The gates of the Royal Palace were chaos.
Smoke, black and oily, billowed from the high spire of the Chancellor's tower. It wasn't normal smoke; it was heavy, falling toward the ground like dry ice, smelling of sulfur and rot.
Guards scrambled with buckets of water, but where the water touched the black flames, it simply vanished with a hiss.
"Make way!" Lyanna commanded, flashing her signet ring. Her silver hair was disheveled, her armor scratched from the Gloomwood, but her authority was absolute.
The gate guards scrambled aside. "Lady Stormforge! The Chancellor is trapped inside! The fire—the mages can't extinguish it!"
"Void fire," Celeste cursed, floating slightly off the ground to see over the panicked crowd. "It consumes mana. Throwing water or magic at it just feeds it."
"So how do we put it out?" Ravi asked, jogging beside them.
"We don't," Lyanna said grimly. "We get in, get Grimshaw, and get the evidence before it burns. If he dies, the conspiracy dies with him."
They reached the base of the tower. The massive wooden doors were wreathed in black flames. A squad of Royal Mages stood in a semi-circle, helpless.
"The structure is compromised!" one mage shouted. "If we breach the door, the draft will collapse the interior!"
Ravi looked at the door. "Compromised structure? That sounds like my specialty."
"Ravi, wait—" Lyanna started.
He didn't wait. He stepped past the mages. He ignored the heat—which to him felt like a warm summer breeze—and looked at the flaming timber.
He kicked it.
Not a hero kick. A annoyed, "I'm tired of walking" kick.
BOOM.
The massive, iron-reinforced doors were blasted off their hinges. They flew backward into the fiery inferno of the lobby, tumbling like matchsticks. The sheer displacement of air from the kick created a vacuum that momentarily sucked the flames backward, clearing a path.
"Door's open," Ravi called back.
Lyanna and Celeste shared a look of resigned disbelief and ran after him.
The interior was a nightmare. The tapestries were ash. The marble statues were melting. The heat was intense enough to scorch Lyanna's hair, forcing Celeste to cast a thermal barrier around the two women.
Ravi, walking ahead, was unbothered. He swatted a falling burning beam aside with the shaft of the Widowmaker.
"Top floor," Lyanna choked out, coughing in the smoke. "His office."
They sprinted up the spiral staircase. The stone steps were slick with melting mortar. Halfway up, a ten-foot section of the stairs had crumbled away, leaving a gaping fiery pit.
"Gap!" Celeste yelled. "Too wide to jump in armor!"
Ravi didn't slow down. He jammed the Widowmaker into the stone wall like a piton. The blade sank deep into the granite.
"Grab on!" he ordered.
Lyanna and Celeste grabbed his free arm. He held them both—armor, equipment, and all—with the casual ease of carrying groceries. He swung on the glaive, launching all three of them across the gap to the landing above.
He pulled the glaive out of the wall as they landed. "Third floor. Appliances. Home goods. Treason."
They burst into the Chancellor's office.
It wasn't burning.
The black fire stopped perfectly at the threshold. Inside, the room was pristine. Thaddeus Grimshaw stood by the fireplace, calmly feeding documents into a green, magical fire. A packed travel chest sat on his desk.
He looked up, his monocle glinting. He didn't look terrified. He looked annoyed.
"You survive the Gloomwood," Grimshaw sighed, tossing a ledger into the flames. "You survive the Void Hound. And you navigate a towering inferno. You are persistent pests."
"We found your pet," Lyanna said, stepping forward, sword drawn. She threw the severed horn of the Void Hound onto the floor. It clattered loudly on the marble. "And this."
Celeste tossed the corrupted cultist staff beside it.
"Evidence of Void worship," Celeste declared, her voice ringing with judicial weight. "Illegal summoning. Conspiracy against the Crown. It's over, Grimshaw."
Grimshaw chuckled. It was a dry, rattling sound. "Over? My dear archmage, history is written by the survivors. And sadly, you three perished tragically in the fire that consumed my office due to a... lab accident."
He snapped his fingers.
The shadows in the corners of the room lengthened. They peeled away from the walls, taking form. Four tall, faceless knights made of solidified darkness emerged. They held jagged blades that smoked with purple energy.
Shadow Guards. Elite Void constructs.
"Kill them," Grimshaw ordered casually, returning to his burning documents. "But save the glaive. It looks valuable."
The Shadow Guards lunged.
"Celeste, guard the door! Ravi, the constructs!" Lyanna barked orders instantly. "I'll take Grimshaw!"
She charged the Chancellor. One Shadow Guard stepped in her way. She met it with a clash of steel on shadow-steel.
Two more rushed Ravi.
They were fast. Faster than the cultists. They moved like flowing water. One swung a blade at his neck. Ravi blocked with the Widowmaker.
CLANG.
The impact jarred his arm. These things hit hard. Stronger than a minotaur.
"Finally," Ravi muttered. "A warm-up."
He pushed back, sending the guard stumbling. He spun the glaive, catching the second guard in the chest. The blade passed through the shadow-armor, but the wound knit itself together instantly.
"Physical immunity!" Celeste yelled from the back, blasting the fourth guard with fire. "They are semi-corporeal! Blunt force won't stop them unless you disrupt their core!"
"Core?" Ravi dodged a slash. "Where?"
"Chest! The purple light!"
Ravi looked. Deep inside the swirling smoke of the guard's torso, a faint purple gem pulsed.
"Got it."
The guard lunged again. Ravi didn't block. He dropped his shoulder and slammed into the creature. The impact was like hitting a wall of dense water. He felt the cold shock of the void trying to drain him, but his biology shrugged it off.
He grabbed the guard by its smoky neck with one hand, lifting it off the ground. With his other hand, he punched straight into its chest.
His fist pushed through the semi-solid shadow, fighting resistance like thick taffy. He felt the hard, cold surface of the gem.
He squeezed.
CRACK.
The Shadow Guard shrieked—a sound like tearing metal—and evaporated into wisps of black smoke.
"One down," Ravi announced.
He turned to help Lyanna. She was holding her own against her opponent, but Grimshaw was casting from behind his desk—nasty little hexes of weakness and blindness that forced her to fight defensively.
"Hey! Monocle!" Ravi shouted.
He picked up a heavy marble bust of some long-dead king from a pedestal. He hurled it.
It flew across the room with the velocity of a cannonball.
The Shadow Guard fighting Lyanna didn't see it coming. The bust slammed into it, knocking it sideways into the fireplace. Its core shattered on the hearth.
Grimshaw yelped as the bust continued its trajectory and obliterated the chair next to him.
"You brute!" Grimshaw screeched, his composure cracking. "That was an antique from the First Era!"
"It's modern art now," Ravi quipped.
The remaining two guards converged on him. Ravi didn't waste time. He grabbed the Widowmaker with both hands and executed a horizontal sweep.
He aimed not for the guards, but for the floor beneath them.
The floor of the tower was made of stone tiles. Ravi's strike didn't just crack them; it pulverized the structural supports underneath.
With a deafening crash, a ten-foot section of the floor collapsed. The two Shadow Guards fell through the hole into the inferno below. Their screeches were cut short by the roaring fire.
Only Grimshaw remained.
He stood by the window, pale and shaking. He looked at Ravi—who was dusting off his hands—and then at Lyanna, who had her sword point leveled at his throat.
"I... I demand a trial!" Grimshaw stammered, backing up. "I am a Peer of the Realm! You cannot—"
The door to the office burst open.
Sir Valerius stood there, armor soot-stained, flanked by a dozen Royal Guards.
"Drop your weapons!" Valerius commanded. He saw the carnage—the hole in the floor, the smashed furniture, the smoking remains of void magic.
His eyes landed on Grimshaw, then on Lyanna's blade at his throat.
"Lady Stormforge," Valerius said, his voice tense. "What is the meaning of this treason?"
"It's not treason, Captain," Ravi said, stepping forward. He kicked the travel chest on the desk open. Gold bars and documents with forbidden sigils spilled out. "It's garbage collection."
Grimshaw saw his chance. "They attacked me! They set the fire! The adventurer is a Void agent! Look at his weapon! Look at the destruction!"
Valerius hesitated. He looked at Ravi's terrifying glaive. It did look evil.
"Captain," Celeste stepped forward, holding the charred Void Staff and the Hound's horn. She didn't shout. She spoke with the cold, hard authority of the Academy. "This staff contains the magical signature of Thaddeus Grimshaw. I have matched the resonance. He summoned the cultists. He summoned the beast. And he just tried to kill us with constructs that are strictly forbidden by the Treaty of Souls."
She threw the evidence at Valerius's feet.
"Arrest him. Or be complicit in the resurrection of a Demon Lord."
Valerius looked at the staff. He looked at the sweating, frantic Grimshaw.
"I..." Grimshaw started, "I did it for the Kingdom! For order! We need power to survive what is coming!"
"And you thought selling us to hell was the price?" Lyanna spat.
Valerius signaled his men. "Thaddeus Grimshaw. You are under arrest."
Grimshaw's face twisted in hate. "Fools! You have no idea! Malachai is coming! He will eat your souls and spit on your ashes! The Weakling..." He pointed a trembling finger at Ravi. "...He is the harbinger! The Void hates him because it cannot consume him! He is the unnatural one!"
"Get him out of here," Valerius barked.
Guards shackled the Chancellor and dragged him away, screaming prophecies of doom.
Ravi sat down heavily on the edge of the desk. The adrenaline was fading, leaving him just... tired.
"Well," he said, looking at the charred ruin of the office. "We saved the day. Cleared a dungeon. Beat the boss. Where's our loot?"
Lyanna sheathed her sword. She walked over to him. She didn't hug him this time. She just placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You're an idiot," she said softly. "Kick down the door? Really?"
"It was locked," Ravi defended.
She smiled. It was a real, unguarded smile.
"We did it," she whispered.
Celeste was busy looting—excuse me, "securing"—documents from the safe Grimshaw hadn't had time to empty. "Fascinating. Supply lines. Safe houses. Names of corrupted nobles. This is an goldmine of intelligence."
Ravi looked out the shattered window. The black fire below was being extinguished by mages now that the Void source (Grimshaw) was removed.
Arc One was over. He wasn't dead. He had friends.
But Grimshaw's words lingered. Malachai is coming. And the world now knew Ravi was something... different. The Weakling disguise was wearing thin.
"So," Ravi asked, standing up. "Who's hungry? I know a place that serves pickles. I heard the jars are really easy to open."