A lump of rotten meat clad round a skeletal frame came stumbling closer to him, bony fingers clasped tightly around a sword. A bastard of a sword, Garran reckoned, reeking of death and wrong. Something very wrong as the straps of his golden plates flapped against his chest. He ducked under the weapon, lunged in, and caught the fool by the torso, hauled him off, and slammed him across the ground, planted a plated foot down on the Heartstone.

With a click, the stone gave in and splintered into pieces.

Ding! You have managed to defeat [Undead Soldier: lvl 135]!

You have leveled up! 5 Stat Points granted!

“Huh,” he breathed, looking at the mess he’d just made in his living room. Wide walls and the furniture scattered about them, black wood lined with golden straps, now laying in crushed piles thanks to the Undead.

“I’ve paid good money for this shit,” he lamented as he took in the sight of his next opponent. Another Undead Soldier reeking of rot and the fog of the Liches. Another mindless fool too blind to appreciate the fashion and beauty of his house. “Doubt you have much coin to cover the damages. What should a man do, then, eh? Use the bones to get a deal?”

He shook his head as the fool came stabbing with a spear. A tap to the side of the wooden thing, then the creature stumbled clumsily with the impact, Garran stepping in and catching him by the nape of his rotten neck. He swung him round just in time to welcome another Undead coming behind him, the sword in the bastard’s hand scraping against the Heartstone of his companion.

“Take him,” Garran said, and pushed the first Undead further into the sword while the other one blinked his foggy, empty eyes round at him. “I don’t have a use for him.”

A sweep of his sword sent both their skulls rolling across the ground. That made what, a dozen of them already? Two dozen? It was hard to count, since crushing each Undead left him with another lump in a pile of bones.

Guess they’re not happy being kept in the Underworld anymore. Breaking the deal is such a deadly thing, though. Suits them well, I’m afraid, but their Liches are behind this.

The inner flame flared alive as his skin prickled with the call of the Dawnkeeper, the golden pillar of light visible from outside his recently cleaned windows.

They’re keeping me busy here, but their real purpose is the Cathedral. Captain should be there with Lenora and the Bishop. We have another Templar team standing guard on the ninth floor, too. They can hold on for a while.

He paused and swept his living room. Not many left from the initial rush, likely since they didn’t think a single Templar could overcome a number of these bastards. And yet, Garran didn’t even sweat a drop. These little ants were not up to his taste.

“I don’t think you have much sense about you to give me the reason behind this madness, so I’m going to take initiative and go get a look at the Cathedral,” he said as he eyed the last group remaining in the hall. “Once I’m done with you, that is. Come. Let us get over with this.”

……

“Speak!” Edric said as he caught Jack by the wrist, turned him round, and plastered his face to the bloody walls of his cell. “What is going on here? What did you do?!”

A wheezy, papery laughter escaped from Jack’s lips. “It’s too late! The Eye has been drawn! She is coming!”

“Let me,” Lenora said as she stepped past him, fingers of her right hand clasped around her locket. The Cursed Artifact was alive with shadows, and when he focused just enough, Edric heard the souls trapped there screaming in defiance.

“Traitor!” Jack growled when Lenora planted her hand on the back of his head as Edric kept him nailed to the wall. “You think you can see through me? I’m the Caller of Gods! The Servant of the Fate! I’m the son of the Mother of Venerable Fates! You think your false path will be enough to take a piece of me? Traitor!”

“Shut. Up.” Lenora pulled the man’s hair with her hand, then slammed him hard to the wall. That seemed to ease the tension around Jack’s face a little.

“What?” she said when Edric gave her a look.

“I know my way around prisoners.”

“I said nothing,” Edric shrugged. “It’s been some time.”

“Five years,” Lenora said. “You keep evading me after that incident.”

“You know it’s not about that,” Edric said, voice heavy. “You know I had no other choice—”

“You’re a grown man, Edric. You don’t have to listen to a mindless flame nestled in your heart. Even now it’s whispering to you, isn’t it? Telling you to get away from this monster.”

“Lenora—”

“Enough,” Lenora cut him off. “We don’t have time for this. Hold him for me.”

Edric did as he was told, pinning Jack's arms to the sides and keeping him as still as possible. Lenora waited for a second before feeling the man’s skin again, the locket rattling in her palm, shadows squirming subtly across the walls around them.

When Edric felt it, his skin prickled with cold dread. The Hexmenders were, indeed, in dark business. The inner flame flared inside his heart, trying to spread warmth around his knees and arms, muting the sensation of being in the presence of something dark.

It worked with mild success.

While Lenora was doing her mind business somewhere around Jack’s head, Edric tried to keep an ear to the fight above. Madness, that’s what it was. The Ninth Legion coming for the Cathedral, with a dozen Liches at the helm. Hundreds and thousands of soldiers and chiefs marching toward the Golden Church.

What were they thinking?

The moment the Church of the Eternal Blaze in the Broken Lands got word of this matter, they wouldn’t stop before they cleansed the damn out of the Underworld. Liches and Chiefs wouldn’t matter then. No, there were Dawnkeepers fighting the good war there. Dawnkeepers who weren’t troubled as the Bishop was.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The boundaries are active. Just now the Bishop set them aflame. With him keeping the gate, we could hold on until help arrives.

Mas was already gone to the ninth floor to send the signal with Dain. The other Templar team was busy helping the Bishop.

Ten men against thousands.

Edric had worked in worse conditions before.

Skin hissed and popped across Jack’s arms, bloody with slits and tears running the length of them. Dark blood oozed from the wounds. The man wasn’t a human. His soul had been veiled.

“This…” Lenora breathed, eyes squinted in confusion. “This can’t be…”

“What?” Edric asked as Jack gurgled with laughter. “What can’t be? Speak, woman!”

“It’s not veiled,” Lenora said, turning slowly to face him. “His soul… is not veiled. There’s nothing inside.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought there had to be a shroud,” Lenora muttered, face twisted with a deep frown. “A veil, or something blocking his soul from my sight, but it’s not there, Edric. This man has no soul.”

“She is here!” Jack wailed. “Mother, save me!”

Something screamed loud across the cell. Sounded like thousands of mirrors breaking all together at once. Edric doubled over with both hands clamped shut over his ears, blood trickling down his nose. Ringing there in his mind. A mad ringing that just wouldn’t leave.

“Mother!” Jack screamed as he got free. Edric barely pulled himself back and reached for him, and was about to catch him by the neck when Jack threw himself across the floor.

Edric paused. Just moments ago, after hearing about the matter and finding Jack free in his cell, Lenora had swept the eye drawn over the ground clean with her hands. She made a mess out of it, saying it looked like part of that Hemling ritual.

But now, as Jack wept and wailed, the blood spattered across the stone ground was pulsing strangely. It was drawn by an invisible force from all around, then slowly merged into a singular eye with twisted lines extending outward from inside of it.

“We’re too late…” Lenora hissed through clenched teeth, shadows squirming in the depths of her eyes. Dark veins bulged underneath the skin of her face, and her fingers grew sharper like daggers. “There’s no going back now.”

Edric scowled out into the sight, but before he could do anything about it, the eye drawn over the ground blinked.

A heavy pressure settled upon his shoulders.

The inner flame went still.

“Shit,” Edric mumbled. “The boundaries are weakening.”

…….

The moment he saw the tiny little humans scampering through the streets, Nomad understood that he was in the correct place. That was about how he remembered the humans, after all. Always fleeing, and screaming.

So much screaming.

Fuck.

There was a good reason for that. The city of Belgrave was alive, and it wasn’t just because some of the humans had decided to turn into beasts. No, by the side, closer to the Golden Cathedral, was a giant horde, reeking of a familiar stench that sent a shiver down Nomad’s newly fitted skin.

“To think that I’ve gone to all that trouble to make myself pretty…” He clicked his jaw and reached for his sword. At least he brought that with him, leaving only his plate back in the Underworld. “How in the Nine Hells am I supposed to find that fool of a Healer in this chaos?”

That was the plan. Come here before things got serious, fix himself a new lifestone to silence the voices, then save Valens from the inevitable destruction while at it. He owed the Healer at least that much, to his thinking.

The rest?

Belgrave could burn and crumble for eternity for all he cared.

“You’re here,” a voice said. A woman’s voice, prickling the skin of his ears. “I know what you did. You’ve stolen the Void Riftshards, buried them in the Underworld to stop me from opening the Gate.”

Nomad waved his hand to scatter the tendril of fog trying to take shape beside him. It was supposed to be morning, but it might as well have been midnight by the thickness of the clouds and the fog rolling across the city. And there, over the clouds, he could feel something bloody was taking shape.

Was that a moon?

A bloody moon instead of the sun?

“You can’t take me,” he said, as he swept with his sword and sent another tendril of the fog scattering down the ground. “I’m done being used, for now. I’m done playing the victim, too.”

“Coward,” she said, her voice echoing from the fog around this little hill that looked down at Belgrave. “You were promised to me. You are mine. Mine!”

“Stop it,” Nomad said. “If you could take me by force, you would’ve done it at the beginning. I still have some spine in this weak body of mine to resist your temptations, and once I find my cure again, I will never hear you again, snake.”

“Too late,” she said, then giggled madly. “It’s too late! The Veiled Mother’s Eye is upon Belgrave. She will keep them occupied while I get what’s mine.”

“Sure,” Nomad said, squinting down at the city. From what he could see here, everything had already swept into a mess. Buildings burned and crumbled, mindless tides of men and women rushed through the streets, running toward their own deaths. Now and then strange streaks of fire rose through the chaos, splitting the dreary air of the city.

Thousands, tens of thousands of people, and shifters, and undead. How in the Nine Hells am I supposed to find Valens here?

“You’re looking for him,” the fog said. “The one Mother has warned me against. He was the one who got into your head, isn’t he? He was the one who made you believe there’s hope for a man like you.”

“I don’t deal in hope,” Nomad said, frowning out into the thick shroud. “I’m a fucking coward, Mist. I’m only looking out for my skull here, but I won’t let you take the Healer. Doubt you could take him even if you wanted. Should’ve called your Mother here rather than the Eye of the Mistress of Fate, but you couldn’t, eh? The Endless Mist still sleeps between the connected worlds.”

“You dare speak of her name!” the fog churned dangerously about him, but Nomad paid it no heed. He still had time. A day or two, he reckoned, before he was taken by the voices again.

“Coward! Coward!”

“Enough!” Nomad growled through his new teeth and stepped past the fog, peering into the city below. There were just too many things happening down there. Too many things, indeed. There, from beside a crumbling church, rose sharp flames streaking toward the skies, only to stop and turn back before they splashed down across the beasts.

Wait. Those flames... I know someone who can control them like this!

His fingers around the sword trembled. A pressure weighed down his shoulders as he watched.

The ground rose by the blazing streaks of fire in Belgrave. They rose in columns and established a solid corridor through the city. His senses caught that strange song through it all, ringing like a lullaby by his ears.

Val!

“Mother told me some things never change,” the woman whispered, her voice stabbing at his mind. Nomad wavered for a second, mind reeling, the stone in his chest crackling under an unseen force. “You haven’t changed at all either, isn’t that right, Damon?”

Nomad froze.

That name.

It was no more.

The clouds across the sky parted, revealing a round moon the color of blood. Thousands of voices rushed into his mind as Nomad stared at it, spellbound. Memories flashed before his eyes, belonging to a time that was long past.

He saw his brothers there in the Eye.

Laran with his giant shield, Bart resting his hammer over his lap, Resni all worried about how things changed and kept changing, shadows looming, shadows seeping, talking and whispering, Terek telling him that it was high time they left the past behind.

Then they changed.

Nomad saw himself for the first time. A towering man with a giant sword clasped in his hand, drops of blood dripping down from its edge. He was in a scorched land of death and misery, all alone with bodies lying lifeless around him.

'Killer!' the voices hissed.

'Traitor!' they accused him.

No…

Nomad shuddered.

“Try all you might, but now that Fate’s Eye has descended here, you can’t escape the past anymore,” the Mistress of the Mist muttered. “You belong to the Tainted Father’s court, Damon. You are, after all, his most beloved son.”

With a guttural growl tearing through his throat, Nomad swept the fog around him with his sword, sent the soil and dirt scattering around him. He stabbed, he jabbed, and he twisted round, trying to shake off the influence threatening to take over him.

But the Eye was there, hanging down from the sky, and there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run from its ever-watchful gaze.

Val…

He dragged himself, wincing, toward the edge of the hill, squinting down at the flames streaking out from that unnatural earthly corridor.

Then, without a second thought, he threw himself from the edge and into the city below, voices still whispering into his ears.

.......