The fire crackled beneath the star-strewn sky, throwing warm flickers of light across tired faces and dented armor. Outside the ruin, the night was still unnaturally still as if the land itself was holding its breath after the Core's death scream.
Seren awoke with a jolt.
Then softened. She lay there, grass beneath her fingers, sky above, distant constellations twinkling like things watching. She turned her head.
The others were there.
Alive.
Whole.
Even Vera sat beside the fire, color returned to her cheeks, her eyes focused. A subtle glow pulsed around her not magic, but something deeper. Recovery. Resolve.
Lira was toying with a shard of the ruin's essence, feeding it into her Echo Core. The crystalline device embedded in her gauntlet shimmered like glass containing stars. "They're resonating," she said. "Whatever the ruin gave us… it's enhancing our Cores."
Sorin nodded, pulling down the bandage on his forearm to reveal his glyphs now etched deeper, more refined, humming softly. "We unlocked something. Not just power memory. Purpose."
Seren sat up, groaning. "Still hurts."
"Pain means we're still here," Elen said with a wry grin, flipping a dagger through his fingers. "And we made it out of a nightmare."
They all laughed.
Not long, not loud.
But enough.
The crackle of the fire wrapped them in something rare: peace.
Until Seren's eyes flicked toward the treeline.
Just past the flickering shadows, half-cloaked in night, a figure stood. Robed in pitch black. Masked. Motionless.
Watching.
Seren froze.
But as her gaze narrowed
It vanished. Swallowed by the dark like it had never been.
She blinked. "Did anyone…?"
They shook their heads. Sorin frowned. "You okay?"
"…Yeah," she whispered. "Must've been the heat."
She didn't believe it.
Morning broke cold.
The squad returned to the city as the rising sun painted the sky in shades of gold and blood. Their path took them through checkpoints and command posts, until they stood before the vast doors of the military's central keep the Legion Spire.
Reports were filed. Maps updated. Core fragments handed over to analysts.
But when Seren stepped forward to debrief, the commanding officer a tall woman in blue-metal armor with a voice like judgment — cut her off.
"You led them out alive," she said. "You improvised, adapted, and destroyed a potential cataclysmic threat."
Seren blinked. "We all—"
"I'm not finished."
A medal was placed in her hand forged of blacksteel and woven sigil.
"You're now recognized as Squad Leader of your own team."
There was no ceremony. Just the weight of new purpose.
Later, in the Legion Wards, they were dismissed. Free for now. Free to breathe, to think, to rest.
But elsewhere…
In the Hollowing Depths beneath the Black Union's citadel, voices conspired.
Hooded figures circled a burning map. Eyes glowed beneath veils. One pointed toward a scar on the land the ruin.
"We underestimated them."
Another voice rasped, "Not again."
A third whispered, "Begin Phase Three. The Sigil Bastion must fall."
And in the outer districts
The Slave Sector stirred.
Overseers screamed. Miners whispered.
Machines broke.
Structures collapsed.
All without cause.
And in the aftermath, they began to hear it…
"The Black Sun rises."
"It will devour all."
"It remembers."
And in the distant wastes…
A lone figure stood on a black dune.
Robes darker than void.
Mask shaped like grief.
Scythe gripped in hand.
Around him, shadows twisted and screamed not with sound, but with meaning. Concepts warped. Gravity bent.
The wind itself recoiled.
He turned slowly toward the south.
Toward them.
And moved.
The Black Sun walks.