The next hallway was empty, and progress slowed. Cane's senses could only give a general direction—but now, attuned to necrometal, he could feel its presence like static on his skin.
"How is Sophie?"
The question came so unexpectedly that Cane nearly stumbled. He shot Mori a sideways glance. "You know who she is?"
Mori nodded. "Yes. A person you like."
Cane chuckled. The words weren't wrong—just a little off. "What would you say to someone you really care about?"
"I like you," Mori answered simply.
Cane arched a brow. "And someone you love?"
"The words are the same in my language. Nin melin lle." She caught the confusion in his expression and explained. "Parents, siblings, partners—anyone you care deeply for. We say Nin melin lle."
Cane hefted his axe, stretching his senses again. A trace of darkness stirred nearby. "Then how would someone know the… level? Of your affection?"
Mori snorted—a surprisingly human sound. "Are you serious? How could they not know?"
"Well, you know…" Cane shrugged. "There are levels."
"HELLO?"
The voice echoed faintly—barely audible through the rock walls.
Cane picked up speed, hugging the right side of the corridor until a branching passage came into view.
Moriwynn: I feel darkness to the right.
He nodded and took the turn, extending his senses as far as they'd go.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" The voice was closer now—young, male, anxious.
A few meters ahead stood a door. Bone-white. Seamless. Cane stepped up and pressed a hand against it.
Cane: Not metal. Some kind of ceramic.
Mori placed her palm on it—cool and smooth, unruned. "I doubt we can force it open."
Cane frowned, then rapped the handle of Starstrike against it.
"Hello? Who's there?" the voice came again, clearer.
Mori tilted her head and answered with a thumb to her chest. "Commander Moriwynn of the Allied Forces."
There was a pause.
"The Allied Forces? What happened to the Zuni?" The boy didn't sound afraid. Just… curious.
"They're still here," Mori said flatly, casting a shrug at Cane when he rolled his eyes.
"Oh. Right then." Mechanical clicks sounded from within—latches unlocking, tumblers spinning. The door opened with a soft whoosh.
"Quickly, come inside. One of those dead things might wander by."
They stepped through. The door sealed behind them with a hiss.
Inside stood a boy—sixteen, maybe seventeen—pale, wiry, and sharp-eyed. "I'm Bushen. A metallurgist."
Cane and Mori exchanged glances.
"I'm Cane," he said smoothly. "This is my assistant, Moriwynn."
A choking noise came from Mori, followed by a cough.
"You okay?" Cane asked innocently, deadpan.
"Yes," Mori answered stiffly. "Of course."
Cane glanced around the room. It was lined with all kinds of weapons, ores, and forging tools.
Then his voice lowered, just slightly.
"Why are there undead walking the halls of this place?"
Bushon let out a long, heavy sigh. "My fault…"
He moved to the workbench, sliding a black leather-bound book closer. "I've always been able to manipulate metal. A few years ago, I started having these detailed dreams… They taught me how to perform specific techniques."
Moriwynn:Is that normal?
Cane:I also received bloodline instructions. Mine were… less detailed.
Cane's eyes flicked to the book. "Where did you get that? Is it a manual?"
"I dictated it," Bushon said proudly. "From the instructor in my dreams. My memory's good, but I might've messed up a few things."
Cane felt a powerful, irrational urge to kick his grandfather straight in the backside.
"Explain the corpses," he said tightly. "And how you got here."
"I've always been here," Bushon shrugged. "Found this place after the plague wiped out my village. Discovered I could shape rooms, make doors, manipulate the ore—almost anything, really."
"Amazing," Cane said carefully. "And the Zuni?"
Bushon hesitated. "There's this nasty fellow—or maybe a woman, I can't really tell. Goes by the name Terror. They placed guards here and gave me supplies. Whatever I needed."
"You have a last name, Bushon?"
The boy nodded. "Copperfoot."
Moriwynn:Relative?
Cane:My bloodline always includes 'Iron.' Could be something similar.
He glanced toward the bone-white door. "Now explain the walking corpses."
"Oh. Right." Bushon scratched his chin. "Terror told me they were battlefield casualties. For some reason, they didn't rot like the others."
Moriwynn:They weren't battlefield corpses.
Cane:Nope.
"How did they end up here?" Cane pressed.
"When I heard about the phenomenon, I asked for them. It's a metallurgy technique—preserving bodies by embedding a special material."
Cane shifted slightly. Subtle. Tense.
"What special material?"
"Necrometal," Bushon said, as if it were obvious. "My instructor covered the process in detail, but the final steps were flawed. I made the necessary corrections."
Cane's expression turned dark. "Toward what end?"
"The end of the war, of course." Bushon smiled faintly. "Once that's over, I can continue my research."
Cane's voice dropped. "Bushon…"
"Too bad you won't live to see it."
Bushon's hands flicked forward.
Something blurred.
Cane dove sideways, shoving Mori clear. Pain flared in his upper arm—sharp and cold.
He tried to stand—but the world was already dimming, sliding sideways, blackening at the edges.
The last thing he heard was Mori shouting his name.
Then—nothing.
Moriwynn's blade flashed.
In a single stroke, Bushon's head separated from his body. His corpse dropped without fanfare.
She caught Cane as he collapsed, her sword clattering to the floor as she lowered him gently.
"Cane!" she gasped, her hands already at his sleeve. She yanked it up—then froze, face blanching in horror.
"No... no, no, no—Philas? Gadira? Can you hear me?" Her voice cracked as she stared at the black, seething coil pulsing in Cane's arm. "He put it in him. Necrometal. What do I do?! What do I do?!"
For the first time in her long life... Moriwynn had no answers.
Cane stood in darkness.
Not shadow.
Oblivion.
No walls. No sound. No sense of up or down.
"That sting… it must have been necrometal," he muttered. "I should've killed him immediately."
Dread gripped him—not for himself, but for what it might mean. If I'm gone… if Mori falls too… then Bushon survived. And that means—
Someone he loved would die.
"No."
The word came from his chest, not his mouth.
"NO!"
Cane stood—though there was no floor to stand on—his body rising from pure will. "That abomination is metal, and I am a metallurgist. This world belongs to me."
He closed his eyes.
He searched.
In the vast sea of black, where was it darkest? Where was the sickness? He followed instinct—not light, but revulsion. A subtle nausea tugged at him, like a rotting scent on the wind. He chased it deeper. Deeper still.
The pressure mounted. His bones groaned. His eyes blurred. Cold bit through him like shards of glass.
He embraced it.
The desecration of Cold Iron made him ill to his soul. His lips curled, bile rising in his throat—but he pushed further, letting the sickness guide him.
Until he found it.
Hovering like a tumor of shadow, the corrupted coil glowed with impossible darkness.
His muscles locked.
His lungs burned.
His throat bled.
The sound of his own screams echoed back—unrecognizable.
This was the end of sanity.
But Cane didn't flinch.
I will never fear metal.
And then—he merged with the necrometal.
In the ringworld, the sky shattered.
Stars pulsed, then flickered out.
Gadira and Philas both turned upward as the blue heavens bled to black. The lake boiled. Trees curled and died. Grass withered beneath their feet.
Gadira gasped. "What's happening?!"
Philas's jaw tightened as he reached out and gripped her hand. "Cane's been infected by necrometal."
"That's… bad?"
"About as bad as it gets," he said grimly. "If I don't pull you out of here right now, you'll die with this place."
Gadira blinked. "Pull me where?"
"My world," Philas said.
There was weight in the offer. Meaning.
Gadira saw it: a glimpse of her own fate. If she accepted, she would vanish. Fade from this world, this war, this story.
"Is there no hope?"
Philas's face didn't change. But his eyes held a flicker of fire.
"If it were me? No. No hope at all."
A pause. A heartbeat.
"But it's my grandson."
"So there may be a chance."
Cane clamped his hands over his ears, but it made no difference. The dissonance of necrometal tore through him—a shrieking, mind-rending chorus of nails on slate, rusted screams, death rattles layered upon death rattles. Agony was everywhere.
Then, slowly… he let go.
His hands fell away. If the pain would deafen him, so be it.
In the churning dark, something shimmered. A glimmer—not light, but memory. A silhouette turned sideways, quiet and familiar. He couldn't place her name, but her laughter echoed in the void.
Sofie.
In that hellish din, her laugh became light. And Cane persisted.
A song followed, rising from the deep—pure and ancient, a melody of healing and sorrow. It threaded through the discord like silk on steel.
Neri's song.
The sound wrapped around Sofie's laughter, softening the sharp edges of suffering.
And still… he persisted.
He exhaled, centering himself. There was no rushing this. Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, he knew he was dying. But it didn't matter. Not yet.
A new sound joined them—hammer on steel. Calm. Measured. Unshakable.
Jonas's forge.
That sound grounded him.
With breath to spare and chaos thinning, Cane pushed deeper. Nodes emerged in the blackness, swimming into view—some familiar, others foreign. He reached for the ones he knew:
Heavy. Shatter. Magneto.
Each one flared to life.
The black mass convulsed. It exploded, then drifted—soft as ash. Black flakes fell like snow… then crumbled… then rusted.
Necrometal undone.
Cane rose. Crawled. Clawed his way upward, binding the ruin into order. Thread by thread, he restructured the corrupted metal, forging connection where there had only been dissonance. His hands moved with will, not precision. With faith, not fear.
And in a voice full of command and creation, he roared:
"Sing for me!"
The world blossomed.
Light detonated outward—waves of brilliance crashing through the dark. Mana surged, wild and radiant. A symphony of elements roared back to life.
In the ringworld, the sky convulsed.
Cane's three stars streaked upward, trailing fire. The red core shuddered—then bloomed, expanding with a pulse of creation so vast the ground trembled.
Philas and Gadira stood motionless, eyes wide, mouths parted.
The blue sky turned molten.
A red sun ignited in the heavens, followed by three moons, each bearing the color and pulse of a star.
The ground rumbled. Waves of heat shimmered. Off in the distance, mountains rose. Trees bent in the wind of awakening.
The land expanded outward—twice its former size—and all around them, a vast ocean crashed against new shorelines.
Philas whispered, stunned. "Heavens… Heaven…"
He cast his senses outward. "A sun… and three moons. Mountains. Oceans. This is no ringworld anymore."
Cane grimaced, clutching his arm. The necrometal was gone—transmuted, purged, reborn as Cold Iron.
Then arms wrapped around him.
"Mori?" he croaked.
She hugged him tightly, her senses scanning him from head to toe. Power radiated from every inch of him. No corruption. Only swirling mana—and something deeper.
She stroked his face. Hugged him again.
His eyes fluttered open, dazed.
"You're… close," he murmured.
"Bushon's dead," Moriwynn said softly. "You're alive."
Cane nodded, blinking slowly.
"…Think so."