The ancient fortress had once been a crucible of war. Thirty years ago, the last survivors poured their dying magic into curses and traps. Now it stood silent in the forbidden zone of the Third District, wrapped in black mist and deeper shadows.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the air turned ice-cold and heavy, as though an invisible hand pressed against their chests. Inside, the castle was pitch-black save for the pale green glow of luminous moss crawling across the walls, barely lighting the way. Broken mechanical parts and bones littered the floor—some still clad in rusted armor, fingers curled around weapons long gone to rust. Fallen soldiers from that final battle.
Fa walked at the front, Star Eyes gleaming with wary light as they swept the darkness. His short dagger was held ready, its edge catching the moss-glow. Arya followed close, elven folding longbow drawn, a single arrow of pure magical light nocked and humming. TISK brought up the rear, warhammer half-raised, each footfall a low thud against the stone.
"This place feels worse than the forest," Arya whispered, unease threading her voice. "These corpses… they look like they died yesterday."
Fa crouched beside one body. The chest had been torn open in ragged wounds, as though mauled by some beast. On the tattered uniform was the unmistakable sigil of Kintelo. His heart sank. "Kintelo's men. They got here before us."
"Looks like we're not the only ones hunting the Star Fragment," TISK rumbled.
They pressed deeper along the crumbling corridors. Ancient runes carved into the walls pulsed faintly, whispering of old stories. Most side chambers had collapsed long ago. From far away came low, guttural growls that raised the hair on their necks.
Then—rapid footsteps ahead, accompanied by panicked shouts.
Fa raised his dagger instantly. Arya drew her bowstring taut. TISK readied his hammer.
But when the runners burst from the shadows, Fa froze.
It was the Kintelo leader and the six men he had left, faces pale with terror, sprinting straight toward them.
"Run! Keep running!" the Kintelo leader roared at his men, voice cracking with desperation.
Before Fa could speak, a thunderous tread shook the corridor behind them, followed by a roar that rattled bones. He spun.
A colossal mechanical golem—nearly five meters tall, plated in dark iron—charged out of the darkness. Scarlet light blazed from its eyes. Every step cracked the flagstones. Metal spikes jutted from its forearms like executioner blades.
"What in the hells—" TISK began.
No time. He yanked Fa and Arya around and they ran.
The Kintelo group was ahead; Fa's team followed right on their heels. The golem was terrifyingly fast, gaining with each stride.
Fa's Star Eyes caught a side passage. "Right!"
They veered sharply into a narrow tunnel and spilled into a wider chamber. Together they slammed the heavy stone door just as the golem's fist smashed against it, shaking dust from the ceiling. The door held—barely.
**Temporary Truce**
The chamber reeked of damp rot and old iron. Everyone leaned against opposite walls, breathing hard, weapons still pointed at each other. In the center stood a crumbling altar carved with ancient runes that flickered weakly. Faded murals on the walls showed long-dead warriors battling monsters.
The Kintelo leader wiped sweat from his brow and broke the silence. "Truce. Just until that thing is dealt with." His voice was hoarse with reluctance. "It tracks sound. I've already lost most of my men. And the damn thing regenerates—no matter how many times we kill it."
Fa glanced at Arya and TISK. Both gave small nods. Enemies or not, survival came first.
"Truce accepted," Fa said. "Its regeneration isn't natural. There has to be something in this castle controlling it."
The Kintelo leader gave a bitter nod, then muttered under his breath, "That damned Blood Elf leader swore this would be easy money…"
Fa's ears caught it. A clue—someone higher up was pulling Kintelo's strings. But there was no time to dig.
A deep, commanding voice echoed through the chamber from nowhere: "Leave. This place is not for you to defile."
Everyone looked around wildly. Fa's Star Eyes fixed on the altar—the runes were pulsing in sync with the voice.
"It's the castle's guardian," Fa said quietly. "It might know how to stop the golem."
They began searching the room. Fa approached the altar. Through his Star Eyes he saw faint threads of light—no, dark threads—running from the runes up through cracks in the ceiling, connecting directly to the golem outside.
"It's not acting on its own," he whispered. "Someone is controlling it like a puppet."
The pounding on the door intensified. Then—BOOM—the stone door exploded inward.
The golem stormed in, wrist spikes scything the air. Two of Kintelo's men charged bravely and were flung aside like dolls. Arya's light arrow struck its visor and did almost nothing.
Fa leaped onto a broken pillar, following the threads upward with his eyes. "Those black threads are the control lines! Sever them!"
He sprang, dagger flashing. The golem's spike nearly took his head off. TISK's hammer slammed into its elbow joint, buying Fa a heartbeat. The blade bit true—black threads snapped one by one. When the last parted, blue light flooded from the golem's seams and died. The massive body crashed to the ground, motionless at last.
The runes on the altar went dark. The guardian's voice let out a final, unwilling sigh and vanished.
Fa studied the murals. In one, a robed mage held a crystal orb—the exact source point of the control threads. In the corner of the room, a hidden door now revealed itself fully, its carving matching the star pattern on Fa's dagger guard perfectly.
"The puppeteer is deeper inside," Arya said, examining the broken threads. "Those were Soul Clan soul-threads—ancient magic."
TISK kicked the wreckage. "At least it's staying dead this time."
The Kintelo leader approached Fa. "We owe you our lives today. The debt is acknowledged—but once we're out of here, we're enemies again."
Fa nodded. "Understood. But today we all walk out alive."
Kintelo and his remaining men vanished into another passage.
Fa turned to the newly revealed star-marked door.
"The soul-threads will lead us to the Star Fragment," he said.
They stepped through.
**Guidance of the Soul-Threads**
Beyond the door lay a narrow passage lit by faintly glowing crystals. The same ancient runes lined the walls, pulsing in the exact rhythm of the soul-threads they had seen earlier.
"Follow the runes," Fa said. "They're markers."
They advanced cautiously. After several turns the air grew colder and the metallic scraping sounds returned.
Fa signaled halt. His Star Eyes pierced the gloom ahead. "Someone's waiting at the end."
**Ambush on the Way**
Before they reached the final chamber, the runes flared. Black soul-threads burst from the walls like living whips.
Fa slashed the first wave aside. Arya fired light arrows into the rune clusters, disrupting the flow. TISK hammered the floor, sending shockwaves that snapped threads mid-air.
The attack paused, but stronger magic pulsed from deeper within.
They rounded a corner—and seven mechanical spider puppets dropped from the ceiling, steel joints screeching. Black crystals glowed in their thoraxes; serrated legs sparked against stone.
Corrosive black fluid sprayed. TISK's boot sizzled. The spiders launched along their threads like projectiles.
Arya shot a thread; pure light raced up it and burned the anchor rune. The spider crashed. Fa danced between legs, severing control threads with surgical cuts. TISK crushed one core in a shower of blue sparks. Arya finished the rest by collapsing part of the ceiling on them.
They pressed on.
Ghost-green flames appeared first. Then six skeletal wolves emerged from the black mist, eye sockets burning, iron chains dragging between exposed ribs. Dark runes crawled across their bones like living tattoos.
Arya's light arrows were absorbed and reflected as poisonous mist. TISK's hammer blows shattered bone only for the fragments to reassemble into smaller, faster wolves.
The pack suddenly split—three charged to draw attention, three leaped high, spines unfolding like springs, chains whipping down as corrosive flails.
Fa's Star Eyes traced every trajectory. He severed the lead wolves' curse nodes. Arya poured solar-charged light into the floor array, exposing the buried skull core. TISK brought his hammer down in a thunderous strike. The last wolf collapsed, its bone needles grazing Fa's shoulder and leaving smoking scars.
A cold laugh echoed through the void: "Impressive. It seems I must deal with you myself."
**Final Confrontation**
They pushed open the last stone door.
In the center of a vast, shadowed hall hovered a woman in a tattered black robe. Her skin was deathly pale, eyes glowing ghostly blue, long hair floating as though underwater. In her hand she held a staff topped with a darkly radiant gem.
"I have been waiting," she said, voice like wind through a grave.
Fa's grip tightened on his dagger. "Who are you?"
"I am Salsa Lisia of the Soul Clan. I guard the Star Fragment so that it never falls into unworthy hands."
"We are not your enemy," Arya said firmly. "We need the Fragment to save the world."
Salsa's lips curled. "Save the world—how many invaders have used those exact words?"
"We are nothing like the ones who came before us," Fa said.
Salsa shook her head. "Prove it."
She tapped her staff. Walls cracked open; mechanical puppets marched out. At the same time, soul-threads lashed like vipers.
Battle erupted.
Arya crippled joints with light arrows. TISK sent puppets flying. Fa wove through the chaos, dagger finding weak points.
Salsa phased through the floor, reappeared behind them, summoned a towering skeletal giant wielding a sword of bone.
They fought with perfect coordination—Arya slowing its joints, TISK drawing agro, Fa striking the fatal blow at the base of its skull.
Salsa's eyes narrowed. She raised her staff higher. The floor split; thirty skeletal warriors rose. Soul-threads wove a deadly web.
The fight became desperate. TISK was surrounded. Arya's arrows were intercepted. Fa took a thread across the arm, blood hissing where it touched.
Then Fa's Star Eyes found it—a hidden array in the ceiling, pulsing with the pure light of the Star Fragment.
"It's up there!" he shouted.
Salsa's composure cracked for the first time.
Fa charged straight at her. She phased into the floor again—but this time he predicted the angle. His dagger, blazing with starlight, struck the gem atop her staff.
The gem shattered.
Every soul-thread went slack. The skeletal army crumbled to dust.
Salsa staggered, magic backlash driving her to her knees.
Fa leveled his blade at her throat. "It's over. Give us the Fragment."
Hatred and exhaustion warred in her eyes. "Then kill me or be done with it."
Arya stepped forward gently. "We swear we are not evil. We need the Fragment to stop a greater darkness."
Salsa stared at them for a long moment.
At last she sighed, the sound centuries old.
"I have guarded this shard for longer than you can imagine… solely to keep it from those who would abuse it."
She waved a hand. The ceiling array dissolved. A single radiant fragment of starlight drifted down and settled into Fa's palm.
Warm. Alive. Immensely powerful.
Salsa looked at each of them in turn.
"If your hearts are truly as you claim… then I will help you protect it."
She lowered her head slightly.
"Take me with you."