The chamber of discipline was silent, its high arched windows filtering pale sunlight through stained glass. Inquisitor Malrek knelt on one knee, face pale , armor scorched and cloak torn, still bearing the grime of the night's ambush.
Above him, the High Luminary seraphine stood cloaked in radiant white, the golden insignia of the Radiant Church emblazoned on his breastplate. He did not speak. He only watched.
Malrek exhaled slowly. "We were ambushed along the northern forest pass. Three radiant order Guards dead. The Ascendant who attacked us… he was strong. A confirmed Level Five ascendant."
The Luminary's gaze didn't waver. "That alone does not explain the failure."
Malrek looked up. "He wielded an Alpha-Grade artifact."
That made the Luminary stir. Slightly.
"I am certain," Malrek continued. "I know the feel of Beta enchantments, I carry one myself. But this… this tore through our formation like flame through parchment. He moved like a shadow. Precision. Power. Complete control."
The High Luminary's voice was low.
"An Alpha-grade artifact has not been reported missing."
"Which is why I suspect it was the Black Sea Alpha Artifact," Malrek said. "The one from the sealed vault in the coastal sanctum. It's been unaccounted for since the old war. The aura matched the archived sigils exactly."
The Luminary turned his back to the kneeling man and looked toward the mosaic of Solanar on the far wall.
"And the boy?"
"Escaped with him. The Ascendant prioritized his extraction. Protected him. The boy was not armed, but the man risked exposure to save him."
Silence.
"Do you suspect who the Ascendant was?"
Malrek hesitated. Then said, "I believe it was the Doctor."
A beat.
"Impossible," the Luminary replied.
"I know. He lost his Divinity Shard. No one can channel an artifact beyond Level one without one. Let alone use an Alpha Artifact."
"And yet here we are."
The chamber darkened as clouds passed over the stained glass.
The High Luminary turned again, now staring down at Malrek.
"Find them. Both the boy and the man. If the Black Sea Artifact is in play, it must be retrieved no matter the cost."
"Yes, High Luminary."
"Take Templar knights. No take a complete Inquisitor team . I want silence. Precision. The Church must not look weak."
The heavy doors closed behind Malrek, leaving the chamber still.
The High Luminary remained motionless for a long while, eyes fixed on the sigil of Solanar etched into the marble floor. The light streaming through the stained glass now fell in fractured reds and golds across his robes, but he barely noticed.
The Doctor…
That name stirred buried memories. Once hailed as a genius among Ascendants. A healer. A man of insight and impossible knowledge. And then he had lost everything.
You were broken. Your shard shattered in during the demigod ascension ritual. You should've never touched power again.
And yet Malrek was rarely wrong in his readings. The man described at the ambush had moved with surgical grace. Strategic precision. Not brute force, but deliberate, calculated strikes exactly how the Doctor had fought during the Border Purges. Not one wasted movement.
But even if it is you… how did you recover a Divinity Shard?
His fingers clenched at his side.
Only a god can grant that. Or… one of the forbidden fractured rites.
That thought chilled him. Even the Church dared not speak of the Fractured Rites methods of forcibly binding divinity back to a mortal shell. They had been outlawed after the Ascendant Collapse in 1190 AW.
If the Doctor had discovered a way to use then, this changes everything
The Luminary turned sharply. "Messenger," he said, voice echoing.
From the side alcove, a young scribe emerged, hastily bowing. "Yes, High Luminary."
"Go to the Records Branch. Pull all recent surveillance logs and communication missives regarding the Doctor. I want to know his exact location during the night of the ambush."
The messenger blinked. "He was declared inactive"
"I said I want confirmation," the Luminary snapped. "Check his last temple visit. His last known residence. Cross-reference with any healing requests filed under the old name."
"Yes, High Luminary."
"And…" The Luminary paused, narrowing his eyes. "Send word to the Order of the Inward Flame. Quietly. Have them check if there's been any secret messaging sent to aurilean church recently ."
The messenger bowed again and hurried out.
Left alone once more, the Luminary lowered himself onto the black marble throne behind him. His gaze rose slowly to the mural of Solanar, sword raised in triumph.
Underneath the church cathedral.
The torchlight inside the stone chamber flickered with unnatural stillness, casting long shadows over the five figures assembled in a half-circle before Inquisitor Malrek. They were all in full regalia robes of fire-threaded black, bronze half-masks etched with runic wards, their breaths hushed as Malrek paced before them like a blade drawn tight.
"You've been summoned," he began, his voice low and sharp, "because the Radiant Church has declared this a matter of High Sanctity. The fugitive designated as Subject Cero has escaped during an ambush" aided by an Ascendant. A "Level 5." He let the words settle. "And that Ascendant wielded an Alpha-level artifact.
Gasps fluttered among the team.
"That's impossible," one of them muttered. "Only High Executor..."
"No." Malrek raised a hand. "The artifact has been identified: Black Sea. Last seen under Church seal thirty years ago."
That got their attention.
One of them, Ceryn, the Church's Seer, tilted his head.
Malrek continued. "I believe it was the Doctor."
A hush fell.
"The same man who lost his Divinity?"
"Yes," Malrek said. "Which means something has changed."
He reached into his coat and produced a small iron vial. "I recovered this during the scuffle. It's the boy's blood. I want a trace run."
Ceryn stepped forward he was a level 4 ascender of dream and shadows pathway without a word. He knelt, drew a circle on the floor with chalk-ground ash, and poured a single drop of blood into the center. The scent of iron filled the room.
He whispered the tracing rite. The ash glowed dull green.
The others watched in silence. Mythism was not clean magic. It left residue.
Ceryn's eyes rolled back, pupils swimming in pale white. A moment passed.
Then his voice shifted thicker, slower, not his own.
"The boy… moves. Forest road. Southbound. Carried in silence. A second shadow walks with him."
The glow dimmed. The ash burned to nothing. Ceryn collapsed forward, gasping.
"He's alive," the Seer said, his voice ragged. "And moving quickly."
Malrek looked to the rest. "Track him. Recover him. The boy is the key."
"And the ascendant with him?" one of the Inquisitors asked.
Malrek stared at the fading chalk circle.
"If it's who I think it is… I'll handle him myself."
Southern Reaches, Near the Border of the Aurelian Empire
The wind was dry, whipping loose dust across the worn cobblestone trail as two cloaked figures trudged up a shallow ridge. The sun had just begun to rise behind them, bathing the southern hills in golden light.
Cero's legs felt like iron. His cloak was tattered at the edges, his skin dry from days of travel. Beside him, the Doctor moved with quiet purpose unwavering, like a shadow stitched to the land. Three days of walking without pause. Barely any food. No fire. Just distance.
The distant valley ahead shimmered with heat haze, and just beyond it, nestled between the twin rivers Alvinar and Eros, the lands of the Aurelian Empire began.
"We're close," the Doctor murmured, his voice hoarse.
Cero didn't reply. His lips were cracked. He was too tired to talk. His heartbeat was fluttering from the long Trek.
Then it happened.
A sudden snap one of the Doctor's protective talismans, a Danger Sense Doll, burst into flames on his belt. Another caught fire seconds later. Ash flurried off into the wind.
The Doctor stopped instantly. His eyes narrowed.
"We're being hunted," he said quietly, scanning the horizon. "And it's not far."
Cero's eyes widened. He instinctively reached for the worn satchel slung over his back to retrieve the blade he was carrying but the Doctor moved first.
He unstrapped a worn black case from his back, flicked it open, and slid a long curved weapon into his palm a folded, jagged blade etched with sigils that shimmered like embers. No flash, no ceremony. Just the readiness of someone who had killed before.
"They tracked us this far," the Doctor muttered. "So either the Church Inquisitors has a powerful Seer… or they have your blood."
Cero stiffened. His memory flashed to the wound on his thigh shallow, but fresh right before their escape.
"They must have taken it while I was unconscious," he whispered.
The Doctor gave him a hard look. "Then this is not a coincidence. They're closing in."
He turned toward the trail, eyes flaring with a strange light. The wind grew still.
"Stay behind me, Cero," he said.
Far above them, a bird screeched and in the distance, something shimmered in the morning mist. A ripple of motion. Figures were approaching.
Another talisman ignited.
The Doctor drew in a long breath. "Looks like we won't reach the Aurelian border quietly after all."
On the horizon five dark figures emerged moving fast, spreading out in formation.
Cero's heart jumped. "Inquisitors."
The Doctor didn't glance up. He crouched low, sleeves rolled, drawing intricate lines into the dirt with a carved bone stylus.
"They're gaining," Cero whispered.
"I know."
The Doctor's voice was steady. His hands moved faster. Symbols, rings, cross-runes etched with practiced precision. His entire body was tense, focused, as if even the wind could break his concentration.
The Inquisitors advanced. In the center walked Malrek, cloak singed from battle, face grim. A hooded Seer to his left moved with eerie calm. A hulking man with beards to his right scanned the terrain. Behind, a woman in black robes and a knight armored in blue steel flanked the sides five different Pathways converging on a single target.
They were only paces away when Malrek shouted:
"There! Prepare to engage!"
Too late.
The Doctor slammed his palm onto the last sigil.
A pulse of light erupted across the ground in a wide circle. The symbols flared, then turned solid grey.
The Inquisitors froze. Mid-stride. Eyes wide. Arms mid-motion.
Even the wind stopped moving.
Cero turned to the Doctor. "What did you do...?"
"Eleven seconds," the Doctor said. "That's all I bought you."
He stood, opened a satchel, and pulled out a black-lacquered box.
"Run east. Keep low. Look for a rock that looks like a crescent. There's a tunnel below it. Hide there."
Cero hesitated. "And you?"
"I'll hold them.."
Cero ran.
The Doctor stepped into the center of the frozen battlefield. He opened the box and poured out:
The Doctor stepped into the sigil's heart, opened a satchel and poured out a mix of:
Crushed Dreamroot petals
A small vial of Behemoth Bone ash
A single cracked delta-class shard,
glowing faintly
His own blood, drawn fresh from his palm
He began the invocation in the old ancient tongue:
" To the slumbering one beneath root and stone,
Whose hunger dreams beyond the veil,
I offer binding herbs, memory bone, soul ash, and shard. In exchange for your silence and your strength, Take authority over this space. Until my rite is done no binding shall awaken, no voice shall rise, no foot shall flee, and no artifact shall respond."
A terrible silence fell. Even the glyphs stopped pulsing.
The air grew heavy suffocating, absolute. The very light seemed to bend inward, drawn into a point behind the Doctor, like a hole in space trying to yawn open.
Then came a voice. Ancient. Genderless. Whispered across from the void.
"Your offering is accepted."
"I take dominion."
The sigils blackened.
The Inquisitors unfroze only to realize they were still trapped.
Malrek's body shuddered, eyes wide in disbelief. He tried to speak nothing. The Seer reached for his mind-tether dead. The burly Inquisitor raised his hand to summon lightning only sparks. Everything was still.
The Doctor stepped forward, calm and cold
-----
Malrek:
His limbs shuddered back to motion but it was wrong.
No artifact responded to his call. No command formed on his tongue. Even thought felt slower, dulled, like trudging through wet ash.
This isn't just a trap. It's a Dominion Rite.
He had seen records of it once. Forbidden texts locked away in the Sanctum Vault. Most priests called it lost magic rituals performed before the Ascension Tablets brought order. Only Alpha-level relics or forbidden rites could impose dominion over space itself.
He drew it directly into the soil... no artifacts involved. That means. He called on something ancient.
Malrek's gaze shifted to the ring of sigils circling the battlefield. Each rune was still glowing faintly black, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm like the heartbeat of something watching.
He used a sacrifice.
That was the price of true dominion. Not just blood, but essence essence tied to realm and law. Herbs. Bone ash. Divinity Shard fragments?. A soul offering of intention?. When executed properly, the invoker could seize control of a localized field. Within it, no power could be used unless permitted by the one who made the offering.
Not even divine grace.
Malrek clenched his jaw.
It's not permanent. These things never are.
He examined the sigil burn patterns with his sharp trained, eyes.
The blackened glow is steady... That means it's fresh. The offering was potent. Eleven seconds... No. That was just the trigger. The Dominion itself might hold for a full minute.
Enough time for a clean escape.
Damn him.
He scanned the terrain with narrowed eyes, watching as the boy Cero disappeared into the rocks. The Doctor had bought the child time with an Alpha-tier rite.
But where in the gods' name did he learn to do this?
And more importantly where did he find something to trade for it?
He could not speak. But if he could, he would have cursed aloud.
He shouldn't be able to do this. Not without a shard. Not after losing his divinity. Unless…