The passage descended like a crack leading to the center of the earth.
Cain walked at the front, sword in his right hand, Hank's torch in his left. The flame danced in the narrow tunnel, casting his shadow long and far against the stone walls behind him—a silent giant.
The walls on both sides were covered with murals.
Like the murals in the underground hall, these depicted battle—humans fighting gods. Cain saw a man charge alone into a crowd of Godservants, his sword a streak of light, Godservant bodies falling like wheat. He saw a woman standing on a mountain peak, hands raised to the sky, summoning lightning to strike a temple below. He saw an old man lying on a sickbed, surrounded by weeping people, a smile on his face—the smile of a man who knew he had completed his mission.
No captions explained these murals. No signatures. No markings. But Cain knew who they were.
Godslayers.
His ancestors.
The passage grew wider. The ceiling rose higher. The torchlight could no longer reach the edges of the walls. Cain felt like he was walking into a vast underground space. The air was moving—not the dead stillness of a sealed tunnel, but a breeze, dry and warm, as if blowing from somewhere very far away.
"There's light ahead," Hank said from behind.
Cain saw it.
Not torchlight. Not the glow of silver moss. A light he had never seen before—cold, pale blue, as if moonlight had been frozen into solid form. The light poured from the end of the passage, dyeing the entire space deep blue.
He quickened his pace.
The passage opened into a vast underground tomb.
The ceiling rose so high he couldn't see the top. The walls on all sides were inlaid with countless blue crystals—that was the source of the light. The floor was paved with flat stone slabs, every one of them carved with symbols—the same symbols as on the coin.
At the center of the tomb stood a stone coffin.
The coffin was large—three meters long, one and a half meters wide—pitch black, its surface smooth as a mirror. The lid was carved with a human figure in relief—the same figure as on the stone walls at the valley entrance: spine straight, arms spread wide, head lifted.
Cain walked to the coffin and stopped.
He looked down at the words carved into the lid:
"Better a mortal man than a false god."
The same words carved into the broken sword in the underground hall.
"This is the first Godslayer," Hank said from behind him, his voice low, as if speaking in a church. "His name—"
He paused.
"His name was erased from history. No one knows it."
Cain stuck the torch into an iron ring on the wall, sheathed his sword, and placed both hands on the coffin lid.
The lid was heavy. Cain put all his strength into it, his knuckles white, veins bulging in his arms. The stone lid let out a dull grinding sound and slowly shifted open a crack.
Blue light poured from the gap, stinging Cain's eyes.
He took a deep breath and pushed.
The stone lid crashed to the ground, shattering two stone slabs.
Cain stood before the coffin and looked inside.
There was no body in the coffin.
Only three things.
The first was a sword. Its blade was pure black, utterly without luster, as if night itself had been forged into steel. The hilt was wrapped in silver wire. The crossguard was shaped like an eagle with spread wings. The blade had no fuller, no decoration—only a pure, deadly simplicity.
The second was a scroll. The parchment was yellowed and brittle, its edges curled, tied with a red silk ribbon. The ribbon had faded but was still tightly knotted—as if it had never been opened.
The third was a silver coin.
Identical to the one in Cain's pocket.
Cain reached out and picked up the sword.
It was lighter than he expected—light as a feather in his hand. But the moment he gripped the hilt, he felt it: this sword was alive.
Not truly alive. But it responded to him. The hilt grew warm in his palm, as if someone had lit a fire inside it. The black surface of the blade seemed to flow, like ink dripping into water—slowly, silently spreading.
"Good sword," Hank said. "A hundred times better than the one on your hip."
Cain raised the sword to his eyes and looked at his face reflected in the blade. Blue light played across the steel, turning his eyes deep purple.
He set the sword down and picked up the scroll.
The red ribbon crumbled to ash at his touch. Three thousand years—it had grown too brittle to survive.
He unrolled the scroll.
The words on the scroll were written in a script he didn't recognize—not divine script, not common tongue, but something older. Yet he found he could read it.
"To my blood:
If you are reading this, you have awakened. It means the gods still enslave humanity. It means three thousand years have passed, and nothing has changed.
I was the first to kill a god. I called that god 'Fear.' He was the weakest of the Twelve Pillars, but he was also the most dangerous—because he taught the other gods how to enslave humanity.
After I killed him, I gained his power. And I inherited his curse.
My body began to be consumed by fear. Every night, I dreamed of the thing I feared most. At first it was death. Then loneliness. Then—I feared becoming the very thing I was fighting against.
I feared becoming a god.
So I chose death. Not because I didn't want to live. Because I knew that if I killed another god, I would never be able to go back. Power would corrupt me, just as it corrupted those twelve.
I leave this sword to you. Its name is 'Deny.' It was forged from the bones of the God of Fear. It can sever the connection between god and mortal. Drive it into a god's body, and that god will lose all divine power. Become mortal.
But remember: every time you use it, the curse will sink deeper into you. Use it too much, and you will become me—or become the very thing you were meant to kill.
The choice is yours.
Fate is yours.
Do not let it choose you.
—The Nameless One"
Cain read the scroll. Every word.
Then he rolled it up and tucked it into his shirt.
"What did it say?" Hank asked.
"It told me how to kill gods," Cain said. "And it told me the price."
He picked up the black sword called Deny and slid it into his belt. Two swords now hung at his waist—the old sword Marcus had given him, and Deny, forged from Godslayer bone. They clinked against each other, a soft metallic sound.
He picked up the silver coin.
It was identical to the one his father had left behind, but different symbols were carved on its back. He held both coins together—one in his left hand, one in his right.
The coin in his left hand grew warm.
The coin in his right hand—his father's—grew warm too.
The two coins seemed to sense each other. They both began to glow with golden light. The light intertwined in the air, forming a complex pattern—
A map.
Not a map of Twilight Valley.
A map of the entire continent.
Twelve points were marked on the map. Each point corresponded to a god's temple.
Cain stared at the map of light floating in the air. His breath caught.
"The Twelve Pillars," Hank's voice came from behind. "Every point is a temple. Every temple holds a god."
Cain's eyes fixed on those glowing points, the golden light reflected in his amber irises.
"Twelve," he said.
"Twelve," Hank said.
Cain reached out and touched the first point on the map.
The map vanished. The points scattered into countless fragments, drifting through the air like fireflies. Then they slowly faded.
The tomb returned to darkness.
Only the blue crystals still glowed.
Only the two silver coins in Cain's hands still grew warm.
Only the sword called Deny waited in silence at his waist.
"Time to go," Hank said. "We need to be above ground before dawn."
Cain stood before the stone coffin and took one last look at the tomb.
Three thousand years. The first Godslayer had lain here for three thousand years, waiting for a successor to come—to take his sword, to read his letter, to inherit his mission.
Cain bent low at the waist and bowed deeply to the coffin.
Not to a god. To a mortal who had been dead for three thousand years.
"I won't let you down," he said.
Then he turned and walked toward the passage.
Hank followed. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back at the black stone coffin.
"Rest in peace," he said, his voice low. "Your descendant has come."
They walked into the passage. The blue light faded behind them.
The torch's flame became the only illumination again.
Cain walked ahead, his left hand touching the cord on his wrist, his right hand resting on the hilt of the new sword at his waist.
Deny.
Sever the connection between god and mortal.
Make a god human.
Then kill them.
He repeated the words silently in his mind, like a mantra.
The passage began to slope upward. A sliver of light appeared ahead—not blue light, not torchlight. Moonlight. Dawn had come. Or rather, the moon had risen.
They crawled out of the passage and stood at the entrance of Twilight Valley.
Moonlight fell on Cain's face, illuminating the scar on his left cheek, illuminating his amber eyes, illuminating the pitch-black sword at his waist.
Hank stood behind him, watching.
"Let's go back," Hank said. "Your sister is waiting."
Cain nodded.
He took one last look at Twilight Valley—that narrow, vine-choked, moss-covered valley where his ancestor was buried, forgotten by the gods.
Then he turned and walked toward Ironwood Forest.
After a dozen steps, he stopped.
"Instructor."
"Yes?"
"When my father stood here, all those years ago... what did he say?"
Hank was silent for a few seconds.
"He said—'I'm not a hero. I'm just a father who doesn't want his son to live on his knees.'"
Cain closed his eyes.
Wind blew through the forest, carrying the scent of pine resin and earth. In the distance, an owl called. Farther still, the silhouette of Mount Skyreach rose in the moonlight. At its summit, the temples of the gods still stood—white columns gleaming faintly in the night.
He opened his eyes.
"Let's go."
He walked into the forest.
Hank followed.
The moon stretched their shadows long and far—two silent giants, walking step by step back beneath the earth.
When they returned to the underground city, dawn was approaching.
Cain went first to see Lyra.
She was curled up on her wooden bed, clutching a coarse linen pillow, sleeping deeply. Moonlight streamed through the skylight and fell on her face. Her eyelashes fluttered slightly—she was dreaming.
Cain stood in the doorway and watched her for a moment.
Then he gently closed the door and walked to the training ground.
The training ground was empty. The cold light of the silver moss illuminated the battered wooden posts, the dried bloodstains on the ground, the weapons stacked against the walls.
Cain drew the new sword.
Deny.
The black blade reflected no light in the cold glow—it looked like a frozen crack in the air. He raised the sword and aimed it at the wooden post before him.
Brought it down.
The post split in half from top to bottom.
Not chopped—severed. The cut was smooth as a mirror, without a single splinter.
Cain looked at the two halves of the fallen post, looked at the black sword in his hand.
"Twelve," he said.
His voice echoed through the empty training ground.
No one heard him.
But far away, in the deepest part of the underground city, Marcus stood in his room, facing the direction of the training ground. His gray-blue eyes reflected the light of the silver moss.
He heard.
"Twelve," he murmured.
Then he picked up his water cup, took a sip, set it down, and returned to his map.
On the map, behind Mount Skyreach, at the location of Twilight Valley, he had drawn a red circle.
Beside the circle, he had written a line:
"Key retrieved. Sword drawn. Countdown begins."