Somewhere entirely disconnected from the humid air of the pirate island, buried deep within the blood-soaked memories of London...
A man in his early forties and a woman in her mid-thirties cowered in the corner of a ruined, opulent study. Blood wept from their eyes, staining their torn noble finery. The woman had already lost too much blood; her chest heaved one final time before she slumped against the ruined wall, dead on the spot.
"You are our son..." the man choked out, violently coughing up a mouthful of dark blood as he stared at the towering silhouette before him.
"You used me, didn't you?" a young man replied. His voice was soft, lazy, and completely devoid of warmth.
It was Arthur Pendragon.
He stared down at the man who had sired him. Slowly, Arthur's pupils narrowed into vertical slits, shifting into the sharp, glowing crimson eyes of a predator. A suffocating wave of heavy Ether—pure Draconic Fear—flooded the room. The sheer, crushing pressure of it seized his father's lungs and stopped his heart in an instant. The man's eyes rolled back, and he died exactly where he knelt.
Arthur didn't blink. He turned his broad back on the corpses and walked out of the study.
The hallways of the grand estate were a slaughterhouse. The marble floors were carpeted with the dead: elite bodyguards, Draconic Sequence soldiers, and the bodies of his own blood relatives. In a single, devastating night, the Pendragons went from being one of the Three Great Families of London to absolutely nothing.
Gasp!
Arthur's eyes snapped open in the dark.
"Huff... huff..."
He sat up violently in the cheap bed of his Blackwater Roost hotel room, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon. He dragged a heavy, trembling hand down his face, wiping away the cold sweat, and let it rest against his forehead.
"Same dream again," he muttered into the empty room, his voice heavy with an exhaustion that sleep could never fix.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A subtle, rhythmic tapping sounded against the wooden door of his room.
"Sera? Is that you?" Arthur called out, his voice still thick with sleep and lingering dread.
"Who else would it be?" Sera's smooth voice drifted through the wood. "Come now, we need to acquire the Stele as soon as possible."
"Alright. I'm coming," Arthur sighed. He dragged himself out of bed, threw on his heavy coat, and opened the door, stepping out into the dimly lit hallway.
Sera was leaning gracefully against the wall, but as soon as Arthur stepped out, the disguised Angel's amber eyes caught the heavy, dark circles under the Grandmaster's eyes.
"The same dream?" Sera asked, a rare, melancholic softness touching his expression.
"Yeah. Same as usual," Arthur muttered, avoiding his gaze and starting down the hall. "But you already know everything, Sera."
"I do," the Angel of Fate replied gently, falling into step beside him. "Do not let the guilt consume you, Arthur. You had no other option but to kill them. It had to be done."
They walked in silence for a moment before heading out into the cool, damp air of the Blackwater Roost streets.
"Why didn't we bring Luci?" Arthur asked, glancing sideways at his companion. "He could have learned a lot by coming with us."
"Do not worry. It will all make sense in due time," Sera replied cryptically. Then, his eyes narrowed slightly. "Also, you need to ensure you get enough sleep. It seems the Constraint of your Dragon Sequence is catching up to you. Be careful, Arthur."
"Don't worry about me," Arthur grunted, rolling his broad shoulders.
"The real reason I did not ask Lucian to accompany us," Sera continued, his tone turning grave, "is because there is extreme danger ahead. I can feel the threads of fate hovering precariously over this Stele."
Arthur's posture immediately straightened, his draconic instincts flaring. "Can you see what the danger is?"
Sera frowned, a deeply troubled look crossing his flawless, ancient features. "I can see the threads... but something is wrong. Something incredibly powerful is actively interfering with my Authority. Whatever is waiting for us, it is blocking me from looking into this specific event."
"Seems suspicious," Arthur muttered, his draconic eyes scanning the pristine streets.
"Yes, it is," Sera agreed smoothly, his amber eyes missing nothing. "But let us keep moving. We need that Stele as soon as possible."
They ventured deeper into the city, eventually crossing into what passed for the "slums" of Blackwater Roost. But calling it a slum felt like a sick joke. Even here, the cobblestones were perfectly swept, and the gas lamps burned brightly. It was too advanced, too clean. Even the occasional beggar sitting on the sidewalk seemed unnaturally placid. Nothing about this place felt right.
They navigated the immaculate alleys, heading toward their designated meeting spot.
"Sera," Arthur murmured, keeping his voice low. "Can you check the Sea of Concepts? Is anything wrong on the other side?"
"I have already checked," Sera replied, his gaze locked forward. "Everything seems fine. The connection to the Sea of Concepts is stable. I can still travel there."
"Good," Arthur grunted. "So if we get trapped or ambushed here, we can just retreat into the Spirit World."
"Technically, yes," Sera said, a frown tugging at his flawless features. "But there is a problem."
"What?"
"Our dear Lucian cannot enter it."
Arthur glanced at him, his heavy brow furrowing. "Why not?"
"It is... complicated," Sera deflected effortlessly. "But for now, think of it as a limitation of him only being a Tier 2 Awakened. The pressure of that metaphysical plane would crush his soul."
Arthur sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "That's bad, then."
"Look," Sera said softly, nodding toward the far end of the dim alleyway. "He is here."
Arthur squinted through the gloom, his instincts immediately flaring. "Does he... seem a bit weird to you?"
"It appears so," Sera murmured. The casual elegance dropped from his posture, instantly replaced by cold, divine tension.
The unknown contact—the man who was supposed to give them the Stele—was moving erratically. He dragged his feet across the pristine pavement, swaying and stumbling like a heavily intoxicated drunk. But there was no smell of rum; only the sickening scent of rot and sulfur.
"Be on your guard, Arthur," Sera warned, his silver hair shifting slightly as invisible Ether gathered around him. "If it gets dangerous, I will use a Time Pause."
Arthur shot him a sharp look. "Don't. You'll suffer massive backlash from using an Authority like that."
"Do not worry about me," Sera replied coldly.
As the stumbling man finally drew close enough for the gaslight to hit his face, his jaw snapped open at a grotesque, unnatural angle. When he spoke, it wasn't human speech. It was the foul, grating language of the Devils.
Devils were vile entities born from the most putrid, twisted desires of humanity, given horrific form within the Sea of Concepts—the exact same origin as the Awakened who walked the Devil Pathway. Because of their corrupted nature, their very language sounded like a violation of reality itself, scratching against the eardrums like rusted iron.
The man's head twitched violently, his eyes rolled back completely white.
"Ohh..." the thing inside the man rasped. It spoke one agonizing word at a time, pausing with every breath as if puppeteering a dead man's vocal cords was a struggle. "You... are... the... ones..."