They descended through the scorched bowels of the Ashen Spire, deeper than any map dared mark. What had once been a sanctum for fire-born rites was now a labyrinth of broken stone and ancient bones, choked in ash.
Darric swept a lantern of coldlight ahead, illuminating a corridor carved with runes that pulsed weakly as Kael passed. "These markings… they're old. Older than the Spire itself."
"Ancient Velaryan script," Isryn whispered, fingertips tracing the stone. "It speaks of a sealed gate… and something called The Eyes Beneath."
"That doesn't sound like a good thing," Pyra muttered, already tightening her gauntlets.
"It's not," Kael said, voice low.
Their path opened into a cavernous chamber — vast and hollow, with a pit yawning in the center. Chains hung like webs above the abyss, each one glowing faintly with emberlight. Statues of eyeless priests lined the walls, cracked and scorched.
And then the whispers began.
Not voices — not truly.
Just the sense of being seen.
From all angles.
Kael stopped at the edge of the pit. The others followed cautiously, each weapon drawn. Below, something shifted — not with sound, but with presence. A pulse. A breathless silence that moved.
Then, from the dark, something emerged.
Not a creature. Not fully.
It was a mass of fused flesh and molten rock, crawling upward with many limbs, many mouths — and no eyes.
"By the stars…" Eren breathed.
Isryn gritted her teeth. "It's a Wretch. A failed vessel. One of Malrik's earliest experiments…"
The thing roared — a soundless scream that shattered two of the ancient statues with its force.
Kael stepped forward, red lightning dancing across his frame. "Form up. We end this."
The battle began with chaos.
The Wretch surged forward, limbs crashing like hammers. Pyra met the charge with her shield, skidding backward across the stone. Darric rolled to the side, loosing bolts of arcane fire that sizzled against its molten hide. Isryn called down shards of ice to slow its movement — to little effect.
Kael didn't wait. He dashed in.
"Veyrhaal — Sever the grotesque."
The blade flared with power. He swung wide, slicing through one of the beast's limbs with a howl of distorted flesh. The thing responded by lashing out with three others — two Kael dodged, one caught his shoulder, throwing him back into a pillar.
"Kael!" Pyra shouted, leaping in.
She slammed her flaming gauntlet into the beast's exposed underbelly — it shrieked and reeled — and Darric sent another volley of explosive bolts into the wound.
But the Wretch refused to fall.
It grew more erratic, more twisted — mouths opening where none had been, limbs shifting position mid-strike.
Kael rose, blood trailing from his lip. He planted his blade.
And closed his eyes.
"I need more."
The darkness inside him stirred — the same abyss Kaelen had warned him of. But he reached for it anyway.
The red aura bled into black.
"Abyssal Edge."
He moved faster than sight. One clean motion — a flash of light and thunder — and the Wretch froze mid-lurch.
Then, like glass under pressure, it shattered.
Chunks of twisted matter fell back into the pit, burning with crimson flame as they vanished into nothing.
Silence followed.
Then breath.
Kael sheathed his blade slowly. "Let's keep moving."
Pyra looked at him. "You good?"
"No," Kael said, voice even. "But I will be."
As they crossed the chamber, the broken runes behind them flickered — and died.
Something deeper had awakened below.
And it had seen Kael.