The plaza trembled under her gaze.
The woman—if she could still be called that—stood like a storm held barely at bay.
Silver fire crackled in her veins. Her voice was melody and ruin, a song sung in a forgotten tongue.
I tightened my grip on the relic-sword.
The blade responded, glyphs crawling along its surface, thrumming with anticipation.
I stepped forward, each footfall a declaration. "Who are you?"
She tilted her head, studying me like one might an insect pinned beneath glass.
"I am the Guardian of the First Seal. I am bound by oath and chain. Only the worthy may pass."
Her smile widened, brittle and terrible.
"And you, broken thing... you reek of the Old Blood."
The chains binding the Seal behind her shuddered, vibrating with a keening sound that drilled into my skull.
The relic in my hand burned hotter, the pulse syncing with the vibrations.
I understood then, without needing to be told.
This was not a test of words.
This was not a riddle to be solved.
This was war.
Without another heartbeat wasted, she moved.
She crossed the distance between us in a blink — a blur of speed and fury.
Her hand, wreathed in crackling energy, lashed toward my throat.
Instinct screamed through my bones.
I ducked low, feeling the air tear above me as her strike missed by inches. I countered, thrusting the relic-sword upward.
Steel met searing flesh.
A hiss erupted from her lips, but she barely flinched. She spun, her heel colliding with my ribs in a brutal arc.
Pain exploded through my side as I staggered backward, barely keeping my footing.
She pressed the attack — relentless, inhuman.
Every blow she struck carried the weight of storms.
Every step she took shattered the stones beneath her feet.
I blocked, dodged, parried — each moment closer to the edge of death.
The relic whispered battle-forms into my mind, but she was faster. Stronger.
I was surviving by will alone.
Her next blow slammed into my guard with the force of a falling mountain. I skidded across the plaza, boots digging trenches into the stone.
Blood filled my mouth. My arms trembled.
She was toying with me.
"You are not the first," she said, her voice pitying.
"Others came, clutching relics. Dreams. Pride. All were found wanting."
She raised her hand.
The chains around the Seal ignited, casting burning silver light across the ruins.
"Kneel. Surrender. It will be easier."
I spat blood onto the ground.
"No."
Her eyes narrowed. For the first time, something flickered across her perfect face.
Annoyance.
She descended upon me again, faster than thought.
A maelstrom of strikes — fists, claws, slashes of burning magic.
I fell into the storm.
The relic screamed in my hand — a high, urgent keening.
More, it seemed to say.
Reach deeper.
I closed my eyes for a single breath.
Sank into the relic's presence.
There, beyond the pain, beyond the fear, I felt it — a second current.
A deeper well.
Buried.
The shard in my pocket pulsed once, unlocking something within the relic.
The glyphs on the blade blazed gold.
The sword changed — lengthening, widening, threads of flame spinning along its edges.
The Warden's Blade, in its truest form.
I opened my eyes.
And struck.
The blade moved with me, alive, eager.
I caught her incoming strike and twisted, driving her arm wide. I stepped into her guard, slashing upward in a blinding arc.
Silver ichor sprayed from the wound, hissing where it touched the ground.
She shrieked — a sound that shattered glass and stone alike.
No longer a woman.
A thing of hunger and chains, fury and endless sorrow.
She retaliated, summoning a lance of searing light. I deflected it with the flat of the relic-sword, the force sliding off me like water from oil.
I pressed the assault.
Strike after strike rained upon her.
My movements no longer purely mine — the relic guided me, the will of countless lost Wardens flowing through my hands.
Her defenses faltered.
I forced her back, step by bloody step, toward the Seal.
The plaza trembled anew, cracks spiderwebbing outward from the crystal's base.
She lashed out one final time — a desperate, wild slash that would have ended any mortal.
I ducked beneath it.
And drove the relic-sword through her heart.
For a heartbeat, there was only silence.
Her silver-lit eyes widened. She stared at me, something like gratitude flickering across her features.
"Free... at last," she whispered.
Her body disintegrated into motes of light, scattering into the ruined sky.
The chains around the Seal shattered with a thunderous crack, each link exploding into nothingness.
The Seal pulsed once —
then cracked open like an egg.
From its core rose a sphere of darkness, swirling and shifting, shapes writhing inside.
The relic in my hand vibrated violently.
I stepped forward, instinct and relic both urging me onward.
As I reached for the sphere, a voice — not the Echo's, not the Guardian's — thundered in my mind.
"One of Seven... unlocked."
Visions flooded me —
A world consumed by war.
Titans rising from oceans.
Cities burning beneath alien skies.
At the center of it all —
A throne of broken stone.
An empty crown.
And above it...
the Black Sun.
I staggered backward, gasping.
The vision faded, leaving only the ruined plaza and the dying light of the broken Seal.
The relic was heavier now.
Sharper.
Alive.
The first step was taken.
The first Seal broken.
But the path ahead had darkened.
Enemies beyond mortal understanding stirred in their slumber.
The Empire would not sit idle.
And somewhere, unseen, the true architects of the old world's fall turned their gaze toward me.
The Last Warden.
The first crack in the prison of the gods.