The blood artery wasn't a river. It was a machine.
Deep beneath the dead hills south of Vharnyx Keep, Jayden and the shadow team crept along a massive tunnel made of pulsating obsidian stone. The walls throbbed like veins, glowing faintly red with siphoned power — liquid blood magic, pulled from ancient burial pits, the kind only the Hollow dared to use.
Elira, limping beside him, whispered, "This place is alive."
Jayden nodded. "It's not just fuel. It's a ritual."
They had passed remains on the way — shriveled bodies, half-fused to the walls, mouths open in frozen screams. These weren't rebels. These were sacrifices. Hundreds. Maybe more.
He pushed forward, jaw clenched. Every step here felt like wading through ash and history. Seraya's magic glyph blinked on his gauntlet, guiding them toward the artery core — the heart of the network that kept Ashkar's forges running.
The group was down to six now. Two wolves. A rogue spellborn. Elira. Jayden. And the silent priest named Aros, whose fingers never stopped tracing the glyphs on his skin.
They reached the end of the corridor.
The core chamber opened like the belly of a beast — massive, circular, and breathing. Giant blood-stained gears turned in slow rhythm, grinding ancient bones into mist. In the center stood a spire of crimson crystal, floating above a pool of black liquid.
Aros whispered, "This is wrong. This isn't just energy."
Jayden stepped closer. "Then what is it?"
Aros closed his eyes. "It's memory. Souls. Bloodline echoes. He's burning the past to shape the future."
"Then we stop it," Jayden said.
He raised his hand.
White fire sparked.
The crystal pulsed.
And then… screamed.
It wasn't sound.
It was remembrance — centuries of voices roaring at once, not in pain… but in warning.
Behind them, the walls shuddered.
Dozens of hollow-faced guardians slid from the stone — figures made of bone and ash, eyes burning like dying stars. They didn't speak. They attacked.
"DEFEND THE CORE!" Elira shouted.
The chamber lit with chaos. Blades met bone. Magic shattered the floor. Jayden launched himself into the air, landing on one guardian and smashing its head with a strike powered by the Godfragment.
The wolves circled the spire, fighting like shadows.
Aros chanted louder, drawing a burning rune beneath the floating crystal.
Jayden reached him. "What are you doing?"
"Freeing them," Aros said, sweat dripping from his brow. "If we don't… they'll never stop."
One of the guardians drove a blade toward Jayden's back.
Elira intercepted it — barely — her dagger shattering in the process.
Jayden turned, grabbed the creature's neck, and flung it into the blood pool.
The liquid boiled.
Then hissed.
The spire cracked.
Aros screamed the final word of the release ritual.
The crystal exploded.
A wave of red light rippled out, flattening everything in the chamber. The guardians froze, then disintegrated into fine ash.
Jayden lay still, breathing hard, staring up at the broken ceiling. The air smelled like copper and lightning.
The artery was gone.
The connection was broken.
Ashkar's forges… would go silent.
Elira helped him sit up.
"You did it."
Jayden looked at his trembling hands.
"We did."
---
Miles away, back in Graveton, a bell rang.
Not in mourning.
In victory.
The people poured into the streets — vampires and humans side by side, lighting red lanterns, singing old rebel songs, weeping in disbelief.
For the first time in decades… hope didn't feel like a lie.
But in the quiet of the old library, Seraya watched the flames outside with worry.
"We've hurt him," she whispered.
Fen stood at the window. "Then he'll come."
She turned to the shadows.
"And we better be ready when he does."