Valdareth no longer slept.
The city groaned in the iron grip of fear. Smoke wafted from noble towers and commoner shanties alike, not from fire, but from the incinerators churning through corpses at record pace. Heresy had a new face now—young, violet-eyed, marked by whispers and shadow.
And Riven Thorne had become legend.
Deep beneath the gutters of Valdareth, where sewer gods were whispered to crawl and the Hollow Mask once held sway, a boy stood before a wall of mirrors.
None reflected his image.
They cracked instead.
"Still can't get them to look at me," Riven muttered, tracing the jagged spiderweb pattern on one mirror's surface. His fingers left behind faint trails of black light.
Behind him, Alira watched warily, her hood pulled low over her burn-scarred features.
"You shattered your reflection the moment you came back from the altar. Mirrors show truth, Riven. And you… aren't what you were anymore."
He turned, his voice flat. "What am I, then?"
She hesitated. "A storm that doesn't know it's a storm yet. A wound in the weave of magic. Maybe worse."
"Or better."
A pulse echoed through his chest—the Soulbrand flickering like an eclipsed star.
In the undercity's outer vaults, he gathered his strength.
Power wasn't given. It was carved, stolen, demanded.
And Riven had demands to make.
The Hollow Mask had led him this far, taught him to tame the voices in his blood and silence the madness trying to leak into his thoughts. But their vision ended in shadows.
Riven saw more.
He wanted the throne of ash. The Sanctum's bones. The nobles' screams.
But he needed soldiers.
He needed chaos.
The first was Murn, a smith cursed with molten bones. Once a master weaponmaker for the Flameblood dynasty, now hunted for hiding rebel mages in his forge. Riven found him dying, chest cleaved open by a Sanctum blade.
He knelt beside him and whispered:
"You can die now, or be reborn in pain. Choose."
Murn chose.
Riven burned away the rot with shadowflame, fed him a sliver of stolen bloodline, and marked his spine with a lesser Soulbrand:
Ashbone Crafter (Rank I):
Ability: Forge weapons using living essence and cursefire.
Bonus: All created arms hunger for noble blood.
Murn rose from death with eyes glowing ember-red.
The second was Sol, once a knight of the Rose Order, now disgraced for failing to protect a heretic child. She'd drunk poison to avoid execution. Riven found her in the grave-pits, breath still shallow.
He healed her throat, carved truth into her flesh with violet light, and fed her fragments of divine flame stolen from Lucien's soul.
Warden of the Broken Oath (Rank I):
Ability: Shields allies with the strength of broken vows.
Bonus: Gains power the more unjust the battlefield.
Sol knelt, tears in her eyes, whispering, "You should not exist."
Riven only said, "Good."
They came together in the Hollow Vault, where Riven raised his hand and spoke:
"Your world is burning. Your gods are false. Your lords build empires on the corpses of children. What will you do about it?"
A dozen broken souls stood before him—runaways, failed apprentices, outcasts, and blasphemers.
And for the first time, they did not flinch from him.
They knelt.
The rebellion did not start with banners.
It started with shadows.
Street patrols vanished. Food convoys burned. Minor nobles awoke to find their blood sigils defaced with black runes no spell could cleanse. Spies went blind overnight. Couriers turned mad from whispers etched into the wind.
The Flameblood Dynasty thought it a sickness.
They did not realize it was a strategy.
At the Sanctum, High Seer Elgrave peered into a pool of starlit ichor. His hands trembled as visions assaulted him—an empire built on rot, a throne splintering beneath a crown of bone, and a boy whose soul held too many voices.
"Impossible," the Seer whispered. "The Ritual failed. The vessel should be dust."
A pale attendant coughed. "But he walks. And the others gather to him."
"Then send the Gilded Host. Burn the gutter temples. Cleanse the bloodlines. We cannot allow the heretic to seed rebellion."
"But… the people are watching."
"Then blind them."
Riven's next target was bold.
A vault-temple hidden beneath the merchant district—a place where stolen divine relics were held, remnants of the old gods long forbidden by the Sanctum. Rumors spoke of a shard of the Forgotten Flame, an essence powerful enough to elevate a soul to pseudo-divinity.
Sol warned him. "Too many guards. Too many eyes. You're not ready."
He smiled. "Neither are they."
They struck at midnight.
Murn's blades bit through silver-armored sentries like paper. Sol deflected sanctified fire with her shield forged from her own dishonor. Alira warped light, making them ghosts in the temple halls.
And Riven?
He walked ahead of them all, wrapped in violet heat, his steps singing with the agony of stolen blood.
The relic chamber was protected by a Holy Sentinel—an automaton powered by an angel's bound soul.
It attacked without pause, its voice echoing hymns from a god long dead.
But Riven did not falter.
He looked into its empty eyes and said:
"Your god failed you. Let me show you something better."
He opened his mind.
Let the madness spill.
The Sentinel screamed.
And shattered.
The shard hovered in the air, pulsing with gold-blue fire.
Riven reached out.
It didn't reject him.
It bowed.
New Trait Acquired: Soul-Forged Ascendant (Dormant)
Effect: You now carry a divine fragment within. Dormant until ignited by crisis or conquest.
Warning: Attracts divine predators.
Murn fell to one knee. Sol stared in awe.
"You're building something," she whispered. "Something terrible."
Riven replied, "Something necessary."
Above the city, bells rang again.
But not for a heretic.
For war.
The Gilded Host descended—one hundred Flamebound Paladins clad in burning armor, led by Grand Inquisitor Vellian himself.
The purge had begun.
And Riven smiled.
"Let them come. I want the world to see what I've become."