Chapter 1: The Knight of the 21st Century

The sky above Kandahar was ink-black, pierced only by the distant hum of retreating helicopters. The desert sand trembled under the boots of a special ops unit moving in silence, their breaths calm, their weapons ready.

Among them was a man who walked like a soldier but watched like a predator. His name was Captain Gabriel Vorn, a highly decorated veteran, forged in shadows and trained for missions that didn’t exist on paper. Cold. Calculated. Unshakable. Gabriel didn’t believe in fate.

But that night, something ancient stirred.

Their mission had seemed straightforward: infiltrate an abandoned Taliban compound, retrieve sensitive intel. Easy, routine. But from the moment they entered the compound, the air turned... wrong.

No hostiles.
No sounds.
Just a heavy, metallic scent, like scorched steel and burning incense.

At the rear of the compound, Gabriel noticed a stone door half-buried in sand. It didn’t belong. Its surface was etched with symbols neither Arabic nor tribal, but impossibly old—Celtic spirals intertwined with East Asian characters.

A soldier beside him muttered, “This wasn’t in recon.”

But the door opened—not by force, but by recognition. As Gabriel stepped closer, the runes glowed faintly, and the stone parted for him like mist. He didn’t hesitate. He entered.

Beneath the earth, carved into the heart of the mountain, was a chamber vast and echoing. A crypt, yet no bones lay here. Only silence... and something more.

At its center floated a silver lance, hovering inches above an altar of obsidian. It shimmered in unnatural light, ancient runes pulsing along its shaft. As Gabriel stepped forward, a whisper brushed against his mind—not in English, but Latin.

“Tu es ex sanguine Custodum. Solus potest excitare hastam.”
(You are of the blood of the Guardians. Only you can awaken the spear.)

His fingers wrapped around the weapon before he knew why.
The moment he touched it, a searing light consumed the chamber—white-hot and timeless.

Gabriel woke up in a military hospital, two days later.

Doctors claimed they found him unconscious in a collapsed cave. His team remembered nothing of the stone door, the glowing runes, or the floating lance.

And yet… Gabriel remembered everything.

He began seeing visions—cities drowned beneath oceans, knights dueling dragons on storm-swept peaks, a woman with golden eyes speaking his name in languages long dead.

Then she came.

A woman in a black suit entered his hospital room without knocking. No name tag. No rank. Just a silver brooch on her lapel—an eye pierced by a blade.

“You touched it, didn’t you?” she asked, her tone calm, knowing.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

“I am Lady Elinor of Orvault, representative of the Veil Order. And you, Captain Vorn, are not what you think you are.”

Two days later, Gabriel stood in a hidden fortress buried deep in the Swiss Alps. No satellite could find this place. No map marked its location.

There, the truth shattered his reality.

Dragons exist. They have always existed.

Some are Western beasts, massive, fire-breathing, solitary lords of mountains. Others are Eastern serpents, wise and powerful, tied to rivers, clouds, and storms. They once walked openly beside men—until humans betrayed the pact.

Now, they sleep beneath mountains, oceans, and forgotten ruins. And guarding them, through generations, are the Knight-Blooded—descendants of warriors chosen long ago to protect balance.

“You are one of them,” Elinor said, her eyes locked on his. “Your ancestor was a knight who broke his vows… for love. With a dragon.”

The blood of dragonkind runs in Gabriel’s veins.
It is why the Lance of Silver recognized him.

“But this is just the beginning,” Elinor warned.

She led him into a spherical chamber within the fortress. In its center hovered a glowing, three-dimensional map of the world. But this wasn’t geography—it was energy. It pulsed with hotspots, shifting ley lines, ancient powers awakening.

“Someone is disturbing the old order,” she said. “Dragons are stirring. Relics are emerging. Something older than all of us... is reaching out again.”

Gabriel turned toward her. “And what do you want from me?”

She stepped forward, her voice soft, but unyielding.

“We want you to become what your blood remembers. Not just a soldier… a Knight of the Eclipse. A guardian of the world’s most dangerous secret.”