The gates shrieked. It was a tortured, high-pitched groan of metal scraping stone, a sound that set every nerve on edge, as it winched slowly, agonizingly upward. It revealed a hellscape. A roiling, screaming, seemingly infinite sea of Tainted creatures clawed at the very stones of Fortitude's End. The stench billowed in like a physical plague—a wave of sulfur, ancient decay, and a sharp, ozonic tang that burned the nostrils. They were a living tide of black-plated bone, twisted limbs, and glowing, malevolent eyes, their collective roars a single, deafening note of pure hatred.
"For the Sanctum! For our homes!" Kalean's voice was not a shout; it was a physical force, a concussive blast of Faith and Will that cut through the din. "Great Knights, form the spearhead! Legion, advance! Push them back to the hell that spawned them!"
With a unified, deafening roar that shook the very battlements, the twelve Great Knights ignited their Faith. Their heavy, inscribed plate armor, which had been a dull, soot-grey, erupted in a brilliant, blinding light. They were twelve human suns, their combined aura so potent it vaporized the first rank of Tainted before they even moved. They charged as one, a living battering ram of holy power, and smashed into the horde. The impact was not a sound, but a cataclysm. A shockwave of golden light tore through the Tainted lines, sending hundreds of the creatures flying like broken, burning dolls.
Behind them, a legion of Holy Knights, their shields interlocked in a perfect, glittering wall, advanced in a disciplined, thundering wave, a bulwark of steel and prayer carving a path into the darkness.
Asterion, his heart hammering a frantic, painful rhythm against his ribs, fought at Kalean's side. The chaos was absolute. The air was a suffocating cacophony of guttural roars, the wet thud of metal on flesh, the high-pitched shing of Tainted claws on steel, and the wet, tearing screams of dying men.
"Eyes open, Asterion! Focus on your immediate front! Do not be drawn in!" Kalean commanded, his voice a steady anchor in the storm. He was a mobile fortress, a bastion of black steel and golden light. His heavy shield, glowing with condensed Faith, shattered the bones of a leaping, dog-like creature while his longsword cleaved another, larger Tainted in two from skull to navel.
Asterion was the storm wind. His blade was a silver flash, a blur of motion. Where Kalean was the immovable object, Asterion was the unstoppable force, his movements a perfect, economical dance of death. His 33-year-old mind, fueled by the burning furnace of his Curse, was a flawless combat computer. A three-armed Tainted lunged, its claws raking for his face. Asterion didn't block; he dropped low, sweeping its legs out from under it with a Faith-hardened boot, and buried his sword in its chest as it fell, already pivoting to meet the next.
Before he could pull his blade free, another beast, silent and fast as a shadow, charged his exposed back, its maw unhinging to bite him in half.
"Behind you!" Kalean roared, not as a warning, but as a statement of fact. He had already pivoted, his own motion seamless despite his bulk. He didn't just block; he slammed his massive shield into the creature's side, crushing it against two of its fellows with a sickening, wet crunch of bone and carapace.
"Thanks!" Asterion gasped, yanking his sword loose from the first corpse.
"We are a team, Asterion. I guard your back, you guard mine," Kalean said, his voice a grim rumble, never taking his eyes off the press of bodies. "Now, less gratitude, more combat! They're testing the line!"
For several long, brutal minutes, they were an unbreakable unit. Kalean was the anvil, his heavy armor and shield absorbing and breaking the most brutal, direct attacks. Asterion was the hammer, his speed and precision dismantling any creature that survived Kalean's initial defense or tried to flank them. They were a whirlwind of gold and silver light, a tiny island of brutal hope in a sea of encroaching darkness.
But the sea was rising. For every monster they cut down, two more seemed to take its place, their claws scrabbling over the bodies of their own dead.
Then, through the press, Asterion saw it. A shadow detached itself from the seething mass. It was a Greater Husk, larger than the others, its black carapace glistening as if coated in wet tar, its body a cancerous amalgamation of too many limbs. It moved with a silent, unnatural, fluid speed that belied its bulk. It didn't roar; it was hideously, terrifyingly quiet. And its multi-faceted, insectoid eyes were locked not on the larger, brighter threat of Kalean, but on him.
"Kalean, Husk! Left flank! It's fast!" Asterion yelled, trying to disengage from two lesser Tainted to pivot.
"Asterion, to your left! Now!" Kalean roared at the exact same instant, having seen a different threat.
Asterion spun, his Insight screaming at him, but he was already too slow. The Husk was airborne, crossing twenty feet in a silent, lethal arc. A set of scything, venom-dripping claws, black as obsidian, aimed directly at his throat. He tried to bring his sword up, but it felt like moving through thick, cold water. He was trapped, his body too slow for his mind.
There was no time. Kalean didn't just warn; he acted.
With a desperate, furious roar that was more animal than human, Kalean threw his entire body, shield and all, not at the monster, but at Asterion. He shoved him with the full, unyielding force of his Faith-enhanced, armored body. It wasn't a push; it was an impact, a locomotive of steel and will that cleared Asterion from the path of death by a mere inch.
Asterion landed hard, his armor clanging on the stone, rolling through the slick mud and gore. He looked up, his mind already screaming.
The sound was not a clang. It was a sickening, wet thud, followed by the unmistakable, heavy snap of massive bone.
Kalean stood between him and the Husk, his face a mask of iron grit, his body braced. But his entire left arm, the one that had held his shield, was gone. Sheared clean off at the shoulder. The shield lay yards away, clattering on the stone. The arm itself was just… gone. Blood gushed in a shocking, arterial torrent, painting the ground crimson, steaming as it hit the cold stone.
"KALEAN!" Asterion's voice was a choked, strangled sob, a sound ripped from his 22-year-old self.
The Greater Husk, unharmed, its claws dripping with Kalean's blood, raised them again, this time to finish the wounded warrior.
In that instant, as despair and rage warred within Asterion, something inside him broke. The screaming, eternal storm of his Curse, the white-hot rage, the endless, burning grief that had been his fuel for fourteen years… it didn't just break, it shattered. The shock was so profound, so absolute, that it went beyond emotion and into a place of pure, cold, silent horror.
His 33-year-old mind, for the first time in his life, was still. The memories were there, but they were frozen, locked in a block of perfect, clear ice. He had, by the sheer traumatic force of the moment, achieved the "absolute zero" Kalean had spoken of.
This was his spiritual attribute. Inhuman Insight. It was not a new power; it was the name for this state of perfect, cold, analytical clarity.
And with it came understanding. He saw the threads. He saw the golden, pure lines of Faith from the knights, and the twisted, corrupted, black-tar energy of the Tainted. He felt his own liquid Faith, a silver, turbulent sea in his core… and he pushed.
The Greater Husk lunged at him. Asterion didn't raise his sword. He didn't even stand. He raised his hand from the mud.
He used the cold. He willed his Faith to compress. It didn't become fully solid—he wasn't Kalean—but it became viscous, heavy, and unimaginably dense, just like Elian's. The silver light in his core coalesced, and the Faith that flared around his palm was no longer a bright, airy white; it was a heavy, silver-grey, like polished mercury, and it vibrated with a new, terrible power. It was the first step on the true path.
He struck. His open palm, now glowing with this dense, heavy light, connected with the Husk's chest.
It wasn't a "disperal." It was a penetration. His new, denser Faith, his first taste of a "Solid-State," didn't just hit the creature's carapace; it bypassed it. It sank into the monster's corrupted core like a stone through water and then, with a single, focused, cold command from Asterion… it detonated.
The Greater Husk froze, its claws inches from Kalean's face. A look of what might have been confusion crossed its alien features. Then, it crumbled, collapsing inward, dissolving into a pile of dry, black dust and brittle, shattered bone.
The Inhuman Insight faded, and the world came rushing back in a tidal wave of emotion. The cold vanished, replaced by the burning-hot furnace of rage. But beneath it was a crushing, bottomless despair.
He scrambled to his feet and spun back to Kalean. "No, no, no…"
But as he looked, his despair-filled gaze sharpened, disbelieving. A Sanctum Priest was already there, having braved the front line. The Priest's hands were bathed in a thick, golden glow, his face a mask of concentration as he chanted frantically over the gruesome stump. To Asterion's utter shock, new sinew, muscle, and bone were visibly weaving themselves into existence like threads on a divine loom. The arm was regenerating.
Kalean, his face deathly pale and slick with sweat, locked eyes with Asterion and gave a short, strained nod.
All the rage, all the despair, all the panic in Asterion's chest vanished, replaced by a sudden, cold relief so profound it almost made him dizzy.
And then a new sound cut through the air, piercing the din of battle.
It was not a roar. It was a howl, a bone-chilling, soul-shattering shriek that promised only death and the cold of the grave, a sound that made his new, dense Faith recoil.
Asterion's head whipped toward the eastern flank. A new creature, a thing of jagged, exposed bone and screaming, fused souls, had entered the field. It was easily fifteen feet tall, its form a mockery of a knight, and it radiated a power that dwarfed the Husk he had just destroyed. It was far stronger, far deadlier.
And it was attacking Elian.
Elian was fighting it alone, his shield splintered, his armor dented and cracked. He was being pushed back foot by agonizing foot, his own viscous Faith barely holding against the creature's relentless, overwhelming power. The main Holy Knight line was locked in a desperate shield wall, holding back a fresh, overwhelming surge of the horde. No one could help him.
Asterion saw Kalean, his new arm pale, unarmored, and unsteady, grab his sword with his good hand. The man was already moving, but not toward Elian. He was charging three more of the new bone creatures that had just emerged, intercepting them before they could shatter the main line.
There was no one else. It had to be Asterion.
He didn't think. He ran. He became a silver blur, his newly awakened Insight flickering, feeding him information, showing him the Tainted's lunge before it began, his sword already there to meet it. He cut a path through the horde, a whirlwind of vengeful steel.
He was close. He could see the desperation, the flicker of fear, in Elian's normally-cold eyes as the bone-knight raised a massive, spiked club for a final, crushing blow.
"ELIAN!" Asterion roared, launching himself forward, pushing his aching body to its limit.
With a final burst of speed, he leaped, bringing his sword up high and crashing it down against the monster's club-wielding arm. The sound of steel on bone was a deafening CLANG. The monster's blow was knocked aside, saving Elian from being pulverized.
Asterion landed in the mud next to Elian, his silver Faith flaring. "Are you hurt?"
"I am now!" Elian grunted, shoving his broken shield into a smaller monster's face. "Where in the seven hells did this thing come from? Its power is… wrong."
"Doesn't matter! Fight with me!" Asterion shouted, his eyes locked on the beast.
The bony monster roared in rage, its voice a chorus of damned souls. It swung its huge arms at both of them, a storm of bone and malice. Asterion, guided by his Insight, ducked under a sweeping claw and stabbed deep into the monster's leg. Elian, though tired, used his last ounce of strength to block a follow-up strike with his sword. Their teamwork, honed over a decade, was flawless, but they were still losing. The creature was too strong.
Asterion's new Insight flickered, showing him a brief, perfect opening—a weakness in the monster's corrupted Faith. He prepared to lunge, to focus his will, to condense his Faith and end it.
He never made it.
The Bone Knight, enraged, stopped its wild swings. It ignored Asterion's lunge. It opened its skeletal, howling maw, and instead of a simple roar, a wave of pure, concussive force—a physical manifestation of its Tainted power—blasted outward.
Asterion, with his Insight, felt the attack coming and threw himself flat, the force shrieking over his head like a physical gale.
Elian, his focus split between the monster and a flanking Tainted, was caught off guard. He tried to bring his sword up, but he was a fraction of a second too late. The concussive blast took him full in the chest.
Asterion watched, horrified, as Elian was sent flying.
He didn't just tumble. He was hurled, a ragdoll in plate armor, skipping across the blood-soaked mud for what felt like a hundred meters, before crashing with a bone-jarring, final thud into the ruined, stone remains of a siege tower.
A cloud of dust and rubble erupted.
Elian did not move.
Asterion froze, his lunge unfinished. The howl of the bone-knight, now turning its full, undivided attention to him, was a distant, hollow ringing in his ears. Agony exploded in his own ribs—the strain of the battle, the force of his awakening. He spat a wad of blood and dirt.
He was hurt. He was furious.
And he was alone.