The world was reduced to mud, iron, and screaming.
The din was a physical thing, a wall of sound that hammered against Kaelen's ears: the clash of gladius on shield, the wet thud of metal finding flesh, the shrill cries of the wounded, and the bestial roars of men who had long since abandoned reason for survival. The air, thick with the coppery tang of blood and the acrid smell of sweat, was hard to breathe.
But Kaelen heard none of it.
He was kneeling, the churned, bloody muck soaking through the wool of his breeches. Before him, laid out on a cloak too stained to ever be clean again, was Lucius. His eyes, once full of laughter and a wicked talent for dice, were open and empty, fixed on a sky they could no longer see. A single, clean wound pierced the leather of his breastplate, a fatal strike to the heart. Quick. Merciful, some would say. Kaelen found no mercy in it.
A hot tear traced a path through the grime and dried blood on Kaelen's cheek, falling onto Lucius's still chest. It was followed by another. He didn't sob; his grief was too vast, too heavy for sound. It was a silent, drowning tide pulling him under.
"Kaelen!" A hand gripped his shoulder plate, shaking him. Decimus, his face a mask of panic and battle-fury, yelled over the carnage. "By the Titans, man, I know he's gone! But we have to live! The line is breaking! We have to fall back!"
Kaelen didn't look at him. His voice, when it came, was a raw, broken thing, scraped from the depths of his chest. "Why?" he whispered. Then it rose, fueled by a anguish that cracked the numbness. "Why should I live on if he couldn't?!" He finally turned his head, his pale grey eyes blazing with a pain so profound it made Decimus take a half-step back. "He had a wife! A beautiful baby boy he'd never even held! And yet he jumped in front of me… for me. He was my best friend. My best friend! He was all I had left… and now he's gone for a man who has nothing."
A stray arrow thudded into the mud beside them. The battle raged on, indifferent to their personal tragedy. Decimus gave his shoulder a final, desperate shake before turning to rally the fleeing remnants of their century. Kaelen was left alone with the body, the world dissolving into a blur of noise and motion around his island of despair.
The scene shattered.
The roar of battle was replaced by the low, grumbling chatter of a tavern. The smell of blood was overwritten by the stale stench of spilled beer, sweat, and roasting meat.
Kaelen blinked, the phantom echoes of clashing steel fading from his ears. He was on a rough-hewn wooden stool, a chipped clay mug of dark, foamy beer placed in front of him by a burly bartender with a towel thrown over one shoulder.
"Hopstien beer. Strongest this side of the Sunken Sea. You look like you need it," the man grunted before moving on to another customer.
Kaelen stared at the drink. The man in the memory—the legionary with the clean-shaven jaw and the fire of purpose in his eyes—felt like a stranger. The man in the tavern's dim reflection was a ghost of him. A week's worth of stubble shaded his hollow cheeks. His hair, once kept short in regulation style, was now long and unkempt. His tunic was travel-stained, and the weariness in his posture was a permanent weight. But his eyes were the worst. The fire was gone, replaced by a distant, hollow look, as if he was always seeing another place, another time.
He absently ran his fingers over the well-worn hilt of the gladius at his waist, its familiar weight a cold comfort. My life at war is over, he thought, the words a hollow mantra. No need to dwell on the past.
He drained the bitter beer in one long pull, the alcohol doing little to warm the cold void inside him. He placed the empty mug on the counter with a definitive thud, along with a few worn copper coins.
"Where could I find the nearest inn?" he asked, his voice rough from disuse.
The bartender jerked a thumb towards the door. "Just down the street. The Gilded Horn. Beside the forum. Can't miss it."
Kaelen gave a curt nod of thanks and stepped out of the tavern's smoky warmth into the cool night air of Sybaris.
The contrast was jarring. The forum, even at night, was a whirl of activity under the soft glow of oil lamps and the pale light of the twin moons. Merchants hawked spiced wines and sizzling skewers of meat from brightly lit stalls. The rich in their silks brushed past sailors smelling of salt and fish. It was a city that thrived on forgetting, on pleasure, on the now. Kaelen moved through it like a specter, the vibrant life around him only deepening his isolation.
He found the inn, a three-story building with a sign featuring a chipped-paint golden horn. The room he paid for was small, sparse, and blissfully quiet. The moment the door closed, the world shrank to a manageable size.
With a sigh that came from his very bones, he began unbuckling his gear. The leather armor, the satchel with his meager rations, the belt with his gladius—all were placed carefully on the floor. All except one item.
From his satchel, he drew out a book. It was unlike any he had ever seen. Its cover was made of a dark, cool bronze, etched with spiraling, non-repeating patterns that seemed to shift under the lamplight. There was no title, only a single, complex glyph stamped into the center. It was heavy, far heavier than its size suggested. This was the reason for his exile. The Godclimb.
He set it on the small desk with a solid thump and sat down, staring at it as if it were a venomous serpent.
Tentatively, he reached out, his fingers brushing the strange metal. The moment he made contact, a wave of dissonance slammed into his mind. It wasn't sound, but the sensation of sound—a cacophony of distant, maddening whispers, the groan of shifting mountains, and the chilling silence of an infinite void. It was the murmur of laws being broken.
He snatched his hand back as if burned, his heart hammering against his ribs. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
"No wonder," he breathed, the words shaky. "No wonder the Aethelian Republic put you under such high security."
Steeling himself, he took a deep breath. This was all he had left. This, and the ghost of a friend who had died for nothing. He gripped the cover, braced for the psychic onslaught, and opened it.
The murmurs intensified, a static buzz at the edge of his consciousness, but he focused on the script within. The words were written in a dark, rust-colored ink that seemed to seethe on the page.
Chapter I: An Introduction to Ascenders
Ascenders are not mere wielders of tricks. They are anathema. They are the Defiance made flesh. To Ascend is to reject the Divine Law—the Keth—woven into reality by the Primordial Titans. It is to break Logic itself.
For this crime against creation, they are hunted. Not by gods, but by the universe's own enforcers: the Veliwardens. Beings intertwined with the fabric of Order, they seek to excise the cancer of Defiance and restore the Balance.
There are two paths upon the the Path of Defiance. Both demand a sacrifice from which there is no return.
The Bloodprice: You sacrifice your future. You burn the years of your life as fuel, trading a measured portion of your remaining time for a burst of power. It is a transaction with a cosmic ledger, and the price is exacted without mercy.
The Veil-Less Path: You sacrifice your past. You burn your memories, your emotions, the very essence of who you are. You create a hollow space within your soul, and into that void rushes power from the other side of the Veil.
The methods are different. The Bloodprice is a hot, violent theft. The Veil-Less path is a cold, slow erosion. But the result is the same. You will not be the person you were when you began. You will be unmade and remade into something else. Something more. Something less.
Kaelen read the words again, and then a third time, a cold dread coiling in his stomach. This wasn't a manual for power. It was a suicide note. A guide to trading one's soul.
He was about to slam the book shut, to hide it away and try to forget its blasphemous promises, when a thunderous crash came from downstairs. It was followed by a scream, then the unmistakable sound of steel being drawn.
His soldier's instincts took over. In one fluid motion, he was on his feet, his gladius in his hand. He pressed his ear to the door. Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs. More than one set. They were coming up.
His mind raced. City guards? Thieves? Or something else? Had the Republic's Lictors finally tracked him down?
The footsteps halted outside his door. A voice, low and guttural, spoke. "This is the one. The scent of the book is strong. And… something else. A debt already unpaid."
A debt? The words from the book flashed in his mind: …the price is exacted without mercy.
The door splintered around the lock and burst open. Framed in the doorway were two figures. They were not Lictors. They were unnaturally tall and thin, their forms seeming to drink the light from the room. Their faces were hidden in deep shadows beneath hoods, but from those shadows, Kaelen could feel a gaze that was ancient, hungry, and utterly devoid of mercy.
One of them took a step forward, and a long, blade-like limb, too jointed and sharp to be an arm, unfolded from its robes. It pointed at the Godclimb on the desk.
"The heretic and his artifact," it hissed, its voice like the grinding of stones. "The Balance will be restored."
This was it. Not a glorious death on a battlefield, but a sordid murder in a rented room over a book he didn't understand. The thought of Lucius's sacrifice being for this filled him with a final, desperate surge of defiance.
He raised his gladius, knowing it was useless. As the creature lunged, a phrase from the book, burned into his memory by terror, surfaced on his lips. It was not a request. It was not a hope. It was the last, raw, screaming refusal of a man with nothing left to lose.
"Kor'Ulos Draal!"
The air in the room cracked.