Snow fell again before noon.
Not gentle, but heavy — each flake sharp as glass.
The group moved through the ruins in silence, smoke still rising from what remained of the fortress. Every step broke through thin layers of frozen ash. The wind had stopped, yet the air felt alive — whispering, watching.
Ragnar walked ahead, his aura dimmed but unstable. The shadow beneath him moved like it had its own heartbeat.
Selene followed close behind. Her chains were coiled around her arm now, glowing faintly with runic light. She glanced at Ragnar, hesitated, then said quietly, "You felt it too, didn't you?"
Ragnar didn't look back. "The pull?"
"Yes."
"It wasn't just me."
Kael slowed his pace to join them. "That creature wasn't guarding the fortress," he said. "It was sealing something below it. When it died, the barrier broke."
Selene's eyes widened slightly. "So whatever called to us…"
Ragnar finished for her. "…is awake now."
They descended through what was once the fortress's courtyard. Beneath the broken stone, a spiral staircase had emerged — leading down into a narrow tunnel carved from black ice.
The walls shimmered faintly, alive with reflections that didn't match their movements. Sometimes, Ragnar saw another version of himself walking beside him — shadowed, faceless, but eerily familiar.
Dax muttered, "I hate places that think."
Ruin gave him a half-smile. "Then you'll hate this one twice as much."
The deeper they went, the colder it became. Not the kind of cold that froze flesh, but the kind that numbed thought. Even Selene's aura began to waver, her breath short and uneven.
"Don't stop," Ragnar said quietly. His voice sounded distant in the tunnel. "If you do, the silence will take you."
At last, they reached the bottom — a cavern vast enough to swallow the fortress above. Pillars of ice rose like the ribs of a god, each one etched with ancient runes.
In the center stood a black mirror, taller than any man, perfectly smooth. Beneath its surface, faint shapes moved — too slow to be reflections.
Kael approached cautiously. "A sealing artifact."
Selene shook her head. "No… this is a conduit. It connects to the Nexus veins."
Ragnar stepped closer. The shadow inside him pulsed, drawn toward the mirror like a heartbeat answering another. His fingers brushed the surface — and instantly, the world split apart.
He saw flashes.
A temple of frost and bone.
A thousand priests chanting in a dead language.
A man — or something like one — bound in chains of light, screaming as shadows devoured his soul.
The mirror wasn't glass. It was memory.
And buried within it… was a name.
"Aethern. The First Law Thief."
Ragnar staggered back, eyes wide. The shadow inside him roared in recognition. His body burned, veins glowing black.
Selene caught him before he fell. "Ragnar!"
He gasped, forcing the words out. "It… showed me him. The first one. The origin of all this."
Kael's gaze darkened. "Then the legends were true."
Ruin frowned. "What legends?"
Kael's voice was grim. "That the Law Thieves were born from the fall of a god — one who tried to steal Heaven's own Law and bind it to his will. The Heavens shattered him, and from his ashes came the first thief."
Selene whispered, "Aethern…"
Ragnar looked back at the mirror. "He's still here."
The mirror cracked.
Just once.
A sound so sharp it silenced the world.
Then the runes on the walls flared bright, one by one — and the cavern began to tremble.
Dax shouted, "We should not be here when that thing finishes whatever it's doing!"
But it was too late.
A hand emerged from the mirror — black, skeletal, wrapped in light that bent wrong. The air filled with a voice that wasn't sound at all, but thought pressed into their skulls.
"Who steals the Law that once was mine?"
The shadow within Ragnar surged forward, instinctive and furious.
Ragnar's own voice echoed with it — a perfect overlap of man and void. "I am the last thief. The one who finishes what you began."
The air cracked. The being stepped through.
Its body was a shifting storm of light and darkness — neither human nor divine. Its eyes burned like frozen suns. Each step it took made the cavern twist and rewrite itself.
Kael's blade came free in an instant.
"Everyone spread—"
The creature moved faster than thought. One gesture, and the ground split. Ruin barely blocked the strike, his sword screaming against impossible pressure.
Selene's chains lashed out, wrapping around its arm — and shattered like glass.
"Useless," she hissed, stumbling back.
Ragnar steadied himself. The shadow behind him unfurled, enormous and alive, its tendrils spreading across the ice. He could feel Aethern's echo — not as an enemy, but as a reflection.
"You're not alive," Ragnar said. "You're what's left of him."
The creature's head tilted. "And you are what remains of me."
Then came the pain.
A wave of energy slammed into Ragnar, ripping through every barrier. He screamed as the Laws within him collided — shards of forbidden power tearing at his soul.
Selene's voice reached him faintly, desperate: "Ragnar, stop! You can't fight it head-on—"
But the shadow had already chosen.
It lunged.
Darkness met light, the explosion swallowing the cavern.
For a moment, everything ceased — no sound, no air, no thought. Just pressure and the burning roar of creation unraveling.
When the world returned, Ragnar was on his knees. The mirror was gone. The cavern had fallen silent again.
But something had changed.
The shadow no longer whispered. It breathed.
Kael approached slowly. "What happened?"
Ragnar looked up, eyes glowing faintly gold and black. "I absorbed it."
Dax froze. "You what?"
Selene stared at him in disbelief. "You took in the remnant of a god."
Ragnar rose unsteadily, his aura flickering. "No… not a god. Just what was left of one."
The air trembled around him. The marks from Aethern's runes now glowed beneath his skin, faint but alive.
Kael's tone was cold. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Ragnar met his eyes. "I finished what he started."
He turned toward the tunnel, his voice quiet but firm. "We move north. Whatever this place awakened… it won't stop here."
Outside, the storm had died. The northern lights hung low in the sky — brighter than before, almost close enough to touch.
For the first time in days, Selene spoke without looking at him. "If he was the first thief…"
Ragnar nodded. "Then I'm the last."
The wind carried his words into the endless white, and somewhere beneath the ice, something old began to stir — listening.