A girl lay unconscious atop a stone platform at the center of a vast, cathedral-like chamber. The silence was broken only by the soft flicker of candlelight, dozens of flames stationed in each corner, casting long shadows on the walls. The air was thick with the scent of old stone and dust.
Seven figures surrounded the platform. Three men, four women.. each clad in white ceremonial robes, a red scarf tied tightly around their waists. Their faces, partially obscured by the cowls of their robes, were grim and focused, illuminated by the guttering flames.
They whispered in unison, their voices inaudible. It was no ordinary prayer. It was a chant. Their eyes, visible in the flickering light, held almost a fanatical gleam, fixed on the unconscious girl at the altar's center.
The room had only five narrow windows, high and gothic, one on each wall, too high to offer a view of anything but the oppressive dark sky. A single wooden door, heavy and iron-banded, stood at the rear, directly beneath a pendulum which was two inches above it.
The girl stirred and her limbs twitched. A soft groan escaped her lips. Her breath quickened, ragged and shallow, as if she were surfacing from a deep, troubled dream. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling against the lingering darkness of unconsciousness.
A grey-haired man stepped forward. A thin, almost imperceptible scar ran from his temple down to his jawline.
As the girl regained consciousness, panic flared in her face, a raw, desperate fear. She struggled against invisible restraints, her hands and feet bound securely to the cold stone. Her blindfold slipped off with her frantic movements, revealing wide, terror-stricken eyes.
Terror bloomed in her eyes, dilating her pupils to black saucers. She saw the robes. The candles. The platform. The shadowy figures surrounding her, their faces now clearer in the wavering light. She instinctively knew, with a horrifying certainty, what this was.
The man seized her jaw in an aggressive manner, his fingers pressing into the sensitive flesh. From beneath his sleeve, he brought out a small glass bottle.. its contents was a swirling, black liquid, thick and alive.
The liquid seemed to pulse and the air around it grew thicker and suffocating.
He tilted the vial toward her lips, forcing the girl to drink it.
"Drink, child," he rasped, his voice like grinding stones.
"Embrace the gift."
"No!" she screamed, her voice hoarse, tearing at her throat. She clenched her teeth shut, twisting her head violently from side to side, desperate to avoid the noxious fluid. Her entire being recoiled from it, an instinctual revulsion.
But a single, viscous drop slipped in, dark as crude oil, warm and strangely alive on her tongue. A searing, icy sensation shot through her, a wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. Her body convulsed, a silent scream building in her chest.
And then... the door exploded.
Wood shattered into a cloud of splinters, raining down like deadly confetti. The iron bands shrieked as they tore free from their moorings. The pendulum above snapped from its chain, crashing to the floor with a metallic wail. This sent a chilling, echoing sound across the room.
A gust of wind, impossibly cold and carrying the scent of rain and ozone, surged into the room, making the candlelight dance wildly, threatening to extinguish the flames.
Smoke, thick and ethereal, poured into the room from the now-gaping maw of the doorway, curling like a serpent around their feet, obscuring vision, bringing with it an unearthly chill.
From within that smoke, a figure emerged.
She walked slowly, each step deliberate, unhurried, as if she owned the very air she breathed. With each stride, the candlelight struggled to reveal more of her. An armored silhouette cloaked in shadows and steam, her form both slender and powerfully built. The smoke seemed to cling to her, rising from her, a part of her very essence.
Runes etched in black ink coiled around her left hand, intricate and ancient, symbols that seemed to writhe and shift in the dim light. Smoke rose from the marks as if her very skin exhaled it, a constant, ethereal emission. At the nape of her neck, just beneath the collar of her suit, the faint outline of flame-like sigils glowed like embers, a subtle, internal fire.
Smoke trailed behind her as though it obeyed her will, a living extension of her presence, obscuring her path even as she moved, creating a shroud of mystery and power.
"Hey! You don't just barge into the Cathedral of Nocturne!" one of the robed women yelled, her voice sharp with indignation, still too blind in her fanaticism to recognize the silent, advancing threat.
"Be gone! You're not wanted here!"
The woman said nothing. She squatted low, pressing her pinkie finger to the cold stone floor. The gesture was deliberate, almost ritualistic, a mimicry of their own sacred acts. Then, with a slow, theatrical motion, she gently tapped it to her temple, her eyes never leaving the horrified face of the grey-haired man.
In a voice low and mocking, laced with a chilling sweetness that contrasted sharply with the grim surroundings, she whispered:
"Oh hail Nocturne..."
She stood, rising to her full height. Her posture was relaxed, yet every line of her body spoke of coiled power.
Her tone shifted.. cold, sarcastic, yet laced with an undeniable, burning fury. Her lips curled into a strange, unhinged smile. A weird smile, one that didn't reach her eyes, which blazed with an icy intensity. She asked a normal question which still felt chilling:
"Am I welcome now?"
They couldn't answer because they recognized the uniform. The dark, sleek lines, the subtle hum of suppressed energy. The sheer audacity of her arrival. Fear, cold and sudden, gripped them.
She wore what could only be called armor stitched from ruin. Her jacket was a long, weather-beaten coat, patched with mismatched fabrics, scorch marks at the edges, and a high collar stained with soot and blood. It draped over her frame like a second skin, armored at the shoulders with scrap metal plates crudely bolted on.
Underneath, a threadbare thermal shirt clung to her torso, reinforced with dark mesh panels and leather straps. Her pants were heavy-duty, made of reinforced canvas, frayed at the knees, and covered in buckled holsters.. each one stuffed scavenged tech. A low hum occasionally crackled from the battery pack strapped to her thigh, powering the makeshift taser coiled at her hip.
Her boots were thick, steel-toed, caked in dried mud and ash, clearly walked through hell and back. Wrapped around her neck was a tattered scarf with hidden filters, doubling as a smog mask in the poisoned air. On her hands were fingerless gloves, patched and singed, offering little warmth but unmatched grip.
Goggles rested atop her head, the lenses cracked but still functional. Her entire ensemble screamed resilience, the kind built in fire and honed by collapse. She didn't look like a soldier or a rebel.
She looked like the last person you'd want surviving after the world ended.
"Me… Mecha…saint…" a man stammered, his voice cracking, his face paling under his cowl.
Another whimpered, shrinking back.
"Ah, just a damn Mechasaint," the grey-haired man sneered, attempting to regain control, his voice laced with false bravado. He straightened his shoulders, trying to project an air of superiority.
"Run along, little punk. There are no dead here for you to torment." He tried to dismiss her, to belittle her, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.
She tilted her head, almost amused, her strange smile widening. A low chuckle escaped her lips, a sound utterly out of place in the grim cathedral.
"Really?" she said, her voice featherlight, almost innocent.
"No dead? Ah. And here I was hoping for a little fun." The last word was a whisper, but it carried a promise of violence.
She reached into her coat, a movement so swift it was almost imperceptible, and pulled out a timepiece—sleek, black, and ticking with unnatural precision. It was no ordinary watch; it looked exactly like the watch with Ashwyn.
"You see this?" she asked, holding it up, letting the faint light illuminate her unreadable face. "My old one got stolen. It's a really special watch. A watch that tracks time..."
".... and Wraiths." Her eyes, fixed on the grey-haired man, glinted with a predatory hunger.
The ritual leader began to laugh.. a chilling, broken sound that echoed off the stone walls. He threw his head back, cackling wildly, a sound of defiance mixed with burgeoning madness.
"So you know?" he hissed, his face contorted.
"So what? We're no Wraiths, we are Sentinels.. Followers.. . Disciples of the darkness our Lord Nocturne gifted us. And you, a common Mechasaint, stand no cha—"
The laughter stopped. Abruptly. Horrifically.
Their bodies convulsed. Not just the grey-haired man, but all six remaining figures. White robes tore and shredded as their skin darkened, stretching into a leathery, inhuman form. Sinews bulged, muscles ripped and reformed. Joints snapped and popped with sickening wet sounds. Limbs elongated and twisted, growing thinner, more grotesque.
Fingers stretched into jagged, blackened claws, sharpened to a lethal edge. Their mouths split wider than nature allowed, a sickening tear of flesh, exposing rows of needle-like teeth, slick with an unseen substance.
Their eyes, once human, became bottomless black voids, reflecting no light, only an abyssal emptiness. Their forms became gaunt, skeletal, yet imbued with a terrifying, unnatural strength.
The chanting died. Replaced by guttural snarls, ragged gasps, and the chilling, dry rasp of their new forms. They no longer spoke because Wraiths can't.
The woman smiled wider, a genuine, terrifying grin now. Her left glove, the one with the runes, began to pulse with an ominous, internal light, smoke coiling from its very fabric. The air around her grew hot, shimmering.
"Ahhh… finally. Fun."
From her gloves, flame burst forth.. not merely fire, but controlled, malleable energy. It concentrated, molded, shaped itself with impossible speed, until it became a long, flickering sword of pure, contained fire.
The blade hummed with latent power, casting dancing shadows across her grim smile. The heat it radiated was intense, making the air crackle.
"I'm not just a Mechasaint,you fools" she whispered, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "I'm a Brand user."
"Say hello to my Brand type.. Pyrooformmm."
Then she moved. In less than half a second, she was behind two Wraiths. She moved with impossible grace. The Wraiths, though quick, were still in the process of orienting themselves. Her sword cleaved through them like butter, the searing flame instantly cauterizing the wounds.
There was no blood, only a shriek of agony that was cut short as their forms disintegrated into puddles of burning black ash, evaporating into the stone floor, leaving behind only a faint, metallic odor.
The remaining Wraiths, charged, but they were no match. They moved with unnatural speed, their claws extended, but she moved faster, guided by an instinct honed by countless battles against creatures similar.
She spun, a whirlwind of smoke and fire, parried a vicious claw swipe from one Wraith with the flat of her blade, sending sparks showering across the dark chamber. She then thrusted the flame sword into the Wraith. The Wraith in seconds burst into ashes.
One Wraith, a towering figure with unnaturally long limbs, lunged, its maw gaping, aiming for her throat. She ducked beneath its grasping claws, a trail of smoke marking her passage, then carved upward in one smooth, almost casual motion.
The Wraith shrieked, a sound of pure agony, as its chest exploded into flame, its form dissolving into black ash before it even hit the ground.
Another pounced from the shadows, a smaller, leaner creature, attempting to flank her. She turned with impossible speed, her free hand igniting a torrent of fire that engulfed it mid-air, a living fireball.
The Wraith screamed, a high-pitched, inhuman wail that quickly died as its body disintegrated into nothingness, leaving behind only the lingering scent of ozone and burnt bone.
Two more flanked her, charging in unison, their movements synchronized by some unspoken Wraith instinct, hoping to overwhelm her with sheer force. She welcomed them, her eyes gleaming with a fierce joy. Her blade danced between their strikes.
She parried one attack with a ringing clang, then twisted, evading the other. With a powerful, sweeping motion, she severed an arm from one Wraith, the limb disintegrating into smoke as it fell.
Before it could even register the loss, she plunged her sword through the other's skull, its black ichor sizzling on the stone floor as the creature dissolved.
Only one remained.
The grey-haired man.
Now fully transformed, a hulking, terrifying creature, larger and more robust than the others, his black eyes fixed on her with an unholy malice. His claws were long as daggers, razor-sharp, and his maw dripped with a foul, dark fluid.
He let out a low, guttural growl, a challenge and a promise of ultimate violence.
"Ahhh.. Make me proud.. Old man."