Location: The High Spire, Sector 1
Time: 06:00 AM (The Morning After)
It started with a wilting flower.
For fifty years, the orchids in the hanging gardens of the High Spire had never dropped a petal. They were held in the perfect, crystal embrace of Lady Vespera's Stasis. They were beautiful, unnatural, and dead.
At 6:00 AM, the spell broke.
A million flowers simultaneously turned brown and disintegrated into dust.
Inside the mansions, the wealthy patrons who paid Vespera for "Youth Treatments" woke up screaming. Their skin sagged, their hair greyed, and their joints seized as decades of suppressed aging crashed down on them in a single heartbeat. The Spire didn't fall, but the silence ended. The screams of a thousand aristocrats realizing their mortality echoed across the skyline.
The Queen of Stasis was gone.
And on the wind, carrying the dust of the dead flowers, was a new metaphysical scent. A scent of rust, ozone, and absolute, terrifying finality.
Location: The Gilded Vault (Sector 3)
The Office of the Gold Sovereign.
The room was not opulent, it was made of money. The walls were lined with gold bars, not for decoration, but for insulation.
Aurum, the Aspirant of Exchange, sat behind a desk made of a single, massive diamond. He was a man of heavy proportions, wearing a suit woven from copper wire. He did not eat food, he ate coins. Currently, he was chewing on a platinum gear, savoring the texture.
"Gone?" Aurum asked. His voice sounded like coins clinking together.
"Erased, My Lord," the spy reported. The spy was a creature made of paper bills folded into a human shape. "The High Spire is in chaos. Vespera's mana signature has vanished completely. No body was found. Just... ash."
Aurum stopped chewing. He swallowed the platinum gear whole.
"Vespera was a fool," Aurum rumbled. "But she was a powerful fool. Her defense was absolute. Who cracked the diamond?"
"We have a name, My Lord. The underworld calls him The Pale King. The Alchemists call him Dante Silvergrin."
Aurum tapped a finger on his desk. "The Scavenger? The one who eats trash in the slums?"
"The report suggests... he walked into the Blind Spot," the spy whispered, sounding terrified. "He breached the Lost District. Vespera followed him in to claim the territory. Ten minutes later, the district ejected him. Vespera did not return."
Aurum's mechanical eyes whirred. He did the math.
Vespera + Home Field Advantage vs. Scavenger.
Result: Scavenger Victory.
Time elapsed: < 20 minutes.
Conclusion: Extreme Danger.
"He didn't just kill her," Aurum calculated. "He consumed her. He took the territory. He holds the Blind Spot now."
Aurum stood up. He walked to the window, looking out at the smoke rising from the Foundry.
"We thought he was a rat," Aurum muttered. "But rats don't eat cats. We have miscalculated the hierarchy of the food chain."
He turned back to his spy.
"Send a runner to the Red Baron in the War District. Tell him the Seat of Stasis is empty. Tell him... the Game of Seven has officially begun."
"And the Pale King, My Lord? Should we place a bounty?"
"No," Aurum hissed. "Do not antagonize a black hole. Send him a gift. A basket of high-grade uranium. Let us see if he can be bought before he decides to eat my bank."
Location: Sector 9, The Green Lung
Silas Vane's Laboratory.
Dante didn't knock. He leaned against the bone door and slid down until he hit the floor.
The door opened. Silas stood there, holding a mug of coffee and a sawed-off shotgun.
"I heard the boom," Silas said, lowering the gun. "I felt the shockwave. Half my specimens woke up and started screaming."
He looked down at Dante.
Dante looked like he had been put through a meat grinder. His coat was gone. His shirt was fused to his skin. His right arm hung limp, black and twisted.
But the Silvergrin was shining.
"Did you find it?" Silas asked softly. "The cure?"
Dante looked up. His eyes were exhausted, but clear.
"No cure, Silas," Dante rasped. "But I found a treatment."
He tapped his temple.
"And I got a roommate."
Silas blinked. "A roommate?"
"Long story," Dante groaned, trying to stand up and failing. "Help me inside. I need to eat a cauldron of iron soup, and then you need to amputate this arm and build me a better one."
Silas sighed, but he smiled. He slung Dante's good arm over his shoulder and dragged him into the lab.
"I assume you didn't bring back any souvenirs?" Silas asked. "Any ancient tech? Any god-parts?"
Dante reached into his pocket with his shaking hand. He pulled out a single, grey crystal. It was a piece of Vespera's time-shield that he had solidified with Prime's mana.
"Analysis payment," Dante muttered, dropping it into Silas's pocket. "Equivalent Exchange."
Silas's eyes went wide behind his glasses.
"Is this... crystallized time?"
"Don't spend it all in one place," Dante said as Silas lowered him onto the operating table.
Dante stared up at the bioluminescent lights. He felt the presence of Prime in the back of his mind—a cold, silent observer sitting in a library at the end of the world.
The war had started. The other Aspirants would be coming.
Dante closed his eyes.
"Silas?"
"Yeah?" Silas was already revving up a bone-saw.
"Make the new arm sharp."