The crunch of charred wood under Arthur’s boots sounded like bone snapping. He didn't look back at the cabin. There was no point. The door was a memory, and the treeline was a jagged, smoking wound in the earth. He carried a single rucksack, while Seraphina walked beside him, her God-Slaying Sword wrapped once more in tattered black cloth that pulsed with a faint, dying ember-light. "You’re walking too fast," Arthur said, his voice raspy from the smoke. "We’re not in a race." "The wind has changed, Arthur," Seraphina replied, her eyes scanning the canopy with predatory precision. "The air no longer carries the scent of pine. It carries the copper of anticipation." "It’s just a forest. Calm down." "A forest is never just a forest when a God-Slayer walks through it. The trees hold their breath. The soil trembles. Do you not feel the weight of their gaze?" "

The basement of the abandoned clockmaker’s shop smelled of rusted gears, stale oil, and the suffocating weight of centuries. Outside, the rain lashed against the cobblestones of a town that didn't have a name on Arthur’s map. Inside, the only light came from a single, sputtering tallow candle and the faint, rhythmic pulse of the triangular pendant resting on a workbench. "Stop staring at it, Arthur. It will not give up its secrets just because you wish it so." "I’m not just wishing, Seraphina. I’m trying to remember. Every time I blink, the edges of these symbols seem to bleed into images I can’t quite catch." "That is the resonance. The artifact recognizes the hand that designed its blueprints, even if the mind has forgotten the ink." Arthur picked up a rusted magnifying glass, peering at the dark metal. "You said I built the Eternal Archive. Did I build this too? This... thing that belonged to a hunter?" "You did not build the pendant. You built the logic it operates on. T

The descent from the frozen peaks was less of a walk and more of a rhythmic slide through shifting veils of reality. As the jagged white of the mountain faded, the world beneath began to bleed into shades of bruised purple and charcoal gray. The air here didn't bite with cold; it clung to the skin like damp silk, smelling of old ink and stagnant memories. "The air feels... greasy here, Seraphina. Like I’m breathing in the smoke of a fire that went out a century ago." "It is the grease of forgotten lies, Arthur. We have entered the Shadow Paths. This is where the things that the Ruling Gods could not destroy were simply pushed aside." "Shadow Paths? It looks like a graveyard for buildings." "In a way, it is. Look at the architecture of the ruins to your left. Do you see the spiraling arches? Those were built to honor the breath of the stars. The Usurpers found them inefficient, so they moved the world’s focus elsewhere. Now, these places only exist in the periphery of the morta

The air in the Forge of Souls was thick, vibrating with the hum of a thousand invisible strings. It wasn't the heat of a furnace that filled the room, but the cold, heavy pressure of the Void. Arthur stood in the center of the obsidian platform, his eyes darting between the glowing runes on the floor and the shadowed corners of the massive hall. "The Forge is quiet, Seraphina. Too quiet." "It is the silence of a predator holding its breath, Arthur. The temple knows its Master is weak. It is waiting for you to prove you can still handle the fire." "I don't feel like a Master. I feel like a target. That vision... it felt so real. I can still feel the weight of that sword in my hand." "Because it *was* real. Time is a circle in this place. What you did ten thousand years ago is still echoing against these walls. Do you feel the thrumming in your chest? That is the Ring of the Void calling to you." Arthur looked at a small, raised dais at the far end of the Forge. Resting on a c

The salt flats of the Dead Sea stretched out like a shroud of white silk under the bruised purple of the twilight sky. Arthur stood at the edge of the obsidian staircase, his hand resting on the hilt of his shoulder, where the silvery scar of the Null-Spike remained—a permanent reminder of the price of his return. The Ring of the Void felt heavy on his finger, no longer a foreign object, but a part of his very pulse. "The salt feels like it’s trying to swallow my boots again, Seraphina. Or maybe the world is just getting heavier." "The world is not heavier, Arthur. You are simply becoming more aware of its weight. To a mortal, the earth is just dirt. To you, it is a living cage." "A cage we’re about to break. You said Lyra is at the Shattered Coast. How far is that from here?" "By foot? Weeks. Through the ley lines? A heartbeat. But the ley lines are monitored by the Seal Keepers. To step into them is to announce our coordinates to every Arbiter in the province." "And the al