"Fuuu..."
His breath escaped in a thin, misty line, his healed lungs expanding and contracting as he drew in the stagnant air of the Cathedral. With each inhalation, a myriad of scents filtered through his heightened senses—the ancient wood of the furniture, the faint, lingering traces of cooked monster meat, and the salt-sharp tang of his own sweat.
"Fuuu..."
His bare foot scraped the ground. The ball of his foot grazed the cold stone, and he felt the faint, organic groaning of the cathedral's structure. Vibrations from the ruins outside pulsed through the floor like a distant heartbeat. Dust clung to his skin like a second, thinner mantle.
"Fuuu..."
He sharpened his focus, filtering out the constant, distant clash of the Dark City until only the Priestess's room existed in his perception. He felt the brush of air from the stone crevices and the rhythmic pulse in his own ear. The cool draft danced against his skin in an impossible puzzle of vibrations—a language of movement he wasn't yet able to translate.
"Fuuu..."
He turned his focus inward, to his heart. He felt the powerful, rhythmic thrum of the organ and the artificial Core humming with essence inside it. His awareness spiked as he tracked the flow of his blood, following the familiar path through his arteries. With every breath, the ichor carried oxygen and essence to the furthest corners of his frame.
But when the blood reached the end of its path and turned back through the veins, the sensation blurred. The venular flow eluded him; the transition was abrupt, yet too organic for his mind to grasp. He followed the cycle back to his lungs, re-oxygenating, surging forward again. Thanks to the synergy of his Aspect and Blood Weave, his blood felt more present—more personal—than ever before. There was a secret hidden in that flow, but it remained just out of reach, like a fading dream.
Taking a final breath, he returned his attention to the rest of his body. These exercises were a necessity. After weeks of inactivity, his body had lost its predatory edge. Now, Zachary was sharpening the blade.
It was time to move.
Despite his remaining eye being closed, his spatial awareness was a razor. Cinder Eyes had compensated for his loss, filling the void with a sharp, intuitive sense of hostility and danger.
Innate Ability: [Cinder Eyes.]
Ability Description: [Being aware of your cage makes you able to sense more than you should be permitted to. But beware, for there are things that a mortal shouldn't witness.]
'My senses are enhanced...' Zachary mused, recalling the description. 'Hostility, danger, intuition—it's all sharper.'
He considered the possibility of training his senses until each could fully replace his sight, but he quickly shook the thought away. It was a grounded promise of strength for the future, but he had more pressing concerns. He opened his eye, witnessing the silent sentinel standing before him.
Saint.
"Sorry for making you wait," Zachary said, his voice calm.
He began to stretch, isolating each joint with impossible flexibility. His Body Control allowed for a terrifying range of motion, though he had to work through the stiffness of his convalescence. He rotated his shoulders with an elasticity that would have made an Olympic gymnast envious, but his brow creased when he reached the left side.
He pulled the arm across his chest, his bone creaking under the strain. He clicked his tongue and rotated the limb in a wide arc. The bone had healed, but a stubborn, underlying tension remained. Worse was his left hand; no matter how he strained, he couldn't extend it completely. His worst fears had come true.
It healed wrong.
He stared at the hand for a moment, then closed it into a tight, powerful fist. 'I can still clench a sword... I can still make a fist, that's all that matters.'
With a fluid motion, he unfastened the bands at his wrists and stripped off the upper half of his Mantle. He tied the light sleeves around his waist, secured by his ornamental belt. The transition took the garment from a sacred vestment to something ferocious and martial. Beneath, his sleeveless compression shirt left his arms bare—muscular, corded, and mapped with a history of healed scars and burns.
Zachary cracked his neck and wrists, the sound echoing in the hollow chamber. He turned his gaze toward the Echo.
"Leave those behind," he said, gesturing to the heavy stone armament. "You won't be needing them for what's coming."
Saint obeyed immediately, dropping her sword and shield without a thought for the priestess's floor. Stone met stone with a heavy, bell-like clang that echoed through the Cathedral. Even unarmed, the statue remained tall and imposing, a silent monolith of dark marble.
Zachary watched her, a reluctant gulp catching in his throat as he remembered his goal. If he wanted even the slightest chance of creating more Cores, he would have to master three techniques so thoroughly that their foundations became permanent fixtures of his Mind. That meant one thing: training. And the first technique on his list was perhaps the most straightforward and yet most elusive.
The Witness Battle Arts.
He looked around the room. The space was warm and hospitable, filled with furniture that hindered free movement—the exact opposite of an ideal training ground. But that was precisely why he chose it. To force the mastery of Dahrio's footwork, he needed the constraints. He needed the walls to push back.
"Come," Zachary said calmly, extending his right hand in a welcoming gesture.
Saint answered instantly. She closed the distance with a speed impossible for a being of her weight, but already experiencing it once, Zachary followed the blur of movement with calm resolve. Cinder Eyes tracked her path, and following the predicted line of her attack, he shifted his weight to intercept a straight punch to his face.
Then, in a twist that made his skin crawl, her fist bent mid-air. Without losing a shred of momentum, the stone knuckles redirected, slamming into his unguarded ribs.
The phantom of old agonies threatened to surge, but Zachary suppressed them, twisting his torso into the blow to dampen the impact. Using the momentum of the hit, he skipped back several paces to reset. Saint, ever the opportunist, dashed forward to press her advantage, but a frantic hand stopped her.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Zachary barked, taking another hurried step back. "Time out! Time out!"
The Echo halted. A relieved sigh escaped him as he gingerly caressed his side. Thankfully, nothing was broken.
"What the hell was that?" he asked, his eye wide.
Saint offered no answer. He studied her for a few seconds, the silence of the room stretching between them. Deep down, he already knew the answer, and the realization brought a chill to his spine. The Spell created Echoes based on the last vestiges of a creature's life. During their struggle, this particular Stone Saint had evolved, adapting in real-time to counter him.
This was the Echo of a Stone Saint that already knew how to bypass Danger Sense.
His body trembled as the implications settled in. Just as he had been pushed to his limits, Saint had used her own battle mastery to improve during their battle, even stealing the very techniques he had used against her. Just like the armor technique he had used and later she replicated on him.
'It is safe to assume this version of Saint is stronger than the one Sunny received,' Zachary mused, before shaking his head. 'But an Echo is static. Unlike Sunny's Shadow, which can grow and evolve, mine is trapped as an Awakened Monster.'
He pushed the grim thought aside. In the Forgotten Shore, an Awakened Monster of her caliber was more than enough to pull her weight. That was all that mattered for now.
With a resolute sigh, Zachary stepped forward and reclaimed his center. He widened his stance, lowering his center of gravity until his weight rested perfectly on the balls of his feet. He relaxed his shoulders and held his palms open and crossed in front of him—the exact posture Dahrio had assumed when he had channeled the authority of the goddess. When he had made him witness his lightning.
He shut down Danger Sense entirely. He had to. He had accepted with grim resignation that the ability was not almighty; if Nephis and the Stone Saints could fool it, others would too. The sooner he learned to fight without that crutch, the better. He gave a sharp nod. Saint shifted into her own indomitable posture.
The fight began.
Saint was experienced and extremely lethal, exploiting the advantage of her stone armor to focus solely on the offensive. Every posture and movement was designed to deliver one devastating blow after another, yet the way she shifted between those attacks was so purposeful that it minimized any window for a counter.
Letting her left fist glide over his arm, Zachary delivered a sharp, snapping kick to her uncovered leg. The stone greave groaned under the impact—and so did his shin. Both held firm. Zachary swallowed a groan, backing away just enough to feel the wind of her backhand flicking past the bridge of his nose. The pain in his leg was sharp, but that pain was exactly what he was aiming for.
Just like the professional martial artists of the Other World, he would use these micro-fissures to harden his skeleton. Eventually, his already formidable body would be tempered into a weapon of its own.
Before Saint could fully extend her right hand, Zachary dived into the blow. He jammed her inner elbow with his left arm and, twisting his body in an instant, drove a sharp palm strike into the center of her breastplate. The thud was sonorous, but it achieved nothing; Saint simply stepped forward, closing the distance to clinch.
Zachary didn't disengage. Instead, he immediately snaked his arms over hers, crossing them behind her back to seize control of her posture. Before she could tear herself free, he drove a reinforced knee into her unguarded side. In the next heartbeat, he retracted his arm and delivered a sharp, ascending elbow strike. Her helmet flicked backward from the force of the hit, and Zachary used the momentary stagger to finally leap away.
"One-zero," he announced with a confident smile.
Saint took a single step back to stabilize, her dark eyes immediately locking onto his with unwavering intensity. Zachary felt a nervous gulp rise in his throat. Despite his proud words, the throbbing in his bones was a clear reminder of how outmatched his raw stats were compared to hers. The efficiency of Flow Control was as sharp as ever, pushing his potency to the level of an Awakened Monster, yet the physical gap between a human and a living statue remained vast.
Even with his bones calcifying stronger after each break, the flaws of fighting an armored enemy with bare fists were glaring.
'That just shows that the Witness Battle Arts are a purely anti-personal technique. I don't see myself fighting Nightmares barehanded.' He mused, then caught himself with a scoff. 'But then again, I'm barely a Dormant human cheating an Awakened's power. Dahrio was a Transcendent, and the First Witness was likely a Spirit. Who knows what secrets this Art holds at its most profound levels.'
That thought pulled another to the surface. The Witness Battle Arts relied heavily on the interaction with the Storm Authority. Until he could channel that prideful lightning within him, the style would remain a fragmented shell of its true potential.
'Let's focus on the basics then... mastering the cloud and the thunder within the movements.' He thought, returning to his stance with a resolute nod. 'And who cares about fighting monsters barehanded? Humans are going to be on the list of enemies soon enough. God knows having another weapon in my arsenal is always welcome.'
They suddenly moved as one, the silence of the Cathedral shattered by the sudden, violent friction of stone and flesh.
Saint's combat style was a masterclass in dark efficiency. She didn't move like a human; she moved like an avalanche contained within a suit of armor. Every punch was a devastating bash, maximizing her immense weight to turn a simple jab into a bone-shattering impact. She barely left any openings, and the few she did offer were jagged traps—when Zachary lunged to exploit a gap in her guard, she redirected her momentum with predatory speed, punishing his greed with a heavy shoulder check that felt like being hit by a falling wall.
However, that same crushing power came at a cost. Her speed was focused entirely on her upper body and the lethality of her strikes, leaving her mobility sluggish. Her legs were pillars, rooted to the floor solely to maintain her indomitable posture. She couldn't spare the balance for kicks, so Zachary went for them, his bare feet snapping against her stone shins in a rhythmic, punishing cadence.
To survive, he surrendered himself to the "cloud."
Using Dahrio's footwork, Zachary weaved between the storm of bashes with impossible swiftness. He didn't just dodge; he flowed. He became a nebulous presence in the dark room, his heels barely touching the ground as he drifted around Saint's reach. It was the only thing keeping him whole—the footwork allowed him to dart into her "traps," land a stinging blow, and evaporate before her counter could connect.
Seeing that Saint was purely focused on the offensive, Zachary shifted his intent. He stopped trying to match her force and began to explore the defensive heart of the Witness Arts.
He moved with a new, strange finesse. As a heavy stone fist whistled toward his head, he didn't retreat. He stepped into the arc, letting the punch glide harmlessly over the outer edge of his forearm with a delicate friction. He favored his palms now, using soft, circular deflections to guide her power away from his center. It was delicacy over power, a silent conversation between the immovable object and the invisible wind.
As the exchange deepened, the fundamental difference between their souls became clear. Saint was a relentless tide of aggression, always pushing, always seeking to crush and conquer. Meanwhile, the Witness Battle Arts felt... free.
Even in the heart of a life-or-death struggle, the technique felt unnervingly calm. Where Saint was a thunderstorm, Zachary was the air that contained it. His movements weren't just efficient; they were almost gentle, a paradox of martial lethality that sought harmony rather than simple destruction.
He dived into the katas that had been forcefully engraved into his body and mind. There was an odd familiarity that became more present with every motion Zachary emulated. Focusing through Cinder Eyes, he saw her arm falling in a heavy, cutting motion toward his head.
Timing the reaction perfectly, he moved both hands in a singular, fluid beat. His left hand intercepted her wrist while his right found the inner hinge of her elbow. Before the blow could connect, he twisted the stone limb, throwing her momentum off course. In the next heartbeat, his foot brushed sharply beneath hers, sweeping the pillar-like leg and sending her to the ground.
She rolled with practiced ease, returning to her posture in an instant, but Zachary had already danced back.
"Two-zero," he announced, hopping lightly on the balls of his feet as his arms traced careful, circular arcs around him.
He was improving; he could feel it in the way the air felt against his skin. Yet, he didn't allow the sensation to cloud his judgment. By diving into the foundations of the Witness Battle Arts, he realized how profound the roots truly were. To even attempt mastery, one needed an impossible sense of timing and an even more surgical control of their biological functions to weave through an opponent's reach at a microscopic level.
'It fits me too well,' he mused with a strange feeling in his heart.
Cinder Eyes pushed his perception to the limit, and Balance Control allowed him to use his body with millimetric precision. Without those gifts, he wouldn't even be able to perceive the foundations of the Art, let alone execute them.
The realization brought a small, confident smile to his face. Fighting barehanded felt more natural than wielding a weapon. He had sensed this during his training with Eddard, but now, with more experience to his name, he felt absolute confidence in the weapon that was his own body. It was an obvious conclusion: since his Aspect revolved around the control of the self, using that self to fight felt personal and familiar, whereas a sword always felt like a foreign extension.
'Let's continue then...'
Saint closed in with careful, predatory steps. Instead of meeting her charge, Zachary waited to receive her offense, focusing on a single concept: Gentleness.
The "Cloud" aspect of the Battle Art carried a serene feeling that oddly resembled the Gentle Sword. As Saint launched a straight fist, Zachary placed his right palm near his shoulder, letting the stone knuckles roll over the curve of his body without making full contact. Using the momentum of that roll, he snapped forward with three consecutive palm strikes.
Every strike was a straight line—a needle threading through the gaps in her armor. He maintained a ghost-like friction against her marble wrists, feeling the tension in her stone joints before the blow even launched. He was reading her intent through the vibrations, using her own weight to stick and pivot.
'It isn't just about evasion... it's deflection.' He understood it now. 'By using my presence as the focus and the footwork as the direction, I can blend with the attack and guide it away.'
It felt poetic. He could almost imagine Dahrio's firm, calm voice: "Just as a cloud takes its form from its surroundings, use your opponent's attacks to flow through them. A cloud is shaped by the wind, and yet it remains a cloud."
'Or something like that. I don't know what he'd sound like if he wasn't scolding me about something,' Zachary thought with a chuckle, weaving effortlessly through Saint's follow-up.
Danger Sense remained dark. He relied solely on his heightened senses to read the air. But as the exchange continued, he noticed something that made him sigh. Saint wasn't adapting to his new style. She couldn't adapt anymore.
And yet, Saint was not a Battle Master for nothing.
Sensing his newfound grace, she stopped chasing him and began to use her offensive to herd him. She was cut from dark marble and stone, using her weight to dictate the geography of the fight until Zachary found his back against the cold wall of a corner.
'I let myself be guided again,' he cursed inwardly.
But he didn't have the luxury of discontent. A lethal stone fist was already screaming toward his face. Using his new Insight, Zachary twisted his torso just barely, letting his forearm guide the blow to his side. In the cramped space, there was no room for a traditional counterattack or a wide swing. Instead following a spark of creativity, he relaxed his body and placed the extended fingers of his right hand like a spear against her breastplate.
It happened in an instant.
The motion began at his ankles. He twisted them, generating a surge of momentum that flowed through his legs and was amplified by his knees. It climbed into his powerful hips, coiled through the snap of his torso, and rolled through his shoulder. Finally, it traveled down his arm to his wrist, which twisted in a final, violent display of power as he clenched his fist. It was a perfect kinetic chain.
One-Inch Punch!
The impact was a dull, heavy boom. Saint was sent skidding back across the room, her immense weight the only thing keeping her upright. There had been no essence involved; Zachary had generated that power through sheer, optimized physicality.
As the stalwart Echo began to move again, Zachary simply waved a hand, returning her to his Soul Sea. He didn't need to see more. He sat cross-legged in the corner, his breathing heavy but controlled, as the second teaching of the Witness Battle Arts crystallized in his mind.
The Thunder.
If the Cloud was the art of evasion and formless movement, the Thunder was the art of the instantaneous discharge. It was simple and terrifying: the generation of maximum power in a single second. By emulating the mechanics of Burce Lee's legendary One-Inch Punch, he had used his entire body as a capacitor, concentrating everything into a single point of release.
Just as lightning forms when electrical charges build up within the heart of a cloud only to discharge in a jagged instant, the two parts of the Battle Art worked in perfect harmony. The formless footwork of the Cloud was the engine that generated momentum, and the coordination of the body was the conduit that released it like a thunderous strike.
Zachary realized then that these weren't "forms" or "stances" to be memorized. That would strip away the very essence of the style. Instead, they were maxims—philosophical and physical truths the Witness had to follow to remain true to the Path of the Storm.
Every movement Dahario made, every strike and every block, was simply an application of these truths. The way he shifted between striking positions and movement stances without a transition stance, defying all logic and physics, had been a demonstration of the Cloud footwork. The dangerous palm techniques and devastating kicks were basic applications of the Thunder.
Even the grappling techniques he used to break Zachary's pathetic guard now made sense. He could imagine the explanation: how a Cloud could envelop and imprison through sheer mass while maintaining its formlessness, drowning its opponent by pure might.
And yet... no matter how much these parts synergized, there was a lag in the transition. No matter how much the Thunder existed within the Cloud, the two remained distinct, never forming a cohesive whole. Zachary stood motionless for a moment before guessing the cause.
'It's probably the Lightning. The Storm authority.' He guessed with a heavy heart. 'I remember thinking during the Nightmare that the Lightning wasn't a mere complement; it was the sole participant in Dahrio's dance. Now I know it's the cohesive unity of the Battle Art.'
Zachary shook his head in understanding and disappointment. The meaning was clear: until he improved Flow Control and found a way to channel the Thunder Song within himself, the true form of the Witness Battle Arts would continue to elude him.
'Doesn't really matter...' he said, calming his heart. 'To establish a hold of the Core on the Mind, I just need strong foundations. These maxims are exactly that.'
But another thought took hold—an intrusive one that had no real reason to bother him, and yet it did.
'I'm improving too fast...'
There wasn't a problem with this; on the contrary, he should have felt elated. Time was a luxury he didn't have, and every second saved was a victory. And yet, this pace of improvement felt odd. Was it because he had experienced so many setbacks during his mastery of Flow Control?
'I don't think so.' He considered, trying to purge the thought. 'And even in its oddity, it works for me. As long as I keep growing at this pace, Mara's Whisper will continue to lag behind me... It should be fine, right?'
There was no one to answer him. With a shake of his head, he buried the intrusive thought and looked around the Priestess's room. Despite the frenetic fight, most of the furniture was intact. The struggle had raised enough dust to make his nose itch, but aside from that, everything was fine.
'I should probably clean the room from time to time...' Zachary thought with a wry chuckle before sitting in the chair. He considered summoning Saint again but decided to let the Echo rest.
He needed to internalize his newfound insight first.
Summoning the Endless Spring, he washed the sweat from his hair and neck before taking a long pull of the cold water. His mind continued to race. Now that the Witness Battle Arts were taking form in his mind, the next stop was to sharpen the Simple Sword.
'The stalwart style of the Stone Saints is grounded in the Heavy and the Righteous Sword.' Zachary mused, playing with the patterns on the blue bottle. 'With a longsword in my arsenal, I can dive deeper into the Heavy Sword insight, but that's not all...'
Once his mastery reached a certain level, he would be able to cross-reference that insight to extrapolate the unadulterated Righteous Sword from the stalwart style. That was his objective in learning swordplay from Saint.
He remained silent for a few seconds, sighing in deep thought. Doubts were beginning to brew as he considered the Simple Sword and his most recent battles—dreadful encounters that had shown him something that soured his mood.
Refusing to voice those doubts, he focused his mind on polishing his senses. 'If I ever want my plan to work, I don't just need to be able to move in darkness; I need to learn to fight in blindness.'
He could do this the easy but long way, covering his eyes and learning to navigate the dark. Or...
Zachary didn't finish the thought. Instead, he looked at the floor, as if he could peer through the cold stone into the darkness of the Cathedral below—and at the one who hid within it. He stared at the ground for several eternal seconds, tension creasing his brow, before breaking into a short, nervous laugh.
'Nope. No way.' He wiped away a drop of sweat that betrayed the inner conflict in the corners of his mind. "I'm not that desperate."
With a shake of his head and a soft chuckle, he turned to the table and the pieces of dried meat atop a silver plate. Scratching his scarred arm, he took a tentative bite. 'Let's eat before resuming training. While I still have time, there are other things I need to check and study.'
The meat was particularly tasteless today.
***
The Dark City welcomed the night with its usual tense, oddly comforting silence. The starless sky loomed above the ruins like a sealed vault, trapping dreams and nightmares alike for eternity. In a plaza near the north side of the ruins, before the silhouette of the ruined Cathedral, a young man stood with his scarred face twisted in an expression of mingled anger and resignation.
"What am I doing here!?" Zachary hissed through clenched teeth as he faced the absolute darkness of the Cathedral's entrance.
He wore the Mantle of the Underworld beneath the Witness' Testament, the blue fabric dancing in the warm night wind. His feet tapped nervously against the broken steps, and a desperate, self-deprecating smile touched his lips. The truth was simple.
He had been lying.
'I am desperate.' Zachary thought grimly, staring into the True Darkness.
He almost wished Cinder Eyes could pry through it, but it was for naught; the dark veil remained an unassailable fortress for his senses. Sharpening his ability to move in total blindness was a top priority. Unlike his martial techniques, which were meant for life after the Forgotten Shore, this was a core requirement for the escape itself. He needed a breakthrough.
Covering his eyes with cloth hadn't worked. His other senses were so developed that they provided too much information, creating a confusing, overlapping map of the world. He needed a way to filter them, and the True Darkness of the Cathedral was the perfect, albeit suicidal, crucible.
It was a void that swallowed every sense, yet Zachary was betting on one thing: Danger Sense. His sixth sense didn't rely on physical stimuli; it responded to the intent of harm, to the danger of his surroundings. While it had been fooled before, it remained his only reliable guide in the abyss.
Sparks flickered in his right hand as his fingers clenched around the hilt of Midnight Shard. He was going up against a Fallen Devil. While Ender's Solace had the edge to bite such a monster, the Midnight Shard had the durability he needed to survive a collision. He knew the Forsaken Knight had sensed him the day he arrived, yet it had never deigned to hunt him outside. He was counting on that—hoping for a quick immersion to shock his senses into evolving.
"Fuuu..." He breathed deeply, trying to still his racing heart. This was the stupidest thing he had done since that night in his friend's apartment, back when he had the brilliant idea to—
'Focus, you fool.' Zachary reprimanded himself, sharpening his focus to a razor edge. 'One brief encounter. Test the waters. That's all.'
He closed his eye, his heart hammering against his ribs while his Body Control kept his limbs steady. The Core in his chest hummed, flooding his system with essence to raise his potency to its limit. Finally, his eye snapped open, glowing with a resolute crimson light.
He stepped into the darkness.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. No sound or vibration escaped the veil. It was as if the Cathedral had simply swallowed him whole. Then, the silence shattered. Something came flying out of the dark, piercing the veil with pathetic ease.
Zachary crashed into the plaza with enough force to spiderweb the blackened stone. He ricocheted twice before the Midnight Shard bit into the ground, acting as an anchor to stop his momentum.
"Bleghhh!" Bile and spit sprayed from his lips as his innards recoiled from the impact. And yet, through the pain, his face twisted into a manic, excited smile.
'It worked!' He wiped puke from the corner of his mouth with the edge of his mantle. 'I could follow the attack!'
He tried to stand, only to collapse back into his own mess. His lower body refused to respond, the connection between Mind and Body severed by the sheer force of the blow. He inspected himself quickly; nothing was broken, but his Body was lagging behind his commands, reeling from the shock.
As he waited for his breath to return, he reflected on the clash. It had been instantaneous. It had taken more time for the Devil to arrive than the clash itself. The moment he entered the void, Danger Sense had screamed with a volume he hadn't experienced since the Dwellers of the Deep first looked at him.
Zachary had known instantly he couldn't block it—not even with an unbreakable blade. Instead, he had pushed the Gentle Sword to its absolute limit, relaxing his entire frame to become like a reed in the wind. He had used the Knight's own staggering momentum to propel himself back out of the darkness.
It had been a gamble with his life as the stake. And thankfully, It had paid off.
A wry chuckle escaped him, though it quickly turned into a wince. His body felt heavy, drained. The essence he had spent repairing the Mantle of the Underworld made its absence felt now.
'No more of that until I reclaim those fragments,' Zachary concluded, thinking of his future"diet.
He looked up at the starless sky, mentally tracking the time. 'The night is still young. I still have one more thing to check.' He turned his gaze south, despite being unable to see from his position, he knew there was a broken lighthouse in the distance.
'I need to know how the skeletons react to my presence...'
His excited smile suddenly vanished as an illusion, replaced by an emotionless mask. The void of his missing eye seemed even deeper than the darkness he had just escaped. The reality of his situation was a cold weight in his chest. Too much to do, and far too little time.
"Oh dear lord," Zachary whispered, finally hauling himself up and brushing the dust from his mantle. "I'm so fucking tired."
With a tired sigh, his interns appeared at his side among sparks, and they began the long trek toward the Ruins. For the first time since arriving in this nightmare, Zachary desperately craved a smoke.