father.
Her Baba.
His grief was a monster.
A living, breathing thing, crawling out of the projection and tearing into her.
It wasn’t just sorrow. It was destruction.
She could feel it—ripping, shredding, devouring.
No words could describe it.
No words could contain it.
She couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
She was going under.
Someone—Safira?—moved toward her. Arms outstretched.
A desperate attempt to catch her before—too late.
Her knees buckled.
A single, broken whisper slipped free—
“Baba…”
Layla collapsed.
***
{Inside The Projection}
Malik fluttered his eyes open…
‘Hm.’
It was the morning of the attack. Again.
He woke up with the taste of iron still in his mouth.
A lesson he had learned. True coincidences were rare.
Someone was Hellbent on killing the two he swore to protect.
Why? He didn’t know. But he was sure it related to that kid from Naser Al-Sultan in some way. And so, still on his steed, he began to think. How he’d make this work. Prepare better. Be stronger.
Layla, Ali Baba, the entire caravan—they weren’t going to be pawns in someone else’s game.
Not when he was around to stop it.
With his thoughts in order, he first approached Ali Baba.
“I don’t care if it sounds like madness. We’re going to be attacked by evening.”
Ali Baba raised a skeptical brow but didn’t refute anything. Rather his disbelief melted quickly. Malik rarely ever showed emotion—yet now he did.
A great amount of it.
“What do you want me to do?”
Malik laid it all out. Traps, positioning, rotations. Everything.
Time went. They drank tea. Resumed moving. The Shams fell. The horn blared. A shout echoed. Arrows flew. The bandits came. The caravan replied. A volley went. Another followed. Another followed. More screams. Traps exploded. Fire sprouted. A man roared. A man killed. A devil slaughtered. More bandits arrived. Fell from above. They died. Cowards retreated. A demon lunged. A demon massacred. A demon laughed. The battle ended. Smoke lingered. Silence reigned. A fist was raised. A fire was snuffed. The caravan stood, bloodied, breathless—but alive.
Not one had fallen.
After counting their numbers and fixing up wounds, they pressed forward, sticking to their plan.
Malik went in alone, met the Caliph, and brokered their entry. Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire
It was only after their second meeting that things began to move, a scene similar to the last.
He and Layla walked the streets and Malik’s eyes were scanning, searching.
‘…Found you.’
His gaze locked onto a man breaking away from the funeral crowd.
Subtle, careful, but not careful enough. He knew that walk. The way the man moved, the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes flicked too often.
An assassin.
Malik stepped forward.
One second, he was standing still.
The next, his blade was sliding into flesh, reaching a man’s heart.
“Grgh—!”
The assassin didn’t even get a chance to react.
His body locked up, a strangled gasp escaping his lips as steel bit deep.
Malik didn’t let him fall. He grabbed him by the collar, yanked him up like a ragdoll, and roared:
“ASSASSIN!”
At that, panic finally hit the village.
Gasps, screams, people stumbling back, mothers shielding their children, men reaching for anything to protect themselves and their families with.
But Malik wasn’t looking at them. He wasn’t listening to the fearful.
He was searching for the ones who weren’t afraid.
There.
Three of them.
Too still. Too calm. Hands twitching toward hidden weapons instead of flinching.
“FOUND YOU!”