The emotional high of seeing the "Mind-Memory" of their parents was still vibrating in Joshua's chest, like a bell that had been struck too hard. He stood by the kneeling Stone King, his hand still feeling the phantom warmth of the memory. Beside him, Roselia was quiet—a rare thing. She was staring at her hands, probably wondering if the "Crimson Fate" she wielded was a gift or a curse from the mother she just saw.
"Okay, enough with the feels," Kairyn said, his voice cracking the silence. He was checking the cylinder of his serrated blade, his eyes darting toward the dark corridors of the ruined city. "Keltatar said the Myth's Herald isn't the only thing hunting in the dark. And if I know that golden jerk, he's not just sitting upstairs waiting for us to finish our tea."
"He's right," Sharla added, hugging the newly charged Reality Stabilizer. The device was humming a low, steady note, pulsing with a deep blue light that cut through the cavern's gloom. "The Anchor is maxed out, but it's also like a giant 'Here I Am' sign to anything that tracks energy. We're basically a glow-stick in a dark room."
Joshua pulled his white blindfold tight, ensuring the knot was secure. "Kage, what's the status of the perimeter?"
The raven took off from a nearby stone pillar, his wings flapping loudly in the hollow space. A few seconds later, a frantic croak echoed from the shadows.
"Incoming! Massive aura spike! They aren't gold, Joshua! They're... they're wrong!" Kage's voice screamed in his head.
Suddenly, the soft blue light of the moss was snuffed out. From the gaps in the ancient masonry and the cracks in the giant, frozen gears, a thick, oily black liquid began to ooze. It looked like spilled ink, but it moved with a purpose. It gathered on the floor, rising into tall, spindly shapes that resembled the Herald—but twisted.
These were the Shadow Guardians. They had the same winged silhouette as the Herald, but instead of white porcelain and gold, they were made of shifting, semi-liquid darkness. Their eyes were glowing red slits, and they carried spears that dripped with a corrosive black slime.
"Bruh, talk about a downgrade," Roselia said, her daggers snapping into her hands with a familiar shink. "They look like the Herald's edgy cousins who moved into a basement and started listening to emo music."
"Don't let the looks fool you," Joshua warned, his hand on his black sword. "They don't have the 'Holy' aura of the Myth. This is something else. Something older."
"THE REJECTION," the Shadow Guardians hissed in unison, the sound like thousands of dry leaves skittering across stone. "THE AWAKENED MUST RETURN TO THE DUST."
"Yeah, not for today," Kairyn growled. "There's an ancient maintenance shaft about half a mile through the ruins. If we reach it, we can use the manual pulley to blast back up to the slums. But we have to move!"
"Run!" Joshua commanded.
The team sprinted. Their boots pounded against the ancient stone streets of the Velestia ruins. Behind them, the Shadow Guardians didn't run—they glided. They moved through the walls and pillars as if the solid stone was nothing more than water.
"They're phasing through the map!" Sharla yelled, her goggles bouncing on her forehead. "That's cheating! Someone report these guys for hacking!"
One of the shadows emerged from a pillar directly in front of them, its ink-spear leveled at Sharla's throat.
"Get back!" Roselia roared. She didn't just strike; she threw herself forward, her body spinning like a crimson top. "Shadow Ripper!"
Her daggers left trails of red energy in the air, shredding the shadow into liquid droplets. But the droplets didn't stay on the ground. They began to crawl back toward each other, reforming almost instantly.
"They're regenerative?" Roselia gasped, skidding to a halt. "Okay, that's actually annoying."
"Don't stop to fight them!" Joshua yelled. He swung his sheath, knocking aside a spear that had been thrown from the darkness. "We need to use the environment! Sharla, the Anchor! Can it disrupt their form?"
"I don't know! It's for hypnosis, not liquid monsters!" Sharla cried. She frantically adjusted a dial on the box. "But maybe if I invert the frequency... hold on!"
She slammed a button. A wave of blue light rippled out from the device. When it hit the approaching Shadow Guardians, they didn't disappear, but they slowed down significantly. Their liquid bodies began to vibrate violently, as if they were struggling to stay solid.
"It works! It's like they're made of 'Applied Lies'!" Sharla cheered. "Keep moving! I can only hold the burst for a few seconds!"
They dived into a narrow alleyway between two crumbling palaces. The architecture here was beautiful—arches carved with celestial maps and balconies made of dark iron. But there was no time to sightsee.
"Joshua, twelve o'clock!" Kage screamed.
A massive Shadow Guardian, twice the size of the others, dropped from a bridge above. It slammed into the ground, creating a shockwave of black ink that turned the stone beneath their feet into a slippery, tar-like mess.
"I'll handle the big guy!" Joshua said, his voice calm despite the chaos. "Kairyn, get the girls to the shaft! I'll catch up!"
"Joshua, no!" Roselia started to turn back, but Joshua raised a hand.
"Trust me. Go!"
Roselia bit her lip, then nodded. "If you die, I'm literally going to kill you! Understand?"
"Understood," Joshua whispered.
As the others vanished around a corner, Joshua faced the Giant Shadow. He didn't draw his sword immediately. He stood in the center of the tar-like ink, his robes fluttering. The monster raised its massive spear, the red eyes glowing with a hateful fire.
"You are a King without a Kingdom," the Shadow hissed. "Why do you protect the filth that crawls in the rust?"
"Because the 'filth' is alive," Joshua replied. "And your 'Dream' is a corpse."
The Shadow lunged. It was faster than it looked. The spear thrust forward with the force of a battering ram. Joshua didn't dodge—he stepped into the attack. He tilted his body by a fraction of an inch, letting the spear pass under his arm, and then he grabbed the shaft of the spear with his bare hand.
The corrosive ink burned his palm, but Joshua didn't flinch. He used the monster's momentum to pull it closer.
"Now," Joshua muttered. He finally drew the black blade. "Void Eye: Aperture."
For a split second, he lifted the corner of his blindfold.
A beam of pure, terrifying violet light erupted from his eye. It didn't just hit the Shadow; it erased the space where the Shadow stood. The monster didn't even have time to scream. The violet energy ate through the ink, the stone, and the air itself, leaving a perfectly circular hole in the ground where the monster had been.
Joshua quickly pulled the blindfold back down. He breathed heavily, his knees shaking. Using the Eye, even for a second, felt like someone was trying to pull his brain out through his ear.
"Too much... energy," he gasped, leaning on his sword.
"JOSHUA! THE EXIT!" Kage's voice was urgent.
Joshua forced himself to move. He sprinted through the ruins, following the blue glow of the Anchor in the distance. He reached the maintenance shaft—a massive vertical tunnel lined with rusted bronze railings and a large, circular platform.
Kairyn was already at the controls, pulling a heavy lever that groaned with the effort. Roselia was standing at the edge of the platform, her eyes scanning the dark for any sign of him.
"JOSH!" she screamed as he came into view. "Get on! Now!"
Joshua leaped onto the platform just as it began to jerk upward. Below them, a swarm of Shadow Guardians gathered at the base of the shaft, looking up with their hateful red eyes. But they didn't follow. They seemed tethered to the ruins, unable to leave the ancient city.
"We made it," Sharla sobbed, collapsing onto the floor of the platform. "We're actually alive. I thought for sure we were going to be ink-stains on the floor."
The platform rose higher and higher, the blue-lit ruins of Velestia shrinking into the darkness below. As they ascended, the air began to change. The cold, damp smell of the roots was replaced by the familiar, synthetic sweetness of Narakka's atmosphere.
Roselia walked over to Joshua. She didn't say anything at first. She just looked at his hand—the one burned by the ink. She reached into a small pouch at her waist, pulled out a clean bandage, and began to wrap his palm with practiced ease.
"You used the Eye, didn't you?" she asked softly, her head down.
"Just a little," Joshua admitted.
"You're a dork," she whispered, pulling the bandage tight. "A brave, stupid dork. Don't think this means you're the 'Main Character' though. I'm still the one who does the cool shadow-flips."
Joshua smiled. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Kairyn looked up as the ceiling of the shaft began to open. "Get ready, team. We're coming out right in the middle of the Sleepless Slums. But things are going to be different now. We have the Anchor. We have the truth."
"And we have a Myth to bust," Joshua added, standing tall as the light of the upper world began to bleed into the tunnel.