The hour was late—a dead time between midnight and dawn when the Bastion was at its coldest and quietest. Kaela knew she wouldn't see Hagar by the docks; the Grandmaster would only appear when the stakes were terminal. She found him sitting on the ledge of a low, crumbling wall bordering the Bastion's outer training grounds, overlooking the forest where they had fought the Quartz Stalker. He wasn't drunk, but he was holding his flask—a silent anchor.
Kaela didn't need to speak. Her face, hardened by the knowledge of the Siphons and the Sin-Eater, was enough.
"The old man Garn confirmed it, didn't he?" Hagar asked, his voice low, blending with the rustle of the leaves. "He recognized the Void-Iron."
Kaela nodded, her hand resting on the hilt of Rust-Eater. "It's a Sin-Eater. It drains Aura. And the Shadow Hand is in the high tower. He's a Siphon—a spiritual leech, here for the Grand Reservoir."
Hagar sighed, a sound of profound fatigue. "A Siphon and a Sin-Eater. The perfect symmetry of spiritual warfare. You're the famine that consumes the feast. The Guild can't touch him; their power is his meal ticket. They'd send a hundred Knights up there, and he'd walk out an Archon." He finally looked at her, his eyes intense. "You know the calculus, Kaela. This isn't about skill anymore. This is about absolute self-control. You must become a spiritual corpse. You can't just suppress the Ember; you must annihilate it on the run. Every instinct, every thought of fear or rage, will cost you your life and the Kingdom's defenses."
"The Black Core," Kaela affirmed, reciting the lesson. "Total Suppression. Zero Aura leakage. The only force comes from the void."
Hagar reached out and tapped the new leather binding of her sword. "Remember this: The Sin-Eater doesn't care about the enemy's armor; it cares about the enemy's spirit. Do not strike his plate. Strike the path of his Aura. And when you strike, do not stop. You hit until the black metal has drunk him dry, or until he breaks. A Siphon will not fight a fair duel. He will run, he will distract, and he will use the environment to lure you into wasting a burst of energy. Don't be fooled by his cold. He is terrified of your silence."
He pushed himself off the wall. "You came here for permission, didn't you? For a blessing." He shook his head. "I won't give you one. This is a suicide run. But if you succeed, you'll prove the Formless Style is the only one fit for true war. Now go. And don't you dare die before I've taught you how to pay your bar tab." With that final, bitter instruction, Hagar vanished back into the shadows of the outer wall.
Kaela took a deep breath, letting the finality of the conversation settle. She turned her focus inward, crushing the last vestiges of fear and determination into the compact, inert Black Core. Her feet, trained to perfection, were already moving.
Her infiltration began not with force, but with subtlety. The Grand Reservoir Tower was the central spire of the Bastion, the highest and most heavily warded structure. The perimeter was secured by Knight patrols and sophisticated Runic Seals that registered any significant Aura projection.
Kaela ignored the main door. She found a decommissioned ventilation shaft near the basement kitchens. The shaft was choked with soot and debris, but it was unguarded and, crucially, unwatched by magical seals. She used the blunt edge of Rust-Eater—still sheathed—to pry open the rusted grate, relying purely on structural leverage and silence.
She slipped into the darkness. The vertical climb was a treacherous test of her physicality. She ascended three stories in absolute silence, her heart rate kept artificially low by the demands of the Black Core. When she finally reached the horizontal run that led into the tower's core, her Whispering Eye flared.
The building's internal wards were subtle, thin strands of Aura woven into the stone itself—easy to avoid, but impossible to move through without a localized spiritual shimmer. Kaela moved with agonizing slowness, anticipating each weave of the ward before it could touch her non-existent spiritual signature. She moved not through a physical space, but through a calculated void between threads of light.
She finally reached a large landing, opening into a massive circular stairwell that spiraled dizzyingly up toward the peak. She sensed the immense, stable power of the Grand Reservoir above—a deep, resonant thrum of pure spiritual energy. And layered over that hum, colder and more oppressive than the grave, was the presence of the Shadow Hand. He was higher up, likely near the nexus itself, preparing his Aura Extraction.
As Kaela started her ascent up the stairwell, she heard a sound from above—not afoot step, but a faint, high-pitched whirr. The sound of advanced clockwork. She paused, flattening herself against the stone wall, and peered up. Descending silently, gliding down the center of the spiraling column, were three Sentinel Automata—elite Guild guardians, typically used to test Knight candidates. They were deployed silently, meaning they were looking for a high-risk intruder.
Kaela didn't have the luxury of time, or the energy for a prolonged fight. She drew Rust-Eater, the black Void-Iron silently leaving its sheath. This was it. The first true test of the Sin-Eater's lethal efficiency.