MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 10: CONSTELLATION OF MASKS
The air was colder come morning — sharp, high-altitude air that scraped at their lungs. The cliffs of Akar Reach now loomed behind them like jagged sentinels, stone watching stone. The path down the ravine would be treacherous, winding toward the dark marshlands below, but they had no choice.
They couldn't stay.
Raian led this time, his blade now strapped higher across his back, within quick reach. The words carved into the walls of the ruined station hadn't left his mind.
> The Eclipse is the end.
Beside him, Lira was quieter than usual, the dim light around her flickering like a dying candle. And Izek… his eyes had that weight again — not tiredness, but burden. As if gravity wasn't just his gift, but something more ancient pulling on his soul.
"What's down there?" Lira finally asked, nodding toward the marshes.
"A ghost town," Izek replied. "Used to be a Hitorika relay outpost. Abandoned during the Fourth Shardfall. Locals call it Mirewake."
Raian frowned. "Sounds like a place that eats travelers."
"It does," Izek said. "But there's a map vault below the shrine there. If we want to reach the Blade of Eternity before the Creed or Eclipse… we need what's inside."
They descended in silence — until Lira paused. Her breath caught. Her light dimmed further.
Raian noticed first. "What is it?"
Lira turned, eyes wide. "Someone's following."
---
At first, it looked like smoke drifting across the ridge behind them. But as it drew closer, it formed a shape.
Not quite a man.
The figure was tall — impossibly tall — with elongated limbs and shoulders wrapped in cracked armor. A mask covered its face, etched with constellations that shimmered and changed. It held no weapon, but its very presence split the trees, their bark charring as it passed.
Raian drew his sword. "It's one of them."
"The Pale Twin," Lira whispered. "They say it walks in place of the sun when the stars fall."
Izek dropped his pack. "We run."
But the figure raised its hand.
And the world bent.
---
Raian blinked — and they were no longer standing on the path.
They were surrounded by stars.
A void stretched infinitely in all directions, filled with burning symbols, floating ruins, and twisting reflections of places they'd never seen.
It was a dream. Or a trap.
The Pale Twin stood at the center, its mask now glowing with thousands of tiny lights — like galaxies trapped behind metal.
"You seek the Blade," it said. The voice came from inside them — each syllable pulling at the thread of their thoughts.
"You carry keys. I carry the door."
Raian rushed forward, sword drawn — but the Pale Twin raised a finger.
And Raian froze mid-air. Literally.
His body hung like a painting, motionless, expression twisted with effort. Only his eyes moved — frantic.
Izek growled. He stomped the ground — and the dream cracked.
Chunks of the void shattered, and the illusion began to peel away.
Lira screamed, channeling her Broken-Light flow into a burst of prism-like force. It cracked the stars.
Raian dropped, gasping as they were flung back into reality — to the cliffs — as if gravity reasserted itself all at once.
But the Pale Twin had followed them out.
---
It was faster than anything they'd fought.
It moved without steps — just flashes — as if it jumped between points in space, blinking toward them with each heartbeat.
Izek slammed the earth with both fists, summoning a shockwave of gravitational pull. It slowed the thing, dragging it momentarily into the stone.
"NOW!" he shouted.
Raian shot forward, blade catching flame from the friction of his speed. He sliced—
The Pale Twin vanished.
Then reappeared behind Lira.
Its hand reached for her—
And she unleashed a pulse of Hollowlight, desperate and unrefined.
The force blasted the Twin back, but Lira collapsed to her knees, breath shallow, the mark on her chest glowing red-hot.
Raian knelt by her. "You okay?"
She nodded weakly. "It's… hard to control."
The Pale Twin stood again, armor cracked — but not broken.
It tilted its head.
"Three bearers. Two will remain. One will beg."
Then, it vanished.
Not in speed. In reality.
Gone.
The three of them stood in silence, the forest trembling behind them.
Raian muttered, "That wasn't a Hollowkind. That was something worse."
"No," Izek said, "that was a herald."
Lira looked up. "Of what?"
Izek stared into the marshlands ahead.
"Of the Eclipse."
---
They reached Mirewake by dusk.
Fog hung low across the sunken ruins — stone walkways half-submerged in muddy water, strange lights flickering below the surface.
The village had been dead for decades… but something watched from its stillness.
They crossed into the shrine at the heart of the ruins, an old structure carved from dark stone. Within it, shattered Hitorika statues lined the walls, each one bearing the same sigil: an eye wrapped in vines.
Izek knelt at the altar, brushing dust away from a hidden hatch.
"We rest here tonight," he said. "And tomorrow… we dig."
Raian leaned against a pillar, eyeing the waters outside.
"They'll come for us again," he said. "That thing… it was testing us."
Lira nodded. "And next time, it won't be alone."
---
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT TIME...
A descent into the shrine's underchambers reveals the forgotten Vault of Waking — a Hitorika chamber filled with star-maps, blade-forgings, and fractured truths. There, they uncover a warning left behind by the First Resonant: the Blade of Eternity does not grant power. It replaces you.
And something waits in the dark — a former bearer, still alive… but no longer human.
TO BE CONTINUED