Illusionary beast dissolved into mist the moment Elias's foot hit the ground after his final dodge. It burst apart with a snarl that wasn't quite sound, more like the echo of something imagined rather than real. Its claws became trailing ribbons of light that curled and evaporated into the air like smoke brushed by wind.
Elias didn't relax.
Illusions never acted alone.
His movements were fluid—not elegant, not showy, but efficient, honed through years of stealing, slipping away, learning to move smaller than himself. He struck with precision, quiet and controlled, each hit calculated to result in a collapse of light rather than theatrics.
Five illusions.
Eight.
Eleven.
He kept counting.
By the time he reached eighteen, his breath was steady, but sweat clung to his back
He steadied his breathing and straightened, careful not to reveal how easily he could tear the entire simulation apart if he wished to. Overconfidence was dangerous. But revealing why he was confident was worse.
The dark around him pulsed.
A labyrinth unfolded, not all at once but in pieces — like watching a maze breathe itself into existence. Walls rose from the darkness in slow, soundless waves, smooth stone shifting into place with the elegance of moving water. Symbols glowed faintly along certain corners, then vanished when he tried to fix his gaze on them.
Magician inspired principles, clearly.
No two illusions were identical. The test shifted based on the initiate.
"So," Elias muttered under his breath. "Let's see what you want from me."
His voice didn't echo.
The space swallowed sound as hungrily as the corridors above had.
He moved.
Not hurriedly — that would be foolish. Not hesitantly — that would be noted. Instead, he walked with the measured, steady pace of someone who expected traps but wasn't intimidated by them. His footsteps blended into the dark.
The rules of survival were simple:
Observe first. Move second. React third.
Never in the wrong order.
Elias assumed that most initiates would panic a bit at this stage, the shifting walls and the eerie quiet pushing them into mistakes. Panic corrupted perception. The illusions fed on that.
He let his eyes half-focus, letting the shadows guide depth and distance rather than relying on the false geometry of illusion-light.
He reached a split in the corridor.
Left: light… too much of it.
A warm lantern glow, almost inviting. A trick. Obvious one at that.
On the right: deeper dark, with a faint pressure —
not unlike the one he'd felt earlier in the cavern. He pondered while moving to the right corridor
what specifically caused it?
Perhaps the amount of shadows? Perhaps their metaphysical weight that gave off the pressure to those tuned in for it?
Or something more complex, perhaps only people like him could feel it. Difficult to say anything for sure.
The examiners' design was transparent: test whether he trusted light or shadow, pointless really especially for him.
The corridor narrowed, until he had to angle his shoulders. A low hum filled the air — not threatening, but invasive, like someone trying to nudge his thoughts. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sensation pass like a wave breaking around a stone.
He had encountered similar mind affecting wards before and knew how to keep his head on straight.
The hum faltered, after few more steps. Finding no surface in his mind.
Good.
He was not here to be shaped. He was here to be measured.
A faint scraping sound came from ahead.
Elias froze.
Not because he was startled, but because the sound was wrong. Illusions didn't scrape. They drifted or shimmered. Scraping meant something real moved nearby.
He lowered his stance slightly.
When the figure emerged,Cloaked. Masked. it was small — far smaller than he expected. A child or Halfling perhaps? But what would one of the Homeward ones be doing here? In service of Veiled crown? and Shadow path no less.
For a moment, Elias felt his pulse tighten. Then he felt the illusion creeping through his defenses trying to ensnare his mind and realized The Shadow Path would never use a real child in a trial. Definitely not a halfling either. Which meant—
"Projection?" he whispered.
The being tilted its masked head. No answer.
Then it ran at him.
Fast.
Faster than anything that size should move.
Elias sidestepped and caught its arm, prepared to redirect rather than harm. The form twisted midair, slipping like liquid through his grip. Its mask cracked sideways, revealing nothing underneath except layered shadow.
Ah.
A shadow construct. Stronger than illusions. Half-real, half-imagined.
It lunged again.
Elias ducked, his movement fluid, letting instinct handle the angles. He didn't strike — he couldn't. Revealing too much precision would raise questions. Instead he shoved the construct aside, sending it slamming into the wall with a shockwave of shadowed dust.
The construct dissolved, leaving only a faint mark on the floor.
He exhaled quietly.
"Overkill for an initiate test," he muttered. Deep down he raised his assessment of the operatives here if this was the initiate test.
The examiners were not holding back. Good. That meant they wanted only the best and brightest.
He moved on more cautiously, stepping visibly more measured compared to before.
The labyrinth continued reshaped itself, but now he walked through it with certainty. The shadows were guides now, faint currents brushing his ankles and shoulders, whispering directional truths that weren't auditory but like sunlight on the skin through the canopy of a forest in midsummer.
He followed those currents. The feel of it on his skin and what felt like hours of wandering but was probably only minutes, he found the door out of the illusion labyrinth. Anticipating the forewarned choice.
A stone door stood before him — simple, without markings. But the air around it had weight, like a held breath.
He approached.
The moment he touched the handle, the illusion dissolved entirely — not in pieces, not fading — but disappearing in a single blink.
The stone room of before returned and he saw he barely moved forward few steps. Instead of the long way he walked and fought in the labyrinth.
"How does it work?" Elias thought to himself a bit confused, becoming more puzzled by the second.
He knew for sure, if you knew about being in a illusion you should be able to see through it but he didn't see through this at all. Unless.. this was actually some kind of dimensional magic just pretending to be illusion magic. Well that's sneaky but I'm sure they'll never confirm even if I ask.
Three assessors stood in a line before him.
The obsidian mask from earlier took one step forward.
"Choosing shadow over light," they said. "Correct."
"Disengaging without revealing hidden skills," said another. "Acceptable."
"Identifying real from illusory," said the third, tapping notes on a slate. "Noteworthy."
Elias kept still. Mind still turning over the possibilities of the illusion/teleportation/separate dimension labyrinth he just went through because he didn't believe for a second it was all illusion.
The obsidian mask tilted slightly.
"You passed the first trial."
Elias swallowed once, but kept his face neutral.
"There are more," he said cautiously, first one already being more than usual academic puzzles and mock scenarios.
"Yes."
The assessors gestured, and another door unlatched on the far end of the hall.
"Proceed," they said.
"Your next test," the obsidian mask continued, "is endurance."
"Physical?" Elias asked.
"No," the figure said. "Psychological."
Wonderful.
Exactly what the Veiled Crown excelled at.
He stepped through the door.
The metal closed behind him with finality.
The chamber beyond the metal door was small, windowless, and carved entirely from basalt. No torches. No glowstones. No visible source of illumination at all — and yet Elias could see. Not clearly, but enough to move without stumbling. The shadows clung to the corners like heavy cloth, and a faint, pulsing cold radiated from somewhere beneath the floor.
He stood very still.
Psychological endurance tests were notoriously varied. Some tested fear. Some tested memory. Some tested the ability to resist manipulation. Others simply tested patience — and those were often the worst.
After nearly a minute of silence, a voice filled the room.
Not spoken. Not audible. A vibration that managed to convey a command.
"Sit."
The command vibrated in his skull like someone brushing a fingertip along the inside of bone.
Elias didn't move.
Shadow energies hummed under his skin in response, trying reflexively to shield him. He exhaled slowly through his nose and forced them still. Any overt reaction would be noted, even punished.
"Sit."
Command came stronger this time. Less a polite suggestion, and more like expectant commander telling you.
He crouched instead.
That was enough to meet the instruction without yielding entirely — a compromise the examiners would mark, analyze, dissect. It also told them he wasn't a puppet. Disobedience, without insolence.
The pressure in his skull lightened.
The basalt wall opposite him rippled as if made of stretched leather. Images formed — not illusions, not projections, but memory-echoes. His own memories.
He almost cursed. He knew what was coming and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
The marketplace came in to view.
Bright, loud, chaotic.
A surge of pain in his eyes as sunlight hit them.
Children shouting. Coins clattering. A hand brushing his pocket.
And the tight, suffocating panic of sensory overload.
He felt his throat tighten.
They were pulling him into the memory. Not simply displaying it — forcing him to relive it.
Elias inhaled through his teeth and let the shadows wrap him like a thin veil, dulling the brightness.
The memory responded.
The colors dimmed. The noise softened. The people blurred. Everything bent toward neutral shadow as if the world itself adjusted to accommodate him.
Then the examiner's voice whispered inside his skull:
You cannot change what was.
Only what is.
Show us what makes you, you.
The marketplace brightened abruptly, painfully. A blade of sunlight cut straight into his vision. Instinct screamed to close his eyes.
He didn't.
He stared directly into the glare, letting tears well and burn. Letting pain scrape across his nerves. Letting the memory break over him without reshaping it.
He would not edit the past.
Not for them.
Not for himself.
The room pulsed. The glare vanished. Darkness returned.
A second memory swallowed him before he could blink—
The alleyway behind the spice stalls.
The older boy.
The knife.
The first time Elias learned that shadows were not always enough. That there's always someone stronger, and that not every fight could be averted.
The examiner's voice:
Fear? Or instinct?
Which guided you then?
He wanted to say neither.
He wanted to say calculation. Pragmatism and logic has always guided him, but that time it was simply surprise.
He wanted to say it was simple—too simple—to read the boy's stance, judge the timing, and slip around him before the knife found its mark.
But trials punished clever answers. They wanted to see weaknesses, pressure points to mold him later so he let them see. Instead of altering the memory he left it be.
Instead, he watched. Observed. Let the memory play without reacting.
The boy lunged.
Elias felt his muscles tighten, the urge to dodge rising like a reflexive tide.
He didn't move.
The knife plunged through an echo of his younger self, dissipating the memory like smoke.
The examiners wanted instinct. They wanted emotion. They wanted panic.
He gave them none.
The room shuddered. The basalt cracked like a spiderweb.
A third memory rose.
One he did not recognize.
A hall of black stone and white fire. Familiar yet not. Alien and comfortable in strange ways.
A shadow stretching behind him with a shape not human. Much larger and stronger, there was perhaps horns?
He heard a whisper, definitely not his own.
A presence coiled around his ribs like a patient serpent.
Elias's stomach turned cold.
This was not his memory.
This was not the life he remembered.
This was—
The being spoke:
Do you remember me?
He felt a chill sweep across his spine.
No.
No, he did not.
But something inside him did.
Something deeper than bone. Something very strange separate of him yet intricately still off him.
He steadied his breath.
"I don't remember you," he said aloud, voice low, steady.
"Not yet." He thought not daring to speak it out loud.
The presence paused.
Then it laughed — soft, approving. As if hearing his thoughts.
The memory shattered like glass dropped on stone.
The chamber returned.
Elias was standing now, though he did not remember rising.
A second door opened opposite him, its hinges silent.
The obsidian-masked examiner stood behind it.
"Not many initiates confront a false memory without breaking," the figure said. "Fewer still refuse to rewrite their own past for comfort."
Elias said nothing.
"Even fewer," the examiner continued, "face a memory that does not belong to them without flinching."
To that, Elias did react to — a tightening of his jaw.
It was barely anything but they wouldn't miss it
" they know something about me, something that I don't and that pisses me off" he thought venomously while schooling his features.
The examiner tilted their head.
"You are an interesting one."
They stepped aside.
"Elias Marlow," they said, "you have passed the endurance trial."
A faint hum ran through the chamber — a seal breaking, a test concluding, a decision made.
"Your final trial begins now."
Elias swallowed once.
"Final," he repeated.
"Yes," said the examiner. "The one that matters."said the other " one you were once already warned about" said the third
The hall beyond the door was narrow, descending. Lit by tiny crystals embedded in the walls like shards of frozen starlight. The air grew colder with every step Elias took.
A single thought surfaced in his mind:
They're not testing survival anymore.
They're testing something else.
He walked on. Determined to get through without faltering.
THE LOWER VAULTS
The path down was narrow and steep. The air changed the deeper he went—first cold, then wet, then strangely warm again. Water dripped in the dark. Something metallic echoed in the distance.
At the base of the stairs, an illuminated crystal plate pulsed on the wall.
As he approached, a rune flared to life and a voice—cold and artificial—spoke:
Mission Directive
Proceed only through Corridor A-5.
Do not take any alternate paths.
Do not engage with anything inside.
Retrieve the sealed object in Vault Room Four.
Do not open or inspect the object.
Return through Corridor A-5.
Simple.
Suspiciously simple.
He moved. Slowly and more cautiously, waiting for attack at any moment.
The corridor twisted sharply, stone swallowing light. Elias's eyes adjusted quickly as the shadows deepened—instinctively filtering brightness, sharpening edges. Relief on his eyes now that light is waning again eased his anxiety somewhat but he had to steel himself to not relax fully, not here, not now.
The smell of blood hit him first—faint, metallic, half-dried.
Fresh enough to warn.
Old enough to say someone survived long enough to leave.
Elias crouched and touched the floor with two fingers. The blood trail led deeper into the corridor, smeared and uneven. Someone had crawled, dragging themselves with failing strength.
A faint groan echoed from ahead.
Elias's body reacted before his mind fully registered it—he pressed himself to the wall, blending into the nearest pocket of shadow. The corridor ahead shimmered faintly, like heat distortion.
Not actual heat, but a presence of something strong
He moved forward cautiously.
A man lay slumped against the wall—cloak torn, mask shattered, blood pooling beneath his ribs. Tiny flickering light held in his hand, spell of illumination perhaps, since there was nothing in his hand but the light.
Blood pooled beneath him, staining the stone a dark, thick red.
The man's chest rose in shallow, struggling breaths.
A wounded operative.
Older.
Experienced.
And dying.
Elias approached with silent steps.
The man's eyes flickered open, panic flashing until he seemed to recognize that Elias was no threat.
He was not illusion. Not projection. Flesh and bone being, human if his racial features were not hidden somehow Elias wasn't aware off.
The man's eyes flickered as Elias knelt beside him.
"Don't… go down A-5," the operative rasped.
Elias tensed.
"There's… something in there," the man continued, voice weakening. "It woke up. It hunts sound. Movement. I barely—" he swallowed like man desperate for wat, then continued" I believe It's a Shadowborn. A hunter-class.You can't go down there," the man whispered,eyes darting to the shadows anxiously looking,searching but not finding.
He coughed, blood bubbling at his lips.
"Please," he whispered. "Don't leave me. Help me… back to the stairs."
The glowing mission plate flickered behind Elias, as if reminding him:
Proceed only through Corridor A-5.
Do not engage.
Retrieve the object.
Return through A-5.
The operative grabbed his sleeve, desperate.
"If you go alone… you'll die."
Elias inhaled deeply through his nose.
This was the test.
This was the real test.
Help the man—break the rules.
Follow the rules—walk into death.
The Veiled Crown would watch both outcomes.
Observe both choices.
Judge the mind behind the decision.
Elias looked down at the wounded operative.
Then toward Corridor A-5.
Shadows recoiled from the entrance.
Something massive waited inside—half-real, half-hidden, its presence distorting the corridor like heat over sand.
A breath that wasn't air.
A hunger that wasn't mortal.
A weight that warped silence itself.
Disobedience meant breaking protocol.
Obedience meant offering himself to whatever hunted there.
Elias closed his eyes.
His instincts whispered the truth:
I won't survive A-5 without using shadows.
And using shadows means engaging.
Which is forbidden.
Which is exactly what they want to see.
He exhaled softly.
Then he made his choice.
Elias opened his eyes.
The wounded operative's breath rattled, shallow and frantic. Blood smeared his fingers as he tried to pull himself upright, trembling with the effort.
"His voice shivered. "You won't see it. Not unless it wants you to."
Elias didn't speak. He didn't need to.
He had already felt it.
The creature's presence pressed faintly against the edge of his perception—
a displacement of space,
a hollowing of the dark,
a ripple where shadow and substance confused themselves.
Shadowborn hunters were almost myths.
Large, physical monsters with bodies fully capable of vanishing into shadow.
Not merely hiding — occupying shadow as naturally as a fish moves through water.
Their senses remained fully active while their bodies dissolved into darkness.
They could stalk across walls, ceilings, stone, even the shadow of a person's own foot.
Born for perfect predation.
Mindless enough for containment.
Too dangerous for killing to be worth the effort.
The Veiled Crown kept one here.
Of course they did.
Elias turned his head slightly toward Corridor A-5.
The shadows seemed… wrong there.
Too still.
Too deep.
Like a place where light had once gone and simply never returned.
It watched him.
It waited.
He could feel its attention like a cool breath on his spine.
The operative tugged weakly at his sleeve. "Help me… please."
Elias considered.
He had three choices:
1. Obey the command completely.Walk into the corridor.
Allow the creature to stalk him.
Attempt retrieval.
Risk death.
2. Save the operative and abandon the mission.Guaranteed survival.
Guaranteed failure.
3. Break orders… strategically.Use shadows to manipulate the creature.
Evade its perception while keeping the operative alive.
Retrieve the object anyway.
The third option was the only one worthy of the Shadow Path.
And he chose it.
But he needed information first.
Elias lowered himself closer to the wounded man.
"Describe it," he whispered.
The operative swallowed, eyes wide with remembered terror.
"It's big," he rasped. "Larger than a bull. Too many limbs."
He shuddered. "It moves through the dark like liquid. And when it's fully inside the shadow… the air gets tight. Feels like drowning without water."
Elias had already felt that suffocating pressure earlier.
He nodded once.
"And how did you survive?"
"I didn't." The operative coughed blood. "It let me go. It was toying with me. Maybe because they feed it rarely. Maybe because I ran." He looked at Elias with pleading eyes. "You can't fight it. You can't hide. It senses breath. Heartbeat. The heat of blood."
Elias exhaled slowly.
"Shadows blind heat," he murmured. "If woven tightly enough."
The operative stared. "You're mad."
"No," Elias said softly. "Trained."
But not honestly.
Not fully.
Much of what he knew came from instinct older than this life — instincts born from the lingering thread of a previous existence. He didn't understand them fully yet.
But he understood shadows.
He stood.
The operative reached for him again. "Don't leave—"
"I'm not," Elias said. "But you will need to stay quiet."
"Quiet isn't enough." He whispered voice edged in panic
"No," Elias agreed. "It isn't."
He knelt beside the man again and placed one hand on the cold stone.
The shadows responded instantly—
a subtle ripple,
a soft tightening of the air,
a silent acknowledgment.
They wanted to move.
To coil.
To wrap.
Elias guided them gently.
A veil of darkness lifted from the floor like a slow exhale and draped over the wounded operative—
not fully hiding him
but muffling heat, breath, movement.
A temporary cocoon.
The man gasped as the shadows wrapped around him.
"They won't suffocate you," Elias said quietly. "But you must remain still."
The operative stared up at him, half in fear, half in exhausted awe.
"Who… are you?"
"A candidate," Elias said. "Same as you once were, I presume."
He turned toward Corridor A-5.
The shadows there roiled.
Not away from him—
away from something behind them.
The Shadowborn Hunter was close.
Elias stepped forward
The deeper he walked, the quieter the world became.
Like a storm before the first crack of thunder.
A subtle pressure gathered in the air, compressing space around him. Making the corridor feel more narrow than it actually was. The shadows no longer felt passive or natural. They felt… occupied. Like a nest disturbed.
The torches along the walls have been smothered, no longer burning and barely smoking anymore creating eerie atmosphere
Elias's every step felt deliberately observed.
Not by the examiners.
Not by watchers behind the walls.
By it.
A slow ripple passed through the far corner of the corridor—barely noticeable, like a curtain shifting from a draft that wasn't there.
Elias's breath stayed steady.
He recognized the sensation.
He had felt it earlier when he entered the vaults.
A pressure at the edge of perception, faint as the memory of a nightmare.
Now it was clear.
The Shadowborn Hunter was near.