Caspian opened the door to the top floor of the tower, the moon peaking behind the clouds to illuminate the night sky. It was a peaceful night, a stark contrast to recent events. He made his way to the center of the terrace just as it began to drizzle. He walked to the edge of the building and looked over the edge to see the bustling street below him. He looked down for a while before turning around to see Julius standing behind him.
Julius's long black hair fluttered as a breeze pasted by, but what didn't waver is the creepy smile plastered on his face.
"Hey Caspian, how's it going? Long time no see eh?" Julius said energetically as he walked towards Caspian.
"Nice to see you as well Julius" Caspian said.
"I take it you got my letter?" Julius asked rhetorically.
"Of course I did" Caspian answered. "Why else would I be up here?"
Julius shrugged and leaned on the side of a wall.
"Well I'll get straight to the point then, I need you to trust me on something." Julius said
"On what?" Caspian asked cautiously.
"On this" Julius said, pulling out a plastic rectangle with a bright red button on the top of it with a small antenna sprouting out the side.
"What is that?" Caspian asked nervously.
"Ezra has recently taken an interest in Nimerath, and has instructed me to, "reform" the city. Now do you know what comes before reformation?" Julius asked, grinning.
"Destruction" Julius finished, staring into Caspian's eyes with an insatiable hunger for chaos.
"What are you planning to do?" Caspian asked, concerned.
"Well you see, if we want control over this city, we must take down the current rulers, no? So my, no our target are the Blackwoods. More specifically, the Champion of the Blackwood family, Alexander Blackwood." Julius explained.
"So what's your plan for this? I've seen his power firsthand, and he isn't someone who we can write off as weak. Poison in his drink, a bullet to the head? Those won't kill him, I can assure you." Caspian said.
"Woah, that's the first time I've ever heard you say anything positive about, well anyone really" Julius laughed.
"But I do agree with you, so that is why I've made an unbeatable plan!" Julius said excitedly.
An awkward silence followed, until Caspian realized Julius wanted him to ask what that plan was.
"What is your plan?" Caspian said, as if following a script.
"I never thought you'd ask!" Julius answered extatically. "A few days ago, I planted explosives at the bottom of the tower. And know, everyone is at the bottom of the tower eating dinner, I though it'd be the perfect time to pull of my plan!"
"W-wait how do you know that?" Caspian asked, confused.
He'd never told Julius about the dinner, as Alexander just invited him less than half an hour ago. So how did he know about it, and the exact location as well?
"I have eyes everywhere Caspian. While you're playing family with that man, I'm in the shadows working my ass off." Julius answered, annoyed.
"His names Andrew right? Your "parent". You're not hesitating because you actually care about him, do you? No there's no way. You, Caspian, the Blood-Soaked Moon, caring about someone?!" Julius shrieked with laughter as he walked up to Caspian.
"Are you saying that you don't want him to die? B-but he's just a pawn! A fucking pawn in Ezra's plan, in the Oblivion Syndicates plan!"
"No its not like that!" Caspian protested.
"So what is it like then!?" Julius asked. "One of the main rulers of the Syndicate is that we don't betray each others. You would break this vow so easily just because some random man has shown some compassion to you?"
"I would never betray the Syndicate, and you know that!" Caspian said.
"Even if I believe you, Ezra certainly doesn't, as he has tasked me with testing your loyalty, and the test starts NOW!" Julius said as he pressed the red button and fell back first off the edge of the building.
Just as he looked over the edge, the tower began to quake. Caspian could feel the deep, seismic groan of stone giving way—pillars in the earth cracking, metal beams warping under impossible strain. The air thickened with pressure, then a sound like the world splitting in half tore through the night. A blast of unbearable heat surged upward, and in the next instant, the tower erupted in fire.
Flames roared from the lower levels like a beast exhaling. The structure buckled with a sickening lurch, windows shattering outward in waves, vomiting glass and smoke. Caspian was thrown from the ledge, body flung into the air as the shockwave carried him. Behind him, the tower began to tilt in earnest, its skeleton wreathed in fire.
Black smoke curled into the sky, lit from within by pulsing orange as floors collapsed inward one after another. Steel groaned, bending like wax. A cascade of debris followed—wood, glass, stone—all devoured by the growing inferno. The screams were brief, muffled beneath the roar of destruction. Within moments, the once-mighty Blackwood Tower was reduced to a crumbling inferno, a burning pyre reaching to the heavens as its heart was consumed from within.
"Cain! Zach!" Caspian screamed, but his screamed was muffled by the explosions of the tower.
The air howled past Caspian's ears as he plummeted, limbs flailing in the chaos of freefall. The sky above twisted into a smear of smoke and flame, Blackwood Tower now a broken silhouette against the blazing horizon. For a fleeting moment, all sound vanished—only the deafening rush of wind and the distant crackle of fire filled his senses. He was weightless, spinning through the smoke-drenched air, his stomach churning from the sudden drop.
Turning his head through the haze, Caspian caught a glimpse of something unnatural: Julius, unbothered by gravity, was gliding downward along a gleaming, sickly green slope. Acid shimmered beneath his feet, forming a slick, serpentine path that extended from the collapsing tower like a grotesque ribbon. It writhed and shifted midair, suspended by sheer force of will, each ripple of it hissing as droplets splattered and dissolved through the smoke. Julius didn't fall—he steered, calm and composed, his long coat fluttering behind him as if he had orchestrated the very destruction unraveling above.
Caspian's heart pounded harder. His descent was chaotic, uncontrolled, and violent—while Julius moved like a man completely unfazed, gliding through devastation as if it bowed to him.
"How's the view Caspian!?" Julius screamed over the roaring flames.
"Your a bastard Julius, you know that right?!" Caspian cursed as he fell.
"Oh of course I know that." Julius said proudly.
"Well have a nice flight!" he said, disappearing with his acid down to the ground.
The sky rushed past in a whirl of smoke and fire as Caspian plummeted, weightless and helpless, through the choking air. The wind shrieked in his ears, drowning out every rational thought. His limbs flailed against nothing, every instinct in his body screaming at him to grab something, anything—but there was nothing to hold. The once-proud Blackwood Tower loomed high above, a fiery silhouette against a darkening sky, its upper levels consumed in brilliant orange flame. Chunks of debris rained down beside him, spinning shards of metal and burning wood slicing past in streaks of heat and light.
"CAIN!" he shouted, his voice raw with panic. "Cain, help me!"
The wind tore the name from his throat again and again. "Cain! CAIN!" His voice echoed into the vast emptiness, growing hoarse with each scream. He didn't care how it sounded. He didn't care if no one answered. He just didn't want to die—not like this, not alone, not splattered against the earth like forgotten rubble. The world below blurred into a smear of color and stone, and gravity's grip tightened, merciless and final.
Tears welled in his eyes, not from emotion, but from the sheer force of air against his face. His breath came in shallow gasps. There was no strategy now, no calm thoughts, only blind fear and the sickening knowledge that death waited mere seconds away.
And then, through the blur of firelight and smoke, the heavens cracked.
A flash of emerald and silver streaked down from the clouds like a comet tearing through the sky. Cain shot downward in a blur of motion, his form cloaked in writhing green vines and spiraling gusts of wind. His eyes locked onto Caspian with fierce, unwavering precision, his body angling for the intercept like a hawk diving for its prey.
"Hold on!" Cain shouted, voice booming through the storm, cutting through the chaos like a blade.
Caspian didn't respond—he couldn't. His body was numb, his voice lost, but his eyes widened in wild hope as Cain drew closer with impossible speed.
In the final heartbeat before impact, Cain collided with Caspian midair. The force of the catch should have broken bones, but a cyclone of wind erupted around them, cushioning the blow like an invisible cradle. Cain wrapped his arms around Caspian's chest, holding him tight as vines burst upward from the ground below, summoned by sheer instinct.
The vines wrapped around their legs and torsos, catching and slowing their fall with supernatural grace. They bent and flexed like the arms of giants, swinging the two through the air with controlled momentum until they finally touched down. The earth beneath them cracked and shifted, obeying Cain's will, forming a soft mound of moss and soil that swallowed their landing in silence.
Caspian collapsed to the ground on his knees, gasping, his heart hammering in his chest. Cain stood beside him, breathing heavily, his green eyes glowing faintly, strands of wind still curling around his form like phantom wings.
"You scream like a child," Cain muttered, trying to smirk but failing beneath the weight of exhaustion.
Caspian coughed, trying to respond, but only managed a shaky laugh. "You came…" he whispered, voice barely audible.
"Of course I did," Cain said, his tone softer now, though his eyes were already turning toward the tower. "But we have a bigger problem."
Caspian followed Cain's gaze, his breath still ragged in his throat. His eyes found the tower—or what remained of it. Blackwood Tower, once so unshakable and monolithic, now leaned grotesquely to one side, its upper floors consumed by smoke and fire. The spire had crumbled, shattered bricks and support beams cascading down in a roaring avalanche of stone and steel. From within, the faint, fading screams of those still trapped echoed out—a horrible, human sound, growing weaker, more desperate, until they vanished entirely beneath the choking plume of ash.
The ground trembled beneath them, a final groan of death rippling out from the tower's collapse. Caspian stared in silence, horror anchoring him in place.
Then came the slow, deliberate sound of boots against scorched earth.
Julius emerged from the gloom with his hands in his pockets, his coat fluttering slightly in the warm gusts rising off the ruin. His eyes glinted with unnatural calm. Acid hissed and bubbled beneath his feet, forming a slow-moving trail behind him, though it seemed he barely noticed. He looked up at the burning sky and breathed in deep.
"A new world," he said softly, and then louder, voice reverberating with conviction, "We had to burn the old one, didn't we? Ezra said it clearly—only by reducing the old to ash can anything be reborn."
He paced slowly, now speaking to no one in particular, his monologue spilling forth like scripture. "Killing Andrew, killing Camael… it isn't vengeance. It's a rite. A test of loyalty to something greater than ourselves. That building" he gestured behind him without turning "was a tomb. A monument to the lie of order. But now it's gone. Now, with the old gods dead, we can shape Nimerath the way it was meant to be. As Ezra dreamed. As I was promised."
Caspian staggered to his feet, still shaking. "They're not all dead," he rasped, defiant. "They can't be. Andrew—Camael—Layla…"
Cain didn't speak at first. His jaw tightened, and the winds around him slowed.
"They are," he finally said. "I felt it. Like a thread snapping." His voice was low and grim. "They're gone."
Caspian shook his head, stumbling back a step. "No. That's not possible. That's not—"
But then another voice cut through the haze.
"Not everyone."
It was not loud. It did not need to be.
The ash parted like curtains as Alexander emerged from the rubble, his body hunched, limping slightly, his hair matted with soot and blood. In his arms, he cradled Layla—her lifeless body held close to his chest, her dark hair trailing, streaked with ash. Her arms dangled, her head slumped sideways.
Alexander's eyes were ablaze—not with fire, but with something far more terrifying. Fury. Pure, incandescent, and unfiltered. It churned around him like a storm, and from the center of his chest, orange energy began to ripple and expand. It coiled around his body, forming radiant sigils in the air, streaks of fire arcing from his shoulders to the ground. The heat of it made the earth tremble.
"I'll leave this one to you, Caspian," Julius said with a grin, snapping his fingers. His body dissolved into a cascade of hissing acid, seeping between the shattered stones and vanishing into the sewers below. In his place, the ground smoked—only a faint scorch mark remained, as if reality itself recoiled from where he had stood.
Alexander, blinded by fury, didn't see it. His vision, saturated with grief and fire, locked instead on Caspian—standing in the smoke with Cain beside him, staring at the girl he'd tried so hard to protect.
"You killed them," Alexander said, his voice low and jagged, like a blade drawn slowly across stone.
"You killed her."
The words struck harder this time. Not a whisper, not a question.
A judgment.
Alexander's energy surged upward in a towering spiral, a vortex of molten orange that cracked the ground beneath his feet. It churned through the air like a second sun, searing the edges of the broken landscape. Fire licked upward from the soil, coiling around him like serpents. The heat bent the trees, blistered the earth, and set the dead grass alight.
Cain stepped forward instinctively, placing himself between Caspian and Alexander. "Wait. Alexander, listen—he didn't—"
"You're protecting him?" Alexander snarled, not even looking at Cain. "After what he did?"
"I didn't do anything," Caspian breathed, voice tight, barely audible. "I didn't blow it up. Julius—he—"
But the words fell apart. The moment felt too fragile to hold them.
Alexander didn't care.
He took a step forward, eyes never leaving Caspian. "You were inside. You walked out. And now they're all dead. Layla. Andrew. Camael. Everyone."
His hands clenched at his sides, trembling, glowing. "And you're alive."
Caspian's throat tightened. "It wasn't me. I tried to stop it—"
"Then why are you the only one standing?" Alexander's voice cracked now, fury caught in the jagged edges of grief. "Why are you the one still breathing when the rest of them are buried beneath a hundred tons of stone and fire?"
Cain grabbed Caspian's arm, pulling him back. "He's not listening. We need to move."
But Caspian didn't move. Couldn't.
Alexander stepped closer. The ground where he stood began to split open, flame and light bleeding through the cracks. The air itself bent around him.
"You burned down everything," he said, his voice suddenly low again—murderously quiet.
"But you forgot one thing."
His eyes, filled with death, locked onto Caspian.
"I'm still alive."