The last Wraith evaporated under my hammer. I was breathing hard, the silver lines on my face glowing so bright they lit up the snow. My school shirt was shredded, showing the metallic sheen of my skin.
I turned to the mercenaries. They were pointing their guns at me, but their hands were shaking. They had seen me move at speeds that were physically impossible.
"Who... what are you?" the leader asked, his voice trembling.
"I'm the guy who knows what's behind that door," I said, walking toward the shrine. I didn't even look at their guns. "You want to get paid? Help me push. If we don't get inside in the next sixty seconds, the 'Great Shadow' will notice us."
The leader looked at the dark forest, then at me. He nodded to his men. "Do it. Push!"
The five of us leaned against the massive stone slabs.
"On three!" I yelled. "One! Two! THREE!"
With a scream of grinding stone, the doors slid open. A blast of pure, white light hit us, throwing the mercenaries backward. I stood my ground, my eyes locked on the center of the room.
There, floating in a beam of starlight that shouldn't have existed underground, was the blade.
It wasn't a sword. It was a jagged shard of black metal, about three feet long, with no hilt and no guard. It looked like a piece of the night sky had been sharpened into a razor.
The Unbreakable Blade.
"It's beautiful," one of the mercs whispered, reaching out.
"Don't touch it!" I yelled, but it was too late.
As his finger brushed the metal, his entire arm turned to stone. He screamed, but the sound was cut short as the stone spread to his chest, then his head. In three seconds, he was a statue.
The other mercs scrambled back in horror.
"It's cursed!" the leader cried. "We're leaving! Forget the money!"
They ran. I didn't stop them. I didn't need them anymore.
I walked up to the floating shard. The Relic in my chest was screaming now, a high-pitched ringing that made my ears bleed. This was the "Star-Fall" steel—the material the Ancient Woman used to forge the original weapons of the gods.
I didn't use my hand. I opened my shirt and leaned forward, letting the Relic touch the blade.
K-BOOM.
The entire mountain shook. The white light turned silver. The shard didn't turn me to stone; it melted. It turned into a liquid shadow and flowed into the Relic, wrapping around the Iron Core.
[ ARTIFACT MERGER SUCCESSFUL ] [ NEW WEAPON FORMING: THE ZERO-VOID SHARD ] [ SYNC RATE: 25.0% ] [ WARNING: SYSTEM REBOOTING... ]
I felt my consciousness slipping away. The power was too much. 25% Sync was the "Wall" that most Heroes didn't hit for years. My body was being reconstructed from the inside out. My bones were no longer just reinforced; they were being replaced with the same "Star-Fall" metal.
As I fell to the floor, I saw a figure standing at the entrance of the shrine.
It was the Ancient Woman. She wasn't a vision this time. She was real. She looked down at me, her silver eyes glowing with a faint trace of amusement.
"Well done, Scavenger," she whispered, her voice like the sound of a thousand bells. "But the Stone Giant is already at the gates. Sleep fast. You have three days left."
The darkness swallowed me.