Crimson eyes stared into the dark ahead. The Veinborne stood at a junction, a sprawling chamber with choices carved into stone. Five passages yawned before it, each a mouth of absolute silence, identical in their ancient design that had long since lost all translation.
The Veinborne surveyed the five passages, then discarded the notion of choosing altogether. It manifested a short blade from blood and carved a wound into its side, letting its blood spill.
Allowing the crimson to rise.
These blood constructs were made a bit more solid for longevity. Yet, after creating numerous clones to scour the maze-like structure beneath the earth, the Veinborne's blood supply had begun to dwindle.
But its Master's orders were absolute, and blood had to be spent.
Five blood configurations manifested. They stood motionless as one with the Wraith's will, which was itself an extension of its Master's.
And just before it could command its blood to move forward, to run down the forked paths ahead, a distant tremor rolled through the chamber.
It made the Veinborne stall.
For it was coming its way.
Cries. Screams. Madness. Nightmare.
A tide of corruption was coming its way—so numerous that the Veinborne didn't need to contemplate its next move. Instead, it immediately drew the blood that built the configurations back into itself and vanished through the Red Door, leaving the corridor quiet.
And just in time before the ravenous hunger thundered down the paths. They raged, they cried, they were compelled down a path—as if called from every corner, as if directed down the very path from which the Veinborne had come.
And when their cries of madness began to fade, when every last ounce of them stormed from the place where the Wraith had stayed, the Wraith emerged from the Red Door again. But its focus was no longer on where it was going—
But on where it had come from.
***
Darkness.
To look at him now was to stare into mankind's immortal enemy—a primal fear given flesh.
The only comfort was that she had wounded him.
But now—
Now, he has changed.
The performance is gone.
His features were colder, his presence larger somehow, as though he had expanded to fill the very air around them. No longer was there the man who had once cared to entertain his audience.
She couldn't believe it. She had told herself that a single strike would be enough.
It wasn't.
'How... How is he still standing?'
It was a wound that should have mattered.
Yet, Ivan seemed untouched by ordinary consequences. Black blood poured freely from the gaping injury carved by her Memory, an unclosable wound that should have brought anyone else to their knees.
Instead, he remained standing, even as his vile blood flowed down the large bookshelf and pooled at its base.
Unmoved.
Unaffected.
As though the wound meant nothing at all.
Then what was the point of fighting?
Ecludia turned to Zerin.
The urge to flee was instinctive—a reflex she couldn't suppress.
The only option was to run, to put as much distance as possible between herself and the thing standing before them. Maybe then they could regroup with others. Maybe there was still a way out.
Maybe—
Yet when her eyes steeled fully on him, she found only stillness.
Utter.
Absolute.
While her mind raced for an escape, while every rational thought screamed at her to drag him away from whatever stood before them, she found herself unable to move.
She didn't understand it.
How could someone she barely knew affect her so deeply? How could such conviction that wasn't related to her, steady her so completely, even in the face of reason.
Yet somehow, it did.
The fear remained.
But so did he.
And suddenly, fleeing felt impossible.
Fleeing felt foolish.
Fleeing felt like surrender.
If he could stand before this, then so could she.
So she did.
Not making a decision, but accepting one that had already been made.
She lifted her head and met Ivan's gaze.
"You two still look at me like you want to kill me," Ivan said. "You still think this ends with my death?"
"Harvest..."
Zerin spoke the word quietly.
A single word, yet it caught in his throat like shrapnel lodged too close to the Heart.
Too close to the past.
"...That's an old title."
A faint smile touched Ivan's lips.
"Is it?"
Something tightened in Zerin's chest.
Not fear. That was impossible. The [Living Moment] had stripped fear from him long ago.
No, this was something else.
A reflex.
An old wound remembering it had once been pierced.
"It belongs to a dead place."
His head dipped slightly as his grip tightened around the blackened blade. The hilt groaned beneath his fingers, threatening to shatter.
He didn't need to look up.
He could already feel the bastard's grin widening.
"Promised Lord..." Ivan said, his voice unexpectedly gently. "There are many dead places."
Zerin's jaw locked.
That title.
Something of the past. A vile thing. A toxin poured straight into his veins.
His blood surged. Looking up would mean meeting that grin.
It would mean to give in completely to this sudden anger.
Just how the hell had this bastard escaped that hell?
No.
Survived.
The distinction only made him hate him more.
Slowly, Zerin lifted his head.
"There aren't many places like that one."