Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The vortex of obsidian chips that had been tearing through the hall suddenly subsided, leaving behind a ringing silence. The five surviving knights stood, leaning heavily on each other. Bernard felt blood from the cut on his forehead stream into his eye, but he dared not move. His inner power was depleted to its limit, and his Vessel pulsed with desperate, deathly alarm.
Arannis slowly lowered his flute, examining the Order warriors with the same curiosity a naturalist might examine insects caught in a web.
"Why?.." Thorn rasped, struggling to balance on his broken leg. "The Order of Order has kept the peace for centuries... We are not your enemies, Sylvan."
"Peace?.." Arannis laughed melodiously, the sound echoing painfully in the knights' ears. "You call your frozen, lifeless structure 'peace.' You shackle life in the chains of regulations, trying to order what should flow freely. My people remember times before Zanra, when the wind knew no boundaries, and energy was not divided into ranks and classes. You are merely scum on the body of true greatness."
Bernard stepped forward, his sword trembling finely. "We protect the weak. If you kill us, you will only prove you are no better than the Defiled."
"Weakness is a choice, Bernard," Arannis narrowed his eyes, and the foggy vortices within them began to spin faster. "You chose to be cogs in the Order's machine, instead of becoming the storm itself. Zanra the Dishonored understood this. He built this Temple not for the keepers of Order, but for those ready to step beyond their humanity for the sake of True Equilibrium. And today, I will help you achieve that equilibrium. Forever."
The knights exchanged glances. There was no hope in their eyes, only bitter resolve. They knew before them was a Herald, and their Warrior rank here was but an empty sound.
Arannis smoothly raised his right hand, palm up. His movements were devoid of aggression; he seemed about to release a captured bird.
"Your journey was long," the Sylvan said, and for the first time, a shadow of strange, respectful sympathy sounded in his voice. "Let the end be majestic. Farewell, warriors of frozen stone."
In the center of his palm, a tiny grey point began to form. It was an air mass compressed to diamond density. A small, no larger than an apple, vortex spun over the Herald's fingers, emitting a thin, barely audible whistle.
"Spirit of the Storm Wind: Funeral Waltz," Arannis said quietly.
He flicked this tiny tornado towards the knights with a light snap. The projectile flew slowly, almost lazily, but as soon as it left the Herald's aura, its nature changed. Consuming the surrounding air and the hall's residual energy, the vortex began to grow with monstrous speed.
Within a second, it was no longer a toy, but a roaring funnel reaching to the vault itself. Obsidian slabs were torn from the floor and sucked inside, turning into deadly millstones. The five Order knights had only time to raise their shields in a last, hopeless gesture of defense. Their combined essence flared with a bright spark, trying to resist the storm, but it was instantly extinguished under the Herald's onslaught.
Arannis turned away, not waiting for the finale. His silver braids whipped through the air as he headed towards the Central Node. His five Sylvan companions, who had maintained absolute silence until then, followed him, gliding silently through the shadows.
Behind them, the hall turned into a zone of absolute destruction. The tornado's roar drowned out all sounds, and when the vortex spontaneously dissipated a few minutes later, the Temple of True Equilibrium once again fell into silence. In the center of the hall, nothing remained—no statues, no debris, no people. Only a deep, wind-scoured crater in the obsidian floor testified that someone had been there.
Two groups of the Order of Order, nine knights whose Vessels had once dreamed of glory, ceased to exist. Arannis did not look back. His thoughts were already in the lower chambers, where True Equilibrium pulsed, and the flute in his hands once again began its slow, hypnotic dance.
The Seventh Detachment had been reduced by a third, but those who remained alive did not yet know what price they would have to pay for the right to enter the Temple's heart.