THUMP… THUMP…
The heartbeat was a physical presence in the darkness. It wasn't just heard; it was felt. A dull vibration that climbed up the soles of their boots and resonated in their bones. It came from the depths, from the end of a spiral staircase that was lost in an abyss as black as ink. Down there were the answers. And also, probably, death.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. There was no time for a cautious descent. With a swift, practiced motion, she clicked the heels of her boots. A pulse of silent magic coursed through her body, and the sound of her breath, her armor, her very existence, vanished. Then, she tapped the tips of her shoes against the metal floor. She felt her body weight fade, reducing to a mere tenth without affecting her strength.
What she was about to do was reckless, yes, but the image of Narel's weakening mist was a sting in her mind. Without warning, she leaped.
It was the first time she had used the spells in her clothes in a real scenario, and the adrenaline betrayed her calculations. Her jump was too strong. Instead of landing gracefully on the next section of the stairs, she flew silently across the gap and slammed into the opposite wall. The impact was dull and clumsy, but she felt no pain. Her internal resistance necklace glowed with a faint light, absorbing the impact and instantly healing the minor scratches.
Seeing that everyone was watching her in stunned silence, she tried to maintain her dignity, righted herself in mid-air, and took a new leap, this time more measured, more controlled. She landed like a feather and continued, descending the spiral staircase at a speed no soldier could match.
However, her effort was overshadowed by the elegance of science. Mayron, with a self-satisfied smile, murmured an incantation and extended his hands. A modified gravity field enveloped the rest of the group, and they descended smoothly, floating effortlessly past Elizabeth, who looked like a clumsy cat jumping from wall to wall.
Of course… she thought with a pang of irritation. The gravity expert. I should have ordered him to bring us all down.
Still, she continued on her own. Controlling her jumps and strength helped her familiarize herself with the spells in her shoes. She felt like a superhero, agile and strong. A bittersweet feeling, as she knew this strength only applied to her own body. Wielding an ordinary sword would be difficult for her. Luckily, she had brought her own.
She landed on the floor at the base of the staircase, next to the rest of the group who were already waiting. The darkness here was absolute. The heartbeat was louder, closer. Instinctively, she made the gesture of unsheathing a sword, and a blade of pure, bluish-white energy materialized in her hand, its light the only defense against the shadows that seemed to shift.
The archmage stepped forward. "Allow me, Your Highness."
He threw a ball of light that ascended to the invisible ceiling of the enormous cavern. There, it bloomed. Like a miniature sun, it sent out tendrils of light that slid down the walls, revealing the scene with a slow and ruthless clarity.
The first to be stunned was not by the majesty of the place, but by the horror of recognition.
It was Dren.
He froze. His arrogance, his commander's posture, his fury… it all vanished, replaced by a fragile stillness, like that of an animal returning to the cage where it was tortured.
"No…" he whispered, and took a step forward, as if something invisible were pulling at his chest.
The others followed him, their weapons ready. But no one spoke. No one was to interrupt this march.
"Dren…" Elizabeth began, but he didn't hear her.
He began to walk. His steps were mechanical, dragging, those of a ghost retracing its own tomb. The place was a laboratory. A vast complex of impossible technology and ancient ruin, abandoned many years ago.
The cold of metal on his back. The constant hum of machinery. A faceless voice reciting numbers.
Dren passed a shattered console, his fingers brushing against a symbol engraved on its surface: a dragon devouring its own tail. A symbol he wore tattooed on his chest, the mark of the demon with whom he had made his pact.
"Your power is unstable. We must calibrate the vessel. Increase the dosage."
He continued walking through the rubble, passing rusted operating tables and shattered glass cylinders, large enough to hold a child.
The pain. A pain that burns, that rewrites the bones, that tears the muscles. And then, the power. A dark and addictive power that consumes everything.
Finally, they reached an immense wall, filled with cells. Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. And inside each one, the same macabre spectacle: small skeletons, mostly of children, lay scattered on the dusty floor. Victims of inhuman experiments.
The group stopped, horrified by the scale of the atrocity. But Dren kept walking, as if guided by an invisible thread, until he stopped in front of one particular cell. It was no different from the others. It was empty, save for the dust of centuries.
He extended a trembling hand and touched the cold bars. The image of the Black Knight, with its strangely familiar armor design, flashed in his mind. The dragon symbol. The nightmare made manifest. The connection, so obvious and so terrible, struck him with the force of a punch to the soul.
This was no coincidence.
This was not just a laboratory.
It was his place of origin. And theirs.
His lips moved, forming a whisper that was barely audible, an echo lost in the heart of the dead moon.
"Experiment… Twenty-Six."
Dren fell to his knees. His breath became ragged. His sword vibrated on his back as if it shared the memory. As if it knew.
"Here…" he said, with a thread of a voice that wasn't his own. "This is where… I died."
Mayron turned sharply. Veldora took a step back. Elizabeth felt a chill that froze the blood in her veins.
"Dren?"
"This place… this damn place…" he murmured, his fingers tracing a half-hidden inscription on the rusted wall. "It's the laboratory. Here… they turned me into what I am. Here, the monster was born." And then, lower: "I was Experiment number 26."
The silence that followed was a bottomless abyss. And then, a memory crackled in Dren's voice as his gaze rose to an image carved into the wall: the stylized silhouette of a black knight, engraved on a ceremonial slab, with the same helmet, the same proportions… the same armor as the demon with whom he had made his pact.
"No…" he whispered. "It can't be a coincidence."
Elizabeth stepped forward. "What are you saying?"
Dren turned to her. His eyes were two pits filled with memories, fire, and something else… something broken.
"The demon I made a pact with… it wasn't an isolated creature. It wasn't a random force."
Meanwhile on the battlefield:
The cursed scythe once wielded by Zerek was now brandished with an unnatural grace by Azrael, who had become the epicenter of a whirlwind of death. He was fighting on two fronts at once. Externally, his body was a ballet of white wings and black flames; he cut, defended, was wounded, and wounded in return amidst a chaotic dance with the silicon knights.
Internally, he fought against her. Against the Santa Muerte.
"Unleash my power," the goddess whispered in his mind, her voice sweet poison. "Let me devour all these souls. With my strength unleashed, you can stop this army in an instant."
"No!" Azrael roared in his mind, as he dodged a sword stroke and divided his attention between the stab wound he had just received and the irritating voice in his head. "You can only kill the black knights! No one else!"
"Knights? These things are copies... fragments of recycled and corrupted souls. Putrid. They aren't even alive. What are you afraid of, Azrael? Of being effective? But these souls… they are so vibrant. The souls of those subjects are rotten. How to put it… they aren't real, just a vulgar copy of a real soul. They have no flavor."
"I'm not interested in your tastes," he retorted, the pain from the wound sharpening his fury. "But understand this once and for all: if your avatar dies here, your little game will only last a few seconds… Are you willing to let me die? Because I am willing to die, as long as you don't harm my allies."
"Gods… Zerek was more fun than you. Do you want me to tell you what happened the day I devoured the life in your lands? It was…"
A sword stabbed Azrael from behind, piercing him through. Another plunged into his chest. Azrael choked, the light in his wings flickering. In his mind, the Santa Muerte rolled her eyes with infinite annoyance and snapped her fingers. He was right. For this once, she would help him. The last thing she wanted was to return to her father so soon.
A radiance of pure, necrotic power invaded Azrael's body. With a cry, he cut the black knights in two and pulled the sword that had impaled him from his abdomen. The wound closed with a black vapor, but he felt his life force being consumed. He wouldn't withstand this amount of damage and channeling of magical power for much longer. He got to his feet, just in time to see the last of the seven dragons fall to the ground, overcome with exhaustion, and be surrounded by a dozen black knights who stabbed it until its light was extinguished.
All around him was chaos. But Azrael was barely breathing. Blood dripped from his lips, his vision was a tunnel of fire. And still, he stood up. Again and again. Because he knew that if he fell… no one would be left.
Narel awoke. He felt weak, his body heavier than ever before in his eternal existence. Around him, the mist had dissipated, revealing a pitched battle between two armies. And his was being overwhelmed. Although their weapons could now wound the knights, the enemy's power and resilience were still superior. They were being annihilated.
In front of him, Lord Vincent maintained a hemispherical shield of intense red, fueled by one of the Bloodstell stones. It was the only thing separating them both from the black tide of warriors trying to break through.
"You're awake," Vincent said, not taking his eyes off the front. "We were lucky. Azrael's astonishing power is what has allowed us to hold out until now. If we get out of this alive, that young man must be widely decorated by our kingdoms."
"I'm sorry I couldn't help more," Narel said regretfully, aware that in his current state, he was useless.
"You've done more than many kings in their entire lifetimes," Vincent replied with a tired smile. "Thanks to you, we are still alive. And if I were the king of Aurél… I wouldn't mind seeing someone like you on the throne."
Narel smiled weakly. "It's a pity there's not much chance of that."
"What are you talking about?" said Vincent, as he finished a long and complex enchantment he had been secretly weaving. "I am the most powerful mage in Aurél. And though I no longer have the power of old, you didn't think I would let all of you young princes have all the fun, did you?"
Vincent's entire body lit up with a ghostly, greenish glow. A shiver ran down Narel's spine. He remembered that look… from the chronicles of the war. It was the power of the most feared mage of the Thousand-Year War. A man worth an entire army. The Necromancer Vincent.
A wave of necrotic power washed over the battlefield. The spirits of all the fallen—friend and foe alike—rose from the lunar ground as specters of pale light and knelt before what was coming. And behind Vincent, an abominable figure materialized from the shadows. A colossal figure emerged at his back. Its form was half-jackal, half-shadow. Its aura, a vortex of death and judgment.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA" a diabolical, guttural laugh engulfed the battlefield. "So now you're an old man, Vincent? Do you think you can channel my power with that decrepit body?"
"Anubis…" Vincent said, as one greets an old, terrible friend. "I need your help. One last time."
"But how dramatic you mortals are! What for you is a last time, from our perspective is just another repeated chapter." Anubis leaned in, his jackal head and fiery eyes scrutinizing the battle. He sniffed the air and snapped his fangs. "However, this time… something is different. HAHAHAHA. The Santa Muerte… the power of Zanjara… even that lazy bum Baku! They're all having fun." Anubis brought his snout close to Vincent's tiny ear and whispered. "Then let me have fun with you… one last time."
From the lunar soil, an army of the dead emerged. Skeletal hands and mummified bodies clawed their way out,
joining the ghostly soldiers and the still-living warriors. Now, in number, they vastly outnumbered the dark soldiers. The powerful warriors of Anubis could compete in strength with the Cursed Army of Silicon. The scales, for the first time, were tipping in their favor.
But then, three figures appeared on the horizon.
The black knights began to part, forming corridors in their ranks. They did not walk. They advanced like titans. They did not raise their voices. Their presence screamed it all. The earth trembled beneath their steps, and the air grew so thick it hurt to breathe.
They entered the battlefield with an authority and an aura so terrifying that the black knights themselves moved aside to clear a path. They were not common soldiers. One carried a sword as large as a man. Another, two whips of pure darkness. The third carried no weapons; the very air around him simply died.
They were the generals.
Anubis's laughter died in his throat. His expression of amusement transformed into one of genuine, predatory interest. "Ah…" he said, his voice now a dangerous hiss. "Now the fun begins."
And a torrent of dark power, far greater than before, flowed into Vincent, causing the army of the dead to roar with a new and terrible strength.