The camp slept beneath the broken sky.
Only the hiss of cooling embers and the soft breath of wind through shattered stone remained.
But Solace was awake.
The artifact pulsed against his skin — slow, steady, hungry. A second heartbeat. A constant whisper in the silence: Not yet enough. Ascend.
He sat still for hours, the dying fire reflected in his hollow eyes. The others dreamed fitfully around him, but he could feel dawn creeping closer, and with it, the Rift. He wasn't ready. Not yet.
He rose in silence.
Boots whispering across gravel, he slipped between crumbled walls, out into the ruins beyond camp. He didn't look back. He couldn't. But somewhere above, high in the broken tower, Lyra's eyes opened. She watched him vanish into the mist, her breath shallow. She said nothing. She knew.
The night swallowed him whole.
He walked quickly, deeper into forgotten stone and twisted metal. The ruins were black veins stretching toward the horizon, broken ribs of an ancient beast long dead. Here, only silence and shadow.
Solace drew the artifact's power into his palm. The ring unwound itself into coiling wisps of black smoke that solidified into a blade — a slender katana, its edge pulsing faint violet, almost alive. It shivered in his grip.
A sound.
A soft scrape of claw on stone.
He froze, body low, breath shallow. There, through a broken arch: two shapes. One small — hunched and twitching, eyes glinting green, venom dripping from jagged fangs. A Rank 2.
But beside it...
A presence vast enough to smother the night.
The Rank 4 beast rested in patient stillness, its breath a slow, grinding tremor. Scales like obsidian, ridged and jagged with bone armor. The mist recoiled around it.
Solace's heart pounded. His mouth was dry.
He studied them carefully. The smaller beast skittered nervously, circling, too close to the larger. He needed to remove it without noise.
He closed his eyes. Shadow curled tighter around his blade. He slashed the air in a clean downward arc.
A crescent of darkness, silent and sharp, cut through the night.
The Rank 2 creature twitched, then split apart without a sound. Meat and bone fell in steaming ruin.
The big one stirred.
A long, low breath. Its massive head turned, nostrils flaring.
Too late to hide.
The ground trembled. The beast rose, muscle rippling beneath plated hide. A snarl deep enough to rattle stone rolled out from its chest.
It charged.
Solace didn't think. He moved.
Tendrils of black mist surged up at his command, wrapping around the beast's legs, slowing it by fractions. Not enough.
The impact was a hurricane. Stone exploded beneath its weight. Solace rolled aside, breath torn from his lungs. He was already slashing upward, two arcs of violet darkness slicing into the beast's raised forelimb. Flesh parted, bone cracked.
It screamed.
Rage, raw and primal. The beast lashed out blindly. Claws scraped stone inches from his skull. Solace darted left, shadow blooming beneath his feet, using its slippery surface to pivot faster. His katana blurred, each stroke releasing dark projectiles that hissed into scaled hide, puncturing and burning.
The creature shrieked, staggering — but it kept coming.
It lunged. He leapt — not fast enough. Claws caught his ribs, tearing through cloth and flesh. He hit the ground hard, vision blurring. His katana spun out of reach, clattering somewhere into the night.
The beast loomed over him.
Hot breath stinking of blood and rot washed over his face.
He tried to move. Couldn't.
The beast raised its remaining claw.
Black chains coiled around its wrist.
Lyra.
She stood on the jagged ledge above, arm outstretched, shadows twisting from her fingertips. Her expression cold and distant.
The beast roared and tore against her grip.
Solace crawled, fingertips scraping stone until they found the hilt of his fallen weapon. The moment his fingers closed around it, the artifact pulsed — almost joyous.
He surged to his feet.
"Don't get involve!" he hissed up at her.
She didn't answer. Her shadows held.
The beast ripped free of her chains with a scream that shook the ruins. Blood streamed from its wounds, its breaths ragged and heavy. But it still charged.
Solace met it head-on.
The blade in his hands twisted, lengthening into a spear. The tip crackled with purple lightning. He lunged, each thrust firing off dark missiles that exploded against the beast's hide. The creature faltered.
He pressed forward, driving the spear into its chest. It howled, staggering back, black blood pouring from its mouth.
The spear dissolved into smoke, re-forming as the katana. Solace's breath came in ragged gasps.
One more strike.
The beast charged again, slower now, desperate.
He ducked low.
The katana sang through the air in a perfect arc.
The beast's head fell away from its body, crashing into the rubble with a wet, final thud.
Silence.
The carcass shuddered once, then lay still. Steam rose from the wounds.
Solace stood trembling. Every part of him ached.
Lyra dropped from the ledge, landing beside him with soft steps. Her eyes glimmered with something between awe and concern.
"I didn't know you could do that with your darkness ability, did you?" she murmured.
"Neither did I." His voice was hoarse. "I copied you. Darkness listens to me too."
She said nothing. Just watched him.
He stumbled forward, dropping to his knees beside the beast's corpse. With shaking hands, he reached into the cooling flesh and pulled free the beast crystal — heavy, warm, pulsing with raw power.
The moment it touched his skin, fire flooded his veins. His heart clenched, every nerve alight.
Rank 4.
He gasped. The world tilted.
Lyra caught him as he nearly collapsed.
"I can walk," he muttered, weakly defiant.
"No, you can't," she whispered.
She hoisted him easily onto her back. He wanted to protest but couldn't.
The ruins were silent save for their footsteps.
Behind them, the carcass cooled in the black mist.
Ahead, the camp still slept, unaware.
Solace rested his head against her shoulder. Exhaustion crushed him, but beneath it… something more. Strength. The border had broken. He could feel it — the hunger, deeper now, more demanding.
He had done it.
But the price had only begun.
And dawn was coming.