A vast layer of Relictombs. A square of massive, ancient stones. At the end of the square stands a massive archway, shimmering with aether, leading to the next level. The air smells of dust, blood, and ozone.
Chaos reigns in the square. Two groups of climbers—one an Alacrian group of Caera, Taegen, and Goran; the other a group of four men from different dynasties, each bearing different emblems on their armor—are locked in a desperate battle against a horde of monsters that surround them. The creatures are massive, wolf-like creatures with bony protrusions and slobbering mouths.
Arthur stands motionless in a dark niche high above the square's entrance. Like a statue. His eyes are fixed on Caera, watching her every move: the swing of his sword, the tension of his body as he fends off a creature, the sweat streaming from his brow. His face is expressionless, only a deep, perverse concentration. As if watching something she possessed.
"Right wing! Hold the right wing!" Taegen shouts, driving his spear into the throat of one creature. Goran shatters another with his heavy hammer, "I'll handle it, my Lady!"
Caera, as she slices one creature in half, calls to the leader of the other group, "Let's advance towards the gate! Let's retreat!" The leader of the other group, a red-haired woman, nods sharply, "Agreed! Form the curtain!"
A momentary distraction. As Caera looks toward the other group, a large, wolf-like beast slithers from behind her, slamming its claw into her defenseless back.
CRACK.
Caera's armor shatters. Instead of a scream, a muffled, pained groan escapes her. Her eyes widen, a spray of blood gushes from her mouth, and she collapses. She doesn't move.
At that moment, something breaks in Arthur's dull gold eyes. His expression shifts from dullness to pure, freezing jealousy and rage. They touched his Caera. They broke his jewel. But his anger isn't directed at the monsters. His anger is directed at the two men who were around him, who spoke to him, who dared to touch him: Taegen and Goran. They were useless. They were a stain.
In his mind, a connection forms. Regis.
"Regis." The voice in his mind is sharp and icy, like a knife.
"Sir? What's the matter? Is he... is he dead?" Regis's voice is anxious and strained, and he senses the storm in Arthur's mind.
Arthur sees Caera's chest still heaving slightly. She's alive. But she's hurt. And it's his team's fault. They didn't protect her well enough.
"No," Arthur replies, his voice devoid of any emotion. "But they failed. I will rid her of this mess around her. Just clear her team. Taegen and Goran. Don't worry about the others."
A moment of shocked silence. "Arthur... what? Are you mad? They're his friends! They're trying to protect him! Look, Taegen just took a blow for him!"
Arthur's mental voice crushes his like a fist. "WHAT'S MY OWN? They hurt him. They prevented him from being mine. Right now. Use the shadows. No one can see you. Only them. Understand? I only care about him."
Regis senses the dark, twisted will in Arthur's mind. This isn't an argument. It's a command. "Arthur, please... this is madness! Even if we kill everyone here, you can't bring your father and Sylvie back! This won't heal you!"
"DO AS YOU'RE TOLD!" The scream in Arthur's mind is so ferocious it's painful in Regis's presence. "You are my weapon. Obey."
There is no escape. Only submission. "...Understood," Regis whispers, his voice filled with pain and betrayal.
Below, in a shadowy corner of the square, a darkness thickens. A small, wolf-like figure appears, its eyes burning with an inner conflict. Regis has become a dark extension of Arthur's will.Arthur emerges from his niche and begins walking in a straight line down toward Caera. A frenzied battle rages around him.
Taegen, fending off a creature's claw with his spear, suddenly begins to choke. His eyes widen, his mouth open and closed, but no sound comes out. His face begins to turn purple. An invisible claw seems to be squeezing his windpipe. He collapses, immobilized by a final spasm. Beside him, Goran shouts, "Taegen! No!" but doesn't have the chance to turn around.
Goran shatters a monster with his hammer. "My lady! Taegen is dead! We must retreat!" he shouts at Caera, not yet realizing she's unconscious. At that moment, a shadow at his feet suddenly springs to life. The shadow rises like a dagger and stabs the thin gap in the neck of Goran's armor. Shock and incomprehension fill Goran's eyes. Before he can make a sound, his hammer falls from his hand, and he collapses lifeless next to Taegen.
The other group, caught in their own struggle, fails to notice these two deaths. The red-haired woman shouts, "What's going on? Something... something's wrong!" and looks around suspiciously.
Arthur brushes her sweat-soaked hair away from her face as he caresses Caera's face tenderly.
At that very moment, a deep, earth-shattering roar erupts from a pit on the other side of the square. A massive centipede-like creature, nearly ten meters tall, with rock-hard muscles and orange eyes glowing like lava pits, crawls out of the pit with a fury. With scaly armor-like skin, each foot as sharp as a knife, and a claw-like tail at the tip, it charges toward its nearest target,
Arthur and Caera. It squirts a greenish, acidic liquid from its mouth.
Arthur raises his head. A look of profound unease crosses his eyes. This disrupts his moment with Caera. The creature charges at them at a furious pace, preparing to thrust its pointed tail into Arthur's chest like a spear.
Arthur's lips meet. Instead of leaving Caera defenseless, he quickly and deftly throws her onto his shoulder. He holds her with one hand, while his other hand appears with a dagger of pure aether, glowing with a purple light. Realizing he can't resist the creature's speed, he instead targets the thin channels in its armor. His eyes seem to momentarily slow its movements, a luxury his aether core affords him.
He zigzags, slashing at lightning speed. The dagger slices into the joints of the creature's front legs, the junctures of its armor plates. Each strike triggers a gush of greenish, repulsive blood, and the creature lets out a metallic screech.
The creature is enraged with pain and rage. Its scream is so powerful it bursts Arthur's eardrums, blood seeping from his ears. Arthur jolts slightly, and the creature, taking advantage of his momentary weakness, lashes out with its sharp tail, this time directly at Caera, who is on Arthur's shoulder.
Without hesitation, Arthur suddenly shifts momentum. He throws himself in front of Caera. The sharp tip pierces her left shoulder. Arthur grits his teeth, holding back the pain, not uttering a single sound. He pulls Caera tightly into his arms, trying to protect her with his own body as much as possible. His shoulder, where the tail had lodged itself, is unable to resist the creature's thrust, and they both slam into the solid stone wall behind.
WHUMP!
Arthur's back hits the wall, his breath knocked out. The wound in his shoulder deepens, and the acidic liquid begins to burn his flesh, emitting smoke. A fleeting look of pain crosses his face, but he quickly recovers with a cough. His first action is to ignore the heavy weight on his shoulder and the burning sensation, and look at Caera. He checks her expression, her breathing. Seeing that she's unharmed, he lets out a sigh of relief.
Then, slowly, he lifts his head. His slit, cat-like eyes, still pinned against the creature, glare furiously at her. A pure, unadulterated desire for revenge burns in his eyes against this creature he sees as nothing more than an obstacle.
"Regis," he calls in his mind, his voice still cold but now filled with a sharp urgency. "We're not finished. This thing is bothering me. Come."
A small ripple of excitement rises from the shadows on the other side of the square. "Finally, a sensible command!"
As Arthur awaits the creature's next attack, he slowly extends his right hand. A gauntlet of purple aether energy, decorated with intricate patterns, appears upon his palm. The Gauntlet of Godrun.
For a moment, all the shadows in the square seem to be drawn toward him. All the sounds in the air—the creature's growls, the distant sounds of battle—are momentarily silenced. Then, a dagger begins to form from Arthur's hand. A dagger of pure aether, glowing with purple light, ancient runes curling upon it. A fragment of pure creation.
And then, destruction descends upon the dagger.
A twisted chaos, darker than nothingness itself, engulfs the light, appears around the dagger. It is Regis's essence combined with Arthur's will and aether. A static crackle ripples through the air. The dagger is no longer just a weapon, but a malady tearing at the very fabric of existence.
With a final roar, the giant creature lunges at them, acid spewing from its mouth.Arthur remains motionless. He thrusts the dagger, almost lazily, at the creature.It makes no contact. The air between the dagger and the creature ruptures.
A blast of purple and black energy consumes the creature's entire body, from front to back. Bones, flesh, blood... none of it vanishes. Because there's nothing left to vanish. They are erased from existence. A vast, perfectly circular void appears in the creature's center, marking the wall behind it. The creature's two remaining parts lie lifeless on either side of this void. Its edges are flat and symmetrical, as if gnawed by an infinite nothingness. Not even ash remains.
The wind from the explosion ruffles Arthur's hair, but even he doesn't move. He simply opens his hand, where the dagger has vanished. The glove is also gone.A ringing silence descends on the square. The other climbers are frozen, captivated by what they've just witnessed. They alternate between fear and awe.
Arthur doesn't even look at them. He turns back to Caera, picks her up, and leaves the square, leaving death and silence in his wake. A small, wolf-like figure follows him through the ruins, its eyes gleaming with regret and fear.
Looking at Caera's bloodied face, Arthur murmurs softly:"Now we are the only ones left in the wilderness. No one can disturb us."
The red-haired woman froze until her sword fell from her hand. Her eyes followed the devastation of the giant creature and the lifeless bodies of the leaders of her two groups. Her face was filled with shock and disbelief.
"What was... what was?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "That man... that thing... killed them. And... destroyed... that monster."
The young archer beside her sank to his knees, feeling sick. "I didn't understand anything, Liana. I saw nothing. Just... shadows, then... light. And then they died." His eyes fixed on the bodies of Taegen and Goran, his stomach churning.
The oldest member of the group, a bearded striker, leaned on his battleaxe, frowning. "That power... wasn't like anything in the Tombs. It was so... ancient. And devastating." He glanced at Arthur's back as he retreated. "He's not a climber. He came here to hunt something."
Liana wiped the surprise from her face, and steely determination replaced it. "I don't know who or what he is, but we need to get out of here. Denoir seems to care about his daughter." She picked up her sword. "Let's follow him. But be very careful. As you can see, he means nothing to us. Yet, he might be able to help us get out of here."
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Arthur carries Caera to a resting place deep within the Relictombs, a cave where aetheric energy flows relatively calmly, safe from external dangers. Once inside, he places his aetheric signature over the cave's entrance.
He gently lays Caera down and leans against the wall. His expression has completely lost its previous coldness, replaced by obsessive compassion and deep concern. With trembling hands, he retrieves rare healing potions and clean cloths from his bag.
"You're safe," he murmurs and begins to wipe the blood from her forehead. "Those fools can't hurt you anymore. I will never abandon you. I will protect you from everyone and everything."
Regis's form appears in a corner of the cave. No longer in wolf form, he's more like a mass of shadow, two sad yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. His voice is filled with anger and pain.
"They were trying to protect them, Arthur! Taegen was ready to give his life for him! You... you killed them for nothing!"
Arthur continued cleaning without looking at Regis. "They hurt him. They failed. They didn't deserve to be by his side."
"THIS IS INSANITY!" Regis's inner scream echoed through the cave. "Look at her! Look at the woman in your arms! Is this what you want to protect? Or is it simply something you want to possess? Would Sylvie want to see this? What would your father think if he saw you like this?"
Arthur's hand suddenly froze in midair. His face contorted in pain for a moment, as if Regis's words had touched a deep wound within him. But that anger quickly turned to icy fury.
"MY FATHER IS DEAD!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the cave walls despite Caera's unconscious body. "SYLVIE IS DEAD! I KNOW I CAN'T BRING THEM BACK! BUT I CAN STILL PROTECT HER! I CAN'T LOSE HER! NEVER!"
Regis was silent for a moment, shaken by the pain of Arthur's scream. "How much longer do you plan to keep this up... Do you think you can always be with him? Will you lock him in a cell? Will you try to keep the whole world away from him? That wouldn't be protecting him, Arthur; it would be killing him! Slowly, in pain..."
Arthur took a deep breath, his eyes focused again on Caera's pale face. His anger shifted to watch him, as if recording every detail. "Don't you see, Regis?" he whispered, his voice calm again, but this time filled with a chilling, irrational certainty. "This nothingness... this pain... all of it had a purpose. It brought me here. It brought me to him. This power, this aether... it was given to me. Not just to survive. To possess. The power to do anything to protect him."
He lifted his fingers slightly and let the purple, ancient energy dance between them. "I will become like the snowy mountains. I will not hesitate. Whether Agrona or Kezess... none of them will be able to take it from me. With this power, I will have everything I desire. And right now, all I want is... her."
Regis doesn't answer. He suffers silently, like two eyes shining in the darkness in the corner of the cave. He bears witness to Arthur's madness and his own complicity in it. He sees how Arthur's twisted, painful logic has led him to this point.
Arthur continues to apply the potion to Caera's wounds, his voice soft, almost loving, as if there were no outside world, no past, no conscience.
"You will wake. And then... then you will understand everything. Why this must be. Why you must be mine. When you see that resistance is useless, you will finally find peace. Just as I did."