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Chapter 6: Baptism of Iron and Bone
The marketplace ruins were no longer silent.
Torches crackled. Steel clashed. Voices rose in barking orders.
Kaelen crouched in the shadow of a collapsed awning, eyes scanning the flickering silhouettes beyond the barricades. The Sanctum Guard had brought in their elite: silver-helmed enforcers wielding spears etched with Light-Seal runes—anti-shadow weapons.
Worse, a Warden stood among them. His armor gleamed white under the fractured sky, a sun-forged halberd gripped in one hand. Warden Helric. Known for purging anything touched by Eclipse cores.
Kaelen's pulse hammered.
The voice whispered within him again:
>
He turned to the Ashwalkers beside him—silent, half-dead things that now bore his will.
> COMMAND ISSUED: FLANK RIGHT. ENGAGE. NO MERCY.
They moved like smoke.
One guard barely turned before a curved bone-blade ripped through his throat. Another screamed as the Ashwalker Captain broke his leg in a sickening twist and dragged him down.
Kaelen emerged seconds later, eyes glowing violet, a surge of void-light forming a crude blade in his hand.
Eclipse Edge: Initiate.
The system reacted.
>
Type: Soul-Constructed Weapon
Effect: Forms a temporary blade from the host's shadow. Strength scales with Willpower.
Drawback: Causes internal bleed if overused below Rung 3.
Kaelen struck.
The first Enforcer blocked—but the void-forged edge ate through the runes on his shield like acid. One stroke. Then another. A third cleaved through helm and bone.
Kaelen stumbled, coughing blood, but the surge of power thrilled him.
Then Warden Helric advanced.
No words. Just purpose.
Kaelen raised his blade—
—and the Warden slammed his halberd down like thunder.
CRACK.
Stone exploded. Kaelen was flung backward into a wall, ribs shattering. The voice in his mind screamed.
>
Kaelen's eyes widened.
That was suicide.
But the Ashwalker Captain moved before he could deny it. With a guttural hiss, it launched itself into Helric—grappling him, fusing its shadow into his armor.
Kaelen had one chance.
He whispered, "Fall."
The bind collapsed in a flash of violet implosion—ripping the Captain apart and staggering the Warden in a shockwave of void energy.
The Warden roared in pain, armor scorched black.
Kaelen rose, bleeding, broken, but alive.
He stared down at his hands.
And realized…
He had won.
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