In the weeks following Kai's ascension to SSS-rank, Valdris became a crucible not just of trials, but of legends converging.
Adventurers from every corner of Aetheria flooded the city, drawn by tales of the Blade of Ashen Requiem—the man who had shattered the Crucible's ancient record. Some came to challenge him. Others to follow. A few to profit from the storm he stirred.
Yet one arrival silenced even the loudest taverns.
The great gates groaned open at dusk, crimson light painting the battlements like fresh blood. A lone rider entered upon a steed of living shadow—mane flickering with violet flames, hooves striking sparks that lingered like embers.
The rider dismounted with predatory grace.
Tall, lithe, cloaked in midnight silk edged with silver runes. Hair like molten obsidian cascaded to the waist, bound by a circlet of blackened dragon bone. Eyes—one sapphire, one molten gold—swept the crowd with cold amusement.
Twin blades crossed at the back—curved, elegant, humming with restrained void magic.
Whispers erupted like wildfire.
"It's her…"
"The Void Princess…"
"Seraphine Nightveil—the only other SSS-rank active in the kingdom…"
"She vanished into the Abyss Dungeon five years ago. They said she died."
Seraphine ignored the stares.
She strode straight to the guildhall, cloak billowing like wings of night.
Inside, the chamber fell deathly silent.
Valeria Stormblade rose from her seat, hand instinctively near her greatsword.
"Seraphine. We thought you lost."
The woman's smile was sharp as shattered glass.
"Death could not hold me, Valeria. The Abyss merely… taught me."
Her mismatched eyes found Kai instantly—he stood upon the upper balcony overlooking the hall, arms folded, expression unreadable.
Their gazes locked.
The air crackled with unseen force—mana pressures colliding like storm fronts.
Seraphine tilted her head, studying him as though dissecting a particularly interesting specimen.
"So," she said, voice velvet over steel, carrying effortlessly through the hall, "this is the boy who broke my Crucible record."
Kai descended the stairs slowly, each step deliberate.
"I am Kai."
"I know what you are," Seraphine replied. "A blade forged in annihilation. I can taste the grief on you—deliciously pure. Eldoria, was it not? Wiped clean by the Devourer itself."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Kai's eyes narrowed, hand drifting to his sword hilt.
Seraphine noted the motion with approval.
"Good. You don't flinch. But tell me, Ashen Requiem—do you truly believe one man, no matter how broken, can slay oblivion?"
"I don't need to believe," Kai answered, voice low and resonant. "I need only act."
Seraphine laughed—a sound like midnight bells tolling.
"Beautiful. Arrogant. Doomed."
She stepped closer, until only a blade's length separated them.
The hall held its breath.
"I, too, hunt the Devourer," she revealed. "I have walked its wake for five years. I have seen what it leaves behind—nothingness so complete it devours even memory. I descended into the Abyss seeking power to wound it… and I found fragments. Whispers. Truths that would shatter lesser minds."
Her mismatched eyes gleamed.
"I am closer than any living soul."
Kai did not step back.
"Then why reveal yourself now?"
"Because you, Kai of the Lost Village, are a variable I did not predict. A spark that might ignite—or burn out uselessly."
She extended a gloved hand, palm up.
A sphere of pure void manifested above it—black so absolute it hurt to perceive, edges fraying reality itself.
Gasps echoed.
Even Valeria tensed.
"I offer alliance," Seraphine continued. "Not friendship. Not trust. Alliance. Together, we could force the Devourer to manifest fully. Force it to bleed."
Kai stared at the void sphere.
Memories surged—Lila dissolving like mist, Tomas's final look, his parents erased mid-breath.
His hand did not take hers.
"Why should I trust one who wields its power?"
Seraphine's smile widened, almost approving.
"You shouldn't. But you should fear being too weak to refuse any edge."
The void sphere vanished.
She turned to leave, cloak swirling.
"I take the sealed quest for the Umbral Rift tomorrow at dawn—a fragment of the Devourer's ancient prison. Come if you dare, Ashen Requiem. Prove you are more than a grief-stricken boy swinging a sharp memory."
She paused at the doors.
"Or stay here, polishing your legend while the world empties one village at a time."
The doors boomed shut behind her.
Silence reigned.
Then Valeria spoke quietly. "She is dangerous beyond measuring, Kai. The Abyss changed her. Some say she bargained with things older than the Devourer."
Kai's gaze remained on the closed doors.
His hand clenched at his side.
A rival had appeared—not an enemy of flesh and blood, but a mirror forged in similar fire.
One who walked the same path.
One who might reach the Devourer first.
Or lead him straight to it.
That night, upon the highest spire, Kai stood beneath the stars once more.
He unwrapped his relics.
Held Lila's ribbon to the wind.
Felt the phantom brush of her fingers.
"I will not falter," he whispered to the night, to the echoes, to the void beyond. "Not for pride. Not for hatred."
His eyes burned colder than starfire.
"But if she truly knows the way…"
He sheathed his sword with a sound like distant thunder.
"Then I will walk through hell beside her."
At dawn, two figures would depart Valdris.
One cloaked in ash and grief.
One wreathed in night and ambition.
Rivals.
Perhaps allies.
Destined to clash—or to carve a path no solitary blade could.
Far away, in the spaces between existence, the Phantom Devourer stirred.
Two sparks now burned toward it.
Bright enough to wound.
Or to be swallowed whole.
The reckoning accelerated.
To be continued...