The temple echoed with the profane chants of the cultists. The central chamber was filled with dark smoke rising from the altar, where priests whispered words in a forgotten language while marking the floor with the warm blood of prisoners still alive. The roots of the dead tree pulsed in the center of the chamber as if drinking from that suffering. The air was saturated with rotten magic.
Then a breath broke the silence.
A gust of cutting wind ca from above, an invisible force sweeping through the temple with a deafening howl. In less than a second, it crossed the air between the columns and severed the head of one of the tallest cultists—one of the arcane mbers of the ritual circle.
The head fell with a dull thud, rolling across the bloodstained stones, its eyes still wide open. The body fell to its knees and collapsed on its side.
A scream of terror echoed through the room.
From above, enveloped in gusts of wind and a stormy aura, Kael appeared on an ancient beam. The sword in his left hand glowed with a bluish glow, the runes carved into its blade spinning like awakened eyes.
"Enough blasphemy," he said, his voice reverberating like muffled thunder. "Now it is ti for the harvest."
Chaos ensued.
Cultists scread, so rushing to protect the altar, others conjuring dark protections. So drew bone daggers and charged toward Kael. But it was too late.
Exelia and Liora were already on the ground.
Exelia appeared as a blue figure, her long sword sparking with magic. With a fluid motion, she cut through a group of three cultists, spinning on her axis and slicing through bodies as if cutting through veils of fabric. Blood spurted in pulsing jets, staining her face and light armor.
"Exterminate them all," she shouted, her voice marked by fury and honor. "None shall leave alive!"
Liora followed close behind, her red hair like embers framing a focused face. Her blade, made of pale steel enchanted with violet light, cut with brutal precision. One of the cultists raised a staff, but Liora knocked it down with an upward strike, splitting it from groin to neck.
The carnage began.
Kael leaped.
He fell like lightning onto a platform near the altar. Before the four cultists there could react, a gust of wind lifted them into the air—and his sword danced. In three circular movents, he cut the legs of two, pierced the chest of the third, and beheaded the fourth. They all fell together, like bags of lifeless flesh.
"Kael! On your left!" Liora shouted.
He spun to see one of the cult’s mages already forming a spell—a black sphere spinning like a vortex.
Kael raised his free hand. A wind barrier rose in an instant. The sphere collided and exploded, sending flas and bones flying everywhere.
Before the enemy could cast again, Kael advanced. His sword swept through the air and severed both of the mage’s arms before plunging deep into his skull.
Kael leaped.
He plumted like a furious bolt of lightning onto the platform near the altar, his cloak billowing like black wings amid the gale that surrounded him. The four cultists guarding the ritual circle barely had ti to look up. With a crack of thunder, a gust of wind exploded around them, lifting them off the ground like rag dolls.
Kael’s sword danced.
Three cuts, precise as the blade of a godly surgeon.
The first pair of legs fell, severed in midair.
The second body was pierced through the chest, the blade entering with a dull thud and erging in a scarlet spray.
The fourth cultist tried to scream, but Kael’s blade sliced through his neck in one clean motion, sending his head spinning before it hit the stones on the floor.
All the bodies fell at once, as if obeying a single symphony of death.
"Kael! On your left!" Liora shouted.
He spun around imdiately.
A cult wizard, wrapped in purple robes and with eyes burning with unholy energy, was already casting a spell—a black sphere spinning violently between his hands, devouring the light around him.
Kael raised his free hand.
With an invisible roar, a barrier of wind ford, compact and pulsating.
The sphere collided with it with a sonic boom, sending black flas and bone fragnts flying in all directions. The stones on the floor cracked. The walls vibrated.
Amidst the smoke, Kael advanced.
The sword sliced through the air with a sharp whistle.
First, the wizard’s two arms were severed in an arc—the limbs still clutching the dying vortex as they fell to the ground.
The wizard scread... for a mont.
Then Kael drove the sword into his skull, with a wet crack that silenced everything.
The head fell back with wide eyes, the blade embedded up to the hilt.
anwhile, Exelia was a storm incarnate.
She glided among the cultists like lightning slicing through the night—fast, precise, rciless. With every leap, every spin, the sword in her hands traced red trails in the air, cutting a path through the fanatics as if it were the fury of the ancients itself.
A runic spear flew toward her.
Exelia did not hesitate.
With a flick of her wrist, she parried the weapon with her blade and, in one fluid motion, hurled it back with brutal force. The projectile cut through the air like an enchanted missile and lodged itself in the chest of the cultist who had thrown it, slamming him against a wall with a dull thud.
Two enemies appeared on opposite sides, black chains writhing from their hands.
They tried to restrain her—but Exelia spun in the air, cut one of the chains before it touched her, and leaped over the second opponent like a flaming panther.
The sword sank between his shoulder blades with a muffled crack.
She fell with the body, and before the others could react, she pulled the corpse forward as a shield, cushioning three spells that exploded in a mist of bone and blood.
Liora arrived close behind.
With a quick gesture, she unleashed a magical shockwave that blew up an entire row of cultists, their bodies flying like leaves in a gale. Without wasting any ti, she advanced.
Her eyes glowed with the radiance of runes, and the sword in her hand murmured forgotten chants, resplendent with the fury of ancient justice.
A summoner, kneeling behind an altar of bones, was finishing an incantation.
A grotesque golem was beginning to take shape—thorns, skulls, limbs sewn together with unholy magic. But Liora did not allow the abomination to breathe.
She appeared behind the summoner in the blink of an eye.
With an upward stroke, she plunged her blade into his heart, causing the runes of judgnt to burn brightly.
The cultist’s body exploded in blue flas, and the golem crumbled like sand swept away by holy wind.
Liora wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand.
"So many dead..." she murmured, her gaze sweeping over the scene of carnage around her.
"...and we haven’t even started yet."
Kael climbed the altar steps like a herald of ruin. Each step was slippery with blood, bits of flesh, and broken bones. Screams echoed beneath his feet, muffled only by the dull sound of blades and the howling wind conjured by his will.
Nothing could stop him.
A group of cultists raised their hands in despair, murmuring ancient words, tracing glyphs with their own blood. An arcane circle lit up beneath Kael’s feet, attempting to trap him—a prison of dark energy, intertwined with spectral chains.
But he did not hesitate.
With a roar, he raised his arm and unleashed a brutal gale, so powerful that it cracked the ground and shattered the columns around the altar. The magic circle was shattered, and the cultists were thrown against the walls with the crack of broken bones.
Kael didn’t stop.
He reached the top.
And there he was—the high priest of the cult. A hunched elder, covered in purple robes drenched in dried blood. His eyes were completely white, blind perhaps, but filled with fury. His skin was marked with arcane pacts, symbols that pulsed like living scars.
"You do not understand what you are doing!" he shouted, his cavernous voice echoing through the temple. "The Mother will co! Nothing will save you! The world will be cleansed! Redeed by fire!"
Kael did not respond.
He simply swung his sword like lightning.
The blade cut through the air in a perfect arc.
The impact was so violent that it decapitated the priest with a single blow, tearing off his head and throwing his body away—flying from the altar like a mutilated rag doll.
The silence that followed lasted only a second.
Then ca chaos.
The entire temple had beco a killing field.
Piles of corpses stacked up in the corners of the rooms, covering altars, blocking stairways. The corridors echoed with screams—of pain, of madness, of death. Spells exploded in all directions, staining the walls with soot and lted flesh.
And yet they kept coming.
Like sewer rats, cultists sprouted from secret passages, hidden doors, tunnels with glowing runes. The cult was larger than they had imagined. Older. More desperate. And more fanatical than any army they had ever faced.
In the middle of the temple, Exelia spun with her sword in hand, fighting a freak of flesh and magic—one of the cult’s generals, deford by centuries of forbidden rituals.
It had four arms, each wielding a curved blade that moved with serpentine fluidity. Its eyes burned with black flas, and its skin looked like living parchnt, where runes ran like worms in flesh.
Exelia did not retreat.
She jumped, spun, dodged by milliters, attacked through almost nonexistent gaps. The monster fought back with savage fury, but each blow t steel or emptiness.
Beside her, Liora was the shield and the spear.
Covering her companion’s back, she deflected spells, slashed smaller enemies, and opened precious gaps with runic attacks that made the ground shake. The two warriors fought in perfect sync, as if they shared the sa instinct.
Behind them, the entire temple vibrated with growing magic.
Kael, back with his sword in hand, advanced like a force of nature. Each blow took down three. Each gust of wind thrown by his arms destroyed columns, hurled bodies, and disard sorcerers.
A group of runic archers tried to shoot him—but he raised a cyclone around himself, and the arrows spun like needles until they turned back on the shooters themselves, impaling them.
The ground shook.
Runes began to glow beneath the bodies.
A giant magic circle—drawn with the blood of countless innocents—was being completed in the center of the temple.
Liora, realizing the pattern, shouted between blows:
"They’re trying to delay us! The magic circle... it’s almost complete!"
Kael looked around.
And then he saw it.
The marks on the floor. The offerings. The corpses arranged in a ritualistic pattern.
It wasn’t just resistance. It was sacrifice.
The cult was offering everything. The entire temple. All life. All bodies.
To summon sothing.
Sothing ancient. Sothing greater.
Kael gritted his teeth, spun on his axis, and unleashed a gust of wind that swept away three rows of enemies, clearing a path straight to the center of the circle.
But it was too late.
The runes glowed deep red.
Blood evaporated, souls scread. The ground cracked.
And sothing—sothing imnse and grotesque—began to erge.
An arm made of liquid darkness and deford bones broke through the center of the circle. Followed by another.
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