LOCATION: SHADOWEDGE WOOD — EDGE OF THE SLAUGHTERFIELD
The fighting was almost over.
Smoke drifted low between the trees, curling around fallen bodies. The ground was black with blood and burned leaves. Iron Creed corpses lay scattered — cut down with terrifying precision.
At the center of it all stood Rivenna.
Her Voidsteel blade gleamed in her hand, still humming faintly. She moved through the last few stragglers like wind through paper.
One tried to run.
She didn't chase.
She just flicked her blade.
The man's body folded in half.
Another raised a shield. Useless.
She carved through it — and him — in one motion.
Serin watched from behind a broken log, clutching her ribs. Her breathing was ragged, but her eyes were sharp. She rose slowly, sword tip dragging through the dirt.
One last Iron Creed soldier staggered out of the trees — bloody, dazed.
He saw Rivenna.
And froze.
"...That blade," he whispered. "It's her. It's really her—"
He tried to raise his weapon.
He didn't finish.
Rivenna cut him down without a word.
Then… stillness.
---
LOCATION: SHADOWEDGE — TWILIGHT POST, LATER
They sat in silence.
Not peace.
Not victory.
Just the breath caught between battles.
Down below, the Iron Creed hadn't retreated — just regrouped.
You could hear them in the trees. Boots crushing ash. Blades ringing low against chain. Orders whispered like curses in the dark.
More were coming.
Serin exhaled slowly, pressing gauze against a wound on her side. Blood soaked through anyway.
Across from her, Rivenna crouched with one knee in the dirt, sharpening the edge of her Voidsteel blade. The sound was soft. Clean. Like preparing for something sacred.
The flare had been sent. Reinforcements were — maybe — on the way. But that didn't mean they'd arrive in time.
Serin didn't ask why Rivenna had left the Creed.
Rivenna didn't explain.
But between them, truth hung heavier than smoke.
"You always disappear when it matters," Serin said quietly.
Rivenna paused, then stood.
Her eyes stayed on the ridge below.
"And I always return when it counts."
The wind shifted. So did the silence.
Then — glyphlight flickered deep in the woodline.
More Iron Creed. Ascending the slope.
Serin hissed through her teeth. "We won't hold this ridge with just the two of us."
Rivenna didn't flinch.
Her blade pulsed once with a strange, dark shimmer — as if something beneath the steel stirred awake.
"Good. I was starting to miss the sound of screaming."
---
LOCATION: HOLLOW CREED — ASHEN HALL, STRATEGIC WAR ROOM
The flare had reached them.
Its crimson arc still echoed through the spy-glyphs and relay threads. Every Hollow Creed agent in the region saw it — and what it meant.
Ashen Hall had become a storm.
The war room pulsed with tension. Flickering glyphmaps hovered in the air, marking routes, safehouses, and signal lines. Most of them… were dark.
Voices clashed.
"We don't have the numbers!"
"Serin knew what she was doing—"
"She's still alive, damn it!"
"She was. Until the Iron Creed sent a strike team. We can't burn more scouts chasing ghosts."
The room fractured into camps. Some called for withdrawal. Others demanded retaliation. A few stood silent, lost between fear and memory.
At the head of the chamber, Nareth watched.
He didn't shout.
He didn't calm them.
He just listened — and waited.
The door opened.
Lucan entered.
No words. No ceremony.
Just presence.
He looked different now. Paler. Sharper. Like the shadows around him moved a half-second too slow. His eyes — dim gold, but colder than any winter.
The voices died down.
Lucan stepped to the center of the room, beside Nareth, and looked once at the map — the last flare signal burning at the edge of the Shadowedge woods.
He said nothing for a long moment.
Then:
"We move."
Silence.
Lucan's voice was calm. Flat. Certain.
"We burn the path behind us. We take back the woods."
No one argued.
No one dared.
Even the loudest skeptics didn't speak. Not because of fear — not exactly.
Because they felt something shift.
This wasn't the same Lucan they had followed in whispers and rumor.
This was someone else now.
A commander. Or something worse.
Nareth didn't smile. But his eyes narrowed, as if he'd just confirmed something.
"You were never meant to lead. And yet... here we are."
---
LOCATION: SHADOWEDGE WOOD – TWILIGHT POST RIDGE
The Iron Creed kept coming.
Over the fallen.
Over the flame-scarred roots.
Up the ridge.
Their discipline never broke. Their eyes never wavered.
But neither did Rivenna's blade.
Nor Serin's will.
The two women stood back to back, breath ragged, blades slick with blood. A dozen bodies lay around them — some fresh, others still twitching.
Serin grit her teeth, swinging with her off-hand now, her dominant arm limp at her side. Every motion drew blood. Every breath hurt.
Rivenna didn't speak. She never needed to. Her Voidsteel blade moved with lethal rhythm, slashing through chain and creed.
Then—
Another wave crested the ridge.
Dozens more.
Too many.
Rivenna's lip curled. "They brought half the damn Ashen South."
Serin's voice was low, breath heavy. "Then they should've brought more."
But even that fire began to flicker.
The ridge wouldn't hold.
Not much longer.
Not with just two.
---
LOCATION: SHADOWEDGE - LOWER WOODS — APPROACHING FROM THE EAST
Leaves caught fire before blades were drawn.
The forest howled — not with wind, but war.
From the shadows beneath the trees, the Hollow Creed emerged.
Dozens strong. Ragged. Relentless.
And at the front — Lucan.
His feet barely touched the ground.
Eyes glowing. Veins inked with shadow.
The system whispered.
[ENEMY SIGNATURES DETECTED: IRON CREED, CHAINBOUND CLASS — 47 REMAINING]
[STATUS: OUTNUMBERED]
[SOLUTION: MAKE THEM BLEED]
Lucan raised a hand.
[SKILL: SOULBRAND — IGNITE]
The nearest enemy clutched his chest, screamed — and burned from the inside out.
Lucan didn't slow.
He walked through the Iron Creed's flanks like a whisper of death.
Jareth and two other Creed vanguard swept in behind, carving a path.
[BLOODTHIRST: 23%]
[ALLY MORALE: SURGING]
[OBJECTIVE: RETAKE THE WOOD — IN PROGRESS]
---
On the ridge, Serin blinked. "That's…"
Rivenna didn't move.
She watched as Lucan reached the front.
Didn't wave. Didn't shout.
Just met her gaze with eyes that no longer asked for permission — only obedience.
The Iron Creed hesitated for the first time.
Too late.
Lucan lunged.
Blades clashed. Glyphs burst.
The Hollow Creed roared as the tide turned, one cut at a time.
---
Lucan ducked under a spear, jammed his palm into a soldier's chest—
[SKILL: GRIEFBURN — TRIGGERED]
The soldier dropped, convulsing with screams.
Behind, Jareth rallied the flank. Scouts poured in. The glyph flare still blazed overhead, now burning crimson — a warning no longer. A promise.
[ENEMY STRENGTH: COLLAPSING]
[SIN RESERVOIR: 64%]
[VILLAINY: NECESSARY]
[COMMAND: ACCEPTED]
---
Lucan stood atop the ridge now, blood slick on his boots, shadow coiling from his shoulders.
The Iron Creed had broken.
Those who didn't fall ran — but not far.
Not fast enough.
Rivenna wiped her blade.
Serin exhaled, then nearly collapsed.
Lucan didn't look back.
He simply whispered to no one — or to something only he could hear:
"I told you."
[SHADOWEDGE RIDGE: RETAKEN]
[HOLLOW CREED: NOT YET DEAD]
[BUT CLOSER TO WHO THEY MUST BECOME]
---
LOCATION: ASHVALE — INNER STRATEGIUM, WAR ROOM OF THE CREED OF CHAINS (Much Later that same night)
The chamber was quiet.
Stone walls. Steel scent. No banners. Just cold brass tables and old war maps lit by a single rune-lamp overhead.
Verrick stood alone at the center. No armor. No throne. Just a long coat lined in chain-weave and a stare sharp enough to draw blood.
A soldier stepped in. Hesitated.
"My lord… we couldn't take Shadowedge Wood. But the relay's destroyed."
Verrick didn't move.
The soldier swallowed. "Elowen survived. And… Rivenna was seen."
That got a reaction. A small one.
Verrick's jaw tightened.
"So," he said, almost to himself, "the Specter walks again."
No panic. No anger. Just calm calculation.
"She wasn't the objective," Verrick continued.
"No, Commander," the soldier said.
"She was the bait."
He turned to the center table — a map of glyph-relays and leyline scars. One node blinked red: Shadowedge. Another pulsed faint violet: Unknown — Rivenna Sighted.
Verrick reached out.
Runes flared under his fingers and the map shifted — not to a battlefield… but a blueprint.
Massive.
Caged.
It looked like a ritual. Or maybe a weapon. Lines of suppression glyphs and soul-binding rings circled something at the center — something meant to hold power in place.
"We're building the forge," Verrick said. "And now that she's exposed… we accelerate."
At the edge of the room, engineers from the Chainforged Order stepped forward — carrying pieces of something jagged and glowing.
The soldier spoke again. "Forgive me, sir, but… what exactly are we building?"
Verrick turned. The scar over his eye caught the light.
"A prison," he said.
"Not for her body. For her myth."