"What's there?" Loren's voice shattered the heavy silence. He struggled to his feet, dusting the thick black ash from his clothes, and squinted intently in the direction Quinn and Erika were fixed on, his brow furrowed. "Besides burnt rock and craters, I see nothing." His tone held genuine confusion, even a touch of pique at being excluded.
Quinn didn't answer immediately. After a few seconds, he spoke, his voice low and certain: "Something should be there." He abruptly raised his hand, pointing—his finger steady, not a tremble. "You two," he commanded, his gaze still locked ahead, "don't move. Stay put."
But in Erika's vision, the world was utterly different. The end of Quinn's finger was not empty. That strange point of silver light not only persisted but grew clearer under his intense focus. It was like a tiny nebula composed of countless minute silver sands, suspended half a foot in the air, undergoing complex, constant topological transformations. Geometric structures briefly coalesced only to disintegrate.
Danger. Instinct screamed in his mind. This was something more fundamental, more alien, than any battle he'd witnessed.
"There must be something!" Loren hissed at Erika, his voice conspiratorial, though his eyes darted toward Quinn's cautious, advancing back. "We... just get a little closer? He didn't say we couldn't look from a distance..."
Erika's throat was dry. Reason said to obey Quinn's warning. But the pull of the silver light on his Marks and the deep hunger for the truth of any 'anomaly' tore at him like opposing forces.
Like thieves, they held their breath, treading on the brittle ground, following Quinn. The Sorcerer's full attention seemed captured by the silver light he himself couldn't see; he didn't look back.
As the distance closed, the silver light in Erika's sight grew more 'active'. The space around it looked unnaturally 'clean'. Other residual energy waves in the air seemed to fade and dissipate as they approached it.
Finally, Quinn stopped directly below the silver light—or rather, where the light seemed to 'grow' from. He crouched, his movements agonizingly slow and careful, as if disarming an ancient, hair-trigger mechanism.
Erika and Loren crept close enough to see.
In the next instant, Erika's heart was seized by an icy hand.
Beneath the silver light was not some strange artifact or energy crystal, as he'd imagined.
It was the Grey Cloak who had held the great book. Or rather, his 'remains'.
He was sitting, propped against a half-melted black boulder, his posture not even particularly disheveled. The grey robe covered him fully, hood pulled low over his face. At first glance, he might have seemed merely to be resting after exhaustion.
But Erika felt the absolute void instantly.
No energy fluctuation. Not a trace.
On this battlefield, freshly scoured by the highest-intensity energy, where every inch of air and soil was soaked in chaotic 'echoes', a perfect, chilling energy vacuum existed around this body. As if he himself, along with all the power and life Marks he once possessed, had been cleanly erased, leaving only this physical shell.
And that point of ever-shifting silver light hung eerily above his chest. As its glow flowed, it would occasionally, for an extremely brief instant, penetrate the robe's fabric, illuminating the intact, yet pale as marble, utterly lifeless skin beneath.
Quinn's hand—knuckled and grimy—now reached for the edge of the seated Grey Cloak's hood with a reverence that was almost religious, suppressing a violent tremor. His fingertips lingered on the coarse cloth for a heartbeat, as if gathering courage or confirming this wasn't another illusion.
Then, he yanked it up—
Hsss...
Erika heard the sharp, involuntary hiss of indrawn breath—his own and Loren's beside him. His own lungs felt frozen by that cold gasp, followed by dizziness as blood rushed to his head.
It was not a human face.
Or rather, it had been, but was now completely covered and transformed by something cold, precise, and inhuman.
Beneath the hood, the exposed head and neck were sheathed in a form-fitting casing of matte, bluish-grey metal, seamless except for a few tiny mesh vents near the nose and mouth. Countless filaments, finer than hair but tougher, dark conduits—like twisted veins or nerve bundles—emerged from the edges of the metal casing, the nape of the neck, even the temples, burrowing deep into the body beneath the robe. Some conduit junctions flickered with faint, ice-blue indicator lights.
And the most scalp-crawling sight was the crown.
No hair. In its place, a more complex apparatus—a fusion of insectoid compound eye and precision instrument panel—was directly embedded into the skull. Its surface was covered in minute grooves, micro-crystalline lenses, and thicker bundles of multi-colored conduits that gathered and snaked into the robe's depths. The entire device was integrated with the facial casing below, a horrifying helmet seemingly custom-forged for this skull, for confinement, monitoring, or conveying something.
Erika's eyes instinctively searched for the Marks—the most immediate, unforgeable symbols of Sanctum power. There had to be traces.
None.
Within the open collar of the robe, on the metal-clad chest, where arms might be… only cold, seamless metal and conduits met his gaze. No Mark-glows. Not even the texture of skin or pores.
This body seemed emptied of all that was 'human', leaving only a carefully modified container for holding 'something else'.
"This explains it…" Quinn's voice was dry as sandpaper. His hand, reaching toward the remains, betrayed its uncontrollable tremor now. A low laugh bubbled up, a guttural rumble at first, then becoming a suppressed, grating sound squeezed through his teeth. "Hah... haha... The damnable Accords... Hahahaha..."
He was laughing, but there was no joy in it. Only overwhelming irony, pent-up rage, and bottomless desolation. Erika didn't understand the 'Accords', but the laughter was an ice pick to his eardrums, chilling his heart.
Before he could process the dual shock of the Grey Cloak's inhuman form and the silver light's eerie presence, or grasp the unsettling link between them, he instinctively turned his stiff neck to look at Quinn, seeking some explanation—
And he saw something that froze his soul deeper than the metal skull.
Quinn had turned.
The face that usually held mockery, weariness, or cold scrutiny was now a shattered mirror. Extreme emotions—sharp fragments—cut and reassembled upon it.
Rage, aged for countless years, mixed with blood and fire, etched fine, severe lines at the corners of his eyes. His jaw was clenched, the line of it sharp as a blade.
Grief surged up in its wake, profound as impenetrable night, saturating his gaze. The light within seemed to mourn silently for a shadow long dead, now torn open anew by this sight.
And fear—not of the present danger—was more fundamental. A chill from glimpsing an ultimate truth or immutable fate. Cold, clear-headed, seeping slowly, inexorably into the bone.
Most terrifyingly, these emotions had no stable order. Like uncontrolled tides, they crashed wildly against that pale face, alternating, brutally suppressed by a sudden, forcibly imposed calm. That calm was an ill-fitting shell of ice over boiling lava, making his expression switch between instant distortion and abrupt, rigid numbness—muscles twitching minutely, eyes burning one moment, utterly hollow the next.
This was no longer the inscrutable Black Tower Sorcerer. This was a man struck full-force by a brutal truth, his inner world silently collapsing.
Erika's legs gave way. His already feeble strength drained utterly. He collapsed heavily onto the scorching earth with a thud, dust rising. He couldn't even feel the searing pain under him, only the pure psychic impact from Quinn's face, leaving him cold all over, teeth beginning to chatter uncontrollably.
"See… see it now…" Quinn's voice came again, but the tone had changed. The laughter grew more manic, more broken. He lurched two steps closer, that face of madness and ice magnified before Erika and the equally terrified Loren. "The bastards… what they've done… Hahahahaha!"
He jabbed a violently trembling finger toward the conduit-covered 'remains'.
"Compromise?" He was nearly roaring, flecks of spittle and tobacco scent spraying out, eyes bloodshot. "This is the price of compromise!"
He practically roared it, the sound echoing across the wasteland, startling a few ash-eating carrion birds in the distance.
After the roar, a more suffocating, deathly silence fell. Only Quinn's ragged, uneven panting and the drumbeat of Erika's own heart.
That eerie silver light still hovered above the Grey Cloak's chest, blinking quietly, rhythmically, tracing its incomprehensible geometries, as if mockingly indifferent to all the rage, grief, and fear.
Erika slumped there, unable to tear his eyes from Quinn's collapsing face and the Grey Cloak's metal skull. The foundations of the world were cracking before him, accompanied by the flicker of silver light and Quinn's mad laughter.
The Black Tower continued to devour light, indifferent to the surrounding devastation—an eternal, cold observer.
Erika watched Quinn's profile. Eventually, only a weary calm remained on that face, brows slightly furrowed.
"Enough," Quinn finally spoke. His voice had regained the familiar steadiness Erika knew—roughened by smoke, tinged with the fatigue of long nights, unhurried. As if the violent interlude of mad laughter, roaring, and collapse had truly been just a wisp of smoke scattered by the wind, never happened. "No more standing here in the wind."
The wind was indeed blowing, whipping stinging, scorching ash against their faces. The lingering energy still made Erika's skin itch unpleasantly.
"Inside the Tower…" Quinn paused, gaze still on the Tower, "...is at least more comfortable than here."
He said no more and began to walk.
His steps lacked their former combat-ready or casual firmness; they seemed ethereal, as if the scorched earth beneath were soft cotton, requiring extra effort. Erika noticed that the fingers at his side still held a faint, uncontrollable tremor—the physiological remnant of overexertion and emotional shock.
Yet, his back was perfectly straight. The stained dark coat fluttered slightly in the wasteland wind, outlining a lean yet exceptionally resilient frame. Step by step, he led the way toward the Black Tower, pace not fast, but with undeniable purpose. That silhouette, against the vast, scarred backdrop, looked both solitary and imbued with a silent resolve to return to the Tower, to reclaim strength.
Erika remained seated, the scorching heat beneath him becoming more distinct. He watched Quinn's back, then couldn't help looking back at the seated, conduit-laden Grey Cloak remains. The shifting silver light above its chest still blinked stubbornly, resonating with a cold, mysterious intimacy with the primal Marks within him.
Then, the sound of fabric rustling and a shaky inhale came from beside him. Loren was struggling to his feet, dusting himself off, face still pale but with that noble, forced composure fighting to return. He followed Erika's glance toward the remains, pressed his lips together, then turned to Erika with an extremely strained, uglier-than-crying smile.
"Let's go," Loren said. He took a deep breath, as if to dispel the chill in his chest. Despite the lingering fear in his eyes, he offered an almost absurd attempt to rationalize the horror: "The Creed's golems… are really sturdy."
Golems.
The word struck Erika's chaotic mind like a block of ice.
Quinn's silhouette was shrinking ahead.
Loren was already moving, staggering to follow.
Erika pushed himself up slowly with his hands, legs still weak. He cast one last look at the silver light. It remained, blinking coldly, like an eye of riddles opened just for him.
Then, he turned and began trudging across the scorching wasteland, step by step, toward the silent Black Tower and the equally silent, complex figure before it.
The wind blew from behind, carrying ashes and Loren's misunderstood exclamation into the distance.
Ahead, Quinn stepped into the rift without hesitation. His form was instantly swallowed by dense darkness, leaving only the rift shimmering faintly at the border between the scorched earth and the Tower.
Loren hurried after, half his body already inside the rift. Perhaps sensing Erika's hesitation, he stopped, turning at the border of light and dark, and waved vigorously at Erika still standing on the wasteland. His lips moved, shouting something, but the sound seemed swallowed by the rift's edge, leaving only a blurred mouth-shape.
Erika stood a few paces away, scorching earth underfoot, the rift symbolizing an unknown sanctuary and his companion's summons before him. A tangle of emotions and information clogged his chest, tightening his throat, weighing down his steps.
As if pulled by an invisible thread, he turned against his will.
His gaze swept across the empty, deathly land, landing precisely where the seated Grey Cloak remains had been.
That strange, shifting silver light, perceptible only to him, was undergoing a startling transformation.
It no longer blinked steadily or traced geometries. It was fracturing, like the most fragile crystal shattering from within, disintegrating into countless finer, yet still radiant, motes of silvery dust. These motes didn't scatter in the wind. Guided, they drifted down like the lightest, glimmering winter snow, silently covering the metal-clad head and chest of the Grey Cloak remains.
The moment the light-dust touched the 'remains'—
They dissolved, evaporated as if contacting an invisible flame! No smoke, no heat-shimmer. Just matter disappearing cleanly and efficiently, a process chilling to the core.
Erika whipped his head back around, heart hammering, not daring to look again. He forced his leaden legs to move, step by step, toward the dark rift. Loren was fully inside now, only a hand still extended, beckoning anxiously.
Just as half his body was about to cross the threshold between the Tower's warm inner glow and the wasteland's scorching air, Erika looked back one final time.
His gaze swept the land just scoured by Divine Retribution, consumption, secrets, and obliteration.
The wind seemed stronger, whipping up more ash into tiny vortices.
Charred, flat, empty.
Apart from the indelible, massive craters and vitrified plates scarring the landscape, there was no 'thing' left to clearly testify to what had just transpired.
He hesitated no longer and slipped wholly into the darkness of the rift.
Behind him, the scorched earth returned to a dead, perfect, memory-devouring wasteland in the wind.