Kaela spent a sleepless night wrestling with the devastating knowledge gleaned from the Whispering Eye. The Shadow Hand's presence in the Bastion's core was a silent alarm bell—an indication that the enemy was not merely a band of street thugs, but a coordinated force capable of breaching the highest security in the realm. The Guild, arrogant in its power, would never believe a low-ranked Novice from the slums about an internal spiritual threat. To speak would be suicide; to remain silent meant allowing a potential disaster to unfold.
Her only ally in this hidden war was Rust-Eater.
The next morning, Kaela sought out Dame Elara. She found the Knight conducting drills, her focus like flint. Kaela waited until the training finished and approached her with a request, not a plea.
"Dame Elara," Kaela began, keeping her voice low and formal. "I require a temporary reassignment to the archives or administrative records. I need to research the Penitent Legion."
Elara's severe expression hardened. The Penitent Legion was a taboo subject, a footnote of treason that the Guild preferred to keep buried. "That is not Novice work, Vane. Those records are classified and locked away. Why the sudden interest in ancient heresy?"
Kaela locked eyes with her, projecting a subtle, steady resolve—a trick she'd learned to counter the intimidation tactics of high-ranked warriors. "The unique structure of my weapon requires me to understand its origin to prevent spiritual contamination. If the Guild wants me to become a reliable asset, I must master the blade. To master the blade, I must understand the Sin-Eaters."
Elara scrutinized her for a long moment, sensing the genuine, non-negotiable urgency beneath the technical explanation. The Knight knew Kaela was hiding something, but she also recognized the intensity required to wield such a strange, potent weapon. Elara nodded curtly. "Very well. There is a deep-archives clean-up duty scheduled this week. It is dusty, tedious work, and you will be alone. It offers sufficient opportunity for unauthorized reading. You start at midnight."
That night, Kaela descended into the Archives—a massive, circular vault beneath the Hall of Records. The air was dry and smelled of leather and dust. Her task was to clear out centuries of discarded, uncatalogued scrolls and tomes. She worked quickly, her hands moving with Hagar's practiced efficiency, but her Whispering Eye was wide open. She strained to sense the Shadow Hand, but the sheer volume of spiritual resonance trapped in the old, enchanted records created a static that shielded the rest of the Bastion.
Finally, deep within a sequestered section, she located the forbidden texts. The books were bound in black, brittle leather, their covers sealed with ancient, faded runes. She unsealed the history of the Penitent Legion.
The texts confirmed Garn's grim assessment. The Sin-Eaters were forged from Void-Iron, a metal that devoured the wielder's spiritual energy. But the records contained a chilling detail: the blades were only considered "Active" when they were fully suppressed by their wielder, allowing the spiritual vacuum to function as a weapon of absolute severance. They were assassins' tools, designed to kill beings of pure energy—like demons—by devouring their Aura on contact. Kaela realized her Black Core wasn't just survival; it was the mechanism for activating the sword's full, terrifying potential.
She then stumbled upon a scroll detailing the Legion's fall. The Legion was not defeated by a frontal assault. They were compromised from within by a shadowy organization known only as the Siphons. These Siphons were not warriors, but spiritual parasites who specialized in Aura Extraction—draining the spiritual energy from high-ranked targets for their own dark purposes. The Siphons had allied themselves with the demons, and their preferred method of operation was covert infiltration.
Kaela looked up from the scroll, her mind connecting the dots with dizzying speed. Aura Extraction. Covert Infiltration. Cold, oppressive Aura. The Shadow Hand wasn't an assassin or a mercenary; he was a Siphon. And he wasn't here to fight the Guild; he was here to drain a target.
She grabbed the nearest map of the Bastion, a detailed diagram of the protected areas. She marked the spot where she had sensed the Shadow Hand—the highest tower. That tower housed the most precious asset of the Kingdom: The Grand Reservoir.
The Grand Reservoir was not a pool of water, but a deep, enchanted nexus that collected and stabilized the pooled spiritual energy of all the Guild's Knights and Champions. It was the source of the Bastion's magical defenses and the literal Aura bank of the Kingdom. If a Siphon were to drain the Grand Reservoir, they wouldn't just steal energy; they would cripple the entire Kingdom's defensive structure, leaving it utterly vulnerable to a massive invasion.
Kaela slammed the scroll shut, her mission now terrifyingly clear and dangerously solitary. She wasn't just studying an old sword; she was defending the Kingdom's spiritual backbone. She couldn't tell Elara—the Knight would send a brigade of high-Aura Knights, and the Shadow Hand would simply consume them, alerted long before they reached the target.
She had to go alone. She had to use the unique, silent brutality of the Sin-Eater, the only weapon capable of killing a spiritual parasite without making a sound. Her path of Total Suppression was no longer about her own mastery, but about preventing the fall of the realm. The Shadow Hand was in the highest tower, preparing his feast. Kaela, the girl with the starving edge, knew she had to be the famine that consumed the consumer.