MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 27: The Weight of Silent Roads
The fog had vanished, but the air still carried the memory of it — heavy, damp, charged with the faint echo of voices that had not belonged to the living. They moved east now, the arches of the Breath's Edge far behind, the horizon unfolding in long stretches of blackened grassland.
For the first time since the descent, no one spoke.
The Blade of Eternity rested at Raian's side, but it no longer felt dormant. The faint symbols burned into its steel pulsed at irregular intervals, like a heartbeat out of sync with his own. Every flicker came with a phantom sensation — footsteps behind him that weren't there, eyes in the dark when he turned to look.
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By midday, the road narrowed into a ridge that cut between two sheer drops. The land below was jagged, littered with the remnants of old war machines — twisted siege towers, broken ballistae, and scorched banners from battles no one had sung about in centuries.
Lira trailed her fingers along the stone wall, sketchbook clutched tight to her chest. "It's still changing," she murmured. "The symbols… they're rearranging themselves again."
> "Stop looking at them," the Pale Twin said without turning.
"Why?"
"Because the more you look, the more they look back."
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As they walked, Izek's pace slowed. His gaze kept drifting skyward.
"Storm coming," he muttered.
There was no cloud in sight.
Raian looked at him. "Not weather, then."
Izek shook his head. "No. Something else. A pressure — the same I felt when the First Spear stepped onto the field."
The Pale Twin stopped abruptly. "We're being herded."
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They reached the end of the ridge and found the road blocked by a low wall of stone, recently built, the mortar still damp. On the other side, a small force of armored figures waited — not Creed, not Order. Their armor was mismatched, scavenged from different eras, but each bore a single black shard embedded in the chestplate.
One of them stepped forward, removing his helmet. His skin was pale, his eyes colorless save for a ring of faintly glowing silver.
> "Traveler," he said, his voice smooth but hollow. "You carry something that belongs to the Silent Assembly."
Raian's hand went to the Blade. "And if I don't hand it over?"
The man's lips curved into a faint smile. "Then you die. And we take it anyway."
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The fight was instant. The Silent Assembly moved in perfect unity, each strike timed to push Raian's group toward the ridge's edge. Their weapons hummed with a low resonance that clashed against the Blade's own pulse. Sparks of different colors lit the narrow pass.
Izek broke through one attacker's guard with a blow so heavy it shattered the man's breastplate, revealing the black shard inside. The shard pulsed once — then cracked — releasing a strange shimmer of energy before dissolving into dust.
The Pale Twin's gaze sharpened. "They're not guarding a road. They're guarding a path to another Anchor."
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By the time the last Assembly fighter fell, the ridge was streaked with blood and littered with broken weapons. Lira knelt by one of the fallen, her expression tight. "If there's another Anchor ahead… is it tied to one of those symbols you saw?"
Raian's grip on the Blade tightened. He didn't answer — but the pulse in the steel told him enough.
The Pale Twin stepped past him, her eyes on the winding trail beyond the wall. "This one won't be like the Breath's Edge. The Assembly is patient. If they've built walls here, it means whatever's ahead is worth dying for."
Raian looked at the others. "Then we see what's worth dying for."
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They moved forward. Above them, the first shadow of a storm finally began to form — not of rain, but of something darker, spreading in silent spirals across the sky.
And somewhere beyond that wall, the Second Rune waited.
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TO BE CONTINUED