LOCATION: ASHVALE UNDERCITY — BLACK MARKET ARCHIVE
The holy city didn't rot from the top down. It festered from beneath.
Aelira moved like a wraith through the Undercity's bones—hood drawn low, cloak smudged with soot, each step soft against cracked stone. The air stank of alchemical residue and slow, burning incense, thick enough to choke. The deeper she went, the less language mattered. Down here, truth was traded in coin, whispers, and blood.
The Archive was older than most remembered. A ruined basilica turned black-market information hub, wedged between two collapsed transit tunnels, lit by glyph-lanterns that flickered like dying stars. Hooded figures bartered secrets with broken voices, and every corner had eyes. Some even human.
Aelira stepped through without pause.
Her silver sigils were scrubbed clean. Her Divine Order pendant left behind. She'd traded her name for silence tonight.
She approached the counter where a bent archivist waited, skin translucent and eyes milky with overuse of Sight Dust.
"Looking for doctrine, darling?" the archivist wheezed. "Or dirty little heresies?"
"I'm looking for ghosts," Aelira said quietly. "Ones that wear robes and smile like gods."
The archivist blinked, then gestured her toward the lower stacks. "Aisle six. Don't breathe too loud. Some truths bite."
She descended, heart racing.
Tattered scrolls. Banned recordings. Carved warnings etched into glass.
And then—glyphs. Not the divine script she'd memorized in her years under Halix's eye. These were older. Rougher. Cracked and burned like the hands that wrote them.
Forbidden glyphs. Glyphs of binding. Of control. Of sacrifice.
And stamped on one parchment, clear as a brand:
Property of the Hall of Faith – Mother Halix's Private Sanctum.
Aelira's hands trembled.
Halix. The woman who raised her. Who'd claimed the Rite was purity, pain made sacred. Who said the Hollow Creed were butchers and liars.
Then why was she using the very glyphs she condemned?
---
LOCATION: HALIX'S CHAMBER – ASHVALE, UPPER CITADEL
The chamber was silent but for the sound of breathing—slow, steady, calculated.
The spy kneeled, head bowed, robes damp from the city's poison fog. Before him sat Mother Halix, eyes closed, hands folded in prayer—or what passed for it.
"She was in the Archive," the spy murmured. "Section Six. She found the glyphs."
A pause. Halix did not open her eyes.
"She suspects nothing… yet," the spy added quickly. "But she's asking questions."
Another pause.
Then Halix exhaled.
"Do not act," she said, voice calm and holy and cold enough to cut bone. "Let her dig deeper."
The spy blinked. "High Mother?"
Halix finally opened her eyes.
There was no fear in them. No worry. Only hunger.
"She thinks she's peeling back our secrets." A faint smile. "But really… we are peeling back hers."
---
LOCATION: CRATERED BATTLEFIELD — DUSK BLEEDING INTO NIGHT
The war had quieted. The dead hadn't.
Broken armor littered the scarred earth, still steaming from glyphfire and shadowflame. The sun bled out on the horizon, casting the battlefield in hues of red and rust. Charred banners flapped limply. The ground was cratered from the impact of spells and siege glyphs, and where divine script had once glowed on Order blades, now there was only slag.
The Hollow Creed gathered at the edge of ruin, their numbers halved but their heads held high. Rivenna stood among them, breathing hard, blood streaked across her face like warpaint.
Lucan approached her slowly, one shoulder stiff with pain, the other still twitching from whatever the hell the System had tried to do to him mid-fight. His expression was unreadable.
"You didn't die," Rivenna muttered, eyes scanning the field. "Unexpected."
Lucan offered a crooked smirk. "You sound disappointed."
"I am. You're still annoying."
She moved past him, but not before her shoulder brushed his—deliberate, maybe. The kind of touch meant to remind someone they still mattered, even when they shouldn't.
---
Across the field, black-clad riders were dismounting. The Umbra Seat stood apart, silent and sharp as blades still sheathed in blood. At their center, Ezekar Nythe loomed like a monument that could move.
He strode toward Lucan with purpose, the ground seemingly parting for him. His eyes burned—not with heat, but with gravity. Every gaze he gave felt like a brand.
Lucan turned, back straight, pain masked. The system still whined quietly in his skull like distant static.
Ezekar stopped a few feet away, studying him.
"You're not what I expected, Ritebreaker," the warlord said, voice smooth and deep, like a knife sharpened on bone. "You're worse."
He smiled.
"I like worse."
Lucan didn't flinch. "Do I get a medal? Or just more people trying to kill me?"
"Medals rust," Ezekar replied. "Legends rot slower. For now… consider yourself watched."
Then he turned and walked away, not dismissively—but like the conversation was over and anything more would be unnecessary noise.
Lucan stared after him for a moment, exhaling slowly.
Rivenna rejoined him.
"You're making powerful friends," she said, wiping her blade.
"Am I?" Lucan asked, eyes still on the retreating Umbra.
She shrugged. "You survived. That's all it takes."
Lucan flexed his hand, the gauntlet humming with faint glitchlight. Deep in his chest, the System pulsed—glitching like a heart that didn't know if it should beat or burn.
He didn't speak of the voidspace. Not the god. Not the spiral. Not the training mode where time bent like light in water.
Instead, he whispered to himself.
"I didn't ask for any of this…"
The system gave no reply.
But for the first time in hours, it wasn't screaming.
Just… waiting.
---
LOCATION: DISTANT RISE – CLOAKED BY SHADOW
The battlefield below still crackled with residual power. Smoke twisted lazily toward the heavens, curling around splintered towers and scorched glyph lines. But from this distance, it looked… quiet.
Verrick Thorne stood unmoving atop a jagged outcrop, his cloak drawn tight, face half-hidden beneath the hood. The wind tugged at his garb, but not even the chill could pull his gaze away from the figures below.
He saw Lucan.
And he saw Ezekar Nythe speak to him—not with disdain, but with interest. With that rare tone Ezekar reserved for those he deemed more than useful. Perhaps even dangerous.
Verrick's jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
The Third Throne doesn't praise lightly.
And yet here he was—offering approval to a man who'd been dragged back from a blood-soaked rite.
Lucan Malryk. A name rising too fast. A fire burning too hot. A threat wearing the face of prophecy.
In Verrick's mind, the thought was quiet… but sharp:
"If I don't act now, I'll serve him before the year ends."
He turned away from the scene below, the sunlight painting the side of his face in fractured gold.
Behind him, two of his personal guard waited in silence.
"We return," Verrick said coldly. "Tell no one what you saw here. And send for the Oathbinders."
He didn't look back at Lucan.
He didn't need to.
The game had changed.
And Verrick Thorne never played from behind.