CHAPTER 99 — The Bloodless Hour
The night over Blackspire Ridge felt unnaturally still—so still that Kael could hear his own heartbeat echo faintly inside his helm. The air hung heavy, as if it waited to witness something it could not name. The path ahead of him curved into a narrow stone throat, a canyon etched with old runes and darker secrets. It was the only road that led toward the Vein Gate—the heart of the spreading corruption.
Kael's gauntlets tightened around the hilt of his blade. The metal trembled faintly, not from fear, but from the energy that had begun pulsing through the land like a waking beast.
Behind him, Lyra moved silently, her eyes cold and alert. She kept her bow lifted, the string drawn halfway as if ready at any moment to loose an arrow into the dark.
"This place," she whispered, "feels wrong."
Kael nodded once.
"It's meant to."
The canyon swallowed their footsteps. Shadows clung to the walls like living stains. The deeper they walked, the more Kael felt the pressure building inside his skull—an oppressive whisper that wrapped around his consciousness like invisible fingers.
Turn back… turn back…
The voice wasn't human. It wasn't even fully formed. It was the echo of whatever ancient force had fused itself into the land. Kael pushed forward, refusing to show hesitation. If the corruption sensed weakness, it would exploit it.
They walked another fifty paces before the first sign appeared.
A mark.
A spiral, burned into the stone wall. It wasn't carved—it looked as though the rock itself had been melted from within, leaving behind a charred black pattern.
Lyra swallowed. "That symbol… we've seen it before."
Kael breathed slowly through his nose.
"Only on bodies."
The last few villages they passed had been left empty, houses intact, belongings untouched, food still warm on tables. No struggle. No blood. No warnings.
Just the symbol.
"It's watching us," Lyra murmured.
Kael didn't answer. Because he felt it too.
They kept moving until the canyon widened into an open chasm. The moon, swallowed behind restless clouds, offered only slivers of cold light. And in that faint glow, Kael saw them—shapes scattered across the ground.
At first, he thought they were stones. But as he approached, he realized with a slow tightening in his chest that they were armor pieces. Breastplates. Gauntlets. Whole sets of gear, arranged in a twisted circle.
No bodies.
No bones.
Just empty armor, as if every soldier within them had dissolved into air.
Lyra knelt beside one and lifted a helmet with two fingers. "No cracks. No damage. Nothing pulled apart." She lowered her voice. "Kael… whatever happened here didn't use force."
Kael walked the perimeter of the circle, reading the silent story it told.
Vanished. All of them.
Without sound. Without trace.
A ritual ring.
He looked upward, noticing the marks on the canyon walls—more spirals, more symbols, dozens of them. They seemed to multiply the longer he stared, as if emerging from the stone itself.
"This wasn't an attack," Kael said. "It was a harvest."
Lyra's breath trembled slightly. "Of what?"
Kael pressed his palm to the cold stone. "Life. Presence. Memory. Something feeding on essence, not flesh."
Before Lyra could reply, the ground beneath the armor circle shifted—a slow grinding groan that echoed across the canyon.
Kael stepped back, blade raised.
The armor pieces trembled.
Then lifted.
One by one, the empty shells rose into the air, suspended as if held by invisible threads. Their hollow forms rotated slowly, facing Kael and Lyra. The chasm filled with a low humming, like a hundred distant voices murmuring in unison.
Lyra stepped behind Kael, arrow drawn fully now.
"Kael… they're moving."
"I can see that."
The armor jerked violently, aligning themselves into a formation—soldiers without bodies, guided by something unseen. Their helmets tilted forward, acknowledging their target.
Then they charged.
Kael braced, his boots digging into the ground. The first empty soldier lunged, swinging an invisible weapon that Kael barely blocked. The clash rang out like steel, but Kael saw no blade—only the force of something striking against his sword.
He shoved the hollow armor back and parried another blow. The impact rattled his bones; whatever controlled these empty suits had strength far beyond anything natural.
Lyra's arrow whistled through the air, striking one helmet dead center. The armor collapsed instantly, falling apart into motionless pieces.
"That works!" she shouted.
Kael ducked under a sweeping strike, rolled aside, and drove his blade into the chest plate of another. It crumpled like its strings had been cut.
But for every fallen suit, three more surged forward.
"Fall back!" Kael commanded.
Lyra already moved before he finished speaking, firing three arrows in rapid succession. Each hit its mark, shattering helmets and dropping hollow bodies.
Kael backed toward the canyon wall, his breaths growing heavy. Although he fought with precision, the invisible force behind the armor felt colder, sharper, and disturbingly aware.
One suit grabbed Kael's wrist. Not physically—he felt the pressure clamp down like iron, but no hand touched him. Kael grit his teeth and twisted, channeling his strength to drive his blade downward. The armor fell apart instantly.
But then the humming stopped.
All the remaining empty suits froze in place.
Kael didn't relax.
Things that paused in the dark rarely did so for good reasons.
The air grew colder, enough that Kael saw his breath fog. Lyra tensed beside him.
Something shifted at the far end of the chasm.
Not a creature.
Not a person.
Just darkness—a thicker patch of it, rippling like liquid ink.
Kael felt the pressure return inside his skull, worse than before. A whisper—many whispers—layered atop each other like overlapping shadows.
The Gate opens… the path clears…
Lyra stepped back. "Kael, that's—"
"I know."
The darkness pulsed once, like a beating heart. The armor suits lifted again but didn't attack this time. They turned toward the dark ripple as if paying reverence.
Then the darkness spoke—not with a voice, but with a presence that made Kael's vision blur at the edges.
You walk toward the Vein Gate.
You choose a fate not meant for mortals.
Kael forced himself upright. Something cold crawled along his spine, trying to seep into him.
"We're not turning back," he said.
The darkness thickened, forming a towering silhouette—featureless, a void shaped vaguely like a figure. Its presence pulled at the air, bending it around itself.
Lyra whispered anxiously, "Kael—don't speak to it—"
But the entity already focused on Kael.
You carry a burden older than your blood.
And a hunger follows you.
Kael felt something stir inside him—something he had not fully understood ever since the corruption touched him months earlier. A faint burn flared under his skin, traveling up his arm.
The void's attention deepened.
Yes… the mark is ripening.
Kael's grip tightened. "Whatever you think you know—keep it to yourself."
The void shifted, its edges rippling like smoke.
You cannot sever what binds you.
But you can drown beneath it.
The armor suits formed a ring around Kael and Lyra. Even without faces, Kael felt their focus, their intent. They weren't being commanded to kill.
They were being prepared to witness.
The ground trembled as the void extended a shadowed limb toward Kael. It wasn't solid—yet the canyon shuddered as if a massive weight moved.
"Move!" Kael shouted.
Lyra fired three arrows directly into the void. They vanished instantly, swallowed without sound.
The shadowed limb struck the ground where Kael had stood, cracking the stone like brittle glass. Dust exploded outward.
Kael rolled aside and swung his blade at the void's arm. The metal passed through it like water, but Kael felt a sharp pull at his chest—a draining sensation.
It was trying to take something from him.
Not his life.
Something deeper.
Lyra grabbed Kael's arm and pulled him behind a rock outcrop. "We can't fight that!"
"We don't need to," Kael said through clenched teeth. "We just need to pass it."
"How?!"
Kael looked again at the armor ring. At the symbols. At the void.
A realization clicked into place.
It wasn't trying to kill them.
It was guarding a threshold.
"We run," Kael said quietly. "Not away. Through."
Lyra stared at him in disbelief—but then her eyes hardened. "I trust you."
Kael inhaled once. Then another time.
When the void shifted its attention toward Lyra, Kael sprang from behind the rocks, sprinting straight at the darkness.
"Kael!" Lyra shouted.
The void shrieked without sound, a psychic screech that rattled Kael's vision. The armor ring shook violently. The canyon walls groaned.
Kael pushed forward, each step heavier than the last as the void's force pulled at him.
You will drown…
"Not today."
He burst through the shadow barrier. For a heartbeat he felt cold—not physical cold, but the chilling awareness of something brushing through his mind, searching for a weakness.
He didn't let it find any.
And then he was on the other side.
The void recoiled violently. The armor suits collapsed instantly, clattering to the ground in lifeless heaps.
Lyra sprinted past the collapsing barrier and reached Kael's side.
They didn't look back.
Ahead, the canyon opened into a plateau bathed in a faint blood-red glow. At the center stood a towering structure of jagged stone—a pulsating, breathing monument.
The Vein Gate.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"We've reached it," he said.
Lyra nodded, though fear flickered in her eyes.
"Then this is where things change," she whispered.
Kael stepped forward, his blade humming faintly as if sensing the Gate ahead.
"Yes," he said softly.
"And nothing after this will be the same."