Chapter Title: Embers Beneath the Tide
The wind carried a foul scent across the edge of the Whispering Lake—blood, damp earth, and the reek of something not quite human.
The frontlines had collapsed into a chaotic tangle of clashing blades, shattered camps, and ragged war cries. Just hours before, factions had eyed one another with wary politics and hidden blades. Now, all that civility was drowned under the roar of the beast tide.
Lysander moved through the smoke like a phantom, blue eyes sharp, blade dark with drying blood. Around him, bodies danced—some human, others not. His left arm ached from overuse, bruised beneath the coat. The air shimmered faintly behind his back, the lingering ghost of the Veil Frame interface. He ignored it.
He wasn't thinking. He was moving.
Something shrieked to his right—not the high-pitched howl of the hounds, but a wet, choking gargle. He spun. A young man, armor half-melted, collapsed beneath the crushing weight of a tusked beast. Two more followed it. Then four.
"Pull back!" came the Colonel's voice, hoarse from command. He stood atop a broken palisade, sabre drawn, directing what remained of the defensive wall.
Lysander darted forward. One clean slash to the ankle of the nearest beast, and it howled, staggering. Gwen followed it up with a spear driven into its gullet. Her stance was off, clearly injured, but she didn't fall.
She met Lysander's eyes, breathing hard. "Two more flanks left. Colonel wants to consolidate."
"Let them consolidate," he replied, blade still raised. "We're not done here."
Nearby, a screech louder than the rest echoed over the blood-soaked battlefield. Heads turned. A second later, something burst from the treeline: massive, scaled, with six red eyes and a skull-like carapace. Its mouth opened sideways.
Someone screamed.
The Colonel didn't falter. "Focus fire! Bring it down!"
The creature didn't care about fire. It wanted blood.
Further uphill, Erwell watched with narrowed eyes, his longcoat clean despite the carnage. Jason stood beside him, knuckles white, trying not to look at the dying. He failed.
"We should help them," Jason said, voice too thin.
Erwell didn't reply. Instead, his gaze tracked a figure carving through the tide like a splinter of the night.
"Lysander," he murmured.
Jason stiffened. "What about him? He saved Gwen. He—"
"And killed four men doing it," Erwell replied evenly. "My men."
Jason looked at the ground. The boy's loyalty, like his sword, wasn't sharpened yet.
Erwell leaned closer. "But perhaps we can forgive him. Perhaps... we can use him."
It happened then.
Near the lake's shattered edge, a youth barely older than fifteen stumbled over something half-buried in the mud. A stone scroll, embossed with runes that shimmered faintly under the blood-red sun.
As his fingers brushed it, the Veil Frame flared alive.
[System Notice: Trial Scroll Acquired - Element: Earth]
[Access to Ascension Path Unlocked - Trial Steps Activation Pending]
[Warning: Scroll Holder Will Be Marked For Seeker Trials. Tracking Enabled.]
The world paused for a breath. Then all hell broke loose.
The beast that had been lunging for him was torn apart by three arrows before it hit the ground. A tall woman from Black Ember charged forward. Two more from the Aristocratic Front weren't far behind.
The boy didn't last five seconds.
The scroll clattered from his corpse, untouched.
Another man reached for it.
Gwen saw it from the ridge. "Shit. They're fighting over it."
Lysander didn't stop swinging. "Of course they are. It's a way out."
"And now everyone wants blood."
He didn't reply. Just moved faster.
Three scrolls had appeared within the last hour.
Each one ignited another miniature war within the larger tide. All while the beasts pressed closer, more numerous, more desperate.
Rumors began to spread.
Some whispered that the Mirror Faith had already acquired one. That their leader, cloaked in bone-white robes, had simply walked into the horde and emerged untouched.
Others said the Colonel had one. That he was waiting for the tide to end before declaring it.
All the while, Lysander felt a strange pressure rising behind his eyes. Not pain—not quite. But resonance. As if something were watching him through the Veil Frame.
For a moment, he swore he heard his own voice.
"Hide it. Not yet. They'll erase you too early."
The pressure vanished. The system flickered. Then stabilized.
He wiped the blood from his blade. Gwen didn't ask.
Later, when the tide had ebbed, and fires began to burn low across makeshift barricades, Erwell called a meeting beneath the fractured sigil of the trial camp.
Everyone came.
Colonel Yarik, his armor cracked. Ashjaw of Black Ember, silent and watching. Even the Red Fang's survivors slinked in, their numbers fewer.
And Lysander, eyes calm.
Erwell stepped forward.
"The tide was a warning. Not the end. The real trial hasn't begun. We all know that. And now these scrolls have changed the board."
He paused. Let the tension settle.
"I propose a pact. Temporary ceasefire between all factions. Joint efforts to secure the remaining scrolls and activate the Ascension Steps."
"And who leads it?" Ashjaw rasped.
Erwell smiled.
"A council. Three members. One military. One independent. And one... anomaly."
He turned.
"Lysander."
Silence.
Jason flinched. Gwen looked up.
Lysander met Erwell's gaze. "You want to name me the anomaly?"
"You already are. You walk like a man, fight like something else. You hid your name for days. But we know it now. Lysander Voss."
Whispers spread.
Jason stood, uncertain. "Father, don't. He—he saved her."
Erwell cut him off. "And yet you followed him. Even lied to me."
Lysander didn't blink. "I didn't ask for anyone to follow. I just killed the ones who needed killing."
The Colonel spoke then, tired and firm. "If you want peace, fine. But if this is politics, keep it away from the next fight."
Erwell turned to the others. "Then we are agreed? Until the steps rise, we act together."
Grudging nods. Tense silence.
Above, the Veil shimmered.
[Scrolls Remaining: 4]
[Ascension Path Unlocked - Partial]
[Trial Steps Activation: Pending...]
Somewhere far off, the beasts howled again.
And in the darkness behind Lysander's mind, something old stirred.