The mountain path reeked of blood.
Alex crouched low behind a shattered boulder, breathing heavily, his hands slick with crimson. The ambush had been sudden—too sudden. Half their scouting unit was gone in seconds. The attackers weren't imperial knights. These things moved like beasts, cloaked in mist, their eyes glowing with primal hatred.
"Wargs," Nyssa whispered, back pressed to his, her dagger dripping with black ichor. "They're not supposed to roam this high up. Not this close to the surface."
"Zeta's changing," Alex growled. "The deeper we go, the more the old rules break."
Soren slid beside them, his coat torn, face pale. "This isn't random. Someone led them to us."
Alex's eyes narrowed. "A mole?"
"Possibly," Soren muttered, voice sharp. "We need to reach the outpost before nightfall or we're dead."
They moved, silent shadows slipping through dense fog and burnt trees. The Wargs pursued with howls that echoed like death songs. Alex clutched the ring his father left him, mana pulsing faintly. He felt it react—not to danger, but to something buried in the mountain's belly. Something ancient. Familiar.
Nyssa noticed the distant look in his eyes. "You're hearing it again, aren't you?"
He nodded. "It's calling."
"You sure it's not a trap?"
"I don't know. But it's connected to my father… to who I am."
Lightning crackled overhead. The sky wept black rain. Zeta had no mercy. The team pushed onward, battered, bloodied, but alive. When they reached the stone gates of the outpost, a chilling silence fell.
The outpost wasn't abandoned.
It was purged.
Bodies lined the stone path—scouts, researchers, resistance operatives—all slaughtered, no time to fight back. Symbols burned into the walls glowed faintly with forbidden magic.
Soren stepped back. "That's imperial glyphwork. Epsilon's division."
"The Arcane Tyrant's people?" Nyssa hissed. "They found this place before us…"
Alex walked past the corpses, fists clenched. At the center of the courtyard stood a broken obelisk, pieces humming with ancient mana.
"My father came here," he whispered. "He left something behind."
As he touched the obelisk, his mana surged. Visions flooded his mind—flashes of a sealed chamber beneath the mountain, a machine pulsing with Saint and human essence… and the face of Orion Valerius, watching it all.
Nyssa pulled him back. "Alex! You're bleeding!"
Blood trickled from his nose, his eyes glowing faintly.
"He's closer than we thought," Alex said, voice trembling. "My grandfather… He knows I'm here."
Soren drew his sword. "Then we'll carve a path through hell itself to finish this."
From the shadows of the outpost, a voice replied, cold and laced with mockery.
"You won't need to. Hell is already here."
From the fog stepped a figure in silver armor, Saint sigils burned into flesh. Behind him, soldiers of Epsilon marched with cold precision. At their head, a woman with violet eyes and silver-white hair, wearing the robes of a Grand Scholar.
"Welcome to Zeta, Alexander," she said. "You've just opened the door we sealed centuries ago."