The voice is interestingly tense. [Overuse will burn you. The shackles feed on essence, but they crave it. If you cannot control the drain, they will consume you.]
Aelric grimaced but didn't stop. With Veyra's illusions splintering their focus and his own aggression guided by the Voice, he dismantled the guardians one by one.
It was not a clean battle; it was desperate, violent and brutal. But when the last construct fell, its body melting back into the stone, silence returned, which was heavy.
Aelric stood in the middle of the ruined chamber, his chest heaving. The chains coiled around his arms, warm and content for now.
Veyra approached, a faint grin on her lips. "You have been very impressive welding that.. it isn't easy."
"I didn't come to impress anyone," Aelric muttered. "I came to take what I needed."
He glanced back at the crucible's remains. The forge, through damage, still pulsed faintly. It seems like it could repair itself anytime.
But he knew he would never get another chance to use it.
The Voice echoed softly. [This tool will serve you well. But every gift taken from the Abyss is a burden waiting to awaken.]
Aelric turned away from the broken forge, the weight of the Soulbound Shackles already digging deeper into his being.
The city's secrets were far from done, and now, he was armed with something forged from sin itself. The chamber trembled with anticipation.
Aleric stood among the shattered remnants of the Abyssal Forge, the Soulbound Shackles could like serpents around his arms, their runes still pulsing with the heat of rebirth.
Steam hissed from the fractured pipes. Flickering glyphs blinked erratically on broken pylons. It was over, or so it seemed.
But the Abyss was never that kind. A deep groan reverberated through the floor. Stone fractured, from the farthest ends of the chamber, three massive vault doors each inscribed with archaic sigils and sealed since before the city's fa began to open.
One by one, with a sound like ancient times being defined, the doors split apart. From without stepped the Forgotten Lords.
Gargantuan constructs, each unlike the other, emerged into the dim crimson glow of the forge. Their forms were built from obsidian plating laced with veins of living flame.
But where a best should have beaten, there was only emptiness. They bore faces twisted in perpetual agony, expressions caught between man, beast, and something deeper.
One dragged a chained conscript that exhaled smoke thick with whispers. Another brandished a glaive fashioned from collapsed starlight. The third bore no weapon, only a throne of bone fused to its back, carrying the skeletal husks of long-dead masters.
The Voice spoke. [They were not guardians. They were the king's.]
Aelric backed away instinctively, pulse hammering. Even the Soulbound Shackles twitched against his will, as if recoiling from the construct's presence.
"Veyra, he growled. "Tell me you have something for this."
Veyra didn't respond. Her illusions shimmered into being, phantoms of herself and Aelric fanning out across the forge floor.
Ten, twenty, thirty duplicated filled the space, weaving among the molten cracks in the stone, each indistinguishable from the real. Yet her expression was grim.
"They are old," she said quietly. "So old, they have fought countless armies, and bound worlds. Don't expect tricks to work for long."
The Lords moved first. The Censer Bearer was first to move; it swung the incense chain in a wide arc. Shadows bleffrom the smoke, dragging illusions into ash.
Aelric ducked under the burning sweep and curled a chain towards its chest. The Soulbound Shackles caught hold, burning into the construct's obsidian chest, but the Lord didn't stagger instead, it pulled.
Aelric flew forward like a stone shot from a sling, straight into its rising fist. Pain shattered his ribs.
He hit the floor hard, vision fragmenting, blood flooding his mouth. The Voice screaming in his head.
[Move! The Censer is the source of the corruption. Sever it!]
Aelric rolled, barely evading a stomp that cracked the chamber floor. He lashed out again, aiming not for the Lord but the chain.
The Soulbound Shackles found purchase, curling around the relic. As he pulled, spectral energy surged into his arms. He's reamed, forcing the Shackles to devour and consume.
The chains hissed and cracked, then shattered. The Censer Bearer faltered, smoke spasming mid-air, its motions sluggish. But the respite was short-lived.
The second Lord, the Glaive Wielder, blurred. Despite its size, it moved after than logic should allow.
In the blink of an eye, it was above Aelric, glaive descending like a cleaver of stars. Veyra screamed a warning, casting a web of illusion that made the floor fracture and rise in false barriers.
The glaive cut through them like water. Aelric raised his shackles, bracing for the blow.
Steel met chain. Sparks exploded. The ground beneath him split open. But the Soulbound Shackles didn't break. The siphoning began instantly, draining power from the construct's weapon.
For a heartbeat, the glaive dimmed. Aelric shifted his footing, dug his heels into cracked stone, and twisted. He didn't just absorb energy, but he redirected it, hurling the essence back in a wave of retaliatory force.
The glaive exploded in a flare of black light. The Glaive Wielder reeled, clutching the scorched stumps of its severed arm.
Aelric advanced, dragging the chains behind him like twin vipers, each step filled with deadly intent. But then the third Lord moved.
The Throne Bearer. It has remained still, watching until now. The corpses strapped to its back awoke, shrieking in tongues older than reason.
Spectral tendrils spiked from their mouths, winding through the air, ensnaring illusions and phantoms alike. Some reached Aelric, touching his mind. For a moment, the chamber disappeared.
He stood alone in a field of black flowers, their petals whispering his name. The sky above was a spinning wheel of bone. The earth beneath bled where he stepped.
"You are not first," came a voice. It was not the Voice of the Abyss, but something far colder and older. "Not the last. Only another candle for the feast."