The Grave of the First King was not a tomb, but a scar.
Located at the jagged edge where the dark soil of Noctis met the scorched neutrality of the Borderlands, the site was a massive amphitheater of grey basalt. The air here was so thick with stagnant mana that it tasted like copper and ozone.
Elian stepped onto the central dais, his every footfall echoing like a hammer on an anvil. Behind him, Lunaria kept her bow half-drawn, her elven ears twitching at the unnatural silence.
"He's here," Elian said.
He didn't need eyes to see. His Abyss Markings—the black, vine-like veins on his left arm—were pulsing with a rhythmic heat. They were reacting to a presence that felt like a miniature sun descending upon the earth.
A flash of blinding white light ignited at the far end of the amphitheater.
High Inquisitor Malphas did not walk; he manifested. Clad in zirah of white gold that seemed to emit its own gravity, the Tier 5 Zealot held a staff topped with a burning solar fragment. His face was a mask of absolute, terrifying serenity.
"The anomaly," Malphas's voice was a resonant chime that vibrated in Elian's teeth. "You have eluded the light for long enough, child of Vane. To kill a High Inquisitor is a sin; to exist as you do is a heresy against the order of the world."
Elian didn't reach for his rusted blade yet. He simply stood there, his small frame looking insignificant against the radiant giant.
"Order is just a word winners use to justify their cages," Elian replied. His voice was flat, devoid of the tremor a ten-year-old should have. "You didn't come here for justice. You came because I'm a variable you can't control."
Malphas didn't waste time with further theology. He raised his staff.
"Domain Expansion: Solar Purgatory."
The amphitheater vanished. In its place, a world of searing white flame erupted. The temperature spiked to a level that should have turned human flesh into ash in seconds. The mana density became so high it felt like being submerged in molten lead.
This was the power of a Tier 5. They didn't just use magic; they rewrote the laws of the space they occupied.
Elian felt his knees buckle. The Ring of Weight in his marrow reacted violently to the external pressure, pulling him toward the ground. His newly healed nerves screamed.
Lunaria let out a pained hiss, her elven cloak shimmering as it struggled to filter the solar radiation.
"Elian! We can't stay in his Domain!" she shouted, firing three arrows of pure moonlight.
Malphas didn't even look at them. The arrows vaporized six feet before reaching him, incinerated by his sheer presence.
Elian gripped his left arm. The black veins were glowing now, a dark violet light fighting against the white sun. He realized brute force was a death sentence. Malphas had more mana than Elian had blood.
But Malphas's Domain was built on "Light" and "Absolute Order."
Elian looked at the shadows beneath the basalt pillars. Even in this purgatory, shadows existed where the light was too intense.
Mass is the enemy of Light, Elian thought. Light can be bent. Light can be trapped.
"Guru, give me ten seconds," Elian rasped. "Focus all your mana on the shadow of the central pillar. Don't attack him. Attack the ground."
Lunaria didn't ask why. She dropped her bow, slammed her hands onto the basalt, and channeled her Moon Elf heritage. The ground beneath the pillar didn't break; it turned into a localized vacuum of darkness.
Malphas sneered, his staff glowing brighter. "Futile. Darkness is merely the absence of my will."
He pointed the staff at Elian. A beam of concentrated solar energy—The Finger of God—launched. It moved at a speed that defied evasion.
Elian didn't move. He activated his Broken Core.
Instead of trying to circulate mana to create a shield, he opened the "wound" in his soul. He treated his shattered Core like a drain.
As the solar beam hit him, it didn't explode. It was pulled.
The Abyss Markings on Elian's arm turned into literal rifts in space. The solar energy was dragged into his body, passing through his nerves like liquid fire. Elian's skin began to crack, glowing orange from the inside.
"ARGH!"
Elian screamed, but he didn't stop. He diverted the absorbed energy not into an attack, but into his own Mass.
He became a singularity.
The gravity around Elian spiked so hard that the "Solar Purgatory" began to warp. The pillars of light bent toward him. The white flames were sucked into the black veins on his arm.
Malphas's serene mask finally broke. "What are you doing? You're consuming the Divine Light? You'll implode!"
"I've already been in the Abyss, Priest," Elian said, his eyes bleeding black fluid. "Your sun is just a candle compared to the dark I've seen."
Elian lunged.
He didn't run. He fell toward Malphas, using the distorted gravity to propel himself. He arrived in front of the Inquisitor in a fraction of a second, his fist clenched.
Malphas raised a shield of solid light.
Elian's fist made contact. He didn't punch; he released the "Mass" he had been accumulating from the absorbed solar beam.
Gravitational Shear.
The space between Elian's fist and Malphas's shield folded. The solid light didn't shatter—it collapsed into itself.
CRACK-BOOM!
The shockwave wasn't fire; it was a ripple in the air that flattened everything in a hundred-yard radius. Malphas was sent flying, his gold zirah cracking like an eggshell. The Solar Purgatory flickered and died as the Inquisitor's concentration was violently severed.
Elian fell to his remains, his left arm smoking, the flesh charred black. He was coughing up blood, his vision swimming in shades of grey.
Malphas stood up a dozen yards away. His jubah was ruined, and blood ran down his forehead. He looked less like a god and more like a man who had seen a ghost.
"You... you are a monster," Malphas hissed, clutching his broken ribs. "The Order of the Weeping Eye was right. You cannot be allowed to reach the Academy. You are the Seed of the End."
Malphas reached for a pendant around his neck—a silver eye that wept a single drop of black liquid.
"By the blood of the martyrs, I call upon the—"
Thwack.
An arrow of moonlight buried itself in Malphas's shoulder, the impact enhanced by a silencing curse. Lunaria stood behind Elian, her face grim.
"We're done here, Zealot," she said.
Malphas looked at the wound, then at the horizon. The Night Guards of Noctis were approaching, alerted by the gravitational collapse. He couldn't fight a Moon Elf and an unknown anomaly while being surrounded by Noctis forces.
"This isn't over, Vane," Malphas whispered, his body dissolving into light. "Even if you reach Sky Haven, the Eye is already there. You are walking into a trap you built for yourself."
The light vanished. Malphas was gone.
Elian collapsed onto his back, staring at the purple clouds of Noctis. The Blue Poppy extract was wearing off. The "false strength" was being replaced by a fatigue so heavy it felt like he was being buried alive.
"Elara..." he whispered.
"She's safe, Elian. For now," Lunaria said, picking him up. Her touch was the only warm thing in his world.
"The Priest was right about one thing," Elian muttered, his consciousness fading. "I am a monster. But I'll be the monster that keeps her safe."
As Lunaria carried him toward the hidden carriage, Elian's hand brushed against the basalt floor. Everywhere he had touched, the stone was crushed into fine powder.
He had survived his first encounter with a Tier 5. But the cost was visible in his eyes—the last traces of a child's innocence had been incinerated in the solar fire, leaving only the cold, hard stone of a survivor.