Path of the Forsaken Sigil

Chapter 52

Hestia looked up at Bruce. Her face was covered in blood and wet dirt. Her eyes, which used to look at him with such cold, cruel arrogance, were now filled with absolute, pure terror. 

She opened her mouth, but she was too weak to speak. She just whimpered, raising a trembling, bleeding hand to protect her face. She expected Bruce to summon his dark sword and cut her head off. 

Bruce looked down at the Matriarch of the Iron-Heart Clan. He looked at the woman who had locked his mother in a cage, who had branded his shoulder, and who had ordered him to be treated like garbage for nineteen years. 

He could easily kill her right now. It would take one second. 

But Bruce did not raise his hand. 

He realized that killing her here, in the rubble, was too easy. She was already defeated. Her gate was destroyed. Her secret battery farm was exposed to the church. Her elite army was dead. Hestia was going to have to explain this massive failure to the rest of the noble clans and the angry Inquisition. Living with her failure was a much worse punishment than a quick death. 

Plus, Bruce needed her alive for one very important reason. 

Bruce stepped closer. He knelt down in the mud, bringing his face close to Hestia’s terrified, bleeding face. 

His silver eyes glowed brightly in the dark. 

"I am leaving now," Bruce whispered. His voice was incredibly cold, sending a violent shiver down Hestia’s spine. "But you are going to listen to me very carefully, Matriarch."

Hestia whimpered again, nodding her head weakly. 

"Keep my mother safe," Bruce commanded. "Do not let the Inquisitors hurt her. Do not let her starve. Keep her alive. Because I am going to the Solarian Capital. I am going to get the Key of Dawn."

Bruce stood up, looking down at the broken woman one last time. 

"And when I come back," Bruce promised, his voice echoing with the dark rumble of the Void, "if there is a single new scratch on my mother's skin, I will not just destroy your gate. I will bring hell with me, and I will eat this entire city alive. Do you understand?"

Hestia stared at his glowing silver eyes. She sobbed, nodding her head rapidly in the mud. She understood perfectly. The Void-Born was no longer a boy. He was a natural disaster waiting to happen. 

Bruce turned his back on her. 

He did not look back at the ruined plaza. He did not look at High Inquisitor Bontus, who was groaning and trying to crawl out of the smashed storefront. He did not look at the glowing lights of the Inner City. 

Bruce Thompson walked out of the smoking crater. 

He stepped over the broken stones and walked past the city limits. Instantly, the freezing, toxic wind of the Gray Wastes hit him in the face. 

The air outside the city was terrible. It smelled like sulfur and rotting ash. The heavy gray fog swirled violently, hiding the deadly landscape. The rain here was not just cold; it was acidic, stinging his skin. 

But to Bruce, it felt like absolute freedom. 

He pulled the torn remains of his shirt tight against his chest to block the wind. He walked straight into the howling storm, his bare feet stepping onto the cracked, dead earth of the wasteland. 

“We survived, Master,” the Ashen Seraph whispered weakly from his shadow. The angel was completely drained of magic, going into a deep sleep to heal. “The first step is taken.”

"Rest now, Seraph," Bruce whispered back. "I will handle the Wastes."

Bruce walked for a mile, pushing through the thick, blinding fog. His body ached, and his core was empty, but his spirit was burning with a new, unbreakable determination. He would survive this toxic hell. He would grow strong. He would become the storm. 

Suddenly, Bruce stopped walking. 

The howling wind around him slowly died down. The gray fog parted just a few feet in front of him. 

Bruce tightened his fists, ready to fight. 

Through the thick, swirling fog, two massive, glowing eyes opened in the dark. 

They were not human eyes. They were not the holy eyes of an Inquisitor. They were huge, glowing a deep, sickly neon green. They were positioned at least thirty feet high in the air, looking down at him. A massive, dark shadow shifted in the fog, larger than the largest building in Oakhaven. 

The ground trembled as the massive creature took a slow step forward. 

Bruce stared up at the glowing green eyes. He did not feel fear. He felt his Brand of the Void pulse with a deep, sudden hunger. 

A voice echoed through the toxic storm. It did not sound hostile. It sounded ancient, curious, and incredibly amused. 

“Well, well,” the massive voice rumbled, shaking the dead earth beneath Bruce’s feet. “The scent of the Old Kings. A human boy smelling of fresh blood and dead angels. Tell me, little morsel... are you lost, or are you the new Devourer who walks the ash?”

Bruce stood tall in the freezing wind. He looked up at the terrifying monster of the Gray Wastes. He did not run. He smiled a slow, cold smile.