"You endure," Anastomus breathed, his grin twitching at the corners. "So that's how you survived my attack in Volos."
The words hung in the air like a venomous hiss. The blade in his hand pulsed faintly, its corroded light gnawing at the dark, yet his tone carried a strange fascination—half amusement, half disbelief.
Ithan didn't answer. Instead, he decided to invoke another Logoi art.
"Logos Prosarmogē-Truth of Adaptation"
"Logos Epimonē -Truth of Persistence"
The synergy of the three spells of his Mystery of Survival boosted the green flames that stabilized his body, allowing him to adjust to Anastomus's decay.
He straightened, his breathing steadying as the white-gold light of his spear guttered back to life around him. Silence became his response, heavier than any retort. His focus was elsewhere—beyond Anastomus, toward the shadows where Anipather had vanished.
Anastomus noticed.
That manic gleam in his eyes faltered for just a second, replaced by something colder. He tilted his head, his smile curling like a wound.
"Ah. I see. You're not even looking at me anymore. I'm just in the way."
Ithan kept his stance low, his spear poised, his expression unreadable. The only sound was the faint hum of the Ember Edge burning clean against the creeping rot in the air.
"You really think you can ignore me?" Anastomus whispered, voice sharp now, the laughter gone. The air around him rippled, faint distortions warping the edges of his silhouette as his decay gathered again. "You think I'm just some obstacle to be brushed aside?"
Still, Ithan said nothing. His eyes stayed locked, calm and unyielding.
Inside, though, his instincts screamed. The same feeling that had clawed at him back in Volos tightened around his chest now—an intuition born from battle, from pain, from something primal. It wasn't fear, exactly, but the cold recognition of danger.
There was something wrong about Anastomus. Not just his cruelty or his madness—those were common enough in the world of mercenaries. No, this man moved like a broken clock, every motion too smooth, too sudden, as if time itself stuttered around him.
Every instinct in Ithan told him the same thing it had told him that first day in the field: be careful with this one.
Because whatever Anastomus was, he wasn't just another soldier. He was a fracture in the world—something that shouldn't have survived, yet refused to die.
Anastomus' grin returned, thin and predatory.
"Then look at me, Ashborn," he murmured, dagger rising again. "If you're going to kill me, at least see me."
The air thickened as both men took stance again—flame and rot flaring like twin suns about to collide.
Anastomus lunged again, dagger shrieking through the air. His strikes came faster now—blinding, overwhelming. Every swing ate at the world itself, black trails of decay cutting through the pale light of Ithan's flames.
Ithan met him blow for blow, but it was like fighting a collapsing mountain. His body screamed under the pressure. His Logoi art of survival worked tirelessly, adapting to the strain, knitting torn muscle and pushing pain into the background. Anastomus fought like a hurricane trapped in human skin, and each breath Ithan took felt borrowed.
He ducked under another slash, rolling across the scorched ground, spear dragging a burning streak behind him. The white-gold flame sputtered and hissed in the ash. Anastomus' laughter followed him—manic, echoing, fractured like shards of glass.
"Run all you want, Ashborn! Every second you delay, you rot!"
Ithan's eyes flicked upward—his pupils faintly luminous, glimmering with the white-gold of geometric sigils. The power he had recently awakened in his eyes came to life, and through the haze, time slowed—not entirely stopped, but stretched like silk. He saw it then: Anastomus' path, the angle of his next strike, and more importantly, the currents of Aether in the field—the living corruption that twisted the land.
Anastomus vanished into motion, the world cracking under the pressure of his speed. Every step he took shredded the ground into dust. His dagger traced ribbons of entropy through the air—slashes that seemed to age reality itself.
Ithan met the first blow, not with strength, but timing. His spear twisted just enough, Ember Edge deflecting the blade off its mark. Even then, the pressure sent him skidding backward, boots grinding trenches into the ashen soil.
Another blow came, then another—each one faster, heavier, less human. Sparks and decay bloomed with every clash, a strobe of light and shadow turning the world into a flickering nightmare.
He's faster now… stronger. He's pushing his Mystery past its limit.
Ithan's eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating. The world around him slowed—not literally, but perceptually. His sight stirred, his eyes whispering a fraction of the future before it came. Each heartbeat became a rhythm, each swing a note in a pattern he could read. When Anastomus' dagger came for his throat, Ithan ducked before it moved. When it slashed for his side, his body bent away, his feet shifting on reflex born of practiced rhythm, not luck.
But even foresight wasn't perfect. The next strike clipped his shoulder, tearing through flesh. Decay spread like frostbite, searing his nerves. He bit down a cry, shifting his stance and dragging his spear through the ash to create distance.
Anastomus grinned widely, blade twitching with manic energy.
"You can read me, can't you? That little flicker in your eyes—like you already know what's coming." His smile grew cruel. "Let's see if you can read this."
The sickle blurred—and split.
For a heartbeat, Ithan saw three blades moving at once, the air fracturing with afterimages. No—those weren't illusions. Anastomus was carving through slices of time itself, existing in overlapping moments.
Ithan moved, but the world couldn't keep up. One of the blades ripped through his side. Pain exploded, his ribs screaming, blood spilling hot down his hip.
He stumbled back, spear digging into the ground for balance. The world tilted. His breath came ragged, black spots swimming in his vision. Anastomus stalked closer, dragging his sickle behind him as the ground beneath his steps crumbled into dust.
"You can't win, Ashborn," Anastomus said softly. "You can only delay the inevitable. Even fire dies when the sun goes out."
Ithan tightened his grip on his spear. He's right. I can't overpower him… but I don't have to.
He drew a long, steady breath, his voice rasping like wind through a dying flame.
Living Temper.
The Green flames of his Mystery of Survival pulsed through him like the beat of a heart, tempering his body. If Ashen reprieve gave him the power of endurance, living temper allowed his flames to adjust his body to any threat.
Ithan knew he was pushing it. Using both Theosis and Logoi art expended a lot of energy, but luckily for Ithan, his Mystery of survival was at Bathos, so the mystery itself automatically drew aether to fuel itself. That was one of the advantages of the Mystery. Still, he could not apply the aether to his Prometheus Mystery, and using his golden white flames was draining him of his vitallity.
He needed to finish this fight as quick as possible. The decay spreading through his wounds halted, stilled, and began to recede. His vision cleared. The trembling in his hands steadied. The pain didn't fade—but it stopped controlling him.
Endure.
Ithan used the opening not to counterattack—but to move. He twisted on his heel, thrusting his spear into the ground, releasing a surge of white-gold flame with pyric clash. The burst blinded Anastomus for a split second, the ash flaring into a radiant storm.
By the time the light faded, Ithan was gone—his footsteps leading back toward the outer core of the Ashen Field, where Anipather's presence burned faintly like a distant wound.
Anastomus stood alone in the shimmering heat, laughter echoing in the empty air.
"Running away?" he called out, his voice half-amusement, half something darker. He moved after Ithan, following the trail of radiant ash that lingered in the air.
The Ashen Field wasn't dead. It pulsed faintly beneath the soil. And within it, the Cursed Ones stirred.
Ithan exhaled through his teeth. "Good," he muttered. "Then let's see if the field remembers me."
He feigned a stumble, letting Anastomus close in, letting the sickle scrape his shoulder and spill blood. Pain flared bright and sharp, but he didn't resist it—he guided it, focused it, using it to draw his attention inward. Endure. His body hardened beneath the strain, the wounds closing in seconds as his green flames pulsed through his veins.
Anastomus laughed, thinking he'd broken him. "You're slowing down, Ashborn!"
Ithan turned, meeting his gleaming eyes. "Am I?"
Then he ran.
Not away, but deeper—toward the cracked ridge of the Ashen Field, where the soil shimmered faintly with ghost-light. Anastomus followed, relentless, unaware of the faint ripples spreading in the ash around them.
The wind grew colder. The world darkened. Whispers rose—low, guttural, and inhuman. Faint, glowing shapes coiled between the trees, taking form. Cursed creatures—shadows given life by the corruption of the field—twisted out of the mist, drawn by the scent of decay. Ithan stopped, his breathing ragged, spear at the ready.
"You wanted to see my strength?" he said. His voice carried through the haze, steady despite the blood streaking his skin. "Then see if you can outlast me in their domain."
Anastomus hesitated for half a heartbeat, his dagger twitching. The ash at his feet shifted—and a hand, skeletal and black as pitch, clawed out of the earth. Then another. And another.
The Cursed creatures erupted.
They lunged for both of them, shrieking in a sound that curdled the air. Ithan ducked beneath one, thrusting his spear through its chest, flames burning its form to cinders. The others turned to Anastomus, drawn to the same entropy that animated him. His decay ate at them, but they just kept coming—feeding on the rot, multiplying through it.
Ithan's foresight flared again—faint images flickering through his mind. If I press him to the ridge… if the Cursed creatures converge there, they'll drag him down.
He moved through the chaos like a man possessed, every step placed with precision. Anastomus slashed and snarled, his blade rotting through the Cursed creatures' forms, but the things clung to him like a tide of shadows.
Ithan ducked, weaving between them, his body glowing faintly with the pulse of Survival as claws raked across his back. Pain flared, faded, and burned away. He wasn't fighting to win—he was surviving to outlast.
Finally, he reached the edge of the ridge. He turned, spear braced, and shouted—his voice cutting through the din: "Anastomus! You wanted the truth? Here's mine—I don't need to defeat you. The world already will!"
The ground beneath Anastomus cracked open as more Abominations swarmed. Their wailing grew deafening. He slashed wildly, his dagger disintegrating their forms by the dozens, but for every one that fell, two more rose.
And when he turned to lunge for Ithan again, Ithan was already gone—backing into the haze, his form swallowed by the smoke and fire of the Ashen Field.
Anastomus screamed his name, fury and decay filling the air, just as the Cursed creatures closed around him. The last thing Ithan saw as he turned away was that mad grin still defiant, even as the shadows dragged him down.
The shrieking filled the world. Black arms clawed through the haze, pulling at steel, flesh, and shadow alike. The Abominations surged over Anastomus in a wave of gnashing teeth and molten eyes, drawn to the rot like carrion to a wound in time.
He fought them—by the gods, he fought them. His sickle blade screamed with that corroded light, every swing dissolving specters into clouds of ash and withering dust. For a moment, he was a storm unto himself, decay turning to armor, every pulse of his Mystery devouring the Cursed creatures as they lunged.
But the Ashen Field was endless. And the Cursed ones… they didn't die.
For every shade he erased, two more crawled from the cracked earth. They pressed in from every side, whispering in tongues that hadn't been spoken since the world's first ruin. Their claws sank into him—not into his flesh, but into his time. His speed faltered, his body dragging through the air like a puppet tangled in its own strings. Anastomus' grin didn't break, even as his face was swallowed by darkness. His eyes still glowed faintly through the writhing silhouettes.
"You think this'll end me, Ashborn?" he roared, his laughter ragged and wild. "Even if I die here… I'll still outlast you!"
Then the creatures pulled him under. The ash rose, curling in slow, heavy spirals that swallowed sound and form. The glow of his decay flickered once—twice—then vanished, leaving only silence.
Ithan stood at the edge of the ridge, breathing hard, the last embers of his spear dimming in his hand. The ground still quivered faintly beneath his boots, as though the field itself remembered what it had consumed.
He watched the smoke twist and settle. There was nobody. No sound. No proof of death.
Just a hollow in the world where Anastomus had been.
Ithan exhaled, low and weary, the white-gold light of his flames finally dying out.
"Stay buried," he muttered under his breath, though some part of him doubted the world would grant that mercy.
Then he turned, stepping away from the ridge, his figure fading into the gray light of the Ashen Field—leaving only the whispers of the Cursed ones behind.
The wind settled. Ash drifted down like snow, whisper-soft against Ithan's shoulders. He stood at the ridge, staring into the gray pit where Anastomus had vanished. The Abomination cries had faded into the distance—only the hollow pulse of the field remained, that strange heartbeat of a world that refused to die.
For a while, he said nothing. He just breathed, each breath rough with the taste of sulfur and burnt soil. Then, slowly, the realization began to settle in.
They were both Curseborn. Both born of curse, both marked by the world's rejected light. By all rights, the field should have turned on him too. But it hadn't. The Abominations had ignored him like wolves ignore fire. They circled, hissed, but didn't strike. Their hate had been for Anastomus alone.
And now he understood why.
Anastomus carried Kronos' Truth—decay, the consumption of all things. His curse wasn't merely to endure darkness; it was to accelerate it. Wherever he walked, time unraveled, memory and matter peeled away. To the Ashen Field, that made him an invader—an infection trying to eat what was already dead.
Ithan, though… his truth was different. Prometheus. Survival. Fire. His curse was to burn and live, to push back against the endless fall into nothing. His flames purified, his will endured. The Field remembered that. It had once birthed him, and in some strange, silent way, it still recognized him as its own—a piece of its rot that refused to rot any further.
He looked at his hand, still faintly scarred where the flame met decay. "We're both children of the same wound," he murmured, voice rough. "But I chose to live in it. You tried to feed on it."
The ash stirred faintly at his words, curling away from his feet. Beneath the silence, he could almost feel the Cursed Creatures retreating, their hunger sated—or perhaps, appeased.
Ithan turned from the ridge, the pale light behind him dimming as he walked. Even among Curseborn, the field chose its own.
****
Ithan pressed deeper into the Ashen Field, where the mist thickened and the air grew dense as tar. Every breath burned with the scent of metal and old storms. His steps left no prints; the ground beneath him was too still, too dry—like walking across the skin of something ancient.
He followed faint traces—shallow footprints, a cut in the ash, the echo of Aether burned into the air. Anipather. The man had moved quickly, but not cleanly. Every clash of his armor against the field's corrosion left fragments of his presence behind, like a scent trail through the void.
Tracking came naturally to Ithan. He'd done it countless times in his mercenary days—following monsters through ruined villages, through forests turned to dust. He didn't need a sensory mystery. His instincts filled the gaps between evidence and intuition.
Still, he couldn't shake the unease in his chest. The deeper he went, the quieter the world became. Even the wind had vanished. Only the faint pulse of Aether—raw, unstable—vibrated beneath the ground, like a buried heartbeat.
By the time Ithan reached the summit, his body was a map of pain and blood. His muscles burned with the ache of overexertion, his hands raw from gripping the searing weapons that had become his lifeline. The air at the top was thin, each breath sharp with static, and the lightning here was no longer distant—it crawled over the crystal spires like veins of living fire.
He had deactivated all expression of his Mystery of Survival, in order to regain the strength to use it in his fight with Anipather. He pulled himself up onto the plateau and froze.
The summit was hollow. The mountain's heart had been carved open into a vast chamber of crystal, its walls translucent and alive with coursing light. At its center, the core of the relic pulsed—an enormous prism of stormlight, rotating slowly, its brilliance spilling into the chamber in waves of electric blue. The hum it gave off was deep and resonant, like the slow heartbeat of a sleeping god.
And there, standing before it, was Anipather.
The Captain of the Blue Orcas looked nothing like the disciplined soldier Ithan had once seen in Volos. His armor was cracked along the joints, pieces fused with glowing filaments of Aether. Twin sabers hung at his sides, their blades drawn and shimmering with pale lightning. The reflection of the crystal storm danced across his face, outlining the weary set of his mouth, the madness burning quietly behind his eyes.
He didn't turn when Ithan arrived. His gaze was locked on the storming prism, as though trying to read its secrets.
"You really shouldn't have come, Ashborn," he said finally, voice calm—too calm.
"And let you off after what you did in Volos," Ithan said.
"Ah! And here I thought you had abandoned your desire for revenge for the sake of those children. To think you would pull a fast one on us. Tell me, how did you do it?"
Ithan said nothing. The truth was that Ithan felt a powerful resonance within him and the Lance itself. Even with his Prometheus mystery, the Lance favored him more than it would anyone else.
He understood it instinctively, which was why he had made a gamble. He had gambled on being able to undo the bond between him and the relic; no...not undo, he was able to suppress the bond's presence to the point that it would appear broken. And it had worked.
Anipather noticed Ithan wouldn't answer. He stared around the chamber that they were in. They had ended up in the mountain where Stormheart had been sealed.
"This mountain… it belongs to something far older than either of us," Anipather said. "This place...a place where the gods once worked their wonders."
Ithan stepped forward, boots crunching against crystal dust. "And yet here you are, trying to claim it for yourself."
Anipather laughed under his breath—a dry, humorless sound. "No. Not for myself. For the Imperium. For the world that's forgotten what heroes look like."
"Heroes?" Ithan's voice sharpened. "You call yourself that after what you did to Volos? To Larson? To those kids?"
That made Anipather turn. His eyes met Ithan's at last—sharp, cold, and haunted. "You think heroism is clean, Ashborn? That it's ever been without blood? Every empire is built on corpses. Every savior is just a killer who tells himself there's meaning in it."
The twin sabers hummed as he raised them, lightning arcing between their twin edges. "I fought for the Imperium. I bled for it. And when I die, they'll carve my name beside the others who carried civilization through chaos. I will have achieved Kleos itself. Don't you want to be by my side when that happens?"
Ithan's spear lifted, white-gold fire running up its shaft. "If that's what you call being a hero, then I'll be the chaos that ends it."
"I told you that the next time I offer you a chance at my side, and you refuse, will be the last," Anipather said. Anipather smiled—a tired, almost sorrowful expression that didn't reach his eyes at Ithan's rejection and scorn. "Then come, Ashborn. Let's see whose truth burns brighter."
He moved first.
The sabers cut twin arcs through the air, the spark between them forming a single streak of light that split the chamber in two. The impact shook the crystal walls, scattering shards of light across the hollow.
Ithan dodged, barely, his spear flashing upward in answer. Flame and light collided—Prometheus against the storm—each strike echoing like thunder trapped in glass. The chamber trembled under their Mysteries' resonance, stormlight bleeding into the air until it felt like they were fighting inside the heart of a living tempest.
Sparks rained from the ceiling. The prism's pulse grew faster and brighter, feeding on their clashing energies.
And through the roaring storm, Ithan's voice cut low, steady, and fierce: "You want to die a hero, Anipather? Then die by your own storm."
Ithan surged forward, channeling his flames through his spear. White-gold fire coiled along the haft and bloomed at the tip, the spear igniting with a roar that shook the crystal walls. He wove the flame through his movements—each strike sharp, deliberate, relentless.
Anipather met him head-on. His twin sabers flashed, crossing in arcs of blue steel that caught the fire and split it apart. Sparks exploded with every clash, white flame scattering against the captain's defense. His form was tight, practiced—each motion deliberate, the rhythm of a man who'd refined his art on a hundred battlefields.
The impact jarred Ithan's arms. Anipather's sabers carried more than just weight—they hummed, a low, thrumming vibration that crawled through Ithan's bones and numbed his grip.
He gritted his teeth and pulled back, circling. Helen's Amazon spear art had given him balance and precision, a form meant for warriors who controlled their rhythm like dancers. But that wasn't him. Not truly.
Helen's art was harmony. Ithan was friction.
He moved again, adjusting his stance, striking low to draw Anipather's parry before twisting his spear upward. But the captain deflected easily, his blades singing with that eerie resonance. The vibration rippled through the haft and into Ithan's muscles, setting his nerves alight.
Each time their weapons met, a shock ran through him—like the air itself was shattering around the sabers. He realized it wasn't just strength. Anipather's Mystery was at work—something deeper, something that turned motion into power.
The captain's expression didn't change as he pressed forward, blades vibrating in tandem.
"You fight well, Ashborn," he said between strikes, voice steady even in the storm of movement. "But you're using a borrowed form. It's not yours."
Ithan grunted, blocking one saber and narrowly avoiding the other. His arms shook from the force, his skin burning where the shockwaves tore at his flesh.
He's right, Ithan thought. This isn't my fighting style.
The ground beneath them cracked as his spear's fire met the resonance of Anipather's sabers. The collision birthed thunder, flame, and force all at once—two truths clashing in the hollow of the crystal mountain.
Ithan staggered back, chest heaving, watching the faint violet light gather around Anipather's blades. The vibrations deepened into a frequency that made the air hum, shards of crystal trembling loose from the ceiling.
So this is it, he realized. The power that killed Larson.
The sound rose into a low, droning note that made his heart skip a beat. His spear vibrated in response, the fire sputtering. Pain lanced through his arms and ribs.
Anipather raised one saber, its edge blurring from the intensity of the vibration. "You won't last long, Ashborn," he said, his tone calm, almost pitying. "This technique doesn't just cut flesh. It cuts through your strength. Through your soul."
The air between them cracked, and Ithan steadied his breath, blood dripping from his split knuckles. The pain didn't matter. What mattered was the rhythm—the pattern—the truth behind Anipather's vibration.
He'd survived worse. He could survive this, too.
"Mystery of the Ocean's Predator—Orca Maw."
The words rolled from Anipather's tongue like a decree.
Ithan's eyes ignited—white gold irises burning with intricate runes that rotated and realigned like living equations. The world slowed around him. Every thread of motion, every fluctuation in Aether, unfolded in exquisite detail. He saw it—the tension coiling in Anipather's shoulders, the micro-shudder of his wrists, the subtle twist of the sabers' vibrating edge.
A translucent wave-field burst outward from Anipather's blades, forming the faint outline of a massive orca's jaw—its shape rippling through the air like refracted glass. The "teeth" were arcs of oscillating force, rows of compressed energy grinding against each other with a subsonic hum that rattled the crystal mountain itself.
The air screamed.
Ithan's foresight drew the trajectory in luminous threads before his eyes. He saw the path of destruction before it happened—the jaw would snap shut from both sides, grinding anything caught within into dust.
Cinder Steps.
He moved. His body blurred in a flare of white-gold flame, sliding just beyond the invisible fangs. The heat of the collapsing field brushed his back as he rolled away, the energy biting through the air where he'd stood an instant before.
But Anipather wasn't done.
"Clever," the captain murmured, eyes narrowing. He shifted his stance, his second saber already in motion. With a brutal twist, he crossed both blades together—closing the spectral jaw with a single command.
The orca's maw slammed shut.
A concussive implosion erupted at the center, sucking the air inward before detonating in a shockwave that tore through the chamber. The pressure crushed against Ithan's ribs, rattling his bones like a drum. His ears rang. The force slammed him across the glassy floor, sparks trailing from his spear as he fell.
He coughed, the metallic taste of blood on his tongue, vision shaking from the resonance vibrating through his skeleton.
Anipather stood amidst the chaos, sabers gleaming with the technique's residual afterglow. His armor shimmered with contained power, his expression calm—almost solemn.
"It's a shame, Ashborn," he said, voice cold, edged with something like respect. "A shame that you must die."