Darkness shrouded the chamber, light forsaken like a fading dream. As if cut loose from the senses, only the rugged scrape of the stone ground beneath Harper's boots assured her she still belonged to this world. She waved her hand before her eyes and saw nothing. Even the waft of stirred-up air did nothing to cool her skin. Each step sent a tremor up her calves, yet no sound followed—no tap, no crunch, no grind.

She shouted, her throat buzzing from the strain, but even as it ached no sound reached her ears. As though a thief had come in the dead of night, she had been plundered of sensation—robbed blind, deaf, and dumb.

She whipped her head from side to side, her stomach churning with rising dread. Even as she wrestled to contain her fear, her body was already in motion. Back on her heels, she spun toward the entrance. But disorientation had already set in. She could not be sure she was not running deeper in.

One step, then another. She ran at the anguished speed of fear. Then something seized her waist. The world lurched. She struck the ground. Cerulean hues flared in her vision—Cornelius, flung across her frame, dragging himself upright. He gripped her shoulders, lips parting in silent pleas. His arm jerked to the side. Harper followed the gesture—and there it stood.

No eyes. No mouth. No nose. Only hollow gouges where features should be. Twice the height of a man, yet hunched on four limbs. Its toes split into strands of flesh—quivering, writhing, then retracting into its bulk as if they had never been. And as the last thread sank back into the Spawn, sound rushed in. Harper heard her men's cries.

'Its feet!' one of them shouted. 'When they burrow underground—get away from their direction!'

Her man—a mere Servant—roared a defiant cry. With gauntlets swathed about his fists, he struck the air, sending a concussive blast toward the monster. The monster turned toward him. The man held his ground. Runes across his gauntlets burst into light. His roar rose with desperation, beating against the air to fill the chamber. He pummelled the air anew—oscillating waves of percussive violence. Around him, the rest of the band unleashed their powers from a distance.

Fire, ice, cutting winds, sharpened stone—they battered the creature's coarse violet hide, yet it did not slow. If the blows had struck true, the monster showed no sign.

'Captain!' Rosella barked, as Harper's whirling world began to settle. 'Its a Soldier, second Step—we can't bring it down on our own.'

A paintbrush was clutched in her hand. She dragged it through the stone floor, sketching in furious strokes as sweat pattered the rock. From the ground rose her conjured child—a feminine figure hewn of cragged stone. Without pause, the living statue hurled itself at the Spawn. Its fists shattered like brittle quartz. The beast did not falter.

'Godsdamnit, Captain!' Rosella snapped, ripping her brush through an ally's fire, painting the outline of a maiden in flame. 'Get a hold of yourself and fight.'

The fiery figure sprang forth, a blazing spectre in woman's form. It struck the Spawn head-on, bursting apart in a surge of heat that rippled across the chamber.

On her knees, gaze fixed to the ground, the world slowing yet spinning still, Harper clapped both hands to the sides of her face. She drew a long breath, her mind twisting back through the tangle of recent memory.

She remembered the mausoleum—its runes flaring to life. She recalled the moment before the descent. And she heard it again—that spectral voice, a sound only a Listener could know. The Dungeon's will made into song. The very notes that had once granted her a Soldier's Inheritance, her mind attuned to every beat of the Dungeon's expectation.

The trial—what did it sing?

She could not remember, only the lullaby without its words.

Yet she knew it had been vital, a matter of life or death. And still the sense lingered—that something was damnably wrong.

'One…'

The word slipped from her lips. She could not feel its weight, yet it bore down on her conscience all the same.

One what? One monster? One battle? One chance to take a stand?

'The wheat to save the chaff,' she whispered, bewilderment deepening as fractured memories broke the surface of her mind.

A blood-curdling cry cut through her thoughts. Harper's gaze snapped forward, her stomach heaving as the creature seized one of her men by the arms.

It hauled him to its vacant face, the gauntleted man's legs thrashing in empty air. Then, as if to savour the moment, a groan loosed from its frame—thick, rapturous, obscene. With no strain at all, the Spawn tore him apart.

'Neville!' a woman cried, breaking rank as she charged the Spawn, a heavy flail whirling from her wrist.

The gauntleted man crumpled to the ground like a lovelorn doll, blood spurting from the tears in his frame, breath slowing as scarlet pooled on the stone.

As the woman closed the distance, the monster turned. Its toes writhed, unspooling into strands that sank into the floor. Like a puppet on taut strings, her movements seized. A heartbeat later she swung—flail lashing with savage force.

But the blow never struck the Spawn. It struck herself.

In a shattering instant, iron met bone. Her skull burst wide, scattering fragments across the chamber.

'Captain!' Rosella cried, whipping her brush in wild arcs. Tempestuous furies shrieked forth—phantoms of storm and gale—only to unravel the moment they struck the monster.

The Spawn turned. Its toes writhed, fibres sinking toward her. Rosella screamed, spinning in frantic sweeps, her brush carving fevered lines through the air. Gale-born spectres burst forth in droves, but they were warped things—faces twisted, frames misshapen. Their strikes lacked the force of her polished forms, yet each ally they touched was flung aside as if by a storm.

She was blind—robbed as completely as Harper had first been.

Worse—

Amber streaks bled from the brush into her hand, crawling up her arm, racing to her neck. The painted lines thickened as they spread, hardening to a crust that split her skin as it formed.

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'Stop!' Harper cried, though she knew the word struck only deaf ears. 'You are killing yourself!'

Two of her band lay dead before her eyes, and she had been powerless to save them. It would not be Rosella. It would not happen again.

In another life she had served as priestess to the Saints of the Seven Bells. Struggle had been her earliest call—trained for war against hell itself. Her people lost that war. She lost the only ones she ever loved—subjugated, chained, dragged into hell. She was done with losing.

She would lose no more.

Not her band.

Not her integrity.

And not her life.

Not here. Not now. Not until the day she held her mother and father in her arms once more.

She rose, a pewter staff shimmering into her open palm. She gripped the shaft. Rings at its ornate head clinked and jingled as she spun it in her hands. Her Armour Remnant melted through her plain garb, adorning her in priestess robes of white and red.

'Lesser spirits yet to form, heed my prayer—come to me now,' she intoned, reciting the verse of her people. The air stirred; mist spread thin across the chamber.

It pooled at her heels, tinted with sacred gold, then streamed into the khakkhara before drawing into her form. Golden light radiated from her, and runes flared, whirling into a suspended ring around her.

'Seven bells for seven hells,' she prayed.

The Spawn twisted toward her.

'The righteous rage within us swells.'

Its threads lashed, but too late.

'Your dark design our song repels.'

The creature lunged—only to be hurled back, as if the air itself had thickened to cast it aside.

'And with its sound, our prayer compels.'

She inhaled, a golden mist rushing into her lungs as Harmony bled from her Core.

'Sister-song of desolation,' she cried. 'Rise now, and bring forth ruin!'

A peal rang from the khakkhara. Golden light circled the Spawn. Harper thrust her staff, and in the air above, a gilded hand began to form. Fingers drew together, radiating purifying brilliance. Then came a sharp crack—one of the bells at the staff's head shattered, fragments scattering like sparks. With a sweeping stroke, the hand descended, slamming down with rumbling force.

Harper fell to her knees, her Core drained of all but the faintest wisp of Harmony. Cornelius rushed to her side, slinging her arm across his shoulder to keep her from collapsing outright.

The Spawn was dead—the power of her Set had destroyed it. As the dust settled, sparks still leapt across its flesh.

'Preserve it!' Cornelius barked to the surviving band.

At first they faltered, uncertain, but then scrambled into action. Phials came free from their sacks; tar-black sludge was poured over the decomposing corpse. The blaze died at once. Together they wound the body in ivory wraps. Even amidst madness, the remains of a Soldier Spawn were too valuable to waste.

Even for a Servant of poor Harmonic Purity, devouring such a corpse might carry them to the next Step. And if it could not be consumed, its organs, blood, and bones would still serve—ground into fragments, distilled into potions, or shaped into Remnant clones.

Harper rasped orders for the band's healer to tend Rosella's wounds, while the others hauled the Spawn into a conjured sarcophagus, sealing it until the time came to divide the spoils.

The victory was pyrrhic—two dead under her watch. She told herself she should not care. They were comrades, not companions; thrown together by grim necessity, not kinship. Yet the words rang hollow before she could speak them. Try as she might to flee her past, she was still a priestess—trained from birth to cherish every life.

Her hand balled into a fist. She struck the ground, cracks spidering outward from the impact. Tears welled in her eyes.They did not fall; they crashed around her.

'It's all my fault,' she wept. 'If I hadn't—if I could have—godsdamnit!' Her scream tore her throat raw, her chest heavy with grief.

'No,' Cornelius breathed, shaking his head. 'Everyone here chose to follow you, knowing the danger. We wouldn't be alive without you, Captain. Not one of us blames you.'

'A touching sentiment, but I really must oppose,' came a voice from the shadowed edge of the blood-soaked chamber.

A biting chill ran Harper's spine as a dense pulse of power coursed through the room. She shifted where she knelt, eyes straining toward the dark. Something lurked within.

A figure stepped forward. From shoulder to foot it was clad in onyx plate. A greatsword scraped across the whining stone as it advanced, its broad blade alive with pulsing runes.

Once, it might have cut a noble figure. But whatever allure it had rotted long ago, leaving only a skull for a head, its sockets ablaze with blackened fire.

'One,' the figure said, striding toward Harper, ignoring the blows her men struck against it. 'You were informed there would be one. That was quite clear, I think. Rather strange you would protest.'

It knelt before her, letting its blade clang to the ground.

'Is that not what you chose?' it asked, voice laced with genuine confusion. 'Sacrifice in place of trial. The toll to be paid for entry—for those waiting outside.'

Rising once more, it stretched an arm. The sword lifted from the floor into its plated grip.

'The wheat to save the chaff,' it said, raking at its skull with iron fingers. 'Make your choice.'

Sacrifice?

She could not.

How could she choose to surrender one life to save the rest?

No. If a toll was demanded, she would pay it herself.

'Me,' Harper gasped. 'I choose myself. Take—take my life, and spare the others. I'll be the one. I'll be your sacrifice.'

The Abomination tilted its head, as though perplexed.

'Are you speaking in riddles, girl?' it asked. 'One other than you is allowed to survive. The rest fall, as the world demands.'

Harper's breath caught. Her vision swam. Her heart hammered a vicious beat.

It could not. She would not…

'Very well. Then I shall make the choice in your stead.'

It offered no further words. One instant it stood before her, the next it was gone—reappearing before a man who scarcely had time to lift his arms before the greatsword cleaved him in two. His upper body spun into the air, entrails spooling from the ruin below.

In another blink, it loomed over a woman. She raised a wand, conjuring a ward of light. With a contemptuous sweep, the Abomination shattered it—and carried the blade through. Her body burst against the ceiling like a crushed fruit, raining gore upon the chamber.

Its jaw yawned wide, and from its throat poured ebony fire that consumed a third. The fourth's neck snapped like a twig. The fifth's ribs were wrenched apart; the sixth's chest split open as the Abomination ground its heel upon the seventh's skull, brains spilling across the slab.

Soon only two remained—Rosella, curled on the ground, and Cornelius, who stood before her with arms spread in defence.

'This boy stands against me. He is unwounded. As commiseration for what awaits you below, I will spare his life and take the wounded one instead. It matters little—I shall have you all in the end.'

'No!' Cornelius roared, a spear levelled at the fiend.

With casual ease the Abomination cast him aside and loomed over Rosella. She croaked weakly, blood flecking her lips as she coughed.

'Please…' she whimpered.

'Not her!' Harper cried, unable to bear another death.

The Abomination only shrugged.

'As you wish.'

In an instant it stood over Cornelius once more. The greatsword swept down—and the boy was cleaved from crown to groin, his body split in twain.

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