At the jagged peak of the Frostfang Mountains, the wind howled. Eternal snow blanketed the black granite rocks, creating a cruel, monochrome landscape. Here, on the roof of the world, where the air was so thin it was said to tear the lungs apart, two figures stood face to face on a narrow stone bridge, with a bottomless chasm yawning on either side.
Carsen Fraust tightened his grip on his sword's hilt. The blade was called Keraunos, no ordinary weapon. It was a Mythborne, an artifact from the Golden Age, forged with the lightning of the Cyclops himself. Its pale silver blade seemed to constantly devour the dim light of the gray sky, and along its length were etched ancient runes that pulsed with restrained electrical energy. Trained and raised by the Crown for impossible missions such as this, Carsen felt the vibration of power crawl through his arm.
Across the bridge stood his opponent. Barthalzan. The last Hierophant of the Fallen Star Order. He looked like a scholar gone astray, a gaunt frame cloaked in tattered robes, his long black beard unkempt. But his emerald eyes gleamed with manic brilliance and radical devotion. In his hand, he held The Ghoul Affection, an Archetype 1 artifact he had stolen. It resembled a statue of a demon, radiating an eerie, thick black light.
"Hand over the artifact, sorcerer," Carsen said, his voice steady, unaffected by the piercing wind. "You have nowhere to run."
Barthalzan laughed, a dry sound like rustling dead leaves. "Run? Boy, do you think I came to this cursed place to flee? I came to finish my work. To awaken Him, the god I serve and the only true god, and with that, I shall begin a new era."
"The only era you're starting is the era of your own death," Carsen replied.
He didn't wait for an answer. He struck without warning.
He darted across the stone bridge, his movement swift, honed by years of discipline. Keraunos rose in his hands, the blade leaving a silver trail in the air.
SWOOSH.
Barthalzan made no attempt to dodge. Instead, he raised The Ghoul Affection. A wall of black necrotic energy surged before him, intercepting Carsen's strike.
CLANG.
The clash of holy thunder and death magic sent a shockwave through the bridge. Carsen staggered backward, his arm numbed. The dark wall cracked, but it did not shatter.
"Your old god's power is meaningless before the highest force," Barthalzan sneered.
From the artifact in his grasp, tendrils of shadow burst forth. They slithered like snakes, streaking toward Carsen from every direction. Carsen spun, Keraunos in his hands becoming a storm as he cleaved through each tendril. Every slash erupted in tiny sparks of lightning.
"You are only delaying the inevitable!" Barthalzan shouted as he lifted the artifact higher once more. The ground beneath the bridge trembled. From the abyss below, came the sound of something scraping—raw, terrible.
Bony hands began to emerge, clutching the edge of the bridge. Skeletons of fallen warriors, long dead upon these mountains centuries ago, rose from their eternal graves. Their empty eyes glowed with the same violet light found within Barthalzan's artifact.
"Rise, my legion!" Barthalzan commanded. "Destroy this intruder."
Dozens of skeletons charged at Carsen. They still wore remnants of rusted armor, wielding swords dulled by time. They were slow and clumsy, yet their overwhelming numbers posed the true threat.
Carsen cursed under his breath. He couldn't fight them all on the narrow bridge. He leapt back, landing on the edge of the precipice, his back now facing the chasm.
"There is no way out, Royal Knight," Barthalzan cackled.
"I don't need a way out," Carsen replied. He raised Keraunos high toward the gray sky. "I just need a bigger target."
He drove the blade into the stone of the bridge. "Keraunos, hear me. Unleash the storm."
The sky, once only gray, turned pitch black. Thunderclouds gathered rapidly over the mountain peak. Lightning danced through the sky, rumbling loud enough to shake the soul.
The runes on Keraunos lit with blinding blue light. Electric energy surged from the sword, flowing across the entire bridge. The skeletons halted mid-charge, their bones vibrating violently before they burst into heaps of gray ash.
Barthalzan stared in disbelief as the field of lightning spread toward him. He quickly conjured a stronger necrotic shield around his body.
"You think this little storm can stop me?"
"I'm not trying to stop you," Carsen said, his voice cold, his smile colder. "You'll understand soon enough, you treacherous bastard."
With a roar, he channeled everything he had into Keraunos. A single bolt of lightning, thick as a castle tower, descended from the heavens—not toward Barthalzan, but toward the very bridge they stood on.
KRA-KOOM.
The ancient stone bridge shattered into fragments. Massive stones plummeted into the bottomless abyss.
Carsen, already at the edge, leapt back toward the cliff he had come from. He caught a rocky outcrop with his fingertips just in time.
Barthalzan, caught in the center, was not so lucky. He fell with one of the larger stone slabs, his furious scream echoing through the mountains.
Carsen pulled himself up, panting, then looked down into the abyss. There was nothing but darkness, and he believed it was over. He had defeated Barthalzan. The Ghoul Affection was secured.
But as he turned to leave, he heard laughter rising from below.
Barthalzan floated out of the chasm, standing atop a spinning disc of shadow. His robes were torn, burn marks streaked across his face, but he was alive. And the artifact still rested in his hand.
"Clever, Knight. Very clever," Barthalzan said, hovering to meet Carsen's eye. "You destroyed the battlefield to defeat me. A fine tactic. Unfortunately, you forgot one thing."
He raised his left hand. From his fingers emerged shadow tendrils, thicker and darker than before. "You are in the mountains. And here, I am closer to my master."
He didn't strike Carsen. Instead, he turned his power on the mountain itself.
The tendrils stabbed into the surrounding cliffs. The ground began to shake. Snow at the peak broke free.
"If I cannot have you," Barthalzan said, smiling madly, "then the mountain shall. Farewell, Royal Knight."
A colossal avalanche thundered down from above, bringing with it boulders and ice as large as houses. Carsen had no place to run. All he could do was stare at the deadly white wall descending upon him.
He lifted Keraunos one last time in defiance of Barthalzan.
As the avalanche swallowed him, his only thought was that he had failed. The artifact remained in enemy hands. He would die in this cursed place, buried beneath tons of snow and regret.
In the suffocating darkness and deafening roar, he felt his sword tremble violently. The blue runes on its blade flared, forming a protective dome around him, holding back the crushing snow.
But he knew it wouldn't last. His strength was gone. The dome began to crack.
Just before the darkness consumed him completely, he saw something else within the blizzard. A pair of burning red eyes staring at him from afar.
Then, everything went black.
...…
Far away, in Clockthon, inside his lavish observatory amid the roar of a thunderstorm, Welt felt something. A subtle tremor inside his aperture. It was not from the Void Essence. He felt the sting of lightning within himself.
Welt rose from his desk, walked to the window, and looked northward—toward the Frostfang Mountains, though they could not be seen from where he stood.
He didn't know what had transpired there. But he had the distinct sense that one of his key pieces had just been removed from the board. And that left behind a vacuum, an opportunity.
The struggle for The Ghoul Affection was far from over. In fact, it had just entered a far more dangerous phase. And Welt intended to make sure he was on the winning side.
"Be a good piece, Carsen," Welt murmured with a cruel smile.