The sky over Kareth Hollow was always red.
Even in daylight, even with no storm overhead, it looked like a wound bleeding into the clouds. The land had long since been stripped of its trees, its people, and its name. Only Seris knew what it had once been called—before the artifact came.
Now, it was nothing but ash, twisted spires of dead stone, and the smell of rotting spirit.
She brought Rythe there with no warning. They appeared in a flash of silent light, the wind screaming around them like something trying to flee.
Rythe didn't flinch.
He hadn't spoken since they left Ardan. He simply followed her through the crumbling wasteland, eyes dull but steady, the Soulsteel blade strapped to his back.
The note to Lareth was the only thing he'd left behind. His silence was the rest of his goodbye.
"This is it," Seris said, stopping before a great sunken crater of blackened stone. "The second Primordial Artifact."
Rythe looked down into the pit—and for the first time in days, his heart stirred with something other than numbness.
It was revulsion.
At the center of the crater stood an obsidian monolith, covered in runes that glowed like veins of dying stars. Chains extended from it in all directions, some buried in the earth, some hooked into the broken bones of the dead. Around it, dozens of corpses, mummified in mid-scream, littered the field—eyes still glowing faintly, mouths open as if their souls had only just been stolen.
"The Soul Furnace," Seris said quietly. "It feeds on life essence. Not blood. Not flesh. Souls."
Rythe didn't ask why she brought him.
He knew.
This was his punishment. This was his penance.
Without a word, he drew his sword and marched forward.
Seris didn't stop him.
She only whispered a spell of protection over him before retreating to the edge of the pit.
As Rythe stepped closer, the artifact woke.
Screams erupted from the monolith—dozens of voices at once, old and new, young and ancient. They clawed at Rythe's mind. One voice sounded like Aurean. Another like the child they'd never had. A third like his own mother.
He faltered. Just for a moment.
Then forced himself forward.
Shadow-creatures, misshapen things birthed from torn souls, rose from the ground, lunging at him with shrieks and talons.
Rythe met them head on.
Blade flashing.
Body burning.
Mind screaming.
He fought for hours, it felt like. Maybe longer. Every time one fell, another rose. And each time he struck, the Soulsteel absorbed the essence of what he killed, growing heavier in his hand—burning his skin where it touched.
His armor was shredded. Cuts bloomed across his chest and legs, his blood mixing with ash. At one point, a creature's claws tore open his side, exposing ribs, but he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
This was the only thing he could feel anymore.
When Rythe finally reached the monolith, he was barely standing.
But he raised the sword with both hands, the blade now screaming with all the souls it had consumed—and he drove it straight into the heart of the artifact.
The impact was blinding.
Light erupted in a sphere around him, and a wave of sound exploded across the valley. The chains shattered. The runes cracked. The monolith split in half, the artifact's magic devoured from the inside out.
The scream of the dying furnace echoed across the Hollow—and was gone.
When it was over, Rythe collapsed.
Seris reached him a moment later.
He was unconscious, covered in blood and soul-burns, but breathing. Barely.
She knelt beside him, brushing a strand of damp hair from his face, and whispered, "You did it, Rythe. Another piece of the puzzle is gone."
But Rythe didn't hear her.
In his dreams, he stood once again before Aurean, his hand stretched out, waiting.
And as always—Aurean turned away.
Far from the kingdoms and their burdens, nestled in the quiet shadow of the Ashen Mountains, there lay a forgotten temple—an ancient place built into the cliffs, protected by spells older than recorded time. Seris had brought Rythe there after the destruction of the Soul Furnace.
He had drifted between life and death for days.
Burns patterned his body like cracked glass. Scars had been etched into his chest and back by soul magic, glowing faintly under the skin. His sleep was filled with whispers of the dead and visions of a silver-eyed omega who always stood just out of reach.
Seris sat at his side in silence, working healing sigils into his skin. Her brow was tight with something that looked dangerously like concern.
"You shouldn't have done that alone," she whispered once, as she poured another vial of potion over his wounds. "You're not trying to survive anymore, are you, Rythe?"
He didn't answer.
His eyes remained closed, lips cracked and still. But his hand twitched—just once—when she mentioned survival.