[Hellmouth, Ocean of Storms]
Wind crawled across the lip of Hellmouth and scattered away into the soundless dark abyss. Void walked towards the seam of the Umbral veil, to the exact gap he had cut days before and set his palm to the surface; the veil shivered under his touch like taut skin. Power ran through it in cold pulses, steady and unhurried, and his eyes flicked to the place his blade had once cut through.
The edges of the tear had knit themselves together, closing at the seams. Almost as if the Veil had healed on its own. Void brushed his fingers over it and pressed lightly, though the marks were barely visible, the Veil wasn't back to full strength.
A group of footsteps echoed behind him, approaching closer, but staying a healthy distance away from the pulsing dark curtain.
"So, we good to go?" Tevis asked from behind, ensuring his voice was quiet enough not to awaken anything.
Void turned. Tevis stood with Bandit and Cory to his side, while Pahanin and Levi held the other flank. All five held their breaths and keenly observed the veil.
Void nodded once, "We are."
He loosened his shoulders and unsheathed the blade. Zamyr's presence flared, and the blade's metal returned a pale reflection. "The gap I made was sealed", he said, keeping his eyes ahead. "It's small work to make another."
Void drew in a slow breath, and the edge of the sword brightened, a thin, cold lumen that feathered the steel. Where he traced the line, the Veil's weave thinned and then receded.
Levi stepped nearer despite himself, head tilted, nostrils flaring as if scent would help him understand. His voice stayed low. "That blade… really gives me the creeps." He cocked his head, listening where no one else did. "Can't you hear the whispers? Some weird stuff."
Pahanin's eyes did not leave the Veil. "You learn to live with it after a while," he said.
Levi glanced at him. "Doesn't it unsettle you?"
"Let's just say, I've been through worse." Pahanin shrugged and walked towards Void.
His advancing figure caught Levi's eye, and the hunter raised his brows in surprise, "Cool."
Void cut the last seam of the veil's thread with a turn of the wrist and let the blade fall still. The opening held, not ragged but deliberate, edges clean and wet-looking, lightless air moving within as if the night on the other side had its own rules.
Tevis flickered and came up to the threshold. He studied the work with patience, examining Void's precision. "Better than before," The corner of his mouth shifted, then settled. "You've been practising."
"I guess." Void slid the sword back into its sheath. "I had plenty of time." Void looked back and gestured for everyone to come closer.
They all moved to the front, stopping inches away from the lip of the gate.
"We'll be splitting up into two squads and looking for the Swarm princes. You see one, you kill one." Void chimed up, eyeing everyone, "One last thing, don't get spotted, don't make a sound, don't even breathe. If you get spotted, all of Hellmouth will know we're there. Is that clear?"
Bandit stretched his arms, an onyx dagger twirling in his fingers, "Crystal."
"Doesn't sound that hard." Cory threw out some punches, hopping from one foot to the other. He turned into his uppercut and sliced through the air, "Who are we going with?"
Void took Pahanin and Levi to his right, "I'll stick with those two."
Tevis nooded and took Bandit and Cory. "Where are the Princes?" Tevis asked, glancing once towards the barren expanse waiting ahead. "We can't possibly find them without traces."
"Not fixed," Void said. "But the archive left an approach; there is a way to track them, but it's quite unsettling."
Tevis raised an eyebrow.
Tracking the sword is tracking the princes, Zamyr whispered into his ears, crisp and unadorned.
The blade carries what it has eaten. Guardians died on it. Some part of their Light scarred into the edge. Find that residue—and you will find the links that lead to the voices that held the chain.
Void met Tevis's eye. "The sword keeps what it has taken. Considering the last time it was used was the war....There's a trace of Light on it—thin, but there. If we follow the residue, we'll find the links. Links mean the princes."
The wind lifted, then fell flat again. No one spoke for a breath. The silence that followed was not reluctance. It was the kind that made space for consequence.
Tevis nodded once, his face settling into a grim frown, "Then we follow it." He raised his palm, "Riqi, track the residual light from the Lunar war, search for the highest concentration around Hellmouth."
A shimmering, bright ghost appeared, its eyes pulsing as it scanned ahead, "I'll relay our network, make it easier to scan as we go." Riqi flittered above, sending requests to the ghosts around.
Obsidian responded, flaring with a pulse. Bandit's and Cory's Ghosts rose in tandem, their beams narrow and disciplined; Levi's Ghost kept wider, sampling eddies and discarding noise.
"Keep the scans on, once we start, we're bound to run into something," Void said. "No broad pings. We take what the ground gives."
"Understood," Pahanin said.
Tevis rolled one shoulder and looked to his two. "We ride the low ledges and cross ridges that lead towards Hellmouth. Bandit, you mark every place the trace pulses. Cory, use those shadows of yours to check, and count 'em up. We'll need the rhythm later."
Bandit nodded. "Got it."
Cory touched two fingers to his helm and lowered his chin. "On marking duty."
Void looked to Levi. "You and I'll spread to get the scans, Pahanin's gonna scout the places."
Levi raised his brow slowly, "Alone? Is that guy that fast?"
"Don't worry about that, I got it." Pahanin chimed in, tapping the side of his ear.
Void flicked his wrist, his sparrow materialised under him, and the others did the same. Six sparrows lined the gap across the Veil, their engines sputtering to life.
Void set the nose of his Sparrow toward the cut, held the brakes and revved. The thrusters blasted into the sand, and the Sparrow roared. "Let's go!" He lifted the sonic break and shot forward; the veil thrummed as he blasted through it, into the distance.
Pahanin leaned forward, his sparrow sliced through the sand and followed closely behind, Levi took in a breath, and did the same.
"On me," Tevis said, cruising through the gap, already angling his Sparrow to the left-hand descent line. "We'll take this side. No heroics, you see something, you say something."
Pahanin raced beside Void. "Your captain's quite bossy. I can see where you get that attitude from."
"That he is, and I'll take that as a compliment", Void chuckled, cutting to the right as he answered.
"You dogs! Relax." Levi chimed up from the back, streaking towards them.
Obsidian's voice thinned to work. "Picking up a thread—it's very faint. "
"Take it," Void said.
The moment the squads got closer to Hellmouth, an algid chill gripped their bones; the air itself was replaced by dense fog that blocked their visors. The sound changed; even the engines seemed to breathe quietly. All they could rely on was their Ghosts.
"IT'S COLD as f*ck," Bandit reported. "Also, I've got a signal south west."
"Copy that, I'll check it out," Cory added.
"Clear comms and do your damn job," Tevis shook his head, racing deeper into the desert.
Levi rode a half-length back and to Void's right, head canted like a hound catching a deep scent. "I see something there," he said under his breath. "Looks weird though."
Pahanin didn't look away from the line. "Stay with the trace. I'll check." His sparrow drifted to the side, a flicker of light wisped away from his body, and was whisked away towards the source.
"Whoa! What the hell was that?" Levi sped up to his side and asked, checking Pahanin up and down.
Void sighed, "Let the man do his job." He checked the other traces Obsidian had highlighted. "I see three more north-east, go do those as well. We'll be riding this line till the end."
"You heard him, guess we'll talk later." Pahanin saluted and rode off on a tangent, wisps of light flickering off his body one by one to different directions.
The hunters continued their tracking, riding across the expanse around Hellmouth as the trace moved like a taught line pulled under the surface, surfacing only long enough to leave behind signs. Six ghosts still calculated and called bearings; The hunders adjusted ever so often.
Twice, they had passed strange pillars where the Veil thickened into a wall, blocking their entry. Once, they'd even cut their power and stalled their sparrows, letting a cohort of patrolling wizards drift across the dark horizon.
"Still nothing," Cory said, pulling back his tendrils. "That's like the fifth thing I've checked."
"One last point," Tevis answered. "Mark it."
On the other side of Hellmouth, Obsidian skimmed his beam along a tunnel they'd found digging into the dark lunar soil, and pulled a faint lattice up out of the black—an imprint left when Light remained. "Residual alignment," he said, softly. "There's a faint trace of light. But no one's ever been here."
Void heard the acknowledgement and nodded, "We're on it," he said. "Follow."
Levi, Pahanin and Void raced down the path that stretched into the abyss below. No one hurried. No one made a sound. They tracked the Light that still lingered in the dark, the light that the Hive hadn't bothered to erase, keeping it as a trophy, as a mark of honour and pride.
Now, that light would soon become the very thing leading to their ruin.
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A/N: Aight bozo's, LEAVE review!! Fr we've been stuck on 210 for sooo long. Damn, also throw some stones fr.
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