Kaelen lay flat on his stomach on a ridge of broken concrete, looking down into the crater.
The wind here was bitter cold, biting through his tattered jacket, but he didn't move. He didn't shiver. He held himself perfectly still, blending into the gray rubble like a stain on the landscape.
Below him, the ruins of the Southern Sector formed a natural amphitheater. And in the center of that crater, rising like a defiant middle finger to the apocalypse, was the Sanctuary.
It was magnificent.
It was a massive structure of white stone and stained glass, untouched by the Rot. A dome of golden light shimmered around it—a translucent barrier that repelled the gray fog of the Void. Where the fog touched the barrier, it hissed and evaporated, unable to find a foothold on the holy ground. Inside the dome, Kaelen could see green trees. He could see grass. He could see a world that was still alive.
But surrounding that island of life was an ocean of death.
Valerius's army.
There were at least fifty of them. A mix of scavengers, mercenaries, and fanatics. They had set up a perimeter around the Sanctuary's main gate. Tents made of black tarp flapped in the silent wind. Bonfires burned—not with wood, but with some chemical fuel that cast a sickly green light against the stone walls.
Kaelen activated his sight.
[ OBSERVER EYES: ACTIVE ]
The scene sharpened. Data scrolled across his vision, analyzing the threat.
[ TARGETS: Human (Hostile) ] [ COUNT: 52 ] [ THREAT LEVEL: Extreme ]
He zoomed in on a group of men standing near the main gate.
They wore heavy coats reinforced with scrap metal. They carried weapons—rifles, machetes, and spears tipped with black Void-glass. But it was their faces that made Kaelen's skin crawl.
They wore masks.
Simple, white porcelain masks covering the lower half of their faces. Painted on the mouth of every mask was a single, black horizontal line.
The symbol of Silence. [ ⊖ ]
Kaelen watched as one of the men removed his mask to drink from a canteen.
Kaelen flinched.
The man's lips were scarred. Ragged lines of white tissue crisscrossed his mouth, as if he had sewn them shut repeatedly and then cut them open again to eat.
These weren't just soldiers. They were zealots.
[ NEW FACTION DISCOVERED: The Silenced ] [ DESCRIPTION: A cult that believes the Void is a divine judgment. They mimic the silence to survive. They hunt "Noise" (Anomalies) to appease the entropy. ]
Kaelen deactivated the skill, preserving his stamina.
He looked back at the Sanctuary. The Cultists were attacking the golden barrier. But they weren't using rams or explosives.
Two men dragged a prisoner forward. It was a Hollow—a mindless, half-erased human. The Hollow shuffled forward, eyes blank, unaware of its fate.
The Cultists shoved the Hollow against the golden light.
ZZZT.
The barrier flared. The Hollow screamed—a soundless, psychic shriek—as the holy light burned it. The corruption inside the Hollow reacted violently with the purity of the barrier.
BOOM.
The Hollow exploded.
The shockwave rippled against the barrier, weakening it for a microsecond. The golden light flickered, turning transparent for a heartbeat before stabilizing.
The Cultists cheered silently, raising their weapons in triumph.
Kaelen's jaw tightened.
They were using the Hollows as living bombs. They were trying to overload the barrier by feeding it corruption. It was a slow, brutal process, but eventually, the light would fail.
They want to get in, Kaelen realized. Or they want to kill whatever is inside.
He checked the map again.
The dead man's map showed a secondary entrance. A service tunnel on the north side of the library, buried under rubble.
Kaelen looked at the camp. The north side was less guarded, but there were still patrols.
He had to move.
He slid backward, down the ridge, moving inch by inch until he was out of sight.
He stood up, crouching low.
He moved through the shadows of the ruined buildings that ringed the crater. His boots made soft, crunching sounds on the gravel, but he timed his steps with the wind.
Step. Pause. Step. Pause.
He reached the northern perimeter.
The wall of the Sanctuary loomed above him, fifty feet of sheer stone. At the base, buried under a pile of collapsed steel beams, was the service entrance.
But there was an obstacle.
A Cultist was standing guard near the debris. The man was holding a crossbow, scanning the darkness. He was facing away from Kaelen, but he was turning.
Kaelen froze.
He was ten feet away. If he moved, the gravel would shift. The Cultist would hear him.
If he stayed, the Cultist would turn and see him.
Hesitation kills.
Kaelen looked at a loose piece of sheet metal hanging from a building twenty feet to his left. It was held by a single, rusted screw.
He focused his Authority. Not on the guard. On the metal.
[ DENIAL: TARGET (Metal Sheet) ] Command: Unstable.
He pushed a tiny pulse of rejection at the metal. He denied its structural integrity.
CLANG.
The screw holding the sheet metal snapped. The metal fell, hitting the concrete with a loud, ringing crash.
The Cultist spun around, raising his crossbow toward the noise. "Who's there?"
The moment the guard turned, Kaelen moved.
He was a shadow. He closed the ten feet in three long strides.
He didn't use his knife. Blood smelled. Blood attracted attention.
Kaelen grabbed the Cultist from behind, one arm locking around the man's throat, the other hand clamping over the porcelain mask to muffle any sound.
He dragged the man backward into the darkness.
The Cultist struggled, kicking out, his boots scraping against the ground. Kaelen gritted his teeth. The man was strong.
But Kaelen was fueled by the system's stat boost from Level 2.
He tightened the chokehold.
Sleep, Kaelen thought. Just sleep.
The man thrashed for three seconds. Then two. Then his body went limp.
Kaelen lowered the unconscious body to the ground. He dragged him behind a concrete slab. He checked the man's pulse. Still alive. Kaelen wasn't a butcher. Not yet.
He crept forward, toward the Sanctuary wall.
He found the service tunnel.
It was a rusted metal grate, half-buried under the rubble. The dead man's map was right.
Kaelen gripped the grate. It was heavy, fused with years of rust.
He pulled. It groaned, metal grinding on metal.
He stopped, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Had they heard?
He listened. The campfires crackled. The Cultists were chanting something low and rhythmic near the main gate. No one was looking his way.
He pulled again, using his legs. The grate popped free with a shower of rust flakes.
A smell drifted out of the tunnel.
It didn't smell like rot. It smelled like... old paper. And dust. And ozone.
Kaelen slipped inside and pulled the grate back into place behind him.
Total darkness engulfed him.
He waited for his eyes to adjust, then clicked on his flashlight, shielding the beam with his fingers so only a sliver of light escaped.
He was in a maintenance shaft. Pipes ran along the ceiling. The floor was dry.
He walked.
The tunnel sloped upward. The air grew warmer. The oppressive heaviness of the Void—the constant, draining feeling that tried to delete him—began to fade.
He was getting close to the source of the Light.
The tunnel ended at a heavy steel door. There was no handle. Just a keypad with no power.
Kaelen placed his hand on the door.
[ OBSTACLE DETECTED: Mag-Lock (Dormant) ] [ AUTHORITY REQUIRED TO BYPASS ]
Kaelen took a deep breath.
He placed his palm flat against the cold steel.
He didn't try to pick the lock. He didn't try to power the keypad.
I deny this barrier, he thought. I deny the state of 'Locked'.
He pushed his will into the door.
[ DENIAL ACTIVATED ]
Blue sparks danced across the metal. The locking mechanism groaned. It tried to resist—it was designed to keep things out—but Kaelen's Authority was different. He wasn't trying to break it; he was convincing the door that it was already open.
CLICK.
The heavy bolts retracted.
Kaelen pushed.
The door swung open.
Light flooded over him.
It wasn't the harsh, white light of a hospital, or the sickly green of the Cultist fires.
It was warm, golden sunlight.
Kaelen stepped through the doorway and stopped.
He wasn't in a hallway.
He was in a garden.
The ceiling was high—incredibly high—made of glass panels that somehow filtered the dead gray sky into warm afternoon sun. Vines climbed the stone pillars. Flowers—real, red and blue flowers—bloomed in neatly arranged beds.
And books.
Thousands of them.
The walls of the garden were lined with towering bookshelves that stretched up fifty feet. Leather-bound tomes, ancient scrolls, modern hardbacks. The smell of paper and ink was intoxicating.
It was a cathedral of knowledge. A fortress of memory.
Kaelen deactivated his flashlight. He didn't need it here.
He took a step onto the grass. It was soft. Real.
"Sanctuary," he whispered.
The word felt holy.
He scanned the massive room, his hand hovering near his knife, expecting a guardian. Expecting a monster. Expecting something.
But there was only silence.
Not the heavy, crushing silence of the Void. Just... peace. The quiet of a place that had been waiting for a long time.
He walked deeper into the room, his boots making soft thuds on the grass. He checked the corners. He checked the balconies.
Empty.
Dust motes danced in the light. A book lay open on a reading table, as if someone had just stepped away ten years ago.
Kaelen lowered his hand.
He had made it. He was safe. The Cultists were outside, banging on the front gate. The Void was outside, eating the world.
But inside?
Inside, Kaelen was the king of an empty castle.
He walked to the center of the room, where a massive oak tree grew beneath the glass dome. He sat down at the base of the tree, the bark rough and real against his back.
He opened the dead man's canteen and took a long drink of water.
He was alone. He was exhausted. He was surrounded by an army of zealots who wanted to skin him alive.
But for the first time since the sky turned gray, Kaelen closed his eyes and didn't count his breaths.
He slept.