Dawn crawled through the clouds, gray and unwilling. The rain had thinned to a mist, but the smell of blood refused to fade.

Cain sat on the steps of the ruined cathedral, his coat clinging to his shoulders in soaked folds. His sword leaned against his knee, its edge dulled from the last strike.

Across from him, Steve and Roselle worked to drag what supplies they could salvage from the wreckage. Every crate they opened held less than they hoped. Rations soaked. Ammo cooked by the blast. Nothing was clean. Nothing was whole.

Susan stood apart, her rifle still strapped to her back. Her eyes weren't on the ruin—they were on the horizon, where smoke rose in long, unbroken columns.

"That thing's death won't stop the others," she said. "If anything, they'll come faster."

Cain didn't argue. He just looked down at his hands. The cuts on his palms had begun to close, but the faint glow under his skin wouldn't fade. Remnants of what he'd killed. Remnants that didn't want to die.

Roselle dropped a bent magazine beside him. "We can't keep doing this blind. Every battle's a reaction. We're fighting echoes, not the hand that moves them."

Steve spat into the mud. "Then find the hand."

"Working on it."

She pulled a cracked tablet from her jacket, its screen flickering in the dim light. "Before the Grid fell, I downloaded everything I could from their internal records. Names. Transactions. Movements. There's a pattern. Someone's been moving energy cells and mana stones in bulk — more than the council ever authorized."

Cain frowned. "Where to?"

"The southern arc. Near the old Aether Refinery. That area's sealed off now, but someone's building something under it."

Susan stepped closer, her voice low. "A new core?"

"Or another rebirth site," Roselle said. "If Baldur wasn't their last, they'll need a vessel ready before his Divinity settles."

Steve slammed a hand against the ruined wall. "Then we stop it before it starts. Blow the whole thing."

"Not that simple," Cain said. His tone was flat, measured. "That site was buried for a reason. The Refinery sits above one of the first rifts—ancient, raw, and untamed. You light a spark there, you don't just kill gods. You kill the continent."

Silence stretched, broken only by the creak of shifting rubble.

Roselle looked at him. "You've seen it."

He nodded once. "Years ago. Before any of you. That rift doesn't bleed energy—it devours it. The Daelmonts built around it, thinking they could cage the flow. But if they're tapping it again, it means someone thinks they can control it."

Susan snorted. "And no one ever learns."

Cain rose to his feet, lifting his sword. "We move before sunset. If they're building another core, they'll have a Guardian watching over it."

"Guardian?" Steve asked.

Cain's eyes hardened. "Celestial fragments. What's left when a god dies but refuses to sleep."

The group fell quiet. The air seemed to grow heavier.

They set out hours later, their path winding through shattered streets and drowned fields. The remnants of City Z loomed like skeletons around them — towers leaning at impossible angles, roads split by roots of glowing stone. The deeper they went, the stranger the world became.

Cain felt it first — the shift. The pulse beneath the earth, rhythmic, alive.

He raised a hand, stopping the others. "We're close."

The southern arc stretched out below them, a crater of blackened soil where the Refinery had once stood. What replaced it was worse — a vast ring of obsidian pylons humming with crimson light, their bases sunk deep into the mud. At the center, a structure half-buried and half-alive, its veins pulsing with liquid Divinity.

The Guardian stood atop it.

It was tall, too tall — a figure of fractured armor and raw energy, its shape vaguely human but constantly shifting. Its face was a mask of light, featureless save for a single vertical slit that burned white.

Roselle whispered, "That's not a fragment. That's a nightmare."

Cain's jaw tightened. "Doesn't matter what it looks like. If it bleeds, it ends."

Steve set down his pack, checking the detonators. "How close you want me?"

"Far enough to live. Close enough to make it count."

They split wordlessly, each moving through the rubble in trained silence. The storm had died, but the air was still wet, heavy with the scent of ozone.

Cain advanced from the left flank, moving through collapsed conduits. The closer he got, the louder the hum became. It wasn't sound — it was pressure, sinking into his bones.

The Guardian moved suddenly. One step, and the ground cratered. Its head turned toward him, slow, deliberate. The slit on its face widened, revealing the void behind it.

Then it screamed.

The shockwave hit like a hammer, flattening the nearby structures. Cain rolled with it, debris raining down in molten chunks.

Roselle opened fire from the ridge. Bullets sparked off its armor like rain. Steve's charges detonated along the pylons, sending bursts of red flame spiraling upward.

The Guardian didn't slow.

Cain darted in close, swinging {Eidwyrm}. The blade met the creature's chest and stopped dead, caught in the density of its form. The thing's hand shot out, clamping around the sword.

Energy crawled up the steel, biting into Cain's arm. His vision blurred.

He roared, twisted, and drove his knee into its side. The armor cracked. A thin line of dark light leaked out — its blood, if it could be called that.

The creature struck back, faster than thought. A blow like a battering ram hurled Cain backward into the dirt.

He hit hard, lungs burning, ribs shifting out of place. He tried to stand, but his body refused.

The Guardian loomed, its mask bending into something almost curious.

Cain spat blood, grinned weakly. "That all you've got?"

It reached for him — and then its chest exploded.

Roselle had emptied her last clip into the exposed line, and the chain reaction tore half its torso apart. The creature staggered, screeching as light spilled from the wound.

Cain pushed off the ground, snatched his blade, and leapt. The motion was pure instinct — no strength left, no reserve, just defiance.

{Eidwyrm} cut through the crack like slicing through dawn.