Every movement was an exercise in agony.
Kael Light did not walk toward the final staircase; he dragged himself across the bone-white marble of the third floor. His fingers, the nails cracked and stained with dark violet ichor, dug into the microscopic grooves of the stone. His legs were dead weights, the femurs having shattered and reset so many times in the last hour that the nerves were screaming in a pitch beyond human hearing.
Behind him, a trail of dark, toxic blood smeared the pristine floor—a crimson road marking the "Saint's" passage.
STOP, KAEL, the God whispered, its voice sounding strangely heavy, as if it were sinking into the mire of Kael's exhaustion. YOUR SUN IS GONE. YOU ARE A HUSK CLUTCHING AT THE ASHES OF A GRIEVANCE. IF YOU CLIMB THOSE STAIRS NOW, THE MERCHANT WON'T EVEN NEED TO USE HIS BLADE. THE PRESSURE OF HIS MANA-FIELD ALONE WILL TURN YOUR BONES TO DUST.
"I... am... not... done," Kael wheezed.
He reached the base of a narrow, spiral staircase made of dark, cold iron. Unlike the grand, marble steps of the foyer, these were functional and hidden behind a velvet curtain. This was the "Shame" of the manor—the path that led to the high-security holding cells where Sam kept the secrets that gold couldn't bury.
Kael hauled himself up the first step. Crack. His radius snapped. He didn't flinch. He used his elbow to hook the next riser.
He reached a small, circular landing halfway between the third floor and the penthouse. The air here was different. It didn't smell of incense or ozone; it smelled of old parchment, stale water, and the bitter scent of medicinal herbs.
At the end of the landing was a single cell door made of 'Void-Iron' bars. Inside, sitting on a heap of moth-eaten blankets, was a man.
He looked like a ghost that had forgotten to leave the world. His hair was a matted nest of grey, his beard reaching his chest, and his skin was the color of old wax. He was shackled to the wall with mana-dampening cuffs, but his eyes—sharp, intelligent, and filled with a burning hatred—remained fixed on the door.
Kael collapsed against the bars, his breathing a wet, rattling sound.
The prisoner didn't move. He didn't scream. He simply looked at Kael's mask of blood and the pulsing 'Reforged Sun' on his finger.
"So," the man said, his voice a dry, papery whisper. "The Blood Weeper finally arrives. I wondered if the rumors were true. The slums speak of you as a god. Up close... you just look like a boy who has been through hell."
Kael looked through the bars. "Who... are you?"
The man smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. "My name is Arthur Vance. Once, I was the head of the Vance Merchant Circle. I was the one who taught Sam Willer how to read a ledger. I was the one who gave him his first loan when he was just a beggar with a silver tongue."
Kael's eyes widened. "Sam's... partner?"
"I was his architect," Arthur said, leaning back against the cold stone wall. "I built the foundation of what he calls the Willer Guild. And when the foundation was solid, he invited me to a 'celebratory dinner.' I woke up in these chains. He didn't kill me. He said I was too valuable to lose—that he needed my mind to keep the guild running from the shadows."
Arthur gestured to the desk in the corner of the cell, covered in complex logistical maps and financial reports. Sam had been using this man as a slave-laborer for his empire for years.
"He betrays everyone," Kael whispered, his head leaning against the cold iron bars. "I thought I was the only one."
"You were just the most expensive sacrifice, lad," Arthur said, his gaze softening as he looked at Kael's shattered form. "I've watched you on the monitors. I saw what you did in the Hall of Statues. You released them. You gave your own life-force to save a bunch of dockworkers. You're either the most noble man I've ever met, or the biggest fool."
"I am a healer," Kael said, the words a mantra of sanity.
"Then heal yourself, boy," Arthur snapped. "Because Sam isn't waiting for you with a sword. He's waiting for you with a ritual. The 'Blood-Contract' he signed isn't just a piece of paper. He has bound his heart to the Dark God's shard. As long as you are alive, and as long as your 'White Sun' is burning, he is invincible. You are his battery, Kael. The more you fight, the more you power him."
Kael felt a chill that surpassed the cold of the Void-Iron. "I'm... making him stronger?"
"Yes," Arthur said, leaning forward until his face was inches from the bars. "The God's shadow-energy and your sun-energy create a feedback loop. Sam sits in the middle of it, soaking up the overflow. That's why he didn't kill you in the ruins. He needs you to suffer. The agony you feel... it's the friction that generates the power he uses to maintain his youth and his empire."
HE IS TELLING THE TRUTH, KAEL, the God purred, its voice regaining its strength as it sensed Kael's despair. THE MERCHANT IS A PARASITE. HE IS SUCKING THE MARROW FROM OUR BONES WITHOUT EVEN TOUCHING US. EVERY TIME YOU HEAL YOURSELF, YOU ARE WRITING HIM A CHECK IN GOLD.
Kael slumped against the bars, his forehead resting on the cool metal. "Then... I can't win. If I fight, he grows. If I heal, he lives."
"There is a way," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The contract is anchored to a specific point. Inside the penthouse vault, there is a golden heart—a clockwork masterpiece Sam had built to house the obsidian shard. It's the conduit. If you destroy the heart, the link breaks."
"But I have no mana left," Kael said, gesturing to the dim starlight of his ring. "I'm empty."
Arthur reached into the hay of his bedding and pulled out a small, glass vial. Inside was a swirling cloud of iridescent silver dust.
"Refined Star-Silt," Arthur said. "I've been stealing tiny grains of it from the guild's logistics shipments for five years, hiding them in my food. It's a pure mana-accelerant. If you take this, it will jump-start your core for exactly ten minutes. It will burn like lye in your veins, and it will probably shatter your Stasis Ring permanently, but it will give you the output of a 7-Ring Sage for one final strike."
Kael looked at the vial. He looked at Arthur. "Why help me? You'll be killed if Sam finds out."
Arthur's eyes burned with a cold, ancient fire. "I am already dead, Kael. I've been a ghost in this manor for a decade. I don't want freedom. I want to see the building burn. I want to see Sam Willer realize that all the gold in the world can't buy back a soul he's already sold."
Kael reached through the bars. His hand was steady now. He took the vial.
"The golden heart," Kael said. "I destroy it, and he loses his invincibility?"
"And the God loses its anchor," Arthur warned. "When the heart breaks, the entity inside you will try to take over completely. You'll have to fight the God and Sam at the same time. You'll be the Blood Weeper in truth, Kael. Can you handle that?"
Kael looked at his reflection in the glass of the vial. He saw a monster. He saw a saint. He saw the boy from the jungle who just wanted to see a leaf fall.
"I've been handling a god for months, Arthur," Kael said. "What's one more fight?"
Kael uncorked the vial and swallowed the Star-Silt.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Kael's eyes didn't just glow; they ignited. A pillar of white-hot light erupted from his chest, the 'Reforged Sun' on his finger spinning so fast it became a blur of silver. He felt his marrow boiling, his veins turning into conduits of pure, unadulterated stellar energy. The 'Stable Agony' was incinerated, replaced by a transcendental power that made his broken bones knit together in a fraction of a second.
The Void-Iron bars of the cell began to glow red, then white, then they simply evaporated into mist.
Arthur Vance fell back, shielding his eyes from the brilliance. "Go, Blood Weeper! Go and show him the price of a merchant's promise!"
Kael didn't walk. He moved like a bolt of lightning.
He didn't use the stairs. He punched his hand through the ceiling of the landing, the stone and iron disintegrating under his touch. He hauled himself through the hole, entering the sub-structure of the penthouse.
He could feel it now. The Golden Heart.
It was beating. A rhythmic, mechanical thud-thud that echoed the Dark God's own pulse. It was located directly beneath Sam's desk.
Kael broke through the floor of the penthouse, emerging into the room full of gold and shadow.
Sam was there, standing by the window, his back to the room. He was looking at the city, watching the fires of the revolution he had inadvertently started. He didn't even turn around.
"You're late, Kael," Sam said, his voice sounding hollow and distorted. "I thought Arthur would have talked your ear off by now."
Kael stood in the center of the room, his body vibrating with the power of the Star-Silt. He was a being of pure light, the blood on his face turning into steam.
"He told me enough, Sam," Kael said. "He told me how to break the cage."
Sam turned around. His face was no longer human. His skin was the color of obsidian, and his eyes were leaking the same black sludge that Kael had seen in the ruins. The 'Blood-Contract' was consuming him.
"The cage is what keeps us alive, brother," Sam said, raising the broken hilt of the obsidian sword. "Without it, you're just a dead boy, and I'm just a beggar. Do you really want to go back to the dirt?"
"The dirt is where things grow, Sam," Kael said. "In this house, everything just rots."
Kael lunged.
He didn't go for Sam. He went for the desk.
Sam roared—a sound that was half-human, half-deity—and swung the hilt. A wave of absolute shadow erupted, clashing with Kael's starlight. The penthouse windows shattered. The gold on the floor was thrown into the air like a metallic storm.
Kael ignored the shadow. He ignored the blade that bit into his shoulder. He slammed his fist into the floor beneath the ironwood desk.
"Primordial Art: The Unmaking of the False!"
His fingers closed around something cold, hard, and ticking.
The Golden Heart.
It was a sphere of intricate brass and silver, pulsating with a violet light. Inside, Kael could see the obsidian shard, the very thing that had cursed him in Aethelgard.
"NO!" Sam screamed, his obsidian skin cracking as the link was threatened. "DON'T!"
Kael looked at the heart. He looked at Sam.
"Merchant's promise," Kael whispered.
He squeezed.
The Golden Heart didn't just break. It detonated with the force of a collapsing star.