Two days before the explosion, deep in the jagged cliffs of the Black Maw Valley, five high-ranking priests of the Hevelen Order gathered beneath a sky choked with storm clouds. The wind howled through the canyon like a dying beast, carrying the scent of damp stone and burnt offerings.
The bishop, his skeletal frame draped in robes stitched with sacred verses, pressed a gnarled hand against the rusted surface of an ancient comms array—stolen Imperial tech, repurposed for their holy cause. The holographic image of their spy flickered weakly, distorted by the valley's natural interference.
"The relic is still sealed within the Academy's vault," the spy's voice crackled. "But the wards are weakening. The resentment inside it… it's stirring."
One of the priests, a woman with eyes like frosted glass, exhaled sharply. "Then the time is now. The Black Hand's men are ready. They will tear open the Academy's walls if they must."
The bishop's lips curled. "Do not underestimate what that artifact is. It was the very thing that allowed General Veymar to touch Rank 5—before it corrupted him. The Federation locked it away for a reason."
The spy hesitated. "And if the Black Hand's soldiers can't retrieve it?"
"Then we burn the Academy to the ground," the bishop said softly. "Better it be lost to fire than left in the hands of those who would dare fuse machine and soul."
---
The Black Hand was not a cultivator.
He was a butcher. A zealot. A man who had once been a soldier of the Federation before witnessing the horrors of their so-called "progress." Now, he led an army of fanatics—ordinary men and women armed with stolen weapons, holy incendiaries, and the unshakable belief that the Federation's technology was a blasphemy against nature itself.
His mask, carved from the bone of a fallen martyr, hid the scars of his past. His hands, wrapped in sanctified detonation tape, had killed more Imperial officers than most plagues.
Standing at the edge of the valley, he watched his soldiers move in the shadows below. They were not cultivators—no brands, no nano-tech, no stolen Federation enhancements. Just flesh, faith, and fury.
"The vault is beneath the Iron Chapel," one of his lieutenants murmured. "Heavily guarded. Even if we breach the outer walls—"
"Then we drown them in bodies," the Black Hand interrupted. His voice was calm, as if discussing the weather. "The relic will be reclaimed. And if we cannot carry it out… we destroy it."
---
Luke's back ached where the brand had seared into his flesh.
The Academy's training yard was eerily quiet after the attack. Smoke still curled from the shattered remains of the eastern barracks, and the scent of charred metal clung to the air. Kieran was sharpening a stolen shock-blade, his usual smirk absent. Lira sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her brand flickering like a dying star.
Veyd was the one who broke the silence.
"That wasn't just an attack," he muttered. "They were probing. Testing our defenses."
Luke flexed his fingers, still feeling the phantom jolt of the shock-baton as it tore through the Hevelen assassin. "For what?"
Before Veyd could answer, a shadow fell over them.
Instructor Tetrus stood there, his augmented eyes gleaming like polished gunmetal. Behind him, a squad of imperial cadets waited—elite cultivators, their armor etched with the marks of countless battlesThe medic bay smelled like antiseptic and burnt flesh.
Luke half-carried, half-dragged Lira through the shattered doors, her breath wet and ragged against his neck. Veyd limped behind them, one hand clamped over the bullet hole in his thigh, his teeth gritted. Kieran brought up the rear, spitting blood every few steps, his face a mess of torn skin and splintered bone.
"Move!" Luke barked at the wide-eyed medics. "She's seizing!"
Lira's body arched violently in his arms, her brand flickering like a dying lightbulb. Black foam bubbled between her lips. The medics scrambled forward—
POW.
The first shot took Lira between the shoulder blades, punching clean through her sternum.
POW.
Veyd roared as the second round shattered his kneecap, sending him crashing into a tray of surgical instruments.
POW.
Kieran's head snapped back as the third bullet grazed his temple, painting the wall behind him in a streak of red.
Luke's world narrowed to the echo of gunfire and the copper stench of blood. His brand ignited before the fourth shot could fire—muscles moving faster than thought. He twisted, forearm raised—
PING!
The bullet ricocheted off his reinforced vambrace in a shower of sparks.
Silence.
Then slow, wet footsteps.
The Black Hand emerged from the smoke, his bone mask glistening with someone else's blood. A revolver dangled from his fingers, barrel still smoking. In his other hand, a jagged combat knife sawed through the air as he advanced.
"Look at you," he crooned. "Dancing puppet. Do you even feel the strings?"
Luke's breath came in ragged gasps. Behind him, Lira made a sound like a drowning animal. Veyd was cursing through clenched teeth. Kieran pawed at his ruined face with shaking hands.
The Black Hand lunged.
Steel met steel in a shriek of sparks. Luke barely got his dagger up in time, the impact vibrating through his bones. The second slash came faster—a vicious uppercut that would have gutted him if he hadn't twisted aside.
SCRITCH!
The knife still found flesh, opening a red smile across Luke's ribs.
They circled. Blood dripped between them. Somewhere, a medical monitor flatlined.
"You're just meat with wiring," the Black Hand spat. "Let me unplug you."
He came again—a whirlwind of steel and fury. Luke parried twice before taking a kick to the ribs that sent him skidding through a tray of syringes. Glass shattered. Something cold flooded his veins.
The Black Hand loomed over him, knife raised for the killing thrust—
—and froze.
Lira's hand clutched his ankle, her fingers blackened, veins bulging. The foam on her lips had turned to viscous tar.
Luke drove his dagger up through the terrorist's jaw.
The blade punched through bone and brain, the tip emerging through the top of the skull mask with a wet CRUNCH. The Black Hand shuddered once, twice—then collapsed like a marionette with cut strings.
Silence.
Then pain.
Luke crawled. Glass bit into his palms. His vision swam with black spots. Somewhere, his legs had stopped working properly.
Lira stared up at him with eyes like oil spills, her mouth working soundlessly. Black tendrils spread from her brand, creeping across her skin like living cracks.
The last thing Luke saw before darkness took him was the foam on her lips—bubbling, bubbling, bubbling—as the nano-tech ate its host aliveThe corridor leading to the Academy's vault was a cathedral of carnage.
The five Ember Priests stood in formation, their tattered robes embroidered with sacred ash-script, their faces hidden behind masks of charred bone. Before them, the Academy's defenders barred the way—Tetrus with his war-forged blade, Liam with his arrays humming at his fingertips, Neon with her vials of alchemical fury, and Caldrian, his Imperial Decree insignia gleaming like a death sentence.
And then there was the bishop.
Tall, gaunt, his skeletal fingers curled around a sword of living flame, its edge flickering with scripture from the Bound Flame Codex. His presence alone made the air waver like a mirage.
Liam's Gambit
The Neo-Array Master moved first.
His fingers flicked outward, and the air screamed as his Rune Rain Scaffold activated. A storm of glowing sigils erupted from his sleeves, raining down upon the two Ember Priests before him. Each rune that struck their flesh burned bright, marking them for death.
The first priest snarled, his Ash-Scribed Tunic flaring as he carved a spiral seal in the air—a technique meant to unravel arrays before they could take hold. But Liam was faster.
"Mirrorfold Dome."
A hexagonal barrier of shimmering energy snapped into existence just as the priest's attack lashed out. The force rebounded, sending the man stumbling back—straight into Liam's next trap.
"Blackthorn Loop Grid."
The ground beneath the priests warped, and suddenly, jagged spears of compressed force erupted from the floor, impaling limbs, shredding cloth, and pinning them in place like insects on a collector's board. One screamed as a thorn punched through his palm, the runes on his flesh sizzling where they met the digital barbs.
Liam exhaled, adjusting his ocular lens. "Stay down."
Neon's Alchemy
The Alchemy Witch didn't bother with banter.
Her opponent—a hulking Ember Priest with knuckles wrapped in burning scripture—lunged at her, his fists trailing embers. Neon sidestepped, her fingers already uncorking a vial of Quantum Ink.
She smashed it at his feet.
The world rippled. The priest's next punch froze midair, his muscles locking as the ink disrupted the neural flow of his techniques. Neon didn't wait. Her next vial—Rustbind Catalysis—splashed across his chest, and the sacred metals woven into his robes rusted in seconds, flaking away like dead skin.
The priest gasped, clutching at his dissolving armor—
Neon drove her knee into his jaw.
Tetrus's Blade Dance
The combat instructor fought like a storm given form.
Two Ember Priests came at him, their bodies wreathed in the Bound Flame, their attacks leaving afterimages of fire. Tetrus didn't flinch.
His sword moved in precise, brutal arcs—Veinpath Sever. Each strike targeted the energy channels beneath flesh, the hidden rivers of power that fed their techniques. The first priest barely blocked two strikes before Tetrus's third cut through his guard, the blade's edge severing the flow of his cultivation.
The man's flames guttered out like a snuffed candle.
The second priest was smarter. He wove a Spiral Seal midair, the ash-script forming a barrier between them. Tetrus grinned—and shattered it with a single downward slash.
"Your scripture is weak," he growled, before driving his blade through the man's stomach.
The bishop was not like the others.
His Flame Sword carved through the air, each swing leaving trails of fire that lingered, forming burning scripture in midair. Caldrian parried, his own blade—a relic of the Imperial Decree—clashing against the holy flames.
"You cannot win," the bishop intoned. "The artifact will be reclaimed."
Caldrian spat blood. "Try harder."
They moved in a blur, steel meeting fire, each clash sending waves of heat through the corridor. For a moment, it seemed Caldrian had the upper hand—his counters precise, his footwork flawless.
Then the bishop smiled.
"Halo-Crown of the Seventh Flame."
A circlet of white-hot fire materialized above his brow, and suddenly, the air exploded. Caldrian barely raised his blade in time—but the force sent him skidding back, his armor scorched, his skin blistering.
The bishop stepped past him.
Toward the vault.
The doors to the vault hissed open.
The bishop's fingers stretched toward the Oathbreaker's Gauntlet, its twisted surface pulsing with crimson light—
—when a hand clamped around his wrist.
"No."
Centurion Sir Ramos di Nolan stood there, his Rank 6 brand burning along his jawline, his eyes like chips of glacial ice. The bishop's flames—the sacred, all-consuming fire of the Seventh Scripture—froze in Ramos's grip.
The bishop's mask cracked. "You—? You were supposed to be—"
Ramos's fingers tightened.
"I came home early."
Then—
Darkness.
A pulse of something older than cultivation, older than scripture, erupted from the Centurion's grasp. The flames died. The light vanished. The very air seemed to shatter—
And then there was nothing.