LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — INNER SANCTUM, ASHVALE OUTER CIRCLE
The chamber reeked of incense and intention.
Verrick Thorne stood before the Circle Flame, shadows slicing his face into halves—one patient, the other predatory. Around him, murmurs flickered like candlelight—whispers of concern, fear, and thinly-veiled ambition.
"He's unstable," Verrick said smoothly, hands clasped behind his back. "The Rite changed him. Twisted him. That system of his… it glitches. It doesn't bind. It corrupts."
A few heads nodded. Others hesitated.
Ezekar Nythe wasn't here.
That helped.
Verrick leaned in. "If we wait, he'll infect the Creed. Poison the roots from within. But if we use him—let him bleed for us first—then we can justify whatever must come next."
He turned, cloak sweeping like a blade behind him.
"Send him to the Vault of Ash Remnants. An Order relic was found buried in the ruins—one tied to the old Divinity Lines. Claim it's diplomatic. Symbolic."
The others had muttered their concerns. Some nodded. One or two looked uncertain.
Didn't matter.
He only needed enough silence to pass a shadow as strategy.
Verrick had already written the orders.
> Escort Team E-3 assigned. Route: Vault of Ash Remnants. Primary Operative: Lucan Malryk. Secondary Observer: Rivenna Drae. Mission: Diplomatic Retrieval of a relic bound to Divinity Lines. Classified Intent: Sever the infection.
His eyes glinted with quiet cruelty.
"But make the escort team… selective. Loyal. Precise."
He paused at the door. "Rivenna Drae will be the observer. Let's see where her loyalty really lies."
---
LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — WAR ROOM — LATER
Lucan stood beside the mission table, eyes scanning the holo-map as if that could make sense of why he had been chosen.
Vault of Ash Remnants. A collapsed sanctum deep in the ruins outside Ashvale—once a Divine Order facility, now just bones and dust. Rumors said something pulsed within, recently disturbed by a quake.
A relic. One that predated even the oldest rites.
Verrick's voice had been civil—smooth, almost paternal.
"You're uniquely suited for this, Lucan. With what you've become… the vault might react to your presence."
He didn't trust it. But he didn't challenge it.
Not openly.
The escort team entered in silence.
Five hardened operatives in Creed battlewear—quiet, precise, eyes that said mercenary first, loyalty second. They introduced themselves only by codename. Standard procedure, maybe. Still off.
Lucan raised a brow. "You all this chatty with each other too?"
They didn't laugh.
They didn't even smirk.
Before Lucan could press, another figure stepped through the sliding doors.
Rivenna Drae.
Sharp as ever. Cloaked in black. Neutral as shadow.
Lucan's breath caught a moment. "You too?"
"Observer," she said simply. "Verrick's orders. He wants accountability."
She didn't elaborate. Didn't blink.
Lucan nodded slowly.
"Of course he does."
He turned back to the holo-map, unaware that half the room wasn't here to protect him.
They were here to end him.
And only one of them hadn't read the script.
---
LOCATION: ASH REMNANT WASTELAND — RUINED SANCTUM OUTSKIRTS
The wind was wrong.
It didn't howl—it trembled.
Lucan walked at the front of the formation, the collapsed ruins of the Order vault just visible through the skeletal remains of thorn-trees and cracked spires. The team was quiet. Too quiet.
His System had been flickering since they passed the black ridge.
[ERR—⚠⚠: Synchr—nization Dela_y Detected.]
[Tier II: A_ccess... Interrupted by Ext. Code Sig—▚nature]
[WARNING: [MEMORY GHOST DETECTED]
[—RITE_FEEDBACK_LOOP—REPE—▘▘▖▚▚TING...]
Lucan staggered—just slightly. His vision warped.
For a flash, he wasn't in the forest.
He was beneath the Rite again.
Bound. Screaming. Betrayed.
[RECALIBRAT—▘▘▖▗▚]
[RECALIBRATING...]
[SYSTEM STABILITY: : 14_%]
He dropped to one knee.
Sweat slid down his back despite the cold. His gauntlet sparked faintly—glyphs stuttering.
The others stopped.
Only Rivenna moved toward him, her voice low.
"Lucan—"
Then—
The first blow came from behind.
Clean. Calculated. Right across his spine.
A shockblade designed to short neural pathways—not kill immediately, but neutralize.
Lucan hit the dirt hard.
Rivenna turned in fury, but no blades came her way.
She wasn't the target.
Not yet.
Rivenna didn't move, she waited, calculating. If he couldn't survive this, he didn't deserve what was coming next.
Three of the team closed in, blades drawn, visors black.
"He said to make it clean," one muttered. "But monsters don't deserve mercy."
Lucan spat blood. Rolled.
Caught a glimpse of his HUD.
[WARNI⚠NG: AMBUSH IN PROGRESS]
[MULTIPLE SIGNATURES: ⛧ CREED IDENT: VERRICK / AUTH: ACTIVE]
No questions left to ask.
Just survival.
Lucan's gauntlet pulsed violently—runic veins lighting in erratic bursts of violet and red, a corrupted symphony of divine power and broken system code.
The traitors circled. Efficient. Unshaken.
One moved in for the kill.
And that's when it happened.
Not the system.
Not yet.
This was something older.
"GET UP."
The voice wasn't shouted.
It didn't need to be.
It whispered like a blade slipping beneath armor, deep and guttural and wrong in a way that felt right. It filled his bones like ash and thunder.
"You are mine, Lucan Malryk. And mine do not die on their knees."
Then came the pulse.
[SINFORGED STATE: LIM▚▚IT BREAK — PAR__TIAL INITIATED]
[OVERRIDE AUTHORITY: ❖UNKNOWN ENTITY❖ —"THE FACELESS"]
[HOSTILE SURGE INTEGRATION… 47%]
[CONDITION: UNSTABLE]
[RELEASING RESTR_AINTS]
ǵ̵̪͓͍͙̠̠̲̼̺͉͖̇̒̓́͋͆̋̕̚͝ͅè̷̠͔̞̱̮̟̤͈̝̼̒̒͋́͑͒̅̋͛̄̒͝t̴̛̺͍̩͍͕̘̺̱͈̮̮̬̖͙̱͆̇̋̿͆͗͘͘͝ ̵̢̨̳̦̼̠̳̺̲̞̩́̅̇̋́͘̚̚u̵̺͈͖̹͈̞͓̿͌̽͐͗̽͐͒̀͒̆p̷̮͚̥̳̫̝̰͖̪̘̮̝̳̯̝̅̅̍̿͆̐͛̔̏̓̓͐̿͠͠
Lucan's eyes snapped open—lit with glitching halos.
The first attacker's blade stopped mid-air—caught.
Lucan crushed his wrist with one hand and drove his elbow into the man's throat with a crunch. Another came from the left—Lucan ducked low, then spun, slamming a backfist into the traitor's jaw hard enough to dislocate thought.
The third tried a glyph bind.
Lucan ate it.
Tore through the magic like wet paper and dragged the man to the ground, pounding him until the earth trembled.
By the time the dust settled, three of Verrick's elites lay broken—one dead, two twitching on the edge of it.
Lucan stood—limping, breathing hard, bleeding—but not defeated.
And then—
Rivenna moved.
She hadn't lifted a finger through the ambush. But now, she stepped forward, twin blades drawn.
Another traitor—a sniper up in the ruined vault's upper tier—tried to sight Lucan from afar.
He never got the chance.
Rivenna threw her blade.
It pierced the bastard's throat mid-blink.
She walked back to Lucan without apology.
"You're bleeding too much," she said coldly.
Lucan stared at her. "You knew?"
She didn't deny it. "I knew something. I didn't think Verrick would be this clumsy."
Lucan growled, rage surfacing like magma. "They tried to erase me."
"They failed," she said, simple as fact. Then added: "Not everyone would've helped."
Lucan's fingers curled into fists. "Why did you?"
Rivenna looked at him then—not with sympathy. But with certainty.
"Because I don't take orders from weak men."
---
Lucan barely stood.
The air was thick with smoke, blood, and betrayal—but all he could hear was the echo of that voice in his head:
"Don't take orders from weak men."
His knees buckled.
Whatever strength had surged through him was fading fast, leaving a hollow ache where power had burned.
Rivenna moved in a blur, catching him before he collapsed fully, her arms firm beneath his shoulders.
"Lucan—"
But he didn't hear her.
The world tilted. The ruins dissolved.
Darkness took him.
---
LOCATION: UNKNOWN — LIMINAL SPACE — TIMESTREAM INTERRUPTED
He stood alone again.
That endless void of black mist and glitched light. Static pulsed in the distance like a dying star. Somewhere, water dripped from a ceiling that didn't exist.
And then—
Footsteps.
Rhythmic. Terrible. Calm.
From the shadows, the Faceless God emerged again.
Still without a face. Still watching with eyes that weren't there.
Then, like a blade dragged across his soul, the god spoke:
"Even gods don't rise without pain."
He stepped forward, shadow stretching like a chain.
"So tell me, Lucan Malryk… ready to bleed for your throne?"