"If the heir's blood touches the stone,
and the Third Seal has been opened,
and an unbearable sorrow is carried with it,
the cracks will be fed,
and what had been nourishing the ruin will be unleashed,
and the path of collapse will be opened."
(Condition for the breaking of the Second Seal of the Arkham Pact)
A cry erupted.
No sound preceded it.
What came before was emptiness.
It was not a scream that could be heard.
It was a presence— one that pierced flesh and went beyond hearing.
In that same moment hearts abandoned the rhythm they had grown used to.
Souls slackened.
People fell without pain.
Some eyes whitened for a heartbeat.
Others lost awareness.
Not because they had died but because the world had taken a step forward and left them behind.
In the School of Sorcerers, heads snapped upward.
A spell broke in the middle of its incantation.
A magic circle vanished without a trace.
One of the instructors slowly placed a hand over his chest and whispered to no one:
"…This is impossible."
Yet his voice did not even reach himself.
In the streets, time froze around trivial details:
A cup shattered without anyone hearing its sound.
A cart swerved then stopped on its own.
A child opened his mouth to cry but the crying found no way out.
In the Drakhaens Kingdom, a silence settled— heavier than flame.
Soldiers clenched their fists over their chests.
No pain… only the sensation that something ancient had returned and remembered them.
And in the heights—the Black Dragon opened its eyes.
For the first time in centuries, it was not the source of the tremor.
In the human world, indicators shook.
Screens went dark.
A phenomenon was recorded for which no one could find a name.
"An unexplained global disturbance…
Source unknown…
Effect: widespread…"
Then— as it began, it ended.
No tail to the cry.
No explanation.
The world resumed its motion— but with an invisible fracture running through its depths.
The scene returned to the judgment square.
The air remained taut.
And the blood— had not yet dried.
Lilithia was led away in silence to a cell, she could not tell was a prison… or a waiting room.
In the secret hall, the leaders gathered.
No voices were raised.
No one dared to ask a question.
The Black Dragon stood.
No anger.
No surprise.
Only delayed awareness.
He spoke— as though closing a door in his mind:
"The cry… was not an attack."
He paused.
Then added:
"It was a moment of breaking."
He raised his eyes slowly.
"The Second Seal… from the era of Arkham has been broken."
The hall was unlit.
Visibility was deliberately restrained.
A recessed stone circle.
A ceiling higher than it should have been.
At its center, the Black Stone rested on a metallic base, resealed with a temporary seal one that suggested not safety, but postponement.
Commander Kurozen spoke, his voice tight despite the effort to contain it:
"The execution… was not carried out."
It was not a question.
It was a delayed objection finally surfacing.
Commander Raiga gray-bearded, eyes refusing to meet the stone answered sharply:
"We are not servants of a dragon, even if it is black."
A brief silence followed.
The Dragon did not turn.
He did not respond.
Raiga continued, his voice rising:
"Lilithia should have been executed. All of this—"
He gestured toward the stone.
"—would not have happened had we upheld the verdict."
A younger judge, Shira, whispered in confusion:
"But… the Second Seal—"
Raiga cut him off violently:
"The Seal is not her concern! She is merely—"
He stopped.
Because the air— changed.
The Black Dragon took a single step forward.
He spoke calmly, without emotion:
"Had she been executed, the Seal would have broken… without a witness.
And a break without a witness is a silent catastrophe— especially before the higher authorities."
Silence swallowed the hall.
He continued, colder still:
"And had it broken without a witness, you would never have discovered it."
Commander Mirei, silent until now, finally spoke:
"So… keeping her alive was not mercy."
"It was not a choice,"
the Dragon replied.
Then he added, drawing a final line:
"Lilithia will not be executed."
An objection nearly surfaced, but another Commander Kurozen stern, calculating spoke first:
"This contradicts the issued verdict."
"And the issued verdict,"
the Dragon replied immediately,
"nearly broke the world."
He did not raise his voice.
He did not argue.
Yet no one challenged him.
"From this moment onward,"
the Dragon continued coldly,
"Lilithia will be placed under the supervision of Atsuro Kanami Deputy of the Eclipse Vanguard. This is an order. Not a request."
A sharp breath was drawn.
"But—"
The Dragon cut him off:
"Lilithia is the only one capable of—"
_
Elsewhere, Villiam's body lay beneath a dark cloth, resting on a side stone slab.
Some soldiers guarded it by order of the Black Dragon.
Others from the Healing Squad stood watching.
No one spoke of her.
Yet Villiam's hand twitched— as if searching for something… or as if responding to a command that had never been heard.
_
In a place unnamed for centuries, beneath layers of darkness that had never known light—
the ground began to crack.
Bones appeared first.
They were not pushed outward they were summoned.
Flesh wrapped around them slowly, grotesquely.
Then—a shadow formed.
Not a complete body, only an unfinished shape.
Anger was the only thing fully formed within it.
Opposite it, darkness began to swirl.
A vortex of sharp sounds, torn breaths, screams without mouths.
The Ravagers of Veins moved like a living hurricane— then compressed… collapsed inward…
until a single form remained.
A woman's face— without true features.
A black body, boneless, formless, unfinished.
The entity emerging from the earth stood upright.
It clenched its hand.
The air shattered.
It looked at her— and smiled.
A cruel smile.
It spoke in a voice that was not heard… but understood deep within the bones:
"…Finally."
Ravager did not answer.
The darkness around her thickened, as though the space itself could no longer contain them both.
Then she spoke, her tone steady not threatening, but judging:
"The breaking of the Seal awakened you."
The incomplete body shuddered.
It laughed— a short laugh that split the ground beneath it.
"And you…"
it said,
"you came to see whether I am still worthy of being summoned."
She did not move.
But the darkness beneath her feet exploded.
Blackness surged like a flood— formless claws tearing through the void straight toward him.
In a fraction of a second—he raised his hand.
He did not block the attack.
He tore it apart.
The darkness ripped like real flesh.
The sounds burst— screams severed mid-breath.
Ravager stepped back half a step.
Her face distorted.
The entity spoke, its body completing itself with every breath:
"This… is not a test."
Then it moved.
One step.
The ground collapsed beneath it.
Earth split.
Darkness screamed.
And something ancient, buried deep within the lower layers of the world, began to stir.
Ravager reacted instantly.
Her body unraveled— then reassembled around the strike.
Black rods pierced his chest.
Something flowed neither blood nor energy.
"…You remain as you are,"
he said, gripping the rods and snapping them one by one.
"You feed on ruin and call it loyalty."
Ravager advanced.
This time— without hesitation.
"And you,"
she said, her voice trembling as if rising from a well,
"are still a danger that cannot be left unbound."
The entity lifted its head slowly.
And its eye— opened.
"The Loom — Thread of Insight - Depth II: Foresight."
The air tightened, as though something unseen had been pulled from the heart of reality.
Ravager did not wait.
She spread her fingers—
"Threads of the Void."
Transparent threads erupted, vibrations sharp enough to tear through space.
They did not cut his body— but the aura around him collapsed instantly.
"Hah…"
the entity muttered.
"The Loom — Thread of Insight - Depth I: Perception."
He saw the thread before it trembled.
His body moved half a second early.
The threads passed where he should have been.
Ravager slammed her foot into the ground.
"Pulse of Collapse."
No sound.
Yet the world shuddered.
Perception lagged.
She whispered,
"It seems you still do not know— the darkness is mine."
The entity perceived the strike only after it landed.
He staggered.
"The Loom — Thread of Insight - Depth II: Foresight!"
The thread pulled violently.
The world fractured before his eye collapsing into a single path.
He leapt sideways—but Ravager was already there.
"Threads of the Void — Execution Pattern."
The threads wrapped around him like a net.
They did not bind his body—they bound his decision.
He froze.
"Pulse of Collapse — Double Pressure."
An invisible impact shattered his balance.
He dropped to one knee.
Blood ran from his nose.
"…Damn."
He raised his head.
His eye burned.
"The Loom — Thread of Insight - Depth III: Probability."
The thread exploded.
Dozens of endings flooded in at once.
He moved— not forward, not backward but toward the worst possible choice.
Ravager's eyes widened.
"What—?!"
Her body surged against her will.
Her feet stepped into an angle she had not chosen.
The thread pulled.
"Now."
The entity extended his hand.
"The Loom — Thread of Insight: Enforcing the Path."
Ravager slammed into the ground, shattering stone beneath her.
She laughed.
Blood spilled from her mouth.
"Hah…"
"You've pulled your thread beyond what your mind can bear."
She lifted her head.
"Pulse of Collapse — Fracture of Perception."
One strike.
The thread convulsed.
Twisted.
The entity screamed not in pain, but under the weight of vision.
He collapsed to his hands.
The thread snapped.It went dark.
Silence.
Both remained standing barely.
No victor.
Yet something, deep below, had cracked.
Ravager wiped the blood from her mouth and spoke with lethal calm:
"Next time… you won't have a thread to pull.
But since you managed to keep up with me I allow you…"
The darkness turned— and swallowed her whole.
The entity remained alone.
He stared at his trembling eye and whispered:
"…I saw my end."
He did not rise.
Still kneeling, the ground beneath his palms continued to bleed blackness.
He pushed trembling fingers into his own chest.
Flesh tore.
A wet, heavy sound not a scream, but a severance.
He tore a piece from himself.
The flesh was not red.
It was dark.
He stood with effort, blood flowing— yet never falling.
He raised the fragment before his eye and murmured, broken:
"Vision… demands a price."
He crushed it.
It disintegrated into short, trembling black threads.
He planted them into the ground.
The earth screamed.
The threads stretched vanished into the depths, as though being stitched into the world's very body.
He bent forward.
"Not a summoning ritual…"
he whispered.
"But a ritual of remembrance."
Somewhere far away, something not yet awake trembled.
And in the depths—the rift fed on flesh… and learned the shape of its owner.
The entity lifted his head one final time.
His eye remained— but it no longer saw the future.
He spoke, as though sealing a sentence:
"Next time…"
The last light went out.
_____________
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© 2026 Lobna. All rights reserved.
-To be continued...-