Daigo's voice hit me first.
"Riven! Don't—"
The Keeper's shadow slid over my feet. Cold. Deep. Ancient.
It wasn't a request.
Little core. Come.
My throat tightened. I could feel the air ripple around me, like the space itself was bending toward that impossible voice.
Daigo's boots scraped stone as he closed the gap, hand reaching for my shoulder.
I didn't move.
Because the second I did, the Keeper's hand would follow.
The arena was silent, except for the low grind of the chains in the dark. The watchers—those robed, faceless things—stood like statues. Even the whispering from the Whisper Core had gone quiet.
One step, and I will unmake the one behind you.
The Keeper never shouted. It didn't need to. Its words slid into my head like they belonged there.
And when I looked down, the black veins across my arms were moving. Crawling toward my palms.
Daigo's grip landed—firm, grounding, human.
"Snap out of it. You're—"
The Keeper's shadow flinched. Not away from Daigo… but toward him.
I grabbed my brother's wrist before it could.
"Don't."
His brows knitted. "Don't what—?"
And that's when the chains snapped.
Not from the Keeper.
From the walls.
They burst in a shower of dust and ash, revealing dozens of figures bound and kneeling—each with a Core burning inside their chest. Blue, crimson, violet. Some flickering. Some blazing like dying stars.
All of them looked at me.
Every single one.
The Keeper stepped forward, the ground bowing under its weight.
Take them.
Daigo's breath hitched.
"Riven… what the hell is happening?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because I knew—deep down—if I said the words, if I agreed, something in me would change forever.
The first figure, a woman with silver eyes and a fractured violet Core, whispered like she'd been waiting centuries.
"Command us."
My mouth was dry.
The word was there. On the edge of my tongue. One breath away.
Say it, the Keeper whispered. And they are yours.
Daigo's hand tightened on my arm. He didn't understand. He couldn't.
If I took them… they wouldn't just follow me. They'd belong to me. In ways even the Whisper Core hadn't hinted at.
The woman with silver eyes lowered her head. The rest followed, a silent tide of power kneeling before me.
Sixty? Seventy? I lost count.
Somewhere in my head, the Whisper Core stirred again—humming, shivering—like it wanted this as badly as the Keeper did.
Daigo took a step in front of me.
"Don't listen to whatever this is. We get out. Now."
But the Keeper's shadow stretched past him. Past all of us. Touching the kneeling prisoners.
One by one, their Cores flickered brighter. Their chains groaned.
It was an offer wrapped in inevitability.
Either I took them… or the Keeper would.
The silver-eyed woman lifted her gaze to mine.
"Master."
The word broke something in me. Not because of the power in it—because of the truth in her voice. She already believed it.
I exhaled.
"Rise."
The chains didn't break. They evaporated. Black dust spiraled upward like smoke sucked into a void. Their Cores flared, each pulse syncing with my own heartbeat.
Daigo staggered back as the heat rolled out. "Riven—what did you—"
A voice answered him, but it wasn't mine.
The pact is sealed.
The Keeper's shadow receded, but its presence didn't fade. It had dug itself into me.
And now, sixty-seven Cores burned behind my eyes.
The robed watchers moved for the first time, bowing in eerie unison.
The Whisper Core whispered one word.
Army.
The first breath I took after it was over wasn't mine.
It was theirs.
Sixty-seven lungs, pulling air through my ribs.
Sixty-seven heartbeats drumming under my skin.
Every sound layered over mine until I couldn't tell where Riven Kael ended and they began.
One man near the front clenched his fist. I felt the tendon in his forearm flex.
A woman in the back blinked once, and my eyelids twitched in sync.
Daigo's voice cut through it. "Riven. Talk to me. What the hell did you just agree to?"
I tried to answer. My lips parted.
But the silver-eyed woman spoke instead—through me. My voice wasn't mine.
"We obey."
Daigo took a step back like I'd just pointed a gun at him.
The robed figures didn't move, didn't speak, but I could feel their approval like cold hands pressing on my shoulders. The Keeper had left, but its touch lingered in every tether connecting me to them.
A shiver ran down my spine.
No—not mine. Someone in the second row was shivering.
The silver-eyed woman looked at me like she was reading my thoughts. "You'll adjust. The link is new."
I swallowed, but even that wasn't private anymore. A dozen throats swallowed with me.
The Whisper Core purred.
An army moves as one.
Daigo's jaw was set. "We're leaving."
"Yeah," I said. Or thought I said. The word echoed in sixty-seven voices at once, all perfectly matched.
It didn't feel like control.
It felt like possession.
And for the first time, I wondered if I'd claimed them…
…or if they'd claimed me.
The air in the chamber thickened as we moved.
Not "we" as in me and Daigo.
We, as in the sixty-seven shadows trailing behind me like a single, breathing creature.
I didn't give the order to walk.
I didn't have to.
The first step I took was mirrored exactly—sixty-seven boots touching down on black stone with one sound, one echo, like a giant had stepped into the hall. Even my heartbeat matched theirs, the rhythm slamming against my ribs like war drums.
Daigo kept glancing at them, his hand hovering near his sword, but it was me he was really watching.
I knew why.
I could feel it now—my eyes weren't my own anymore. Something in them reflected their gaze, a shimmer like the Keeper's light.
The silver-eyed woman drifted to my side without sound. "The link won't hurt… yet," she said.
"Yet?" I asked.
She tilted her head. "When you strain it, you'll feel what we feel. Pain doesn't divide here."
I didn't have time to respond before the hall ahead warped. The walls breathed in, then out, like the dungeon itself had lungs. Veins of pale light traced across the stone, converging at a jagged archway.
The Keeper's voice wasn't audible this time. It pressed straight into my skull.
The door will open when the hand moves as one.
The army stopped with me.
Daigo stepped forward, lips parted to ask something, but then he froze. His sword arm twitched.
He wasn't looking at me anymore.
Through the archway, something was moving.
No—many things.
Shapes like human silhouettes, all of them twitching and jerking as though their joints had been replaced with hooks and wire. Their heads lolled unnaturally. Eyes like glass marbles. Their skin looked sewn on.
The smell hit next—hot copper and rotting glue.
I didn't flinch.
None of us did.
I felt their fear—my army's fear—like heat in my teeth. And then something inside me turned it, pressed it flat, and replaced it with the same steady calm I was forcing into myself.
"Hold," I said.
Sixty-seven voices echoed the word at once, making the air shiver.
Daigo's head snapped toward me. "Riven—"
The first stitched creature lurched forward.
The army moved.
Not on my command. Not exactly.
It was like thought had become reflex—the link translating instinct into reality. The front rank surged, weapons raised, every footfall landing with perfect timing. No gaps. No wasted motion.
And as the first blade struck, my muscles jerked. I felt the impact, the vibration, the hot spray—not on my skin, but in my nerves.
One soldier's wrist twisted wrong during a parry. My own wrist flared with pain, white-hot, like bone grinding.
Another took a hit to the ribs. I gasped before I could stop myself, the ache blooming under my own chest.
The silver-eyed woman wasn't wrong.
Pain didn't divide here.
But neither did power.
I reached out—not physically, but through the link—and something clicked.
My breath synchronized with theirs. My stance shifted to match the fastest of them.
And then… we weren't sixty-seven fighters anymore.
We were one monster with sixty-seven blades.
The stitched things didn't stand a chance.
The stitched things didn't scream when they died.
They just collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, their limbs folding in unnatural ways before hitting the ground with a wet slap.
And yet, every one of their deaths made the air heavier.
Not metaphorically. The hall's atmosphere thickened, each corpse pulling the world tighter around us, like gravity itself wanted us to kneel.
My front rank didn't falter. Their blades moved like clock hands—no hesitation, no wasted arc. The kind of coordination you couldn't train in a lifetime.
Daigo couldn't take his eyes off them.
Couldn't take his eyes off me.
"That's not you fighting," he said under his breath, like saying it louder would make it true.
He was half right. I wasn't moving my arms or swinging a weapon. But the truth was worse—I was moving all of them.
The thought came uninvited: They can move faster.
And they did.
The link responded like an electric current through my spine. The front line blurred, weapons snapping forward with brutal precision, legs coiling and releasing like springs. The stitched things went from stumbling toward us to being shredded before they could take a second step.
The silver-eyed woman's voice brushed my ear. "Careful. Every thread you pull tight has to hold under strain. Break it, and…"
Her sentence cut short.
Not because she stopped speaking—because I was already testing the limits.
I pulled.
Not physically. Through the link.
The army's formation shifted mid-strike, folding and curling inward, the rear flank suddenly surging ahead to crush the enemy from both sides. No human squad could pull off that maneuver without chaos.
Here, it was seamless.
One soldier's leg was bitten through before he could draw back. My own thigh seared with the same pain. I staggered, nearly breaking the link. But the others didn't hesitate—they moved for him, striking down his attacker and dragging him back without losing formation.
That's when I realized… the pain didn't just flow from them to me.
It went the other way too.
The wounded soldier gasped and straightened, his leg moving as if nothing had happened—because I'd forced myself to ignore the pain, and the link carried that numbness back to him.
The Keeper's voice returned.
This is the first weight of command. You will carry every wound they take, and they will carry the ones you cannot.
The stitched things began pouring in faster, crawling along walls and ceiling now. Their limbs bent backwards, claws digging into the black stone.
I grinned despite the ache spreading through my body.
The army didn't need orders anymore.
They were my orders.
The ceiling split open.
Not with stone breaking—but with flesh tearing.
A mass of stitched bodies poured from the crack, fused together like a single organism. Dozens of eyes blinked in different rhythms, all locked on me.
"Riven—!" Daigo's voice was half-warning, half-command.
Too late.
They were already dropping.
The first wave hit the front line hard enough to drive them to their knees. The second wave came at our flanks, fast enough to blur. The air was thick with claws and teeth, the stink of rot filling my lungs.
A normal squad would've broken.
A normal leader would've fallen back.
I didn't move.
"Collapse," I said.
The army obeyed instantly, folding in toward me until they formed a wall of bodies, blades pointed outward. I could feel their breathing syncing with mine, their heartbeats pounding like war drums in my skull.
The swarm crashed into us.
The link buckled—like a dam holding back an ocean—and for a moment I thought it would snap. I could feel the strain clawing at my spine, my skull, my very teeth.
And then… I let go of the normal rules.
Not just faster.
Not just stronger.
I overwrote them.
Time inside the link slowed—not for me, not for them, but for everything else. The stitched swarm's movements became syrup-thick, every claw arc drawn out like it was moving through tar. My soldiers didn't hesitate—they cut through frozen time.
Every swing was surgical.
Every thrust, fatal.
From outside, it must've looked like the stitched were simply exploding apart in chunks—torsos splitting, heads severed, limbs falling in clean lines—while we stood perfectly still in the storm.
Blood rained in slow motion.
The Keeper's voice was different this time.
Not amused. Not instructive.
This… is not something I gave you.
I didn't care.
When the last stitched body hit the ground, the army straightened. The black stone floor was carpeted in corpses, the red glow beneath now fully visible through cracks and blood.
Daigo was staring at me like he didn't recognize my face.
The silver-eyed woman's expression had sharpened into something between interest… and fear.
And me?
I was smiling.