The core pulsed in Nameless's hand, a dying star of captured malice. Black veins shimmered across its surface, writhing as if desperate to escape. The weight of it wasn't physical—it was a pressure inside his skull, a clawing at the edges of his mind.
And then the whispers came.
Not sound. Not words. Images, burned directly into his memory.
A man.
He stood before the demon, robed in white so pure it glared like sunlight on snow. His hair was long and pale, drifting like silk in a wind that wasn't there. His face was a blur, obscured by a merciless, blinding glow, but his presence was a razor's edge—sharp, cold, absolute.
The demon—the same Ascended that had torn the sky—knelt before him like a beast before its god.
A voice, deep and calm, slithered through Nameless's mind. Not spoken, but imposed:
"Tear their gates. Bring their walls down. Let them choke on the ashes of their realm."
The man in white raised one hand. Shadows bled from his palm like ink into water, coiling around the demon's wings, feeding it, swelling it beyond its nature. Then the vision burned—fire, screams, a gate shattering, splintering reality. Cities drowned in night, towers becoming torches against a dying sky.
This wasn't chaos. This was command.
Someone was sending them.
The pressure grew unbearable. His skull felt like it was splitting apart. Blood leaked from his nose, hot against his lips. His teeth clenched, grinding against the scream that echoed only in his mind.
Then—CRACK.
The energy core shattered in his hand. The fragments fell like dying stars, fading into nothing before they hit the ground.
Nameless exhaled, slow and ragged. His chest heaved once, then stilled. He turned.
The Bowl was quiet now.
What had moments ago been a roaring arena of blood and fire had become a grave of silence. His boots struck the ground with a weight that felt like judgment itself. He didn't look at the demon's husk. His molten-gold eyes locked on the two warriors who still stood amid the ruin.
"Mages!" His voice cracked like thunder. "Tend to the wounded! Now!"
The command rippled through the stunned silence. Healers rushed in. Vaelric sagged, blood freezing on his skin, his strength finally bleeding out as they dragged him away. The mages who had once watched in awe now moved with frantic purpose, weaving spells of mending and stasis.
The Grandmaster approached Nameless. His presence burned like sunlight filtered through steel—controlled, but unyielding. He studied him for a long, heavy moment, his sharp eyes refusing to flinch.
"Who are you?" he asked. His tone carried no suspicion, only something heavier, older. "I have lived for centuries. I have seen mages twist the elements and warriors bend steel to their will. But I have never seen a man wield blood as though it were born to him. Not in this realm."
Nameless lifted his gaze, the crimson still faintly glowing in his eyes. His answer was quiet, stripped bare.
"I wish I knew."
The Grandmaster's expression hardened. A flicker of ancient knowledge stirred in his eyes.
"Do not play me for a fool, boy. That is not a human technique. It is the language of predators. Of things that hunt between worlds." He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl. "I know exactly what you are. The question is, do you?"
Nameless said nothing.
Before he could, a new presence descended.
A hush fell over the mages as they bowed their heads.
The Ruler.
She glided down the steps from her throne, her silver hair flowing like river-light, her movements too silent to disturb even the dust. The aura of warmth and kindness she often wore was gone, stripped away. In its place was an ancient, regal coldness that made the air itself thin. Her grey eyes—like storms that had forgotten how to die—swept across the ruin.
Her gaze lingered on Nameless, then shifted briefly to the healers working desperately over Vaelric. When she spoke, her voice was soft, yet it carried the weight of command that could level kingdoms.
"The bravery shown today has saved this city from a fate it has known before." She paused, her eyes narrowing at the broken remnants of the demon. "We remember what it means when Ascended walk the world. We remember what follows."
The Bowl seemed to tremble at her words.
Her attention returned to Vaelric. "Lord Vaelric will be honored." Then she turned to Nameless. "And you…" Her gaze sharpened, cutting past the mortal veil around him. "You have earned more than thanks."
The Grandmaster inclined his head, but did not look away from Nameless.
"Then grant him what he deserves," the Ruler decreed. "Not coin. Not titles. Those are too small. Grant him the right of choice—the right to seek what others are forbidden. If it lies within this city's reach, he may claim it. That is my word."
Her decree was a blade—sharp, binding, final.
The Grandmaster bowed his head. "As you command." But his eyes never left Nameless.
A voice broke the tension.
"Nameless!"
Ryne's boots scraped against cracked stone as she barreled toward him. Her face was flushed, streaked with sweat and dust, her voice trembling with a mixture of fury and relief.
"I thought… this was as far as we'd go together," she said, trying to steady her breath. "You idiot. You absolute idiot. Jumping into this hell as if you couldn't die too."
Nameless turned to her, the faintest shift in his expression softening the harsh lines of his face. A crooked smile tugged at his mouth.
"Couldn't let Vaelric have all the fun, could I?"
Ryne let out a sound between a laugh and a sob, shoving his shoulder weakly before stepping back.
The Grandmaster's voice cut the moment short.
"Your 'fun' has a cost." His tone was sharper than steel. "The blood you command… it will call to other things. Older things." He turned his gaze toward the jagged peaks that stabbed the horizon, Mount Araveth rising like a frozen blade. "There is something on the highest peak. A beast of ice and starlight that has been resting there for a thousand years. A cosmic being, a remnant of the old gods. You will meet it."
Nameless's smile vanished. "Why?"
"Because it is like you," the Grandmaster answered simply. "A creature bound to this world, yet not born of it. It may recognize what you are. It may give you answers. And I suspect it already knows of you."
Nameless's jaw tightened. "Then let's go."
"It is not so simple," the Grandmaster warned. "No human can approach it. The cold it emits is not of this world. It freezes the soul itself."
"Then I'll go alone." His voice held no room for argument.
"No." The Grandmaster's eyes glinted. "You will not. I will take you."
The Next Day, at First Light
The air grew thin as they ascended, the path a treacherous ribbon of ice and stone. Ryne had been ordered to stay behind, a command that burned in her chest. But she obeyed, watching their figures fade into the mist of the mountain's crown.
The climb was not simply cold. It was alive.
The higher they went, the more the mountain seemed to resist them. Frost crept across stone in patterns too deliberate to be natural, geometric shapes that dissolved when touched. The wind carried whispers, not in words, but in fragments of memories not their own—children laughing, cities burning, oceans swallowing the sky. Time itself seemed to fray, moments stretching too long or collapsing into blinks.
Nameless endured it with clenched teeth, each step heavier than the last. His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, the only warmth in the desolation.
The Grandmaster walked beside him as though the air were a spring breeze. His presence cut a path through the unnatural cold, though he said nothing. His silence was worse than speech—it suggested he had walked this path before.
Hours bled together. The world shrank into white and silence, until at last, the path ended.
They stood before the peak.
It was no summit. It was a throne room.
The ground was a sheet of translucent ice, impossibly smooth. Beneath it pulsed veins of blue-white energy, spreading outward like the roots of a world-tree, glowing faintly as they crawled down the mountain's body and into the distance—toward the very veins of Araveth itself. The city did not stand on stone. It stood on the dragon's dream.
And in the center, it was breathing.
It was no mere beast of claw and fang.
A cosmic dragon, vast and resplendent, its body woven from flowing light and shadow. Its horns curled like crescents of moonfire, and its scales shimmered with hues that shifted between the deep ocean and the starlit sky. In its chest blazed a core of searing brilliance, as though it held a newborn star between its talons. Wisps of frost and radiance streamed from its form, coiling around it like living clouds.
The cold it exhaled was not of winter. It was the silence between stars, the emptiness of the void, the stillness that followed creation itself. Air fractured into shards of pale light, as though reality itself struggled to remain solid in its presence. No mortal heart could beat long beneath such majesty. That was why the peak was forbidden. The dragon had made it a throne.
And it had been waiting.