Jax moves with a soldier’s brutality, no flourish, no mercy. Her chakram arcs through the tunnel, embedding in organs and throats. She doesn’t wound—she ends.
I step into the chaos, calm as the eye of the storm, short blade in hand. One Blackfang lunges, teeth bared in a grin he doesn’t keep for long—my steel slides between his ribs, angled up, puncturing lung and heart in a single, efficient strike. I twist free before his body hits the stones.
This is what I was made for. Violence as precision. Death as certainty.
A shadowhound beast breaks its chain, lunging straight for Seren, but Elyssara meets it head-on. She doesn’t flinch.She never does.
Her Starforged Blade spears up through its skull, her wild grin shining as black ichor sprays across the tunnel wall. She wrenches the blade free and turns on another Blackfang and carves the grin off his face in a single, feral stroke.
The tunnel narrows with screams, steel, and snapping jaws. Blood spatters the walls, the stones, our skin. And through it all, each of them moves like pieces in a single, brutal symphony—Therion’s precision, Seren’s cunning, Jax’s brutality, Ronyn’s accuracy, Rubi’s cruelty, Elyssara’s fury. And me, the steady rhythm of inevitable death.
Six men. Six corpses. The floor runs red, just as I promised, the air thick with iron and gore.
We surge forward into the den, the beasts howling behind us, the Codex waiting in the dark.
I know Thalmyr’s men won’t be far away—we need to move fast.
We need the Codex.
The den yawns wide as we break from the tunnel, stepping over corpses into pools of their blood. The den is a cavern carved out by violence itself. Cages line the walls, shadows shifting within—snarling beasts with eyes like embers. Bones litter the ground, scraps of meals and men both. The stench of piss and rot burns my throat.
And there it is.
The Codex. Massive. Ancient. A thick tome veined with silver sigils that pulse like a heartbeat, set on a pedestal hacked from the cavern wall. It hums in my bones, a power I don’t understand and don’t care to. What matters is simple: it’s ours.
But we aren’t alone.
Blackfang reinforcements rise from the shadows—dozens of them, scarred and feral, chains wrapped around their fists, jagged blades in hand. Beasts thrash in their cages at the sound of battle-cries. The tunnel guards were nothing. These are the true monsters.
“Back to back!” Therion bellows, already swinging his axe in a wide, brutal arc that forces three men to leap back or lose their heads.
Ronyn plants himself behind him, loosing arrows into the gaps Therion makes—one finds a throat, another an eye. “I knew I should’ve eaten,” he grouses, string singing as fast as his mouth.
Jax braces at Therion’s side, chakram spinning with precision—every one of her daily lessons since childhood evident in her movements. Every blow that should cut Seren or Rubi apart is cut short by her spinning blades. She growls with each hit, refusing to budge.
Rubi is a blur of vicious joy. Her sickle hooks a Blackfang’s ankle, yanking him down, and she hacks at him like he’s a stalk of grain, cackling as blood spatters her face.
Seren slips beneath Jax’s guard, fast and clever. She grabs a torch and drives it into a beast’s cage, sending it shrieking as flames lick its fur. It thrashes, tearing its own bars loose—then lunges at the nearest Blackfang instead of us.Clever girl.
And Elyssara—fuck, Elyssara. She moves like ruin given flesh. Her Starforged Blade sings through the dark, carving a man open from hip to shoulder, spinning to drive her boot into another’s knee. Her grin is feral, her eyes alight, and when a shadowhound beast breaks its chain and lunges for her, she meets it with dark enjoyment, driving her steel up through its skull.
I take my place among them, at peace in the chaos. One Blackfang charges, teeth bared. I slide aside, drive my bladethrough his chest, and rip it free before he hits the ground. Another comes—steel at my throat—but my short blade takes his wrist clean off. Violence is breath, is certainty.
Then, boots echo through the tunnels.More.
Heavy boots pound against stone. Torchlight flares. Royal Guards flood in. Armored. Disciplined. A wall of death.
For a heartbeat, no one moves. Blackfangs and Royal Guards stare at each other over our blood-slick bodies.
Then the world explodes.
Beasts are freed, cages cracking. Shadowhound beasts rip into Royal Guards, Royal Guards cut down Blackfangs, Blackfangs lunge at us all. It’s chaos—two predators tearing each other apart with us trapped in the middle.
“The Codex!” Elyssara shouts, her voice cutting through the din.
It’s Seren who reaches it—her hand slamming against the stone. The sigils flare, not fading.Answering.Her Veilborn blood thrums in the glow, and for a heartbeat even the guards hesitate, staring at her like she’s something holy.
She snatches it up, the weight straining her arms, but the Codexknowsher. It hums, alive, in her grasp.
