The moon hung high over the jagged hills that wrapped around Asael's Vigil like watchful guardians. The cold night bit into the skin, even beneath cloaks and armor. Kael stood alone atop the crumbled battlements of the northern wall, staring into the vast emptiness. Wind tugged at the edges of his coat, making the crimson lining flicker like a dying flame.
His eyes weren't on the stars. He wasn't stargazing.
He was listening—to the silence, and to the ghosts it carried.
His breath came slow and steady, though his heart thudded heavily in his chest. Asael's Vigil lay quietly behind him, unaware of what he'd uncovered beneath the ruins of the old chapel.
A corridor once sealed by a ritual lock of blood magic.
"Three centuries old," he murmured, his fingers wrapped around the ancient sigil stone he'd pried from the lock. "Sealed by a Vigilant Warden… and broken by a boy with a grudge."
Below, deep within the chapel's catacombs, he'd discovered something more than relics—he'd found records of experiments, diagrams of blood-infused weapons, spells carved in bones.
And journals. Pages upon pages of testaments, signed only by a symbol: ∴
He recognized that sigil from the tattoo on the neck of the first mage he ever killed.
By midday, Kael had returned to the crypt, accompanied by Lys, his trusted illusionist and the only person who still spoke to him like he wasn't a ticking weapon.
"What exactly are you looking for down here?" she asked, brushing cobwebs off her shoulders as they descended deeper into the cold earth.
"Not what," he said. "Who."
They reached the archway marked with bloodscript, the floor beneath littered with shattered bones. Lys raised a brow.
"Did you do all this?"
Kael nodded. "They weren't people anymore."
Lys didn't ask more. She knew better.
Beyond the archway was a chamber—massive and circular, with six doors ringing its edge. In the center stood a raised platform, atop which floated a crystal sphere containing swirling blood mist. Runes pulsed on the floor around it.
"A convergence point," Lys whispered. "But these runes… they're active."
Kael stepped forward. "I think this is where the original bloodmages forged their contracts."
Suddenly, the runes flared to life. A voice, ancient and hollow, echoed from the stone itself.
"Name your burden. Offer your blood."
Lys stepped back, but Kael approached, unfastening the leather band around his forearm. "I already carry too many burdens," he said. "Let me see what price that pays."
He slit his skin open. Blood poured into the runes.
The ground trembled. The doors opened one by one—revealing armored specters, each wielding weapons formed of liquid blood.
"Trial of the Six," Lys gasped. "You madman."
"I have to know who I am," Kael said, drawing his scythe. "Even if I have to fight every shadow of my past to find out."
Fight 1: The Knight of Guilt
A tall, faceless figure clad in rusted plate stepped forth. His blade was inscribed with names—dozens of them, glowing faintly.
Each name Kael recognized. Each a person he'd failed to save.
The knight charged, blade swinging in a wide arc. Kael parried with the scythe's haft, then twisted, spinning the weapon in a crescent to sever the knight's helm. But the head reformed, composed of red mist.
"You cannot destroy guilt," the voice rasped.
"No," Kael said, striking again and again. "But I can carry it without kneeling."
He drew blood with a backstep slash, then channeled it into the floor, activating counter-runes. The knight howled, consumed in crimson flame.
Fight 2: The Maiden of Memory
She looked like the girl he loved. She was her—eyes soft, smile gentle. But her voice was wrong.
"You left me," she said. "Again and again."
Kael faltered. "You're not her."
The maiden drew a dagger of mirrored glass and hurled it. He dodged, barely. Illusions sprang up—dozens of versions of her. He couldn't swing blindly.
So he closed his eyes. Feel the aura. Follow the silence.
He spun and struck true, scattering the illusion.
Fights 3 through 5 came in rapid succession: The Beast of Rage, a monstrous entity with spiked limbs; The Oracle of Regret, who saw all the futures Kael abandoned; and The Pale Child, who bled without end and laughed as if pain were play.
Each fight drained him—mentally, physically.
And then came the sixth.
Fight 6: Himself.
He stepped through the last door and found a mirror.
His reflection stepped out. Same weapon. Same eyes.
But the reflection smiled. "You really thought you were doing this for her?"
"I—"
"You did it for control. For power. Because deep down, you liked watching them fall."
They clashed.
The scythes rang like bells of war. They ducked and struck in perfect rhythm. Kael bled. His copy bled more.
Then Kael turned, disarmed the doppelgänger, and plunged his hand into its chest.
"I'm not proud of what I am," he growled. "But I chose to bear it."
The mirror shattered.
Kael fell to his knees as the chamber dissolved into mist.
The platform crumbled. Only the blood orb remained, pulsing faintly.
A voice whispered in his mind.
"You are not broken. You are becoming."
Lys ran to his side. "Kael?"
He didn't speak. He was staring at the orb.
And behind his eyes, something deeper stirred—an old memory, sealed away.
His father. Gaelus. A room of screaming voices. A ritual.
He had forgotten something.
"Let's get you out of here," Lys said.
"No," he whispered. "This is only the beginning."