The Last Reserve sat behind the Great Wall like a monument to finality.
Most who traveled through the Wrath Domain knew of Ashbastion, the frontmost citadel, humanity's spearpoint against the endless Narkal tide.
Fewer knew the details of the Great Wall itself, that massive fortification dividing the Wrath Domain from the rest of human territory, the last line of defense when Bloodwall soldiers failed to hold completely.
But behind that wall, past the first stretch of reclaimed forest and mountain, before any village or city emerged from the wilderness, stood something else entirely.
A prison.
Not just any prison… it was the prison. Every criminal across the entire continent of Seravelle eventually arrived here. Other facilities were merely way stations, temporary holding cells. This was the terminus. The end of the line.
The Last Reserve, as the High Council called it.
The Pit, as the inmates knew it.
The Council's designation carried strategic logic: the prison held criminals, yes, but they were also considered reserve forces. Bodies that could be thrown at the Narkals if humanity's situation grew desperate enough, so its placement behind the Great Wall made a certain sense.
As to why the prisoners had their own name for it… their reasoning was simpler: No one escaped the Pit. No one.
Five centuries of operation, countless attempted breakouts, and not a single success. Even when the Great Wall had been breached for the first time two hundred years ago, the Narkal stampede had failed to break into the prison.
The inmates had watched through reinforced slits as monsters crashed against walls that wouldn't yield. Ironically, breaching the prison would have given them a better chance at survival. Instead, they'd starved to death, trapped in the most secure tomb ever built.
The prison's robustness came from its foundation: this wasn't a structure built by modern Seravellians; it was repurposed from an underground ruin from the era before the Reign of Terror, constructed with materials and methods no contemporary architect could replicate.
Seven layers descended into the earth, each more secure than the last. By the seventh layer, inmates were forced to sever their connection to the system entirely, having their pathways sealed, their skills stripped, and reduced to baseline humanity.
The seventh layer rarely received new occupants. Most who qualified for that depth were simply executed instead.
The third layer, however, had just gained a new guest.
⛧
⛧
⛧
"9991—hff."
"9992—ngh."
"9993—kh."
"9994."
A man hung from the exercise bar bolted to his cell wall, dressed only in gray prison pants, torso bare and gleaming with sweat. Muscles rolled smoothly beneath scar-latticed skin as he pulled himself up with mechanical precision, his breathing even despite the exertion.
The bar answered each pull with a calm CLINK.
"9995."
"9996."
"9997."
Ten thousand pull-ups looked like just another way to pass the hour. Shackles lay discarded in the corner of his cell—the guards had learned long ago that restraints during exercise time were pointless. He'd simply pick the locks with casual efficiency, complete his routine, and put them back on when finished.
Eventually, they'd stopped bothering.
"9998."
"9999."
"10,000—hff."
Ashen let gravity pull him back to the cell floor and immediately transitioned into light stretches, working the tension from shoulders and back while his mind wandered through recent events.
'So this is where I ended up.'
After coming back from the Fragment of History with Alice, he thought that things would finally turn for the better.
But after a couple of days in the Pit now, he knew it was just his wishful thinking.
The good news: time in the Fragment of History hadn't progressed one-to-one with reality. The little more than a month he'd spent there had translated to only fifteen days here.
…The bad news, though, fifteen days was still fifteen days too long when you'd disappeared with Alice Sinclair—the woman currently causing waves throughout the Council, the woman every domain had its eyes on, the rising prodigy whose potential made everyone gain a spark of hope.
Ashen hadn't forgotten the long list of accolades Lucia had enumerated during their last meeting… and how much attention his little girlfriend had accumulated before he'd gone and "kidnapped" her.
'I wonder what face she made when she got the news.'
The thought drew a bitter chuckle. Imagining Lucia finally discarding that perfect mask and freezing in genuine surprise—that would've been worth seeing.
Either way, it hadn't taken long after he'd finished teaching that red-haired prick another lesson for Cornelia herself to arrive and apprehend him.
Ashen knew when to throw his weight around and when to behave. And when a Sin Lord came to arrest you personally, it was a hundred percent time to behave.
So under Alice's helpless, furious gaze, he'd allowed himself to be taken.
It wasn't that Cornelia didn't know he'd meant no harm. He'd bet good money she even knew they were lovers. But this was protocol, and protocol didn't care about intent. When you vanished with a domain's treasured daughter, your motivations became secondary.
Catch first, ask questions later.
The only reason it wasn't kill first was because Cornelia was one hundred percent certain he'd meant no harm. Otherwise, he'd have been rendered brain-dead by forceful memory reading and turned into a corpse shortly after.
...That was what Ashen assumed, anyway.
He didn't know that certain women were currently doing their damnedest to prevent exactly such a fate from befalling him.
Ashen finished his stretches and reached for a towel to wipe the sweat from his body when he heard the distinctive sound of heels clicking against stone.
He lifted his head curiously. This section of the prison housed only men, and none of his cellmate neighbors or guards fancied wearing heels.
Not long after, a figure appeared, crowned in crimson glory, and stopped directly before his cell.
'Speak of the devil…'
"Little heartstealer," the woman said, voice carrying amusement. "I see you're getting comfortable in your new home."
'Cornelia.'
Ashen's lips twitched. 'Am I really going to get interrogated a second time by her? Give me a break…'