Wind: Thin, keening
Fire: Absent
Breath: Ragged
For a time after the whip's kiss, Asterion carried his anger in silence.
It smoldered low and steady, a coal buried beneath frost and fatigue. But eventually, he drew a slow breath—and paused.
The air was… clean.
Sharp. Cold. Alive.
Nothing like the slums, where every inhale tasted of ash, rot, and unwashed desperation. Nothing like the inner citadel either, where filtration towers stripped the wind of everything real, leaving it flat and sterile.
This was true mountain air.
The kind only nobles and high Walkers ever bothered reaching.
And here he was—chains on his wrists, blood on his back—breathing it in like a lord's heir.
"…Hah."
Being claimed by the Curse did have its small mercies.
If only the cold didn't gnaw at his bones.
If only his feet weren't raw slabs of pain.
If only the iron hadn't bitten his wrists to the quick.
The caravan dragged itself higher.
Step by step, slaves stumbled. Some fell.
Not all rose again.
Those who couldn't were unchained without ceremony and hurled into the void yawning to the left of the path.
No screams echoed back.
Just silence.
Asterion watched them vanish, feeling something almost like pity.
Rest easy, you sorry bastards.
Strangely, his mood wasn't entirely black.
It should have been. This was a Nightfall—his First—designed to crush him. And yet, beneath the exhaustion and pain, there was a fragile calm.
He'd known this was coming.
When the drowsiness first took him, he'd raged. Quietly. Bitterly. At the unfairness of dying before seventeen.
But anger burned fast.
Acceptance lingered.
He'd gone to the cracked wall in the slums—the one where he'd carved his parents' names years ago. He'd added his own beneath them, cutting deep, careful strokes.
After that, something loosened inside him.
No more scrambling for scraps.
No more running from enforcers.
No more tomorrow.
When the worst had already arrived…
…what was left to fear?
So marching in chains toward likely death felt almost routine.
Besides—
—the cold wouldn't be what killed them.
He remembered the vision. The reversed flow of time. Bones piled thick beneath fresh snow.
Something else was coming.
Something hungry.
And by the way the path narrowed ahead, it would strike soon.
Hours, not days.
I still have time.
Asterion focused inward.
The runes answered.
[Destined Anomaly]
The threads of fate twist strangely around you.
Improbable outcomes—fortunate and catastrophic—are drawn inexorably into your orbit.
"…Figures."
At first glance, it sounded like a curse masquerading as poetry. But reading closer—
It didn't promise failure.
Just extremes.
So that's it. I don't lose quietly. I either crawl out alive… or die spectacularly.
That explained a lot.
[Shadow-Touched]
A faint echo of the divine night lingers upon your soul, as though briefly caressed by a fallen god long ago.
Temple slave. Dead god. Echoes.
Predictable.
Useless here.
[Mark of the Fallen Night]
The darkness knows you.
It welcomes you as kin.
Asterion frowned.
That one…
He'd never heard of anything like it.
Not until—
The sun slid behind the jagged crown of the spire.
True dusk spilled across the path.
And Asterion realized—
He could see.
Perfectly.
The darkness didn't blur the world. It didn't steal detail or depth. The stone, the chains, the distant silhouettes—everything remained sharp, bathed in a subtle, silvery clarity.
As if moonlight existed where no moon hung.
Night vision.
At least.
And something told him that wasn't all.
Finally, he thought grimly. Something useful.
"I wonder if—"
"Halt the caravan! Make camp!"
The order cracked through the wind.
Slaves collapsed where they stood, legs giving out all at once. The path widened slightly into a narrow shelf, backed by a jagged stone face that broke the worst of the gale.
Still freezing.
The guards forced the prisoners into a tight ring for shared warmth, then tended to their mounts. A large bonfire was lit at the center—flames roaring defiantly against the encroaching dark.
The supply wagon was shoved forward, chained to the line, serving as a crude windbreak.
As Asterion scanned the camp, his gaze snagged on the young guard from earlier.
He stood apart, staring up the spire, brow furrowed.
Odd one.
Food was distributed.
Water first—near-frozen, just enough to sting the throat.
Then bread.
A fist-sized chunk. Stale. Mold-flecked.
Asterion ate every crumb.
So did everyone else.
Behind him, the wiry slave laughed weakly.
"Gods below… even breach-zone prisons fed us better."
He swallowed hard.
"And half of us there were waiting for the noose."
No one replied.
Near the edge of the shelf, where ancient paving crumbled into bare rock, clusters of vivid crimson berries pushed through the frost.
Striking.
Almost beautiful.
The wiry slave noticed them too.
His eyes gleamed.
He crawled forward, chain rattling.
"I wouldn't," a calm voice said.
The scholarly slave again.
The wiry man snarled. "Why not?!"
The scholar smiled faintly.
"Voidbloom. They grow where blood soaks the ground."
"So?"
"A handful stops a grown man's heart."
The wiry slave recoiled, cursing viciously.
Asterion barely listened.
Because he recognized this place.
This shelf.
In his opening vision—
—this was where the bones had lain thick beneath the snow.
Whatever slaughtered the caravan would come here.
Soon.
As if the Abyss itself heard the thought—
BOOOOOOM.
A deep, thunderous rumble rolled down the spire.
Stone trembled.
Ash lifted.
From far above—
Something massive fell through the darkness.
Impact: Imminent.
Fire: Flickering
Chains: Taut
Shadow: Descending