CHAPTER 34: BURNED EYE

Barovik burned — but not in flames.

What was burning there was order.

The city of twin walls, once a hub of balanced power, teemed under an occupation that none of its residents had chosen. There were no explosions. No sieges. Not even an officially declared war. There was only... entry. Footsteps. Solemn voices. Precise cuts. A domination carried out with the weight of fear, not brute force.

It was the Order of the Flaming Eye that came.

But not like before.

They abandoned the ceremonial robes, the embroidered flaming crosses, the sacred spears standing upright like pillars of faith. Now, they wore stained leather, makeshift armor plates, and hand-scratched symbols on their chests: a red iris embedded in black fire. Some had eyes marked with ash or tattoos on their temples. Others wore cloaks stolen from defeated foes. They were paladins without a church, clerics without gods. Fanatics freed from restraints.

And they followed a new doctrine.

The doctrine of purification through total denial.

Barovik was the first laboratory.

The central square, once a trading point, turned into a tribunal. The statues of the harvest goddesses were laid on the ground, faces shattered. The bell atop the tower was replaced by a magical alarm that sounded every time someone tried to summon any creature. There were no exceptions. Not for small animals, nor for auxiliary spirits. The Tamer class was synonymous with traitor here.

Ser Modell learned this too late.

He, who once led the most influential Tamer guild in the region — the Iron Hearts — believed he could negotiate with faith. He still held the title of "Sovereign of Barovik" within the community of tamers. And for a long time, that was enough for him to be respected. Feared, even.

But when the paladins arrived, he tried to kneel... and discovered there was no throne for those who bow.

"You have no jurisdiction here!" he shouted in the guild’s meeting room, his fists pounding the marble table as if they still held some weight. "Barovik is a free city! Ruled by bonds! Protected by the gods!"

On the other side of the room, the man who was once called a knight-priest now merely smiled. The dark red tunic hung like a funeral shroud, and his helmet, shaped like a skull, left only the eyes visible — two points where humanity once was.

Malrik.

He didn’t speak much. But on that day, he spoke.

"The gods don’t listen to traitors."

Ser Modell swallowed hard. He looked around. His own men... were no longer with him. Of the ten guild companions in the room, only three even looked in his direction. The others... kept their eyes on the floor. Or on the paladins, who had already entered without being stopped.

"L-Lauren...? Kaedrin?" Modell extended his hand. "You know me. You know I always protected Barovik. I always fought for—"

"You shamed us," said Lauren, without raising her head. "You let a boy destroy your reputation. You let Eren Vale spit on your name. And now you want... appeasement?"

Kaedrin took a step forward.

"We... swore to protect the faith. Even before the guild. Before you."

Ser Modell staggered back.

"You don’t know what you’re doing. These fanatics want to erase everything. All of us!"

"Not everyone," Malrik finally said. "Only those who have forgotten what purity is."

He snapped his fingers.

Two paladins advanced.

Ser Modell tried to summon his companion — an elemental harpist who had served him as counselor and guardian for years. But the symbol on his hand exploded into smoke. A blocking rune had been engraved in his own skin the night before. As he slept, he had been marked.

No bond. No defense. No title.

The first blow came from behind.

Kaedrin, with a short blade, slashed Modell’s tendon without hesitation.

He screamed.

Lauren held his head with one hand and, with the other, drove a short dagger into his chest. The blow was not fatal — intentionally. The blood flowed like a broken promise.

"This is... betrayal..." he whispered, gasping.

Lauren responded, dryly:

"No. It’s redemption."

Malrik approached. His steps made no sound. He kneeled beside the ex-leader and ran his fingers over the wound as if examining a sacrificial animal.

"Now, Barovik has a new altar."

And with one last gesture, he pressed two fingers to the center of Ser Modell’s forehead. A dark red glow emerged from the skin, and the man’s soul — or what was left of it — dissolved into dark smoke.

In the square, magical loudspeakers announced the new commandment:

["Anyone who shares their power with abominable creatures will be marked. And when marked, will be judged. And when judged, will be purified. Burn the bonds. Exalt the flesh."]

In the back of the city, cages were being dragged.

Captured monsters. Some screaming. Others... staring into nothingness, as if the broken bond had taken their soul with it.

Barovik was no longer a city.

It was a message.

And the message was simple:

The era of the Tamers was over.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The lights of the sanctuary pulsed in violet hues — not for aesthetics, but out of necessity. The energies powering the Throne of Systemology vibrated with the residue of thousands of protocols being activated and interrupted in real time. It was the cold heart of the Core. A sphere of analysis, control, and extrapolation. An altar for those who worshiped algorithms, not gods.

Vaen was at the center of it all.

The Throne was not a seat. It was a dive. His body lay suspended in a tank of ethereal conduction, and only the upper half of his torso was visible. His arms floated, connected by magical wires and thin tubes that carried data, not blood. His eyes were blindfolded by a translucent liquid crystal visor that flickered with the incessant flows of information.

Outside, a panel projected the recent activity of one of the guild’s most important targets:

[Anomaly-T]

[Designation: Eren Vale]

[Base Class: Tamer [Registry Invalidity Confirmed]]

[Active Bonds: 3]

[Current Status: Collective Sync Level at 72%]

[Recent Critical Events: Spider Bonding | Instinctive Alignment with Lycanthrope | Training Cell with Slime]

Vaen’s visor conducted a full scan, then retracted one of the highlighted panels to open a new projection: a hologram of the bond with Morwynn.

"Early affective stabilization... but with structural flaws. Unprocessed emotional tension..." he whispered, his voice raspy and hushed, as if each word had to traverse layers of code. "And yet... it catalyzed a latent technique."

He rotated his wrist, altering the bond’s viewpoint. Morwynn’s behavioral data was projected in irregular graphs. Emotions, magical flow variations, changes in physical composition, and symbiotic psyche.

[Observation: Observed behavior mutation – The Spider is "copying" Eren’s bonding style to apply to the Slime]

Vaen bit his lower lip, thoughtful.

"It’s not just the Tamer evolving. He’s creating an ecosystem... a viral environment. Every monster that approaches enters his logic. Will, desire, bond... instinct."

On the other side of the chamber, a female presence entered with calculated steps.

Kelna.

White hair tied in a tight knot. Artificial eyes replaced by spiral lenses that analyzed everything on multiple scales. She wore a bloodstained apron — not by choice. She had been dissecting something minutes before.

"Are you really obsessed with this boy?" she said, fiddling with an auxiliary panel.

"Boy is an imprecise term," Vaen replied without turning. "He is a data structure that refuses replication parameters. And now he’s creating secondary branches. Morwynn, for example. She was stable. Too stable."

Kelna analyzed the graph.

"And now?"

"Now she is a duplicated instance of Eren’s emotional behavior. She reproduces his dynamics. Creates her own ’victims.’"

"The Slime."

"Exactly."

Kelna crossed her arms.

"The slime was harmless. Now it’s becoming corrosive on another level. Not just physically."

Vaen projected a new window. Images captured from aura impulses and low-frequency magical interactions: Kaela and Eren — their last sexual interaction — had left such a dense trace that it reprogrammed part of Kaela’s bond in real-time.

"Look at this. The werewolf’s possessive instinct rose to 98%. And it wasn’t taught. It was absorbed. He not only strengthens bonds... he converts them."

Kelna frowned.

"This is a doctrine."

Vaen nodded slowly.

"He is the first non-theological Tamer doctrine recorded in twenty years. No symbol. No faith. No platform. Just reciprocal emotional need. Each of his bonds is based on necessity, his and theirs. It’s a closed cycle."

She stared at the tank.

"This is dangerous."

"This is revolutionary."

Kelna remained silent for long seconds. Then she pressed a button projecting an image of the regional map. Barovik was marked in pulsating red.

"The Order of the Flaming Eye has taken the city," she said. "Faith now presents itself with a civilian face. They’re blending in with the ’militias.’"

"Purification cells," Vaen murmured. "Preventive actions against tamers with above-average emotional bonds."

"They don’t know what he is, Vaen," Kelna turned. "But they’ll find out. They’ll hunt him."

"I know." The system analyst’s voice was too calm. "That’s why we need to see what he does when cornered."

Kelna raised an eyebrow.

"You want him to enter Barovik?"

"He will enter anyway. You know the type. Eren Vale doesn’t hide. He tests the world."

Kelna looked at Morwynn’s data.

"And if he gets killed?"

"Then we’ll have rupture data," Vaen snapped his fingers. "But... if he survives... if he infects that city with this bond model..."

He left the sentence hanging.

A hologram appeared:

[Alert: Affinity between Eren and Spider exceeds expected parameters]

[Risk: The anomaly may break the emotional control layers of the tracker-creature]

[Side Effect: Creation of a new bond paradigm - Fusion of Instinctive Wills]

Field reproduction potential: Uncontrollable.

Kelna frowned.

"This is almost... a class evolution."

Vaen smiled for the first time.

"And who said only the universe defines the classes?"