LOCATION: ASHVALE – THE SEER'S HOLD
The candles in Aelira Varn's chamber burned too low, as if afraid of her.
She sat cross-legged in the center of the sanctum floor, robes damp with sweat, hair unbound, and eyes red-rimmed from sleepless nights. The glyph that tracked Lucan Malryk still glowed faintly beneath her skin—hidden just above her collarbone.
A sin-glyph. Illegal. Condemned. Etched with her own blood.
She hadn't spoken of it. Not to Halix. Not to the Inquisitors. Not even to herself.
Because if she did—if she spoke the truth out loud— it would mean admitting she hadn't saved him.
Only watched him bleed.
And let it happen.
She had called it duty. Faith. A necessary evil.
But the glyph didn't lie.
Every flicker of it said: "You knew."
Every pulse of it whispered: "You chose."
Each time she tried to sleep, it pulsed.
Each time Lucan moved, it pulled.
Each time her heart beat, it stuttered.
She had thought herself a martyr. Now she wasn't sure she hadn't just become a ghost still pretending to pray.
Aelira's fingers trembled as she scrawled another encrypted glyph-letter onto a scrap of spell-treated parchment. She didn't sign it. She never did.
She only wrote:
"He's moving east. I don't know why I'm still helping him. I think it's guilt. I think it's more."
"They're watching me. I think they know. I'll send what I can. If I disappear, tell him—"
The glyph burned shut before she could finish. She slumped back against the wall, pulse ragged.
In the hallway outside, an Inquisitor passed by, pausing a moment too long.
She didn't move. Didn't breathe.
The glyph in her skin pulsed again.
Lucan was alive.
And gods help her—she still loved him.
---
LOCATION: THE EDGE OF THE SHATTERED WASTES
Lucan didn't trust Rivenna Drae.
Not with her voidsteel. Not with her silences. Not even with the way her eyes lingered on his like she was studying the space between fury and forgiveness.
But damnation didn't always offer better roads.
They walked together beneath a dead sky, the terrain littered with bones from a battle no one remembered. Every third step, Lucan expected her to vanish.
She didn't.
"Why did you save me?" he asked finally.
Rivenna didn't answer immediately. Her cloak stirred with the wind, black threads fluttering like tethered shadows.
"You weren't finished," she said.
"That's it?"
She stopped walking. Turned to face him.
"No. But it's the part I'm willing to say."
Lucan's jaw flexed. "And what is the rest?"
Rivenna's lips curled—not a smile. A warning.
"You want the truth, Apostate?" she said. "I saw you break the rite. I saw the gods flinch. And for a moment, I believed the fire might finally burn them."
Silence.
Then, softer:
"You're either a herald… or a mistake the world can't survive."
Lucan stepped closer, the system flickering between hostile and curious.
"So which am I to you?"
Rivenna didn't step back.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I haven't decided yet."
She belonged to a forgotten sect: The Hollow Creed.
Warriors forsaken by the gods, fueled by divine errors, marked for obliteration—and yet, still standing. Rivenna didn't offer salvation. She didn't even promise survival.
She offered something colder. Sharper.
Freedom.
"You can burn the temple…" she said, eyes locked to his, "...or become the flame that builds a new one."
She turned then, not waiting for a response, and gestured for him to follow.
"We're here."
Lucan narrowed his eyes. The terrain had changed—less ruin, more design. Black stone underfoot. Thorned spires reaching into the dark like fingers meant to claw down heaven.
Figures stood ahead—masked, silent, cloaked in bone-white thread and shadow-draped steel.
A gateway opened without a sound. Inside: a hall that felt carved from dead gods and hollow prayers.
At the center of it stood someone else.
Not Rivenna.
But the one she bowed to.
"Lucan Malryk," the figure said. "Welcome to the Hollow Creed."
"You're the leader?" Lucan asked, voice tight with suspicion.
The man chuckled—a sound like dry leaves catching fire. "No. I'm the test."
Lucan's eyes narrowed. "Then who are you?"
The figure stepped forward, the low torchlight catching the edge of his jaw. Scarred. Burned. Old and yet... vibrant.
"I am Verrick Thorne," he said. "And I am the measure of your worth."
Lucan didn't flinch. "Measure me, then."
Verrick tilted his head, amused. "Oh, I intend to. But first—I need to know what you see when you look at me."
Lucan glanced him up and down. "A gatekeeper. A threat. A man who thinks riddles are power."
Verrick smiled. "And you… you're a spark walking into the pyre, hoping not to burn."
Lucan's jaw clenched. "Then light the match."
Before he could ask more, the ground beneath his feet rippled.
Weapons summoned.
Wards surged.
Rivenna didn't warn him.
She didn't need to.
"If you want in," the figure growled, "prove that your fire isn't borrowed."
Lucan exhaled once, slow and deep.
The System screamed—glitching.
[Combat Protocol: Engaging...]
[WARNING: Sin Levels fluctuating — Stability at 43%]
[T̶e̴s̸t̶ ̶I̷n̷c̴o̶m̶i̸n̵g̷]
Lucan smiled, cracked his neck, and stepped forward.
"Let's see if your Creed's worth dying for."
---
Minutes later, blood dripped from his knuckles.
Smoke curled from his shoulders. His opponent lay broken, but breathing.
The leader of the Creed tilted their head.
"Not clean. Not controlled. But cruel. Efficient. True."
They nodded once. A single, final signal.
"He stays."
Rivenna didn't clap. Didn't smile.
But something sharp and unreadable flickered in her gaze as she turned away.
"Come," she said. "There's more."
LOCATION: THE FORGOTTEN SHRINE – BENEATH ASHVALE
Somewhere deeper than the catacombs, where no prayers reached and even time dared not linger—something moved.
A statue cracked.
A bleeding altar pulsed with life it should not possess.
The walls wept dark ichor.
And in the shadows between stone and sacrament…
An eye opened.
Not mortal. Not sane. Not silent.
A whisper crawled through the dark—like a name remembered by something that should not remember.
"…Malryk…"
The sound echoed where echoes should not dwell, bending the air, warping the stone, as if the shrine itself recognized him.
[Divine Echo Detected — Subject: Lucan Malryk] [Sanctum Breach Recorded. Sin Path Alignment: Distorted. Memory Link: Found.]
The shrine bled light.
And the god that once warned them not to sacrifice the boy—
Stirred.
---
LOCATION: THE DEAD VALLEY — NIGHTFALL
Ash beneath his boots. A blade in one hand. A relic from the shrine in the other—still wet with memory.
Lucan stood at the edge of the desecrated battlefield. Statues lay broken. Sky torn. Echoes of dead gods clung to the wind.
The system buzzed—erratic, twitching.
[S̷i̶n̸b̷o̶u̴n̴d̸ S̵y̵s̶t̸e̴m̴ A̵l̸e̴r̸t̶: D̷e̶i̸t̶y̷-̷C̸l̶a̵s̵s̸ E̴n̶t̶i̸t̸y̶ ̵i̶s̶ O̷b̵s̸e̵r̶v̶i̶n̶g̴]
[⚠ W̷a̶r̷n̴i̶n̸g̶: Surveillance exceeds S̶y̸s̴t̸e̶m̴ T̸h̸r̷e̷s̶h̷o̶l̴d̵]
[Sin Reservoir: U̵n̵s̶t̴a̷b̶l̴e̴ – Levels F̷l̴u̶c̸t̶u̴a̸t̷i̸n̷g̴…]
[Alignment Drift Detected: C̶o̵r̴e̴ Identity at 6̷7̷% Consistency]
[New Sin Path U̶n̷l̸o̷c̶k̶e̷d̷: ???]
[Designation: R̶i̷t̸e̶b̶r̸e̷a̸k̷e̸r̵ — Status: U̶n̸c̶o̴n̴f̸i̵r̸m̶e̷d̸]
[Note: Memory Seals F̵r̵a̶c̸t̷u̶r̴e̸d̷ — Emotional Residue: H̷I̸G̶H̸]
[System Recommends: Emergency C̶a̸l̷i̷b̶r̵a̴t̴i̶o̶n̵ — Risk: Existential I̶n̵s̶t̸a̷b̷i̴l̵i̵t̴y̷]
[P̶r̴o̷c̶e̷e̸d̶ w̵i̷t̴h̶ P̶a̸t̷h̷ A̶c̴t̵i̴v̶a̸t̷i̵o̶n̶? Y/N]
Lucan smiled.
Broken.
Dangerous.
"Let them watch."
Unseen, perched in the hollow of a broken statue—Rivenna Drae watched him too.
And for the first time in years, she didn't know whether she'd kill him… or follow him into fire.