The castle was quiet. Kyle sat on the stone floor. Every muscle was sore. His head throbbed. The Mark on his chest glowed a dull red. His domain felt weaker than usual. Natalie coughed. She pushed hair out of her eyes. "Kyle? Are you okay?" Her voice was shaky. She looked nervous. Arachne got to her feet. She wobbled a bit, one hand pressed to her side. "My Lord," she said, her voice tight. "That was the Entity. I never imagined. The old stories are true." "Stories?" Kyle asked. His throat felt dry. He stood up, a bit dizzy. "What stories?" "It’s a prison," Arachne said, her eyes looking distant. "The first Creatorsbuilt it. To contain things they couldn’t destroy. Things from a very long time ago." Kyle didn’t ask what was before that. He needed to know something else. He looked around the main hall. It was empty. Just the three of them. "Viv," he said, his voice sharp. "Katherine. Where are they?" Natalie looked confused. "Weren’t they with us?" Arachne looked at Kyle, focus

The domain is... unstable," Arachne confirmed, and her voice was barely a whisper. She pushed herself off the pillar, swaying a bit. "His connection... it was really badly damaged by him forcing all those portals, and by... the Lock." When she looked at Viv, her eyes were full of this deep, almost primal fear. "We need to stabilize him. Fast. If his core completely fails, the domain will collapse. And we’ll go with it." Natalie was already kneeling next to Kyle, her hands just hovering over him, and tears were streaming down her face. "What do we do? He’s barely breathing! And he’s so cold!" Viv gritted her teeth against the awful pain in her arm. "Arachne, you’re the magic expert here. What’s the plan?" Arachne walked unsteadily over to Kyle, her eyes scanning him. That Mark of Dominance on his chest was just a dull, angry red, pulsing unevenly, like a dying fire. "His mana is all gone. His core is... fractured. It got overloaded by those Abyssal energies and the strain of keeping

The air changed. The dry, old stone smell of the castle was gone. Now it smelled damp and metallic, like Necrus. Cold rain immediately misted Kyle's face. He stood on a flat, tarred rooftop. The city spread out around them, a tangle of dark buildings and flickering neon signs under a sky the color of dirty dishwater. Arachne appeared beside him, a shadow in the dim light. Her head was already turning, scanning their surroundings. Viv showed up a second later. She stretched her arms with a satisfied groan. "Ah, good old miserable Necrus," Viv said. She grinned as she looked around. "Smells like wet dog and bad decisions. Home sweet home, kinda." She bounced on the balls of her feet. "So, liaison office. Which way to the party, Boss?" Kyle did not answer her. He walked to the edge of the rooftop and crouched low. The Hunter Guild liaison office was across the narrow street. It was on the third floor of a grey, plain building. Lights burned in a few windows, dim behind rain-streaked g

They dropped back into the dusty service corridor. The immediate sounds of pursuit were muffled by the building’s structure. The fire door Arachne had picked earlier was still slightly ajar. They slipped through it, back into the stark concrete stairwell."Down," Kyle said. Speed was everything now.Their footsteps, no longer trying for stealth, echoed loudly as they descended. One floor. Two. As they reached the ground floor landing, Kyle heard it. Heavy, rhythmic thuds from the main corridor connected to this stairwell. Guild security, converging.He kicked open the stairwell door. He sprinted down the short ground floor corridor towards the service exit, the one leading to the loading bay. Arachne was a shadow at his heels. Viv was just behind her, daggers held ready.They were ten feet from the heavy steel door when a side office door burst open. It was one they had passed on the way in. Two Guild Hunters in full combat gear, alerted by the noise of their descent, spilled out. The

Viv pushed off the doorframe. She walked over to peer at the floating schematics. "Upper floors? That’s where the real teeth are. Elite guards, dedicated response teams. We’ll be fighting our way through a damn army.""We won’t be fighting an army," Kyle corrected her. "We’ll be precise. Surgical." He looked up at her, his eyes flat. "Fast in, cripple their eyes, fast out. Like Necrus, but on a larger scale.""Necrus was knocking over a corner store," Viv countered, though a grin touched her lips. "Valen Spire is trying to rob the central bank during a parade." She tapped a glowing red marker on one of the upper levels. "That’s where their Arch-Diviner usually nests. Old bastard named Laura Michaels. Supposedly sees futures like we see breakfast. Take her out, and they’re blind for months."Kyle zoomed in on the marker. Arch-Diviner Laura Michaels. Her file was thin, heavily redacted, but the threat assessment was high. ’A priority target, then.’Arachne spoke. Her voice was quiet but