The ashes of the dead still clung to the night air.Kael walked alone through the alleys, his cloak dragging across wet stone, his crimson eyes glowing faintly in the dark. The city had quieted since the slaughter, but whispers never truly stopped. He could feel them—the hushed breaths of beggars, the mutter of drunkards, the frantic silence of guards too afraid to speak his name.Fear was spreading. But so was something else. Hunger. Curiosity. Hope twisted into terror.And in that silence, Kael felt it. A pulse. A faint echo left behind by the Watcher’s corpse he had broken. The System had shown him the Oath. Now the Oath pulled at him, a thread of silver woven through the night.[Ding! New Quest Unlocked: Trace the Moonlit Seal.][Objective: Locate the hidden sanctum of the Watchers.][Reward: Devil’s Emblem Fragment V.]Kael’s smirk curved. “So. The hunters leave a trail.”By dawn, the court had gathered again in the warehouse.The survivors—four now, faces gaunt, eyes bloodshot—k

The sanctum lay in ruins.Dust drifted through the air like ash after a fire, settling over cracked pillars and shattered masks. Silver blood pooled in streaks across the stone floor, glowing faintly even as it cooled. The Watchers who still lived lay writhing, their oaths broken, their masks shattered, their voices whispering fragments of vows that no longer bound them.Kael stood at the center, his crimson aura wrapping him like a crown of shadows. The Devil’s Dagger dripped silver ichor, its runes pulsing as if feeding on the sanctum’s death. His smirk curved faintly as he looked up at the remains of the moon above.The great stone carving had cracked wide, a third of it broken loose and smashed against the floor. Chains that had once bound it now hung broken, swaying faintly in the settling silence. And amid the rubble, fragments glowed with a light unlike ordinary stone.The System stirred.[Ding! Unique Resource Detected: Shards of the Moonlit Seal.][Description: Fragments of t

The warehouse had burned through the night.By morning, it was little more than a blackened skeleton—walls collapsed, beams jutting like the ribs of a corpse. Ash and blood clung to every stone, and the stench of charred flesh lingered in the air, heavy and inescapable.Inside the ruin, silence reigned.Kael sat on a shattered crate, the Devil’s Dagger resting across his knees. His cloak was scorched, his chest still marked with the shallow cut of a Watcher’s blade, but his posture was relaxed, almost regal. His crimson aura flickered faintly around him, steady and patient, as if even the embers of his power refused to die.In his hand, the corrupted shard pulsed. Its silver surface was no longer pure; crimson veins crawled across it, glowing with a steady heartbeat. Each pulse sent a thrum through Kael’s aura, feeding him, strengthening him.[Shard Resonance: +35% Aura Output.]Kael turned it slowly between his fingers. So you grow fatter on slaughter. Just like me.Around him, the s

The Rotten Sanctum was no place for the living.From the moment Kael stepped through the warped gate, the air itself seemed to change. It clung thick in his throat, damp and foul, laced with the stench of mildew and old blood. The walls sweated black moisture that streaked down like veins, and faint silver lines pulsed within the stone as if the entire place had been carved from the flesh of something alive.The ground sucked at their boots, slick with rot. The darkness was not empty here, it pressed close, watching, listening.The boy led the way, small and silent, his bare feet never faltering even when the stone broke into slick patches of slime. His head tilted from side to side, as though listening to a tune none of the others could hear. Soft whispers slid from his lips, threads of sound that seemed to coil into the air and linger like smoke.“…chains broken… roots bleeding… eyes opening…”Kael heard the whispers and smirked. A child, yet he speaks like prophecy. Either mad or m

The last chain shattered with a sound like thunder, silver sparks raining across the ancient chamber. The walls groaned as if the very stones feared what had been unleashed. From the pit at the center rose a shape of madness and shadow, its body too vast, too formless, to belong to any natural creature. The Bound Horror was no longer chained, no longer muzzled by divine seals.It screamed.The sound was a hundred screams layered together—men, women, children, warriors, priests—all crying out in terror at once. The stone floor split beneath the weight of its voice, cracks running outward like lightning. Black ichor boiled up from the pit, flooding across the chamber, stinking of rot and despair.The recruits broke first. One dropped his sword and clawed at his own ears until blood poured through his fingers. Another stumbled back, fell to his knees, and whispered prayers to gods that had already abandoned him. The third stared, wide-eyed, his lips moving soundlessly as if his mind had