The West Gate of Aethelgard wasn't built to keep people in; it was built to keep monsters out. Known as the "Gate of Teeth," the massive archway was lined with serrated, ivory-colored spikes that hummed with a defensive ward.
Fifty Imperial Guards stood in a phalanx formation, their silver-plated shields locked together. In their hands were Null-Spears, weapons carved from the bones of dead gods, specifically designed to pierce through any magical defense.
"Target sighted!" the captain roared, his voice echoing under the stone arch. "The Void-carrier and the Fallen Star. Level spears! Aim for the girl—break the anchor!"
Xylo's hand tightened on my shoulder. "Vespera, the phalanx is a death trap. If we hit that shield wall, the null-spears will drain us before we can even blink. I'll take the sky—you slide under."
"No," I said, my voice vibrating with a hunger I couldn't control. "The spears... they're glowing, Xylo. They're full of essence."
Xylo looked at me, his golden eyes narrowing. "They are weapons of execution, girl. You can't eat a physical blade."
"I don't need to eat the blade," I whispered. "I just need to eat the intent."
I didn't wait for his permission. I sprinted toward the phalanx.
"Fire!" the captain commanded.
Twenty null-spears were hurled simultaneously. They streaked through the air like bolts of lightning, trailing white smoke. These weren't arrows you could dodge; they were homing weapons locked onto my soul signature.
Behind me, I heard Xylo roar in frustration, his wings snapping open as he lunged to catch the bolts before they hit me. "Vespera, get down!"
I didn't get down. I stopped.
I planted my feet into the dirt and opened my arms wide. The violet runes on my skin flared with such intensity that they burned through the rags of my execution robes. I didn't reach for the spears with my hands—I reached with the void.
The world seemed to slow. The twenty spears, mere inches from my chest, suddenly hit an invisible wall. But they didn't bounce off. The white light of the god-bones began to smear, the energy being stripped from the physical wood and iron.
The spears fell to the ground, now nothing more than rotted, gray sticks. The "God-Light" had been sucked out of them, leaving behind useless husks.
The silence that followed was absolute. The guards stared at the pile of dead wood at my feet. The captain's jaw dropped. No one had ever "disarmed" a Null-spear by eating it.
"My turn," I said.
I didn't need a weapon. I had the Tether.
I grabbed the violet-gold cord connecting me to Xylo. With a violent tug, I used our shared momentum to pull him forward. He understood the signal instantly. As I pulled, he launched himself over my head, his massive black wings creating a vacuum that pulled the dust and debris into a localized cyclone.
"Xylo! High Frequency!" I yelled.
I funneled every ounce of the stolen spear essence back through the Tether.
Xylo's silver-filigree sword didn't just glow; it erupted in a blade of violet-gold fire that stretched ten feet long. He slammed the blade into the center of the shield wall.
The explosion was beautiful and terrifying. The silver shields shattered like glass. The Imperial Guards were thrown back with such force that they dented the stone walls of the gatehouse. The ivory "teeth" of the archway cracked, the defensive wards flickering and dying as the Void-polluted energy touched them.
Xylo landed in the center of the wreckage, his wings flared, his golden eyes scanning for survivors. There were none. The gate was open.
"You," Xylo said, turning to look at me. He looked shaken. "That energy... that was Divine Light. You didn't just neutralize it. You converted it."
"I'm a ghost of a girl who's finally found her voice," I said, gasping as the adrenaline began to fade. The Void Core was settled now, humming contentedly like a well-fed beast. "Let's go. The secondary towers will be firing the long cannons soon."
We ran through the gateway, leaving the city of Aethelgard behind us. But as we hit the open road leading toward the Grey Wilds, the sky above us darkened.
It wasn't a cloud.
A massive, mechanical eye, three stories tall and surrounded by floating silver rings, descended from the clouds. It was the Prime Seeker, the Emperor's personal hunter-construct.
A beam of blue light scanned the ground, locking onto the tether.
"Well," I said, looking up at the giant eye. "The System is a bit of a pessimist, isn't it?"
Xylo grabbed my hand, his grip crushing. "It's not a pessimist, Vespera. It's a realist. Run."
We dove into the treeline of the Grey Wilds just as the Prime Seeker fired a beam of pure disintegration that turned the West Gate—and the fifty men we had just defeated—into a pile of glowing slag.
The hunt had truly begun.