The Silent Cellar was no longer silent. It was filled with the sound of thirteen hearts beating in a new, strange rhythm. It was not the fast, panicked thump-thump of human children. It was a slow, heavy thrum, like the sound of a distant machine working deep underground.Drogo Payne stood in the center of the room. He had bandaged his wrist with a piece of tattered cloth, but the black blood had already stopped flowing. His obsidian skin was cold. He watched the thirteen bodies on the floor.One by one, the Ghost-Children began to move.Vesper, the girl who had once clutched a wooden doll, was the first to sit up. Her transformation was the most complete. Her skin was a beautiful, terrifying charcoal color that seemed to absorb the violet light of the torches. Her hair, once brown and messy, was now a long mane of ghostly white that floated slightly in the air, as if she were underwater.She opened her eyes. They were solid silver mirrors. She looked at Drogo, and for a moment, sh

The undercity was no longer just a place of trash and rust. Under the command of Drogo Payne, it had become a factory of shadows. The Bone-Yard was humming with a new kind of energy. It was not the bright, loud energy of the Sun-King. It was a quiet, heavy power that lived in the corners of the room and under the floorboards.Drogo Payne stood in the center of the main hall. He was ten feet of polished obsidian, his silver-marbled skin glowing with a faint, cold light. He looked like a king made of night. Behind him, his "Void-Ribbons" swayed like the tails of a deep-sea fish, occasionally touching the ground and turning the dust into nothingness.In front of him stood the thirteen Ghost-Children.They were his masterpiece. They stood in a perfect line, their charcoal-colored skin reflecting the violet torches on the walls. Their white hair was long and ghostly, and their silver eyes were fixed on Drogo. They did not fidget. They did not whisper. They were waiting for the Source to

The Bone-Yard was a place of cold iron and long shadows. In the center of the main hall, the thirteen Ghost-Children sat in a circle on the floor. They were not playing games. They were not talking about their favorite toys or the dreams they had when they were little. They were sitting in total silence, their charcoal-colored skin blending into the dark.Drogo Payne stood on the metal catwalk high above them. He was ten feet of silent obsidian. His silver-marbled skin glowed with a faint, rhythmic light. He was watching them, but he was not just using his eyes. He was using the "Tethers."Inside Drogo’s mind, there were thirteen thin, violet threads. Each thread was connected to one of the children below. Through these threads, Drogo could feel everything they felt. He felt the coldness of the floor against their skin. He felt the slow, heavy thrum of their new Abyssal Cores. But he also felt something else. He felt their "Self" fading away.Vesper, the leader of the children, was

The Bone-Yard was no longer just a fortress. It was the center of a giant, invisible spider web.Drogo Payne sat on his throne of black wood and iron. He was perfectly still. His obsidian skin was dark, and his silver-marbled veins pulsed with a very slow, cold light. He looked like a statue, but his mind was moving at a speed no human could understand.Inside his head, the Abyssal Archive was working at maximum power.[NETWORK STATUS: ACTIVE.][TETHERS CONNECTED: 13.][DATA INFLOW: HIGH.]Drogo was not alone in his mind. He could hear thirteen different voices. He could see through thirteen different pairs of silver eyes. He was the spider, and the Ghost-Children were his silk threads, reaching out into every corner of the Capital City of Solara."Vesper, report," Drogo thought.In the High Noble District, miles above the Bone-Yard, a small shadow moved inside a white marble wall. Vesper was in [Shadow-Phase]. To the rich people walking past, the wall looked solid. But to Vesper, t

The Bone-Yard was a place of cold iron, but today, it felt like a furnace. The air was thick with a smell that Drogo Payne knew too well. It was the smell of burning obsidian and rotting magic. It was the smell of the Abyss eating itself.Drogo stood in the center of the main hall. He was ten feet of black stone, his silver-marbled skin glowing with a dull, worried light. He was not looking at the maps. He was not looking at the golden pipes. He was looking at the thirteen Shadow-Walkers. They were dying.Vesper, the girl who led the children, was lying on a stone slab. Her ghostly white hair was matted with a thick, black liquid that leaked from her ears. Her charcoal-colored skin was no longer smooth and hard. It was cracking. Deep, jagged lines moved across her arms and face, looking like a dry riverbed. Inside those cracks, a violent violet light was pulsing, trying to escape."Source..." Vesper whispered. Her voice sounded like glass breaking. "It... it is too much. The fire...