The portal loomed over them, a whirling wound in space, edges shivering as if existence itself protested its presence.
Then—Eryx walked through.
His boots met polished stone, soft runes glowing beneath his feet. Silas followed him, his overcoat billowing from the residual power of the portal. He faltered, in contrast to Eryx, staring frantically around.
The ORDER headquarters loomed ahead of them—a spire monolith of shining precision. Not a ruin. Not an abandoned fortress.
It was a testament to power, where magic and technology blended seamlessly.
Sky-scraping spires radiated with obsidian-black metals, their walls studded with arcane circuitry, pulsating like a nervous system. The walls vibrated with intangible energy, conducting an otherworldly light along intricate paths.
The structures were unimaginably advanced, and yet unmistakably alien.
This was not the product of human hands.
It was something far more than mortal fingers could craft.
The entrance wasn't a doorway but a mobile threshold, a fluid wall that unrolled as they walked towards it—like liquid metal bending to an unheard command.
Silas breathed, eyes on the worked panels. "However many times I come here. It doesn't feel real."
Eryx didn't respond.
Beyond the doors, corridors were stretching on, illuminated by a blend of glittering sigils and high-tech holograms. The blend was seamless—magic and machine interfaced so well that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.
Then the doors in front, backed with heavy steel and energy barriers, slid open.
Beyond them stood a man who commanded the HQ itself.
Warden.
The human leader of ORDER.
The doors closed behind them, sealing in suffocating silence. Warden stepped forward, the ring of his shining boots on the glossy stone resounding through the quiet. His face was unreadable, his composure easy. Power was woven into him like a second skin.
Tall, with wide back and thick shoulders, wearing a black tactical jacket padded with glinting sigils, his very uniform was armor—covered in arcane augmentations and kinetic shields so subtle that only the sharpest eyes could see them.
His blade-sharp gaze first landed on Eryx, then flickered for an instant to Silas, as if balancing their value in an instant.
Silas shifted instinctively, as if watched by sharp eyes.
But not Eryx.
Warden breathed slowly and deeply before he finally spoke.
"So… the demon general returns." His voice was silky, measured—but with a hint of amusement. "Though I must admit, I did hope you'd come back with something."
Silence.
Warden's lips curled into a tiny smile. "You were brought to take the artifact, weren't you?" He folded his arms behind him, angling his head by a degree. "And yet… here you are. With nothing."
An uncomfortably long silence.
"Fascinating."
Silas shifted his position reflexively. The tension in the room altered.
But Eryx? He did not shift.
Warden paced behind him, slow and measured, a predator toying with its victim. "Tell me," he mused, "what was it like? To be on the verge of victory… only to have some lesser man take it away from you?"
Warden was not there, but he was present.
The words themselves were seared, fiery, toxic.
"Ah, but even demons fall," Warden exhaled, his head shaking. "And I thought you were different, Eryx. Special."
The atmosphere shifted.
Slowly, almost not at all.
But Warden?
No, he didn't realize.
The moment lingered. Too long. Too easily.
Warden continued to talk, his tone silky as it cut, ripping Eryx with calculated precision.
"Perhaps, perhaps. you were never—"
The air shifted.
Not an explosion. Not a burst.
But a shift.
A breath of silence. A flicker of something repressed.
Then—
A weight—cold, crushing, choking—descended like a stifling tide.
The HQ itself shuddered, walls creaking under the sheer mass crashing down against them.
Not illusion. Not deception.
Justraw, unadulterated presence.
A weight pressed down on the HQ—cold, suffocating, absolute. ORDER's best warriors, honed to endure atrocities beyond the capacity for imagination, now were paralysed in place across the HQ.
Silas lost his footing, throat constricting. The imperceptible pressure crushed the air from his lungs, pressing his ribs together until his body refused to move.
But Warden?
He experienced it personally.
Warden gasped. For the first time in decades, his body betrayed him. His instincts—long dulled by control, by invincibility—kicked in too late.
His breath wouldn't come.
His limbs didn't listen.
His heart pounded against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
Fear.
Not a memory. Not an old, distant echo.
A current reality.
Before him, Eryx's eyes flared—an unnatural, smoldering flame that devoured the shadows that wrapped around him. His face didn't change, but his voice—low, almost a whisper—was a knife drawn through the silence.
"What did you just say?"
The words cut through the air.
Then—
The weight lifted. Gone as fast as it had arrived.
Warden's breath returned in a slow, controlled inhale. His mind sharpened, forcing the moment away. He had miscalculated, but he would not do so again. His body—conditioned, disciplined—obeyed, but the ghost of that feeling clung to him. Fear. Not remembered, but real. Present.
He straightened, forcing his heart back to its proper rhythm. Error. Corrected. His palms still rested at his back. He spoke quieter.
He was not going to repeat the mistake.
Behind him, Silas breathed out, tension unwinding in his shoulders—though not all of it. His gaze flicked between Eryx and Warden, his understanding of the world shifting in real-time. Warden was always beyond reach.
Unfazed.
To see him faltering, even for an instant? That was more unsettling than anything else in the room.
"Very well. We have more pressing matters."
A wave of his hand.
Silas left the room after seeing Warden's sign.
A holographic map flared to life.
The world, covered with crimson markers.
Each a potential artifact site.
Eryx studied them, his face impassive.
And a single flickering point—unstable, shifting. Missing.
"We have pinpointed several locations." Warden's voice was all business now. "Some ruins. Some in the 5 places where no human would ever dare to tread. Others…" He hesitated, then flipped his wrist—zeroing in on one specific marker. "Are simply… missing."
The red flash on the map pulsed, unstable. As if the location itself refused to be found.
"How many confirmed?" Eryx asked.
Warden's jaw tightened.
"Most of them."
Eryx's gaze sharpened."And yet, none in our hands."
A moment's pause. Then Warden snapped his wrist once more—an image superimposed the map.
A faint transmission log. Warped, muddled, but irreducible.
Foreign voices. Foreign frequencies. A presence that was not their own.
Someone had gone ahead of them.
"Another party is moving ahead of us." Warden's voice was neutral, but there was something underlying it. Frustration. Displeasure. A grudging acknowledgment that ORDER was behind.
The screen flickered, distorting slightly before going dark. No names. No faces.
Just a distant, sudden flash.
And then—silence.
"Send me everything," Eryx said.
No argument. No pushback. No longer.
"I will choose which to bring back first."
Warden nodded once, a small motion toward the interface."You'll have it tonight."
Eryx moved through the darkening halls, his step slow, but unyielding.
The headquarters was still at this moment. Too still. Not in the peaceful way—but in the way a battlefield becomes still before the first arrow is released.
His way was flanked by ORDER's finest, at attention, their eyes forward, their masks expressionless. None of them dared to look at him. None of them spoke.
There was only the quiet hum of magical circuits running through the walls before him. The combination of science and magic—beautifully interwoven, just as this place. Just as ORDER.
A door slid open before him.
His chamber.
He walked in unhesitating.
The door closed shut.
The control room was cold and silent, lit by the dancing light of holographic projections that swept across the air. At its center, a spectral world map floated, dotted with the red dots—each a hub of demonic activity or the last known position of an ancient relic.
Warden stood in front of it, his hands crossed behind his back, his expression impassive. His gloved hands curled and uncurled slightly, the only sign of his bottled-up frustration.
His voice cut through the silence.
"Did you find the child?"
The wording was straightforward. But the weight behind it?
Calamitous.
A subordinate flinched. Drops of sweat appeared above his temple. "N-No, sir. Not yet."
The mood rippled.
The Warden leaned forward, his head tilted slightly to one side, his sharp eyes picking up the shaking hands which hovered inches above the panels.
Slow. Incompetent. Useless.
Warden let out a breath, rolling his shoulders back as if settling into a more relaxed position. His gaze settled on the trembling, unstable holographic marker.
Then, with a soft sigh, he said,
"Well… what can you do?"
The voice was careless, almost dismissive.
"If the rat refuses to be found, it is what it is."
The subordinates visibly relaxed. Tension unwound from their shoulders. Some even had the nerve to look at each other—as if they'd just gotten away.
Then—
A sharp, deliberate turn.
"Fuc*ing idiots."
The room froze.
The temporary relief on the subordinates' faces was broken.
"Did I tell you to stop?" His voice was low, but it had weight. A weight that crushed down, making every head drop.
No one uttered a word.
No one breathed.
"If he's hiding, you dig deeper. If he vanishes, you tear apart reality until you drag him back." His eyes blazed with icy flame. "There is no 'what can you do.' There is only what I command you to do."
One of the underlings wrapped his own wrist tightly, suppressing a shiver.
"You will find him." Warden's voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "Or I'll find a use for you instead."
Silence.
Absolute. Unshakable. Dread-filled.
Then, as if nothing had occurred, Warden turned once more to the hologram, smoothing his coat. His face went back to effortless command.
"Now… continue searching." His voice, though quiet, echoed against the metallic walls. "I want results. Now."
The subordinate nodded frantically, fingers scrambling over the interface in desperate obedience.
Then—Warden lifted a hand.
"One moment."
He didn't shout. He didn't have to.
With trained precision, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small, glass vial.
Within, the liquid throbbed—black with veins of yellowing green, moving as if it were alive.
The subordinate's breath caught.
Too late.
Warden moved with clinical precision. With one smooth gesture, he took hold of the man's wrist, inserted the needle into his vein, and pushed the injector down.
A piercing hiss. A spasm of tainted power.
The man sucked in air—instantly his body tensed.
Then, the agony started.
He convulsed violently, a silent scream caught in his throat. Veins blackened, tendrils of dark poison slithering under his skin like living parasites. His eyes rolled back as agony tore through his nerves, cell by cell.
Warden simply watched.
"Let this be a warning." His voice was a blade against glass. "Find the child. Or next time… thirty days will feel merciful."
The subordinate collapsed, trembling.
The room returned to silence.
Warden exhaled, adjusting his coat as if nothing had happened. His gaze flicked back to the unstable holographic marker.
"Continue the search."
Then, with a flick of his fingers, he dismissed them all.
He had more important matters to attend to.