The Witch's sanctum was silent but for the faint hum of captured starlight in crystal orbs. The lead Witch, who introduced herself as Astra, gestured for them to sit on cushions of dark velvet.
"The reading is not a parlor trick," Astra said, her galaxy-eyes fixed on Damien. "It is a peeling back of probability, a listening to the song your soul sends into the future. It requires a focus. Something you value." Her gaze shifted to Lyra. "Or someone."
Lyra shifted uncomfortably. Damien's grey eyes met Astra's. "What do you require?"
"A thread of connection," Astra said. She produced a loom of shimmering, intangible lines. "The bond between you two is new, bright, but strong. I will weave it into the reading. It will show me paths where you are together, and paths where you are not. In return, I will tell you one thing you most need to hear about your immediate future."
It was a deeply personal request. Lyra looked at Damien, her rainbow eyes uncertain.
"Is there risk to her?" Damien asked, his voice flat.
"Only the risk of truth," Astra said.
Damien looked at Lyra. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. It was her choice.
Lyra took a deep breath. "Okay. Do it."
Astra's hands moved. She didn't touch them physically but plucked at the air between them. Lyra gasped, and Damien felt a faint tug at his core, as if a cord he hadn't known was there had been strummed. Silver and prismatic threads of light, visible only to their spiritual senses, extended from each of them, flowing onto Astra's loom.
The Witch began to weave. The threads crossed, knotted, separated, and recombined. Images flickered in the air above the loom:
Damien and Lyra, standing back-to-back in a storm of blades and spells, fighting a faceless legion.
Lyra, weeping over a still, frost-covered form that looked like Damien.
Damien, alone on a throne of ice and void, the Conductor's Focus in hand, his eyes cold and utterly empty, while Lyra watched from a distance, her face etched with sorrow.
The two of them, older, in a sun-drenched garden of strange flowers, laughing, her tails wrapped contentedly around his arm.
The images came faster, more fragmented—joy, loss, triumph, separation, reunion.
Astra's brow furrowed. She pushed the loom, and the threads strained. Then, with a sound like snapping crystal, one particular thread—a bright, stubbornly intertwined silver and rainbow strand—flared with blinding light.
Astra reeled back, her hands smoking slightly. The loom vanished. The images faded.
She stared at them, her composure shattered, awe and fear in her starry eyes. "A… Fixed Point," she breathed. "In a sea of chaotic probability, one strand is immutable. Your meeting… it was not chance.
She looked at Damien, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The thing you need to hear: You seek the third artifact for your bloodline, the Heart of a Time-Lost Titan. It is not lost in time. It is held in the one place time does not touch in this realm: The Dreaming Prison of the Last Oni King, in the depths of the Fracture. And to open that prison…" her eyes went to Lyra, full of pity, "…requires a Kitsune's Tail of Nine Truths, willingly severed."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Lyra's hands flew to her tails, her face pale. A Kitsune's tail was the seat of their power, their life, their soul. Severing one was a catastrophic, near-fatal injury. Severing nine?
Damien's grey eyes turned to ice. "There is another way. Must not be her. Afterall, there are other Kitsune"
"The threads show none," Astra said, recovering slightly. "The Fixed Point shows you together at the prison's gate. The cost is shown. The outcome… is not. That is all the Coven can see. The reading is done. Your bond has shown us more than we wished to know. Leave now."
They were ushered out, the weight of the revelation crushing the earlier spark between them.
Meanwhile, at the Demon pits, things were reaching a climax.
Kiran was in the arena, facing the Demon Champion—a behemoth named Ignax, whose opal skin was crisscrossed with scars from witch-lightning and whose cultivation pulsed at the very peak of the 4th Order, 7th Rank.
[Arena Opponent: Ignax, Opal Demon Champion. Cultivation: 4th Order, 7th Rank (Pinnacle). Affinity: Volcanic Fury/Rage Empowerment.]
The fight was brutal. Kiran's void-erasure was powerful, but Ignax's sheer physical might and rage-fueled regeneration were monstrous. Kiran erased an arm; it regrew from molten rock. He erased a concept of 'Balance'; Ignax just fought more wildly.
Sylvia, from the sidelines, yelled, "His core! It's in his chest, under the big crack! It's the only thing that doesn't regenerate!"
Kiran, bleeding and with a dislocated shoulder, saw it. A pulsating, fiery orb visible beneath a fissure in Ignax's chest-plate. But getting to it meant going through the Demon's hellish strikes.
That's when Brom, from the spectator stands, acted. He couldn't enter the ring, but he could affect the ground. He slammed his hammer down and inscribed a massive, glowing rune on the arena floor just as Ignax charged Kiran for a final, crushing blow.
"Rune: Magnetism!"
The rune flared. Ignax, a being of mineral and metal, was violently yanked to the side, his charge deflected, his chest-crack exposed for a split second.
Kiran didn't need another. He Void-Folded directly in front of the crack and plunged both daggers into the fiery core.
"Erase: Combustion."
The core didn't explode. It went dark, cold, and silent. Ignax froze, a statue of dull opal, then crumbled into a pile of inert stone and ash.
The demonic crowd roared, not in anger, but in respect. Their champion was defeated fairly.
Kiran stood panting in the center, victorious. The Demon leader tossed him a prize: a fist-sized, ever-burning Ember of the Primordial Forge, a treasure that could permanently enhance one's affinity with destructive elements.
The two groups reconvened at the edge of the mist, their moods starkly different. Kiran and Sylvia were exhilarated, bearing a powerful trophy. Damien and Lyra were somber, carrying a terrible secret.
"We got a magic rock that wants to burn the world!" Sylvia announced, holding up the glowing Ember. "What'd you two get? A coupon for a future tragedy?"
Lyra managed a weak smile. Damien's face was granite.
"We got a destination," Damien said, his voice hollow. "And a cost."
He explained the Witch's reading. The joy of Kiran's victory died. The Ember's heat seemed to chill.
Kiran looked at Lyra's pale face, at her protective grip on her tails. "No," he said simply. "We find another way. We always do."
"The threads showed none," Lyra whispered.
"Since when do we care what a bunch of star-gazing spinsters say?" Kiran snapped. "We conquered a Singularity heart. We can figure out a prison break."
Brom placed a heavy hand on Lyra's shoulder, a gesture of unwavering support.
Damien looked at Lyra, the Fixed-Point theory echoing in his mind. Their meeting was inevitable. Their bond was a cornerstone of his path. To ask her to pay such a price… the cold calculus of conquest failed. The numbers didn't add up. The potential loss outweighed any possible gain.
For the first time, the Conqueror's Paradigm had no directive. Only a conflict.
"We will go to the Fracture," Damien decided, his voice regaining its steel. "We will find the Dreaming Prison. And we will find a way that does not require your sacrifice. There is always another way. Even if we must break the rules of fate themselves."
He looked at the Ember in Sylvia's hand, at Kiran's defiant stance, at Brom's solid strength, and finally at Lyra, meeting her fearful, hopeful gaze.
"We are the Convergence," he stated. "We define our own path. Now, let us go meet the grumpy Dwarves. We may need their skill with prisons."
The team turned, united by a new, more personal quest, leaving the mists behind, heading for the chaotic depths of the Fracture, where a fallen Dwarven Skyhold and a sleeping Oni King awaited.
The path of conquest had become a path of defiance—against enemies, against fate, and against the very cost of power.