Inside the obsidian tower, the master and the disciple moved in lethal synchronicity. Their attacks were ruthless, a calculated storm of violence that the demon, the Astarey, was forced to tank. The beast growled, a sound like grinding stones, swiping its claws in arcs that shattered the surrounding pillars.
Aegis and Cahir fought in perfect harmonics. The Wanderers surrounding them watched in stunned awe, their weapons momentarily forgotten. This partnership was something rare in the chaotic world of mercenaries—it was a painting of blood, where every dodge by Cahir was an opening for Aegis, and every parry by Aegis allowed Cahir to strike.
However, the Bronze Falchion Knights did not share this admiration. To them, the Wanderers were filth, no better than the monsters they hunted. They gave the mercenaries no quarter. Cahir and Aegis were indistinguishable enemies in their eyes. The Wanderers had not yet completed their two targets; killing a broken vessel like Remus had not been on their official list, but his death meant nothing to the Wanderers. To the dark-clad killers, they were simply carrying out the divine, ineffable will of the Goddess of the Night.
The demon, Astarey, was finally forced into a corner near the shattered altar. A wounded and cornered monster is the most ferocious creature in existence—everyone knew this old wisdom. But this was the tipping point. Cahir and Aegis couldn't back down. They dug deep, burning their awen essence to access their last reserves of stamina.
Astarey had suffered multiple, catastrophic damages. It could no longer dodge. It took the full brunt of the assault—a chaotic symphony of destruction. Its muscles were torn from the bone, its obsidian-like skeletal structure cracked with sickening crunches, and its face was burned beyond recognition. Its skin ripped like wet parchment, and black blood poured onto the cold floors, sizzling as it touched the stone.
The demon, Astarey, whose lineage sat at the apex of the food chain, was finally forced against the cold obsidian wall.
To be of his race was to be a god among mortals. Their skin was harder than refined iron, their recovery speed mocked the laws of nature, and their strength could pulverize boulders with a casual backhand. They were the pinnacle of biological warfare.
Yet here he was, reduced to a shivering ruin.
His chest heaved, a ragged, wet sound whistling through a crushed windpipe. The black blood did not stop flowing. It pooled around his hooves, slick and steaming in the cold air.
His right arm, the one that had decapitated a hundred knights, hung uselessly at his side, the bone protruding through the scales like a broken white branch.
He looked at the insects surrounding him.
The Master and the Disciple. The Wanderers. The Knights.
Individually, they were nothing. If he were at his peak, he would have popped their heads like grapes. But they were like ants—relentless, endless, willing to throw bodies at him until he drowned in them. They had chipped away at his divinity, one cut, one spell, one sacrifice at a time.
All the Wanderers saw this and rejoiced.
"With only one more move, it will die!" Aegis roared, his voice cracking with exertion.
Cahir was already moving, his body coiling like a spring, preparing for the execution slash that would sever the beast's head.
But something felt wrong. The air pressure in the room shifted, growing heavy and suffocating.
Footsteps echoed—heavy, wet, and rhythmic.
Someone was walking down the spiral stairs to the main hall. A man emerged from the shadows, covered in so much blood and so many wounds that he looked more corpse than human. In his hand, he clutched an elegant, pulsating relic that was covered in cracks.
It was Chief Riven. And he was holding the relic known as The Heart.
Outside the Tower
Thane had already left Xylia's side, vanishing into the darkness to intercept the enemy and finish the mission. His men were dismantling the outer defences with brutal efficiency, while Mat led the charge deep within the spire.
Norvin remained with Xylia near the edge of the treeline. He looked at her in a profound, terrifying light. Xylia seemed so physically weak, her skin pale as moonlight, yet the hardened soldiers of the Serpent's Maw were visibly afraid of her. Norvin couldn't understand the mysteries of Xylia's life. How could a renowned warrior of the Roric Kingdom, a legend in the stories, end up like this?
But as Norvin looked around, even though he was finally out of the walls of the barn, out of the chains of slavery, even though he was seeing the Outside World for the first time, he saw only bloodshed, fire, and pain.
Perhaps, he realized grimly, for anyone to end up in this state was not rare at all. It was the way of the world: to steal the joy from one's eyes, to murder the hopes of one's heart, and to crush the glorious ambitions of a soul into dust.
Xylia broke the silence, her voice trembling like a dry leaf. "Norvin... is this the name your mother gave you?"
It was a heavy question. The slaves were usually called by worse names—to be precise, they were called by curses. They were branded by their masters, and those names stuck to their souls like tar. Norvin hadn't been old enough to join his family in their master's grueling work, and thus was not given a pitiful name. The name Norvin, the one his mother whispered to him in the dark, had remained.
Norvin nodded slowly.
Xylia spoke again, in a weak tone, her eyes drinking in the sight of the stars and the trees for the first time after years of imprisonment. "That is a good name. Thank you, Norvin."
"No," Norvin stammered, shaking his head. "It was you who saved me—three times, no less. I should be the one thanking you. I... I only came back because I was ordered to. I don't deserve your gratitude." He looked down at his hands, trembling. "I owe you, Red Ghost. I owe you everything. There is so much of you in me now... and I am grateful for this.."
Xylia, the Red Ghost in the flesh, chuckled softly. "I did it out of love, Norvin. You don't owe me anything. I will never ask for it back, don't regret it. This was never a trade, it was a….gift? Of sorts.. Because you mattered in those moments."
Norvin froze.
'Love?'
The word felt foreign, heavy. Did slaves deserve love? Did someone like him deserve it? Was he truly worthy to receive even a gesture of affection from a noblewoman whose strength rivaled a natural disaster?
'Not even the walls of my barn loved me', he thought bitterly.
Her words didn't just reach his ears; they pierced through the armor around his heart, settling deep within him.
Xylia tried to stand, her legs shaking violently. Norvin lunged forward, catching her by the arm before she collapsed.
"I will take my leave now, Norvin," she whispered.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice pitching high with panic. He scrambled to keep pace with her slow, deliberate steps. "You can't even walk properly. How will you escape? The world is full of enemies."
"Don't worry about me," she murmured.
As she spoke, the air around her shifted. A faint, crimson luminescence began to seep from her skin—not the violent red of fresh blood, but the soft, melancholic red of a dying sunset. It was a gentle light, warm and humming with life. The wind, which had been biting and cold moments ago, suddenly softened. It swirled around her, lifting her tattered sleeves; the tall grass seemed to bend and dance in rhythm with her movement, as if nature itself was escorting a queen back to her throne.
"I have accumulated enough Awen," she said, her voice sounding like it was coming from everywhere at once. "I can escape before the sun rises."
Norvin was stunned. To gather Awen at such tremendous speed, while injured, starved, and broken? 'She really is a phantom', he thought, watching the red particles drift off her like fireflies.
"But where will you go?" Norvin asked, desperation creeping into his throat. "There is no safe place."
Xylia looked past him, her gaze piercing the mist to see something he could not. "Somewhere far away. Where the sun blesses the land, and the spirits play with children."
Norvin was dazed. He could see his savior, a beautiful noblewoman in slave attire, slowly drifting away into the mist, a silhouette bathed in red light. Her receding figure made Norvin's heart ache with a sudden, crushing realization.
He shouted, his voice cracking*, "What about the Captain? Thane! He waited for you! He spent years searching the darkness for you! He is fighting and bleeding inside that tower right now just to see your face again. Will you just leave him? After all this time, will you just leave him?"*
Xylia stopped.
The wind died down. The dancing grass froze.
She turned around, and for a moment, the Phantom was gone, replaced by a tired, broken woman. A deep frown marred her face. There was a look of crushing guilt and shattering regret in her eyes—the look of someone who knows they are breaking a heart that beats only for them. She closed her eyes, composing herself with the iron discipline of a veteran, forcing the pain down.
When she opened them, she smiled sadly at Norvin. It was a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"I cannot stay, Norvin. I, too, have someone I need to find."
Norvin was confused, but the weight of her words settled heavily in his stomach. He didn't know what bond Thane and Xylia shared, but the tragedy of it was suffocating.
Thane had spent years to find her, and she was leaving moments before he could reach her. They were two ships passing in a storm, separated by cruel fate.
Xylia turned back, her body glowing brighter now, the spell reaching its peak.
"But before I go," she said, her voice hardening, losing its dreamlike quality.
Her gaze snapped toward the obsidian tower looming in the distance. She narrowed her eyes. She could feel it—a vibration in the air, a hum in her bones. She sensed something vile, yet intimately familiar. She could feel her own stolen strength, her own Awen, pulsing from within those black walls.
"I need to take care of something."
Inside the Main Hall
Riven descended the final stairs. Every gaze in the chaotic battlefield fixed on him. The fighting stopped, replaced by a tense, vibrating silence.
"Brother!" Dion shouted, his voice tearing through the quiet as he saw Riven's battered state. "What happened?!"
The Serpents under Thane's orders had rejoined the field, flooding the hall. Seeing Dion move to take his place beside Riven, the Bronze Falchion Knights rallied, sticking close to the Wanderers. Aegis and Cahir hesitated.
The demon was in a severely weak state. If they struck now, they would complete their goal. Why were they stopping?
Because they sensed it. The relic in Riven's blood-slicked hands was The Heart—the artifact that controlled the demon, Astarey.
The black blood continued to seep into the floor, pooling around the demon's claws as it kept growling in low, rhythmic pain.
Mat didn't look at the demon. He fixed his gaze on Riven.
"This is your last warning. In five seconds, that relic will self-destruct and you people will be burned to ash."
Everyone was dazed. In this situation, everyone knew that Riven was not a man who joked.
Dion spoke, stepping forward. "Brother, we don't need to use our secret weapon here! We can still win. The knights are ready!"
Riven took a glance at Dion and sighed, a sound that rattled in his crushed chest. "No. The Primes are defeated. The demon is nearly dead. And the prisoner, the former Captain of the Hex-Born Crows, has run away. We can't turn back now."
Dion insisted, tears welling in his eyes. "I know. Then let me use it, Brother. To self-destruct this relic means the user will also die. It's a last resort. Let me do it."
The Bronze Falchion Knights began retreating to their Chief's side, shielding him. The Wanderers did the same. Among this conversation and the tensed room, Thane breached the hall.
The Serpents cleared a path for him immediately as his voice boomed off the obsidian walls. "This relic—The Heart—is a Rank 4 relic."
Everyone gasped. Relics were divided into six ranks, and a Rank 4 was a weapon of mass destruction.
Aegis and Cahir, seeing Thane enter, looked at each other, sharing a common look of dissatisfaction. The demon wasn't dead yet, and now Thane had walked in on them.
Thane continued, his voice dripping with venomous rage. "They have continuously drained that traitor Xylia's Awen to power up the Rank 4 relic. They have been storing enormous amounts of energy inside it for years. Its usage will most likely wipe out everyone the user considers an enemy."
The room went deathly silent. Their lives were no longer in their own hands. They were in the hands of the enemy. In Riven's hands. Only the demon's wet growling could be heard.
The Bronze Falchion Knights were having one of their worst nights. They wanted to end it. Even though they knew their Chief would die, many of their brothers had already been sacrificed. Using their prisoner Xylia's strength to wipe out their enemies seemed like the only victory left.
Thane was not in a good mood. He had just made his old friend escape out of the prison, yet he could not share a walk across the lake with her like the old days. He had yet to finish the mission and complete his side of the agreement he made to Norvin. And now, he was faced with a Rank 4 relic that was charged by his own friend's Awen after torturing her for years.
His heart burned with anger. He didn't care what happened now. He only wanted to kill all of them. Here and now.
Only Dion cared about Riven. Dion spoke, his voice cracking. "Brother, give it to me. I will take care of it. The Bronze Falchion needs you. I will give my life for the Kingdom, for the King, for our people. For you, Brother."
Riven had no intention of giving the weapon to his brother. He would take the risk. He himself would give up his life.
Before Riven could answer Dion, the air shrieked.
A redstone axe blurred through the space, slamming into Riven. It hit him with enormous force, lifting him off his feet and pinning him to the wall in a split second. Blood gushed out of his torso.
"Brother!" Dion screamed.
The silence shattered. Thane had thrown the axe.
All eyes were stunned, fixed on Thane, and in the next moment, they screamed, charging at each other. Aegis and Cahir took this as their chance to kill the demon. Aegis summoned a blade of pressurized wind, and Cahir conjured an iron blade—they were seconds away from beheading the monster.
Time seemed to slow down.
Dion was running towards his dying brother, his face twisted in grief. The demon was preparing his last, desperate defence. The Serpents, Bronze Falchion, and Wanderers were at each other's throats.
But when all of them seemed to have slowed down, a light—golden and terrible—erupted.
It engulfed Thane, Mat, Aegis, Cahir, the rest of the Wanderers, and the Serpent's Maw knights. All of them could feel an intense heat generating inside them. The golden light shone brighter and brighter, filling up the room until the obsidian walls seemed to vanish.
The Bronze Knights were seeing this too, shielding their eyes in horror. For The demon, Astarey, it looked suddenly at the ethereal site; the men who would have blown his head off were engulfed in a mesmerizing golden light, their bodies burning from the inside out.
"What is happening?!" many screamed, clawing at their own chests. "Ahhh!"
Riven, who was slumped against the wall, his hand still clutching the relic he had activated the moment Thane's axe nearly cut him in half, drew a ragged breath. He could not recover. Using the last of his will, he had activated the relic.
He himself was now beginning to feel an intense heat inside of him.
"Brother! Nooo!" Dion kept shouting, his voice tearing raw against the silence of the room. He fell to his knees, his hands scrabbling uselessly against Riven's armor, slick with fresh blood.
It was the Soul Burn.
It wasn't a fire that consumed flesh; it was a white-hot violation that bypassed the skin and ignited the very essence of existence. The souls of everyone Riven deemed an enemy—and his own soul, too—were being incinerated.
It felt as though their memories, their loves, and their fears were being boiled away, turning the marrow of their bones into molten lead.
Riven slumped against the wall, his vision tunneling. He could see his own reflection in the dazed, weeping figure of Dion's eyes. His brother was still shouting his name, begging him to stay, but the light behind Riven's eyes had already begun to leave. The pain was absolute, yet in that agony, the world of the obsidian tower melted away.
Suddenly, he wasn't in a tower of death. He was in the Royal Gardens, bathed in the soft light of a summer long past.
He saw a blur of motion—a small boy with messy hair, laughing maniacally as he smashed beetles with a wooden stick. It was Zephyr. His youngest brother. The sound of Zephyr's laughter was so clear, so innocent, it hurt more than the fire in Riven's veins. Behind him, a slightly older boy was running, panting, trying to stop the slaughter of the insects. It was Dion.
"Stop it, Zephyr! Mother will be angry!"
"Catch me if you can, slowpoke!"
Riven watched the memory play out, a phantom smile touching his bloody lips. "Spoiled kids", he thought, his heart swelling with a crushing grief. "Always running. Always needing me to watch over them."
The vision shattered. Reality rushed back. Zephyr was long dead, a memory buried in a cold grave. And now, Dion was hugging the corpse of his last remaining brother. Riven tried to lift his hand to wipe the tears from Dion's face, but his fingers dissolved into golden ash before they could touch him. He was leaving Dion all alone in this cruel, dark world. The guilt was colder than death.
"Forgive me, Dion. I leave you behind."
The golden light shone with blinding intensity, accelerating the burn. The screaming in the room stopped, replaced by the sound of souls evaporating.
Aegis, the ruthlessly efficient Wanderer, fell to his side. The golden fire ate through his stoicism, forcing his mind to retreat to a place he had locked away.
He saw them. The vague, shimmering images of a woman and a child standing in a field of rye. Their faces were blurred, features scrubbed away by time and the sins he had committed. He strained his eyes, desperate to see them clearly one last time, but they remained faceless ghosts. The woman reached out to him. Her hand did not hold a weapon; it held warmth. It felt as if she held the entire world in her palm—a simple, domestic peace that he had traded for the sword.
"Come home," the wind seemed to whisper.
Aegis reached out, his hand burning, trying to grasp that phantom warmth. He realized too late that the warmth wasn't waiting for him. He had burned it himself, long ago. He died reaching for a ghost he had erased from his own world.
Nearby, Cahir clawed at the stone floor, his iron blade melting beside him. His vision was not one of peace, but of a nightmare reborn.
He saw the destruction of his home. He smelled the sulfur and the rot. He saw the crystal-clear lake of his childhood turned into a stagnant, poisonous black sludge. He saw the village trampled, the thatched roofs caved in like broken ribs. The smell was overpowering—the stench of bloated corpses beneath the fallen buildings, half-eaten by scavengers.
He saw the decimated, rotten place where his best memories were made, destroyed all over again in front of his dying eyes.
"This is why," Cahir thought, as his skin cracked and peeled away. "This is why I killed. To stop this… But I haven't killed enough."
And then there was Thane.
The Captain of the Serpent's Maw did not scream. He stood amidst the golden inferno, his body trembling, his skin glowing like a forge.
Thane did not remember the soft parts of his life. He had removed them years ago. He had let go of any desire, any emotion that would make him weak. He had forgotten the time he was a mockery, the time he was weak. In his final moments, he did not see people. He did not see his rotten family.
He saw his ambition.
He saw a world that was burning. He saw a desolate landscape of ash where even the scorched grass whispered his name. He saw the oceans boiling, the winds carrying his legend across the waves. It was a terrifying, scarred world—a reflection of his own soul.
Thane believed that any person who burned to bear the scars, any person who was already burned by the world, would only feel the ash after they were left behind. He was a creature of debt. The world had carved scars into him, and he had sworn to repay that debt in full.
"I owe you", he thought, staring into the blinding light of the relic. "I owe this world a debt of scars and ashes. And I am not done paying."
The fire consumed them all, a golden pyre of memories, regrets, and broken dreams, leaving nothing but the silence of the dead.