The three corruption sites formed a triangle across Eredor's merchant district, each one pulsing with shadow energy that Kaelen could feel even from blocks away. Standing on a rooftop overlooking the first target—a shuttered textile warehouse—he reviewed the plan one more time.
"In and out, fifteen minutes per site," Selene had said during the briefing. "Minimal engagement, maximum efficiency. The Cult doesn't know you're coming, so use that advantage. Absorb the corruption, disrupt any active rituals, extract any hostages. Then move to the next site before reinforcements arrive."
Simple in theory. In practice, Kaelen knew, nothing was ever simple.
"Ready?" Lia asked beside him. She'd inscribed observation runes that showed the warehouse's interior—two cultists maintaining a corruption ritual, no visible hostages, moderate shadow energy concentration.
"Ready," Kaelen confirmed. Soulrender hummed at his hip, eager to feed. "Ronan?"
The former Shadow Hunter checked his equipment one last time. "I'll cover the exits, make sure no one escapes to warn the other sites. You two handle the interior. Standard breach protocol."
They moved.
Kaelen dropped through a skylight, Soulrender drawn, landing in a crouch among stacks of corrupted fabric. The shadow energy here was thick enough to see—black mist rising from textiles that should have been ordinary cloth, now twisted into something wrong. Touch them, and the corruption would spread to whoever wore the garments. A slow, insidious attack on the civilian population.
The two cultists barely had time to react before Kaelen was on them. He kept his strikes non-lethal—a pommel strike to the temple, a precise kick to the knee. Both cultists went down, conscious but disabled.
"Clear," he called to Lia, who descended more carefully via a rope.
"Good. Now comes the hard part." She moved to the corruption ritual's center—a carved circle surrounded by shadow-soaked cloth arranged in patterns. "I'll disrupt the ritual structure. You absorb the ambient energy. On my mark."
Lia's hands moved through complex gestures, her purification runes appearing around the ritual circle. Kaelen planted Soulrender in the ground and opened himself to the sword's hunger.
*Feast time,* Soulrender said with satisfaction.
The corruption came flooding in, drawn to the blade like iron to a lodestone. Black mist streamed from the textiles, from the walls, from the very air, all of it channeling into Soulrender. The sword drank deep, refining the crude shadow energy into something purer, more controlled.
Kaelen monitored his Shadow Scars. Twenty-nine. Still twenty-nine. The absorption was working perfectly—feeding the blade without corrupting him further.
"Ritual disrupted," Lia announced as her runes shattered the corruption circle. "Energy seventy percent absorbed. Good enough. Let's move to site two."
They extracted through the skylight, leaving the unconscious cultists tied up for the city guard to find later. Ronan was already ahead, scouting their next target.
Eleven minutes. Ahead of schedule.
Site two was a wine merchant's cellar, the corruption ritual built around barrels of imported alcohol. The plan was the same—breach, disable, absorb—but this time they encountered resistance. Four cultists instead of two, and one of them was a mid-tier shadow mage who actually knew what he was doing.
"The Soulrender wielder!" the mage shouted, shadow magic already crackling around his hands. "Marcus wants him alive! Subdue, don't kill!"
"That's almost flattering," Kaelen muttered, deflecting a shadow bolt with his blade. The absorbed energy detonated against Soulrender's steel, absorbed and neutralized. "He wants me alive."
"Don't let it go to your head," Lia called, her barrier runes protecting her from another cultist's attack. "They probably just want to steal your sword."
"Also almost flattering."
The fight was harder than the first site, but still manageable. Kaelen used minimal shadow energy—thin tendrils to disarm, small bursts to knock opponents off balance, nothing that would tax his control or add Scars. Lia's support made the difference, her purification magic and barriers controlling the battlefield.
The shadow mage tried to escape when he realized the fight was lost. Ronan's crossbow bolt caught him in the shoulder, and he went down screaming.
"Fifteen minutes exactly," Ronan said, checking his pocket watch. "We're still on schedule. But that mage definitely sent a warning signal before I stopped him. Site three might know we're coming."
"Then we go in fast and hard," Kaelen said, already moving toward the exit. "No time for subtlety."
Site three was a counting house, where Eredor's merchants stored gold and contracts. The corruption ritual here was more sophisticated—shadow energy being used to forge fake contracts that would bind people to unfavorable terms, creating chaos in the city's economy. Clever. Insidious. Exactly Marcus's style.
And as Ronan predicted, they were expected.
Kaelen kicked open the counting house door to find a dozen cultists waiting in formation, shadow magic charged and ready. Behind them, three terrified clerks were bound and gagged, positioned as human shields.
"Damn," Kaelen breathed.
The lead cultist—a woman wearing an elaborate bone mask decorated with silver filigree—laughed. "Did you think you could strike at us three times without consequences? Lord Marcus sends his regards, Soulrender wielder. He's been hoping you'd grow bold enough to become predictable."
"I hate it when the bad guys are right," Kaelen muttered to Lia.
"Same," she replied, her hands already tracing defensive runes. "So what's the play?"
Kaelen assessed the situation. Twelve cultists, well-positioned, hostages in the line of fire. If he charged in with Soulrender blazing, the cultists would kill the hostages before he could reach them. If he tried to negotiate, the cultists would stall for time while more reinforcements arrived.
Unless...
"Soulrender," Kaelen said quietly. "How precise can you be with absorbed shadow energy?"
*Very precise,* the sword replied. *We are an instrument of war, not a blunt hammer. Why?*
"Because I need twelve simultaneous strikes. Non-lethal. Fast enough that they can't react."
*Ambitious. We like it. But wielder, that level of control will cost you.*
"How much?"
*Not Scars. But exhaustion. You'll be spent afterward. Vulnerable.*
"Can you do it or not?"
*Can we?* The sword sounded almost offended. *Watch.*
Kaelen channeled power into Soulrender—not the sword's core energy, but the corruption he'd absorbed from the first two sites. The blade glowed with contained shadow, vibrating with potential.
"Last chance to surrender," the lead cultist said. "Lord Marcus would prefer you alive, but he'll settle for claiming your blade from your corpse."
"Counter-offer," Kaelen replied. "You let the hostages go, and I don't demonstrate exactly why Forbidden Blades are forbidden."
"You're outnumbered, exhausted, and—"
Kaelen moved.
Soulrender swept in a complex pattern, and twelve blades of compressed shadow energy shot out faster than thought. Each one struck a cultist with surgical precision—nerve clusters, joints, pressure points. Nothing lethal, nothing permanent, but completely incapacitating.
All twelve cultists collapsed simultaneously, their shadow magic dispersing harmlessly. The hostages, unharmed, stared in shock at their suddenly unconscious captors.
Kaelen staggered, his vision blurring. Soulrender had been right about the cost. That technique had taken everything he had.
"Hostages," he gasped. "Get them out."
Lia was already moving, cutting the clerks' bonds, herding them toward the exit. Ronan appeared from his overwatch position, quickly binding the unconscious cultists.
"Impressive," Ronan said. "Reckless, but impressive. How do you feel?"
"Like I just ran a marathon while juggling knives." Kaelen leaned heavily on Soulrender, using the blade as a cane. "But I'll live. Did we get all the corruption?"
"Most of it," Lia confirmed, running her diagnostic runes. "Maybe eighty percent absorption across all three sites. Not perfect, but enough to disrupt the Cult's operations for weeks."
"Then let's—"
The counting house door exploded inward.
A figure stood in the smoke and debris—tall, cloaked, radiating shadow magic that made the cultists' power look like candle flames compared to a bonfire. Kaelen knew who it was before the man spoke.
"Marcus Blackwood," he said, forcing himself upright despite his exhaustion. "Come to collect your people?"
"Come to observe," Marcus corrected, stepping into the counting house. Up close, the former Arch-Mage was exactly as Ronan had described—sharp features, intelligent eyes, and an air of absolute confidence. "I wanted to see the man wielding Soulrender in action. To determine if you were a threat or merely an inconvenience."
"And?" Kaelen asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
"You're better than I expected," Marcus admitted. "Controlled, disciplined, using the blade without being consumed by it. That's... rare. Unprecedented, even. Most wielders are rabid animals within a week. But you..." He smiled. "You have potential."
"I'm not interested in whatever you're selling," Kaelen said flatly.
"Aren't you?" Marcus gestured at the corrupted contracts, at the bound cultists. "You think stopping a few rituals matters? I have operations in fifty cities across Aethor. You've barely scratched the surface. And every day, the Shadow Lord's seal grows weaker. Your efforts are futile."
"Maybe," Lia interjected, moving to stand beside Kaelen. "But futile effort is better than no effort. And every ritual we disrupt is people you can't hurt."
Marcus's eyes fixed on her with sudden interest. "Lia Thorne. Elena's apprentice. I was sorry to hear about her death. She was a brilliant researcher, even if she wasted her talents on trying to 'redeem' forbidden artifacts."
"She wasn't trying to redeem them," Lia shot back. "She was trying to understand them. Something you obviously failed to do, or you wouldn't be trying to resurrect a genocidal tyrant."
"The Shadow Lord was many things, but 'tyrant' is Valorian propaganda." Marcus's tone was patient, almost professorial. "He was trying to restore balance to a world the mage councils had broken with their dogmatic suppression of shadow magic. When he returns—and he will return—he'll finish what he started."
"By killing millions?" Kaelen demanded.
"By reshaping a flawed system." Marcus turned to leave, then paused. "A word of advice, Kaelen Voss. Stop fighting the inevitable. Join me. Together, with Soulrender and my knowledge, we could accelerate the Shadow Lord's return on our terms. Control it. Shape the new world instead of being crushed by it."
"Not interested."
"Your loss." Marcus stepped toward the broken doorway. "Oh, and one more thing. I've located Hearteater. Within the month, I'll have two of the three Forbidden Blades. You might want to consider that when you're deciding which side of history to stand on."
He vanished in a swirl of shadow, leaving behind only the faint smell of ozone and the weight of his threat.
Silence filled the counting house.
"He's bluffing," Ronan said finally. "About Hearteater. He has to be."
"Maybe," Lia said, though she sounded uncertain. "Or maybe he's actually close. Either way, we need to report this to Selene. If Marcus really is about to claim a second Forbidden Blade..."
"Then the timeline just accelerated," Kaelen finished, his exhaustion suddenly feeling much heavier. "And we're running out of time to stop him."
They extracted from the merchant district, leaving the city guard to handle the aftermath. As they made their way back to the warehouse safe house, Kaelen couldn't shake Marcus's words.
*Join me. Control it. Shape the new world.*
It would be so easy. Stop fighting. Accept the inevitability. Let someone else make the hard choices.
But then he thought about the hostages in the counting house, about the innocent workers from the factory, about all the people who would suffer if Marcus succeeded.
"I'm not giving up," he said aloud, to himself as much as to his companions.
"Never thought you would," Lia replied, her hand finding his.
"Good," Ronan added. "Because this is where the real fight begins."
Three sites cleansed. Forty-seven to go. Marcus closing in on Hearteater. The Shadow Lord's seal weakening.
The race was on.
And Kaelen Voss refused to lose.