The sky above the Black Wastes did not brighten. The gray clouds simply thinned out, turning the pitch-black night into a bruised, sickly purple dawn.
Lin Chen walked three paces behind Luoweiya.
His boots hit the frozen dirt with a rhythmic, dull crunch. His right thigh felt tight, but the muscle held its form perfectly. The Sanguine Suture worked. It knitted his torn flesh together in seconds. But it left a hollow, vicious ache in his stomach. His mortal body had burned through a massive amount of calories to force the rapid cellular division. He felt lightheaded.
"Stop," Lin Chen said. His voice was raspy, dry like old parchment.
Luoweiya paused. She did not turn around. Her right hand rested lightly on the hilt of the silver blade hidden beneath her velvet cloak. "The sun is rising. The Association perimeter patrols will change shifts in an hour. We keep moving."
"I need food."
She looked over her shoulder. The violent violet glow in her eyes looked muted, almost gray in the morning light. "You are a gravekeeper. Eat the dirt."
"The spell I used to heal my leg consumed my physical stamina," Lin Chen said. He didn't move. He kept his hands out of his pockets, visible and relaxed. "If my blood sugar drops and I pass out, your door stays shut. You need my pulse."
Luoweiya stared at him for three long seconds. She reached into a small leather pouch tied to her waist. She tossed a wrapped package at his chest.
He caught it. He pulled back the oiled paper. A slab of dark, cured meat. It felt as hard as a piece of oak. He bit into it. The tough fibers tore against his teeth. It tasted of heavy salt, old smoke, and copper. He chewed mechanically, forcing the dry meat down his throat. It wasn't enough to fill the void in his stomach, but the salt and protein stopped the trembling in his fingers.
"You cast spells without a mana core," Luoweiya said, watching him eat. "You heal severe tissue damage without a catalyst. You carry the blood signature of an Ancient Ritual Core. Who are you really, street rat?"
"Lin Chen," he said. He swallowed the last piece of meat. "Exiled scion of the Lin family. Magic affinity zero. Assigned to patrol Sector 4 until a Ghoul Hound bites my throat out."
"A convenient lie," she said, turning back around. "The Lin family breeds arrogant pyromancers. They do not breed necromancers who eat anomaly crystals."
She stepped forward, resuming the march. Lin Chen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and followed.
They crossed a shallow, dried-up riverbed filled with black sludge. This was the official boundary line. Sector 4.
The landscape shifted. The open, muddy trenches of the infantry graves vanished. Massive, sealed catacombs and half-buried mausoleums dominated the terrain. The earth here was blacker, stained by centuries of concentrated death magic leaking from the tombs.
They passed the Magic Association warning totems. Thick wooden stakes driven deep into the frozen mud. Pale blue runes carved into the bark pulsed faintly, casting a sickly light on the ground.
Luoweiya stepped around the totems effortlessly. She didn't trigger the wards. Her steps were perfectly measured, weaving through the invisible tripwires of alarm mana. Lin Chen kept his eyes on her boots. He stepped exactly where she stepped.
They walked for another twenty minutes. The mist grew thicker, smelling of trapped ozone and ancient dust.
A sheer cliff face rose out of the flat wasteland. A deep, jagged ravine cut directly into the solid rock, hidden behind a cluster of petrified ironwood trees.
Luoweiya walked into the ravine. The wind died instantly. The silence was heavy, pressing against Lin Chen's eardrums.
At the very end of the ravine stood the door.
It was a single, flawless slab of solid obsidian. Thirty feet high. Twenty feet wide. No seams. No hinges. No keyholes. Just a massive wall of black glass embedded directly into the mountain. In the dead center of the door, at chest height, sat a shallow circular depression the size of a human palm.
"The Grand Archive of the Third Age," Luoweiya said. She stopped ten feet from the black stone. "The Association knows it is here. They tried to crack it open fifty years ago with heavy siege magic. The obsidian absorbed the blasts. If they force it any further, the internal failsafe triggers and incinerates the contents."
She turned to face him. The wind caught the edge of her silver hair. "The ancient architects locked it with a specific bio-mana frequency. A blood seal. The crystal you absorbed last night held that exact frequency."
Lin Chen looked at the massive black slab. "You want my blood."
"Press your hand into the depression," she said. "Let the stone drink. Just a few drops."
Lin Chen walked past her. He stood in front of the obsidian. The stone radiated a bone-chilling cold that seeped through his thin clothes.
He pulled the iron dagger from his right boot. He pressed the dull, nicked edge of the blade against the center of his left palm. He closed his fist tight and pulled the blade.
The skin split. A sharp sting flared in his hand. Dark red blood welled up from the cut, warm against the freezing air.
He pressed his bleeding palm flat into the circular depression.
The stone reacted instantly.
The blood did not smear against the glass. The obsidian absorbed the liquid like dry sponge taking water. A low, heavy vibration rumbled deep beneath the earth. Dust cascaded from the cliff walls above, pattering against Lin Chen's shoulders.
Faint black lines—the exact same geometric patterns that had crawled up his arm when he absorbed the ritual core—lit up across the entire surface of the massive door.
[Resonance detected.]
[Ancient mechanism engaged. Blood signature accepted.]
Lin Chen pulled his hand back. The cut on his palm had stopped bleeding, sealed shut by the freezing temperature of the stone.
The deep vibration abruptly stopped. The silence returned.
Then, the cliff walls on either side of the ravine exploded inward.
Rock and dirt rained down. Two massive alcoves, previously hidden by illusions, collapsed outward. Two colossal shapes stepped out of the falling debris.
Constructs.
Ten-foot-tall suits of hollow, rusted iron armor. They had no faces, only smooth iron helms. Their joints hissed with pressurized steam and pale blue magic. Each machine held a heavy, two-handed executioner's sword resting on its shoulder.
"Failsafe guardians," Luoweiya said. Her tone remained completely flat. She drew her curved silver blade. The air around her dropped in temperature instantly. Frost crept up the rocky ground beneath her boots. "They recognize the blood signature, but they do not recognize your face. We have to break them before the door finishes processing the sequence."
The Construct on the left lunged at Luoweiya. The sheer weight of its rusted boots cracked the stone floor. It swung its massive sword downward in a brutal, vertical chop.
Luoweiya did not dodge. She met the falling iron with her silver blade. A massive shockwave of dark violet frost exploded outward. The impact froze the construct's rusted arms to its own torso.
Lin Chen didn't have time to watch her fight.
The Construct on the right turned its featureless iron helm toward him.
It raised the executioner's sword. The rusted blade was as long as Lin Chen was tall.
He had no mana shield. His iron dagger couldn't pierce three inches of solid, enchanted iron.
He pulled the kinetic energy from his legs. He triggered Phantom Shift.
The world blurred into streaks of gray and black. The massive sword slammed into the obsidian door exactly where Lin Chen had stood a fraction of a second ago. A shower of orange sparks erupted over the black stone.
Lin Chen reappeared directly behind the Construct. He gripped his dagger tightly. He aimed for the glowing blue light visible through the narrow gap behind the armor's right knee joint.
He stabbed forward.
The dull iron tip hit a layer of hidden metal mesh. It bounced off with a sharp clink. The Construct didn't even flinch. It swung its massive left arm backward in a blind, sweeping backhand.
Lin Chen dropped flat onto his stomach. The rusted iron gauntlet whistled an inch above his head, tearing the fabric of his gray hood. The wind pressure alone pushed his face into the dirt.
[Phantom Shift Cooldown: 8 seconds.]
He rolled wildly to the right as the Construct brought the heavy sword down again. The blade buried itself two feet into the hard earth, right where his ribs had been.
He scrambled to his feet. Ghostfire Gaze targeted the nervous system and the soul. Constructs didn't have souls. They had mechanical cores. The spell was useless here.
The Construct yanked its sword out of the dirt, showering Lin Chen with loose rocks. It raised the weapon high, preparing for a wide, horizontal sweep that would cut the entire width of the ravine. There was no room to dodge left or right.
Lin Chen didn't retreat. He sprinted directly at the massive machine.
The sword swung in a deadly, unstoppable arc.
[Phantom Shift Cooldown: 1 second.]
[0 seconds.]
He triggered the shift.
He vanished from the physical plane just as the rusted edge of the blade cut through the empty space his torso occupied.
He reappeared in the air, ten feet off the ground, directly above the Construct's shoulders. Gravity immediately grabbed him. He dropped hard onto the rusted iron back. He grabbed the rim of the hollow helmet with his left hand, locking his fingers into the metal groove to anchor himself.
The Construct thrashed violently, trying to reach him.
Lin Chen raised the iron dagger in a reverse grip with his right hand. Through the two-inch gap between the helmet and the neck armor, he saw the power source. A glowing blue crystal core, pulsing rapidly with raw mana.
He drove the dagger straight down into the gap.
He put every ounce of his body weight behind the thrust. The dull iron tip struck the fragile blue crystal.
The crystal shattered.
Wild magic flared. A shockwave of pure, uncontrolled kinetic energy blasted out of the neck joint.
The force blew Lin Chen backward. He flew through the air, completely out of control, and crashed hard against the solid obsidian door. The impact knocked the wind entirely out of his lungs. He slumped down to the rocky ground, gasping for air, clutching his ribs.
The Construct froze mid-motion. The blue light in its joints flickered violently and died. The massive suit of armor collapsed inward, falling into a heap of rusted metal scrap. The heavy sword clattered loudly against the stones.
Lin Chen spat out a mouthful of dirt. He forced himself up onto one knee. He looked to the left.
Luoweiya stood over a pile of frozen, shattered iron. She flicked her wrist, shaking the excess frost from her silver blade before sliding it back into the hidden sheath. She didn't look tired. Her breathing was perfectly even.
She turned toward him. She looked at the collapsed Construct, then down at Lin Chen leaning against the black door.
"You fight like a desperate rat," she said.
"I fight like someone who plans to wake up tomorrow," Lin Chen replied. He pushed himself off the door. His chest ached deeply, but his ribs held.
A loud, deafening crack echoed through the narrow ravine.
The black lines covering the obsidian door pulsed a brilliant, blinding crimson. The massive slab of solid stone slowly split right down the middle. The two halves ground against the rock, sliding smoothly backward into the mountain.
A rush of cold, perfectly preserved air washed over them. It smelled of old parchment, dried ink, and heavy, concentrated mana.
The darkness inside the vault was absolute.
Luoweiya stepped forward. She raised her left hand. A small, floating orb of pale violet light ignited above her palm, casting long shadows into the space ahead.
Lin Chen walked up beside her. He looked inside.
Rows upon rows of massive stone bookshelves stretched deep into the mountain. Corpses dressed in long, rotting scholar robes sat at heavy stone desks, their skeletal hands still resting on open scrolls and cracked magical instruments.
For Luoweiya, it was a treasure trove of lost historical knowledge.
For Lin Chen, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The blue system screen snapped to life in his vision, hovering over the darkness.
[High-density magic fragments detected in immediate vicinity.]
[Scanning...]
[Skill Fragment identified: 'Arcane Missile' (Tier 1 - Fragmented).]
[Skill Fragment identified: 'Mana Shield' (Tier 1 - Fragmented).]
[Skill Fragment identified: 'Shadow Step' (Tier 2 - Fragmented).]
Lin Chen ignored the pain in his ribs. He gripped his iron dagger tight and stepped over the threshold into the dark.