Thick black smoke still billowed from the wreckage of the Steel Archon, which was now nothing more than a pile of glowing iron at the bottom of the crater. Zenith lay several yards away, his body emitting a hiss of hot steam mixed with the smell of burnt circuits. His left arm, recently installed by the Stonehearth dwarves, was shattered again, leaving a tangle of wires that sparked wildly into the iron-dust-filled air. "Damn it, my balancing circuits are seriously trying to retire early," Zenith grumbled. His voice cracked with static, sputtering as if his logic was trying to crawl out of the scrap heap. "Zenith! Don't move yet!" Elara ran closer, her face deathly pale and covered in battle ash. The teenager knelt beside the robot's head, her hands trembling as she tried to touch Zenith's chest plate, which was still scorching hot. Marcus followed behind, dragging his injured leg. His sword was broken in half, but his eyes remained vigilant, sweeping the surroundings. "Holy hell,

An icy wind whipped across the surface of the Grey Ridge, carrying thin flakes of snow that immediately evaporated upon touching Zenith’s breastplate, still glowing hot from circuit overload. Prince Elara gasped, his hands, encased in Stonehearth leather gloves, gripping a slick granite boulder for support. Beside him, Marcus stood tall, though his breathing sounded like a stone mill starved of lubricant. They had just emerged from the Mirror Hall evacuation tunnel, and the sight before them was enough to shrink anyone’s courage down to the soles of their boots. In the deepest valley, shrouded in thick purple mist, Valerius’s Forbidden Temple stood erect. Its architecture resembled the forcibly twisted bones of a giant dragon, with black spires that shot dark lightning flashes toward the still-open Sovereign’s Eye in the sky. The stench of foul ozone and the aroma of sulfur crept up the mountain peak, filling human senses with the palpable sensation of death. "Damn, Valerius’s archi

"Damn it, I take back what I said about the mud bath earlier, this is more like crawling through a giant's diarrhetic intestines!" Zenith yelled, his voice echoing off the rusty iron walls of the ventilation pipe, creating an ear-splitting whine. Thick, black liquid, waist-high on an adult, impeded their every movement. The stench was an insult to life itself: a mixture of rotting carrion, sharp rust, and the sickeningly sweet residue of Dark Magitek energy that coated the back of their throats. Prince Elara coughed violently, trying to cover his nose with the sleeve of his dwarf tunic, which was already soaked through with the waste. Behind him, Marcus struggled to maintain balance, one hand gripping the pipe wall slick with organic slime, the other ensuring Elara didn't drown as they navigated a steeply descending section of the pipe. "Shut your mouth, Zenith! Focus on your navigation sensors or we'll get lost in this labyrinth of filth!" Marcus snapped, though his own voice sound

The cold black porcelain floor suddenly transformed into a stretch of red velvet carpet, intensely familiar to Zenith's memory. The faint scent of jasmine exploded, overwhelming his olfactory sensors until his logic circuits sent overlapping danger signals. Zenith tried to step forward, but his legs felt heavy, as if his hydraulic joints had been replaced by fragile human flesh. "Damn it, my visual circuits are really shorting out!" Zenith yelled, his voice cracking with static. "Prince! Uncle! Don't breathe in the scent of these flowers, this is god-tier hallucinogenic gas!" However, when Zenith turned, Elara and Marcus had vanished. Before him now stood a teak wood door carved with gold, the Empress's private chamber door in the Prime Magitek Palace. The clinking sound of a porcelain cup against a gold tray was audible from behind the door, followed by a very faint, small cough, a sound that had haunted Zenith's nightmares for two hundred years. "Zenith ... is the tea ready?" the

Cold vapor hissed out from the cracked stasis capsule, enveloping the black porcelain floor in a white mist that smelled of chemical brine and rotting jasmine. In the gloom of the inverted cathedral, the purple pulse of the Dark Magitek cables embedded in the walls grew more intense, as if the entire structure were suffering a heart attack. Prince Elara staggered, his hand, scorched by magical burns, gripping Zenith’s metal arm for balance. Purple veins glowed brightly on his neck, pulsing in rhythm with the room’s energy thrum. "Your blood smells so sweet now, Little Prince," Valerius stated from the upper balcony. His voice was smooth yet sharp, cutting the silence like a scalpel. His figure, draped in silver robes, shimmered under the rigid, flickering light of the crystal lamps. "You have absorbed the burden of the Oath. You are no longer a whole man, but a masterpiece awaiting perfection." "Shut your mouth, you tacky sorcerer!" Zenith roared. His eye lenses flickered wildly, em