Raen glared at the massive crater in the near distance, eyes bloodshot with fury.
Mist gusting from the cliffside curled around every inch of his exposed skin like the fingers of the dead.
Half-kneeling at the cliff's edge, he couldn't drive from his mind the moment before Ravenna detonated the Heart of Orichalcum—sending him away in a burst of teleportation.
The elven cloak on his back was little more than tatters now, and the four different powers within him tangled and writhed in chaos.
Emerald-hued life force strained to knit shut the wound at his ribs—left by the bone blade of the Abyssal Impaler—its edges tinged with a sickly, ominous green. The silver-blue elven energy inside him flickered like a candle guttering in the wind, barely keeping him conscious, while the dark-red dragon's blood...was boiling.
Since Ravenna had set off the Heart of Orichalcum, the draconic blood in his veins had grown unnaturally restless, as though some ancient fury were awakening.
With every breath, the tang of sulfur and blood filled his nostrils.
In his arms, the infant stirred.
The child's left half was almost completely transparent, like a wisp of fog ready to dissipate at any moment, while the right half was wholly mechanical—gear-patterned etchings hardened into true armor plating, the joints revealing intricate hydraulic mechanisms.
Most unsettling of all was the skull-shaped sigil on its chest—no longer emitting a beam of light, but instead forming a tiny, black hole-like vortex that slowly consumed the surrounding air.
"Hungry…"
The infant's mechanical right eye rotated, its voice laced with a doubled electronic echo.
"Need… energy…"
Raen's emerald left eye perceived a far more terrifying truth—the skull-shaped sigil was draining the canyon's life force.
Moss along the cliff walls withered at a speed visible to the naked eye,and a few snow ferrets that had strayed into the gorge instantly shriveled into dry husks.
"Just hold on a little longer," Raen murmured,his fingers brushing gently over the child's almost transparent left cheek.
"We're almost there."
Deep within the gorge, the silhouette of goblin ruins loomed faintly through the mist—a half-collapsed white temple whose surface was overrun with some kind of luminous thorns.
It was exactly where the holographic map had marked Moonveil Sanctuary.
Yet through his heightened vision, Raen saw something else: dark-red energy flowing within the thorny vines, resonating in an uncanny way with his dragon's blood.
He had barely taken a step forward when the rock beneath his feet split apart!
Three bone-white Abyssal Tendrils burst from the earth, their surfaces studded with suction cup–like maws, each maw spinning with rings of needle-like teeth.
Raen twisted and leapt back, Frostwhisper carving a Dragonflame Arc, its dark-red fire reducing the foremost tendril to charred ash—but the remaining two suddenly split apart, transforming into a hundred neural spikes that rained down to envelop him!
"Emerald Barrier!"
Vines of emerald wove into a protective mesh, but only half the strikes were stopped; three bone spikes pierced through the defense, driving deep into Raen's right leg.
Through the agony that forced him to one knee, he saw the tendrils' source— the canyon floor bulging upward as a giant of interlocked white bones slowly rose.
In its chest cavity beat not a heart, but a dark-red crystal tightly ensnared in thorny vines.
A vessel for the Seed of Corruption.
"Elf… bloodline…"
The bone giant's voice grated like a grinding wheel, its jawbone opening and closing to release clouds of rancid mist.
"Mother… wants… your seed…"
The infant's skull sigil suddenly expanded, the black-hole vortex surging with a powerful suction.
Within the giant's ribcage, the dark-red crystal convulsed violently—several filaments of energy were ripped straight out of it.
"No!"
The giant roared, unleashing Graveburst, its entire body detonating into a storm of soul-devouring bolts that rained down on Raen.
At the last split second, a silver-blue arrow shot in from the side, detonating midair into a Moonlight Veil that blocked every bone shard.
Raen whipped his head toward the source—
Atop the shattered temple roof stood a small goblin girl.
The magical bow in her hands was already broken; her left eye was clouded and lifeless, while her right eye flowed with pure moonlight.
"Moonveil Sentinel…"
The bone giant's growl was edged with fear.
"Lapdog… of the false god…"
The girl gave no reply.
She unclasped the necklace from her chest and tossed it toward Raen,then leapt at the giant—her body breaking apart midair into countless silver-blue motes.
Moonflare Sacrifice.
The blast of light swallowed the bone giant whole.
When Raen's vision cleared, all that remained was a field of shattered bones and the dark-red crystal drifting in the air.
The necklace had rolled to his feet; inside, its projection revealed a scene—
At the deepest part of the temple, upon a throne of thorns, sat a goblin woman bound in chains,
twelve crystal spikes driven into her chest, each etched with a different sealing rune.
"The last sentinel…"
Raen picked up the artificial eye.
"And the first prisoner."
Entering the temple was like passing through the gullet of some colossal beast.
The glowing thorns parted automatically as Raen approached, only to seal shut again the moment he passed, their razor tips scraping against his armor and leaving a lattice of fine blood marks. Stranger still, the instant the blood touched the thorns, it was absorbed, and the dark-red glow along the vines grew brighter.
"Dragon blood… has triggered the defense mechanism."
Through his emerald sight, Raen traced the energy flow—every vine ultimately fed into the throne, like intravenous tubes channeling the stolen vitality into the goblin woman.
The infant's condition was worsening. His mechanical right eye swept the chamber in constant scans, while the black-hole vortex of his skull sigil kept drawing in the temple's energy. The moment Raen stepped into the inner sanctum, the baby suddenly shrieked, the vortex swelling violently—several nearby vines were torn apart outright.
The goblin woman upon the throne jerked her head up.
Her face should have been beautiful, but the left half was marred by invasive machinery—gears, pistons, and crystalline wiring replacing flesh. A dark-green mechanical eye whirred frantically, while the right half of her face remained intact, its emerald pupil filled with agony and defiance.
"At last…" Her voice was doubled—one tone the soft lilt of an elf, the other the chill of a machine. "The key and the vessel… both are here…"
All twelve crystal stakes shuddered at once, and Raen suddenly dropped to one knee, the Seed of Life inside him blazing beyond his control—the stakes had been forged from the branches of the Primordial God of Life itself!
"Who are you?" he ground out, jamming Frostwhisper into the floor to steady himself.
"The Twelfth Watcher… and the first betrayer."
The woman slowly raised her right hand; the thorns tightened around her, cutting deeper and drawing more blood. "I used myself… to seal the Seed of Corruption… but the Council… found a loophole…"
Her mechanical left eye flared, projecting a holographic image:
In the ruins of Glass City, the mechanical world-tree was now fully awake, its branches hung with countless incubation pods—each one cradling a child that looked eerily like the infant in Raen's arms. At the crown of the tree, twelve robed figures poured some luminous liquid into the main conduit—liquid of the same origin as the Seed of Life within Raen.
"They're mass-producing the keys…" Raen realized at once. "To mass-produce false gods?"
The woman convulsed violently, blood-tears spilling from her right eye. "Quick… destroy the throne… before the Mother descends…"
Her warning was cut off by her mechanical eye. Dark-green light blazed as she let out a piercing, metallic scream. The thorns around the throne surged upward, spearing toward Raen like javelins!
Frostwhisper moved of its own accord, its [Tri-Phase Bulwark] flaring—three layers of colored light barely held back the first wave of strikes. But the entire temple was shuddering, carved reliefs breaking away from the walls to reveal behind them a dense array of Abyssal Nests—each cradling a curled-up skeletal construct that now began to stir.
The infant's skull sigil suddenly locked onto the throne, its black-hole vortex roaring to life. The dark-red crystal embedded in the goblin woman's chest was wrenched halfway free—only for fresh thorns to coil tighter around it.
"Now!" Raen poured every shred of power into Frostwhisper. "Tell me your name, Watcher!"
The goblin's right eye gleamed with clarity one last time. "Nytheria… farewell, kin…"
[Terminus · Tri-Phase Release]!
Emerald, silver-blue, and dark-crimson torrents erupted from the blade, striking the dark-red crystal embedded in the throne dead-on. Nytheria's lips curved into a smile of release, and with the last of her strength she unleashed [Moonveil Final Chapter]—every thorn reversed, stabbing into her own body, locking the Seed of Corruption in place.
"No!!" The mechanical left eye shrieked with a piercing scream. "The Mother will rend your souls apart!"
The explosion's shockwave flung Raen across the chamber; he shielded the infant tightly before slamming into the wall, a sharp crack in his back telling him bones had snapped. Through the haze of pain, he saw the dark-red crystal shatter, the twelve crystal stakes tearing free—four of them driving straight into his chest.
"Urrhh—ahhh!"
Agony unlike anything he had ever known ripped through him. Each stake targeted a different force within him—elf, dragon, Sanctum, and the Seed of Life—churning his energy core like white-hot spikes. And worst of all was the fifth stake—meant for the infant, but intercepted by Raen's palm. Its tip now slowly pushed through his flesh, just inches from the infant's skull sigil.
"Ra… en…" The infant's mechanical voice broke—carrying a quiver like a sob.
The temple began to collapse. Skeletal constructs surged forward like a tidal wave, while the throne's location had become a massive energy vortex. Summoning his last reserves, Raen shoved the infant toward the temple's entrance—
"Go…"
Before the darkness swallowed his vision, he saw the infant's skull sigil snap shut. At the instant the black hole vanished, a silver-blue radiance poured down from above the canyon—gentle as moonlight—enfolding the falling figure in its glow.
When Raen's consciousness clawed its way back through the haze of pain, he found himself suspended a thousand meters above the ground.
Twelve [Silvermoon Sentinels]—Nytheria's final creations—were bearing him eastward. The four crystal stakes in his chest remained lodged in place, but some kind of moonlight energy was suppressing their influence for the moment. More astonishing still, the four chaotic powers inside him had settled into an eerie equilibrium.
From the direction of the canyon came a cataclysmic detonation—the Seed of Corruption's last backlash obliterated the temple into a massive crater, but not a single skeletal construct escaped its annihilation.
"Nytheria…" Raen murmured. Through his emerald left eye, he saw his own blood shifting—melding with the Watcher's energy, it had taken on an exceedingly rare platinum hue.
The Silvermoon Sentinels abruptly veered as one. Following the path they set, Raen caught sight of a nightmare blooming on the horizon:
The mechanical world-tree had fully unfurled. Its crown formed a gear-shaped structure several kilometers wide, and at the gear's center, space itself warped—a colossal, multi-pupiled eye slowly opening to gaze upon this world.
Closer to him, five dark-crimson pillars of light speared skyward from different locations, each linked to the gear-moon. Four of the seal nodes had already fallen.
The place where the last pillar rose was one Raen knew all too well.
"Elven Forest…"
The realization struck hard: the Council's true goal—the place where the Ancient God of Life had fallen, where the Elven Mother Tree had withered—was the resting place of the first, and last, Watcher's Seed.
The Silvermoon Sentinels surged forward, racing toward the final light pillar. Beneath the clouds, a small, staggering figure was making its way east.
It was a child, the right half of his body entirely mechanical, the skull sigil on his chest tightly closed. In his small hand, he clutched half of a severed, violet-gold metal finger…