They had tried everything.
Every dodge, every angle, every desperate tactical rhythm between Noah's magical bombardments and Abel's precise sword strikes. And still, the Weaver stood untouched at the center of it all.
He didn't run. He didn't hide. He simply stood amidst the chaos like a conductor orchestrating a symphony of death—fingers twitching, threads alive, ghosts wailing in the walls.
Noah's arm trembled from overuse. His breath came quick, ribs tight beneath sweat-drenched robes. Soot clung to his skin like ash from a burned-out memory.
"He's—laughing," he muttered, eyes narrowing at the twitch beneath the porcelain mask. The corners of the stitched lips had curled just enough to be called a smile. "I think I hate him more than the meat guy."
"He doesn't bleed," Abel growled beside him, flicking phantom ash from his cheek. "Every strike goes through. Like he's not really there."
Noah's eyes swept the room.
Not just a fight. A stage.
"Not an illusion," he said, more to himself than to Abel. "A diversion."
Abel turned, blade angled low. "What?"
Noah's gaze darted to the thousands of threads pouring from the Weaver's robes. They snaked into the walls, ceiling, floor—all converging in one direction. Through the stone. Past the limits of the room.
He reached down, hand pressed to the floor, focusing past the pain, past the mana drain, drawing in a thread of divine perception.
And then he saw it.
The pattern beneath the chaos.
A vast tapestry of connections, all winding toward a single point—
Behind the stained-glass mural.
"There," Noah pointed. "Behind the mural. That's where the real one is."
Abel didn't wait. He sprinted.
Noah followed, ducking under sweeping ghost limbs and twitching marionette husks. None tried to stop them. The Weaver was watching.
They stopped beneath the mural—a weeping mother rendered in colored glass, cracked from age and magic.
Noah raised a hand and conjured one final spell.
A pulse of raw force slammed forward, shattering the mural in a rain of broken color.
Behind it—a spiral staircase wrapped in living thread.
Abel met Noah's eyes.
"Let's end this."
They climbed.
The chamber at the top was quiet.
Thread draped the ceiling like webbing. It pulsed faintly, veins of soul-light running through rope-thick cords. The air smelled of copper and something burnt.
At the center of the room, the Weaver sat.
Not standing. Not fighting.
Just seated. Slumped. Hollow.
A corpse stitched to the living, strings dancing from his fingers in slow, painful patterns. Each movement twisted a puppet. An illusion. A spell. He was the puppeteer of a thousand dead things.
And then—he looked up.
No words. No spell.
Just recognition.
Noah didn't wait.
He hurled his kinetic cards with renewed force, each one crackling with raw explosive energy. They struck with thunderous cracks, tearing through enchantments, illusions, and control lines alike—not elegant, not subtle, but devastating.
And then the Weaver moved.
Black mass poured from beneath his robes—not smoke, not magic, but something older. Something wrong. A slick, living ichor spilled across the stone, writhing like a hive of serpents.
From its depths, tendrils burst forth.
Whip-like and sharp, they lashed toward Noah and Abel, screaming through the air. One slammed into a column and shattered it in a spray of stone. Another coiled around a broken chandelier and flung it like a weapon.
The Weaver rose slowly, limbs jerking on strings made of shadow. His mask now cracked—black ichor bleeding through the fractures like tar.
He had become the spell.
The fight was no longer against a man.
It was against what he had become.
Each time a thread coiled toward Abel, Noah's tendrils would snap around it, crush it, and fling it away, leaving behind trails of fading shadow smoke.
Threads surged from the walls, the floor, the Weaver's spine—but they met something darker, something feral that didn't care about cost or consequence.
Noah's kinetic cards sliced through the web with brute magical force—no elegance, just impact. Each card shimmered in the air like a blade of raw willpower, exploding on contact with the threads. They weren't fancy spells or elegant incantations, just pure, desperate power launched at high speed.
Abel cut cleanly through the ones Noah couldn't reach. One swing severed the threads that controlled the puppet body downstairs.
It collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
The room screamed—an actual sound, high and shrill, as if the cords themselves were sentient and afraid.
But the real body remained.
Wilted. Fragile. Vulnerable.
Noah hurled his final kinetic blast.
It struck the Weaver in the chest.
Radiant energy exploded outward in a flash of gold and white.
Abel lunged forward and drove his sword through the man's heart.
The entire tower shuddered.
A low groan passed through the walls, as if the castle itself had been holding its breath.
SYSTEM NOTICE
MAJOR BOSS DEFEATED: The Third Weaver – Lord of Hollow Threads
Rewards:
• 15,000 EXP
• Unique Item: "Threadcutter" (Weapon – Abel only)
• Quest Complete: Break the Pattern
• Hidden Quest Unlocked: The End of the Curse
The threads fell silent.
Noah sank to his knees, breathing hard.
Abel stood over the corpse, blade still lowered, eyes locked on the lifeless form.
"…You okay?" Abel asked eventually.
Noah looked up, lips twitching. "I think I just permanently ruined knitting for myself."
Abel let out the faintest breath of laughter and extended his hand.
Noah took it.
Their fingers closed.
And for a moment—a long one—he didn't let go.
The castle exhaled.
Not in pain, but in relief.
The threads that had once pulsed with life—or something close to it—were now limp cords disintegrating into dust. The air lightened, if only slightly. Dust motes danced through the fading sunlight streaming from the shattered stained-glass window.
Noah leaned into Abel's hand a moment longer, then exhaled shakily.
"So," he rasped, "on a scale from 'that went well' to 'I should be dead,' where do you think we landed?"
Abel tilted his head. "You didn't die."
"Barely," Noah muttered, limping toward one of the broken chairs and plopping into it with a groan. "Do we get a sticker for teamwork? A trauma bond badge?"
Abel crossed the chamber, retrieved a torn cloth from a collapsed tapestry, and tossed it to him. "You're bleeding."
Noah dabbed at the cut on his cheek with a wince. "If I bleed one more time in this haunted IKEA nightmare, I'm filing for ghost insurance."
Abel knelt beside him. "You held your own."
Noah blinked. "Wow. Is that… praise?"
"Don't get used to it," Abel said.
"Too late," Noah grinned.
There was a pause.
Wind drifted through the broken glass, bringing the scent of rain-wet stone and burned thread.
Abel stood, walking toward the Weaver's body—now little more than a withered husk.
Noah watched him go, then said, "You know, you looked kind of hot back there."
Abel didn't turn.
"Like," Noah continued, "dangerous. Bloody. Very 'daddy issues but make it royal trauma chic.'"
Abel turned slowly. "You're aware I just stabbed a man in the heart?"
"Mhm," Noah said. "And you did it with flair."
Abel walked back, crouched down, close.
Too close.
"I could stab you," he said.
Noah's heart kicked in his chest. "See? Still hot."
Abel exhaled. Almost a smile.
"You're impossible."
"And yet," Noah said, voice quieter now, "still alive. Because of you."
Something shifted.
A subtle tension, pulling like thread between them.
Noah let the bloody cloth drop to his lap.
"Abel."
"Yes?"
"If you're going to kiss me, now's the time. Before I pass out or ruin the mood with another dumb joke."
Abel blinked.
Cracked open. Just a little.
He didn't move.
Didn't pull back either.
Abel leaned in.
Closer. Just enough for Noah to see the scar beneath Abel's jaw. The old kind. Earned.
His fingers brushed Noah's—
CLINK.
A sharp click echoed.
Noah flinched. "You have got to be kidding me," he groaned, whipping his head toward the noise. "I finally get one moment—one possible kiss—and the creepy dungeon decides now's the time to unlock its ancient IKEA special?"
He looked back, ready to complain more—only to freeze.
Abel hadn't moved.
There was something almost unreadable in his face. Something Noah wasn't ready for.
"Wait," he said slowly. "You were actually going to kiss me?"
Abel didn't answer.
Didn't have to.
Noah blinked. "Holy shit. You were."
Abel turned slightly, voice low. "Focus. The wall just opened."
At the far end of the chamber, the stone had cracked apart. A faint, pulsing golden light spilled through.
A chest.
Ornate. Ancient. Blackened metal traced with silver runes. The lock had clicked loose. The lid, slightly ajar.
Noah exhaled. "That's either a reward or a curse with amazing taste in aesthetics."
Abel straightened. "Only one way to find out."
Noah groaned, dragging himself upright. "If it eats me, I swear to every dead god in this castle, I'm haunting you."
Abel smirked faintly.
"No promises."