"I look up."

"I look up, beyond the dark hills, into the light of night."

"Within the stellar sea of delightful perjury, we witness the ends of madness. The tailcoat of chaos."

"It whispers to me, her sweet delights. Long luscious fingers tenderly stroke the chest, seeking the gouged heart."

"I am one. And I am no more. A fleeting Abomination."

"Defiance and corrupt is our blood. There is putrid blackness in our veins."

"We are powerful. She is powerful."

"She is... Death."

***

Nero stood in silence.

The Thralls around him were completely silent too, their bodies frozen in poses of worship or supplication, their heads tilted back at impossible angles, their mouths gaping wide toward the sky above.

He could feel his heart violently beating in his chest, each pulse thundering so loudly it seemed to echo through the empty streets. His fear spiraled out of control, threatening to consume his ability to think and to reason.

He forced himself to keep his head down.

His eyes were locked on the cobblestones beneath his feet, on the pools of black blood spreading across the stone, am on the corpses of the Thralls he had killed. He focused on these details with desperate intensity.

No matter what, he must not look up.

He knew this with absolute certainty. Looking up would be the end of everything.

Just as he was about to call upon the Oracle to ask what to do, the Oracle spoke to him instead, and there was something in its tone that made his blood run even colder.

{The Heretic must avert his gaze}.

The words were simple and direct, but they carried a presence Nero had never heard before.

Nero gritted his teeth,

'Oracle. What is going on?!' he demanded internally.

Silence.

The Oracle did not respond.

The silence stretched on, seconds turning into what felt like minutes.

Finally, after an eternity compressed into moments, the Oracle spoke.

{You have caught the attention of a Fallen One}.

Nero's eyes widened.

A Fallen One.

A Gryghori.

'A Gryghori?' Nero's mind was filled with disbelief. 'How is that even possible?'

He knew the Gryghori were sealed, bound, or dead. The Church's entire purpose was to maintain those bindings, to ensure that humanity never again had to face the full damning presence of the Fallen. So how could one be here, now, in Liedenstorm, with its gaze fixed on him?!

The Oracle's response shocked him to his core.

{I do not know}.

Nero was silent.

Those words were far more terrifying than any Abomination or beast.

The Oracle, the personification of the Divine Will itself that seemed to know everything—did not know.

Nero swallowed hard, trying to force down the panic rising in his throat like bile.

The Oracle continued speaking,

{The Gryghori is still dead. However, a portion of its deceased soul has reached out from beyond the grave. The moment you look is the moment you are damned. You need to escape from this realm}.

Nero's lips pressed into a grim line.

'And how do I do that?'

{You must find the node and battle its guardian. Only then will you find the key}.

Nero frowned despite the terror coursing through him. 'A key?'

{Indeed. However, the odds are not in your favor}.

Something about that statement made Nero's stomach twist.

He raised an internal eyebrow, his thoughts sharp despite his fear. 'What do you mean?'

{You will know soon enough}.

Before Nero could press further, the Oracle continued.

{Rejoice, Heretic. You have been granted a Boon}.

Instantly, Nero's mind was filled with a clear, stark image.

It was a blueprint of the entire city of Liedenstorm, laid out before him like a map drawn in light and shadow. The streets and buildings were rendered in precise detail. And scattered throughout the city were nodes—points of light that pulsed with a soft rhythm.

Most of these nodes glowed with a faint, silvery luminescence. But one, located at the far edge of the city quite a distance from where he currently stood, blazed with an intensity that made the others look like candle flames in comparison.

The Oracle's voice echoed through his consciousness.

{That is your goal. The Guardian will be there. I wish you luck, Heretic. It will be needed}.

The words settled over him like a dark shroud.

Nero couldn't help but feel terrified by the Oracle's ominous tone. He had never heard it this cautious and unsure.

Still, although he had a thousand questions burning in his mind, he decided that the first and most important thing to do would be to listen to the Oracle's advice and start moving.

For some reason, he couldn't help but think there was urgency in the Oracle's words. And with that realization crystallizing in his mind, Nero began to move.

He tightened his grip on Gungnir, the familiar shifting weight of the spear granting him some solace and presence of mind as he turned toward the nearest Thrall.

The creature still stood frozen, its head tilted back, its mouth gaping at the sky. It didn't react as Nero drove the spear through its throat, didn't resist as he tore the weapon free and moved to the next one.

He cut them down methodically, one after another, creating a path through the mass of motionless bodies. Black blood sprayed across the cobblestones. The corpses fell one after the other, and still the Thralls did not move, completely enthralled by whatever presence loomed above.

It made the killing easier, but it also made it feel more disturbing and wrong. They died like cattle, not resisting in the slightest, and Nero felt something cold settling in his chest as he worked.

When he had cleared enough space, he broke into a run.

His feet pounded against the cobblestones as he sprinted through the empty streets of ghost-Liedenstorm. The city around him was a twisted mockery of the place he had visited earlier that day. The buildings were the same, and the streets followed the same paths, but everything was completely off still.

The windows were dark and empty, the doors hung open on broken hinges...

The lampposts still burned with that sickly, fading light that seemed to hate its own existence, and above it all, pressing down like the hand of a giant, was the presence of that thing in the sky.

Nero kept his eyes fixed firmly ahead, focusing on the mental map the Oracle had given him. The bright node at the city's edge called to him like a beacon, and he ran toward it with everything he had.

Behind him, in the distance, he heard the Thralls beginning to move again. Their screeches echoed through the empty streets, a chorus of inhuman sounds that spoke of hunger and possession and something worse than death.

But Nero didn't look back.

He just ran, his breathing harsh and ragged, his body screaming in protest, his mind filled with the image of that bright, blazing node and the Guardian that waited there.

The key to escape.

The key to survival.

If he could reach it.

If he could defeat whatever guarded it.

If the odds, which were not in his favor, somehow turned in his direction.

Nero ran through the ghost city, beneath the gaze of a dead god's lingering soul, and prayed to nothing and no one that he would somehow get out of this mess alive.

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