LOCATION: WESTERN FRINGE — HOLLOW CREED OUTPOST
The sky bled.
Ash rained from above, mingling with the stench of burned cloth and the metallic sting of blood. Screams echoed off shattered stone walls, and what had once been a border stronghold now smoldered like a dying forge. The Hollow Creed was surrounded.
Rivenna Drae moved like a phantom made of blades—cloak torn, hair unbound, and eyes burning. Her Voidsteel Blade split bone and armor alike as she barked orders above the roar of battle.
"Fall back to the inner wall! Form a line—tighten!"
Her men obeyed. Some of them, anyway. Most had no time left to follow commands.
The fanatics of the Divine Order surged forward, clad in white-gold armor etched with burning script, eyes glowing with that damned holy light. They chanted even as they killed, their war hymn a twisted dirge.
Lucan slammed into the flank, landing beside Rivenna with his gauntlet flaring red. His blade was slick, his breath ragged, and the Sinbound System was spitting warnings into his skull like static-ridden rage:
[ERR—: H●st Input Delay]
[Syst#m S¥nc: 41% — UNS†ABLE]
[HP: 74%]
[Status: B̷L̴O̷O̸D̷I̸E̷D̸ | System Integrity: 6̵7̸%]
[WAR—NING: S¥nc Inc●mplete — Thread Drift Detected]
[Attempti—ng Corr⸮ction...]
[××× Correction Failed ×××]
His vision glitched. For one awful second, Rivenna flickered like a ghost, replaced by a memory of her bleeding on an altar.
Lucan growled and swung anyway. The zealot charging him evaporated in a blaze of corrupted glyphfire.
"I told you to stay behind," Rivenna snapped, not looking at him.
Lucan wiped blood from his face. "Yeah, I'm bad at following suicidal advice."
Behind them, the final wall buckled. Screams climbed higher—panic, not pain. The Creed was breaking. One more push and the Order would pour through.
And then the wind changed.
From the north ridge came a low rumble.
Not thunder.
Hooves.
A wall of black-clad riders emerged from the smoke like revenants. Banners of dark crimson whipped through the ash, their emblems unfamiliar but unmistakable—seven burning eyes arranged in a spiral. Umbra Seat.
At their center, astride a night-black destrier, rode Ezekar Nythe.
Where he passed, Order zealots fell silent. Where his eyes turned, their hearts seemed to stutter.
The battle paused—not from mercy, but from awe.
Then Ezekar lifted his staff—a long, obsidian rod tipped with a curved blade wreathed in smoldering chains—and plunged it into the ground.
The earth shattered.
Rings of red light erupted outward. Zealots screamed as their divine wards failed, twisted by the Umbra's magic. Arrows followed—sleek, unnatural, tipped with shadowflame. Then swords. Then riders.
The Umbra Seat hit the flank like a thunderclap of wrath and precision.
Lucan turned to Rivenna. "Is that...?"
"Ezekar Nythe," she whispered, breathless. "The Third Throne."
Lucan didn't get time to process that before a zealot nearly skewered him. He blocked, twisted—and then another blade intercepted the blow. A second figure dropped beside him, cutting the attacker down in one swing.
Ezekar.
Up close, he smelled of smoke, steel, and something darker—something old.
They stood back-to-back as more zealots charged. Lucan moved to defend. Ezekar moved to destroy.
"You fight like a man chasing death," Ezekar said, cutting down another zealot.
"You say that like it's not mutual," Lucan shot back.
"It's useful," Ezekar replied, voice like a falling axe. "But dangerous."
"For them?"
"For you."
Their blades clashed again, this time not against each other—but in concert.
For a moment, a heartbeat, an eternity—they were synced. Two monsters from opposite ends of the abyss, standing in the wreckage of faith.
And for the first time that day… the Hollow Creed wasn't losing.
---
LOCATION: ??? – BETWEEN MEMORY AND SYSTEM
The battlefield faded like ash in water.
Lucan's last memory was of a blade sinking into his shoulder, the crack of a broken ward, and Rivenna's voice shouting his name. Then—blackness.
Not sleep. Not unconsciousness.
Disconnection.
[𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐄̶R̴R̷O̶R̸:̸ ̸C̷o̸g̷n̸i̴t̸i̷v̸e̴-̴S̷y̶n̸c̸ ̶F̴a̵i̶l̸u̴r̸e̸]
[E͠n͠t͠e͠r͠i͠n͠g͠ ̶E͠m͠e͠r͠g͠e͠n͠c͠y͠ ̶N͠u͠l͠l͠s͠p͠a͠c͠e͠…]
The world rebooted in silence.
Lucan opened his eyes—or thought he did. Vision didn't come as light, but as impression: walls that breathed, shadows that blinked, air that hummed with broken prayers.
He stood not on ground, but on a pale void shaped like a spiral. Glyphs fluttered beneath his feet like dead moths.
In the center of the spiral waited the faceless god.
But it had changed.
Where once it had a flame seething in its mouth, there was now only stillness. Smoke curled from a lipless maw, and a low hum echoed from the gash where a face should be.
Lucan tried to speak. His mouth moved, but no sound came.
The figure tilted its head.
And then it whispered.
"Ritebreaker."
Lucan flinched.
The name didn't echo. It embedded. Like a brand.
"You claw at fate with broken hands… yet call yourself reborn."
The whisper was in his bones, not his ears.
Around him, system panels flickered into view—but they were wrong. Glitched. Distorted. As if corrupted by divine interference.
[̵S̶T̴A̵T̶U̶S̸:̸ ̵U̶N̴K̴⛧̶O̴W̵N̴]
[SINBOUND ̵S̶Y̵S̴⛧̷T̷E̸M̶:̸ ̴I̶N̶C̴Ø̸M̴P̷L̵E̸T̵E̸]
[S¥̶N̸C̸: 4̸3̴%̴ – U͟N͟S͟T͟A͟B͟L͟E͟]
[STATS UN̷L̶O̴C̷K̸E̸D̷: B🝯̶D̶Y̷]
[STATS ̷L̴O̶C̴K̸E̷D̷: MIND, WILL, SIN]
[ERR☒R: True Host Rejection Detected]
[C̶o̸r̸r̴e̴c̸t̵i̷o̴n̵ R̷e̵q̶u̷¡̸r̸e̶s̴ ̸C̷o̵g̴n̸i̷t̷i̶v̴e̷ R̴e̷f̵o̷r̵g̴i̶n̴g̷]
Lucan stared at the panels. His stats—what few he could see—were jagged, fluctuating, some labeled in languages he couldn't read.
"Sinforged..." the god whispered again. "But not Sinbound."
Lucan looked up. "What are you?"
The figure tilted closer. Its body was a silhouette stitched with burning thread. Its hands were bones bound in flickering cloth.
"A mirror," it said. "Of what you fear. Of what you are becoming."
Lucan tried to move, but the space held him.
"The Rite marked you. The System binds you. But I… I am what waits beyond both."
The panels swirled, suddenly recoding.
A new panel opened:
[⋘̸ TRAINING M̸O̸D̶E̷:̷ ̴I̴N̸I̸T̸I̶A̸T̵Ξ̵D̶ ⋙̷]
[🜃 C̷a̸l̶i̸b̸r̷a̶t̴i̷o̴n̸ ̵IntegrityP̴r̷o̷t̷o̶c̴o̵l̸ – ̴Phase I: "Will Against ̷t̸h̸e̸ ̶F̷l̸a̶m̴e̶"̴]
[Time Dilation Enabled: 1 Hour = 1 Second R̶̵̶e̴̵̷a̶̶̶l̴̴̴s̵̵̵p̶̶̶a̶̶̶c̴̴̴e̶̶̶]
Lucan's voice returned, ragged, barely more than a whisper:
"I don't want this."
For a moment, silence.
Then the god leaned forward. No flame. No fury. Just a voice like a knife dragged across stone.
"Then I will wait…"
It began to dissolve, its shape unraveling into smoke and code.
"But don't take too long…"
The spiral beneath Lucan's feet began to fracture, light bleeding through the cracks like molten ink.
"The Sinbound awaits you, Lucan Malryk. Whether you rise… or break."
And with that, reality shattered.
Lucan fell—not through space, but through choice.
---
[𝕊𝕐𝕊̶𝕋𝔼𝕄 RΞBΘΘTĮŅG…]
[Returning to C̸o̸n💀s̵c̸i̶o̶u̷s̸n̸e̶s̴s̸ – Anchor: Body Reclaimed]
---
His eyes snapped open. Smoke, blood, battlefield.
He was back. But something had followed him.
A weight in his chest. A hunger in the system.
And a whisper that refused to fade:
"Sinforged… but not Sin—b⸮ou⸮nd."