Lilith
Middle floor
Dungeon, Thornhill
Vankar Island,
Northern Isles Region
Kingdom of Ashtarium
November 16th 2019
I breathed deeply, feeling the broken blade strike the runic code I had glimpsed earlier, etched within the Cambion's chest like a cursed brand, revealed only thanks to Aeternum's Internal Sense. My sensitivity to energy signatures was refined, almost second nature by now, but this was something else entirely. The code was not mere energy—it pulsed with a will. A will ancient, conceptual, and suffocating. It was the residue of an intent that had never belonged to anything truly living. It was the whisper of an idea that refused to die.
As I tried to wrench the blade free, the Cambion's hand clamped onto my arm, unyielding as iron. A searing jolt knifed through my mind—memories not my own invading, forced into me like a flood of anguish and despair.
You're no child of mine. A woman's voice, cold as frost. A slap cracked the silence, the sound echoing in the boy's soul more than on his cheek. The silver-haired boy flinched, his small arms outstretched in a futile attempt at an embrace—a gesture he had only ever seen others give. His mother had never touched him. Not once. Not with kindness.
Look at him… the son of the Devil…The whispers of the village, venomous and constant, filled the boy's ears. He had memorized the scorn in their eyes—the same scorn now reflected in the gaze of his mother.
I should have snuffed you out before you ever drew breath, she hissed, her face contorted in revulsion and dread.
The memory shifted—smoke and flame filled the air. The boy stood atop a hill, watching the village burn. His home. His torment. His prison. Fire devoured it all, and he watched with hollow eyes, too young for such apathy, too broken for tears.
Why? he wondered, the question a whisper lost to the roar of the blaze. Why was I born? For what purpose was I put on this earth?
Salvation, came a voice, deep as the abyss, smooth as silk, and dreadful as the void. The boy turned. A shadow rose before him, its shape indistinct, yet vast, as if it had no end.
Salvation.
The word fell like a thunderclap, silencing the crackle of burning timber. The boy turned, eyes wide, as a shadow vast and formless coalesced before him, darker than the smoke, darker than the night. Its voice was a harmony of whispers and roars, as if all the forgotten gods spoke through it at once.
Yes, child... salvation. The shadow loomed closer, its presence wrapping around the boy's soul like chains of velvet. You weep for meaning. You plead for purpose. But do you not see? It is not you who is broken... it is the world.
The boy's breath hitched as the shadow's form rippled, the flicker of the firelight lost in its endless depth.
The Equation that birthed this existence—the Logos, the sacred design upon which all things rest—has decayed. The architects of this world were blind, their formula flawed from the first line. And so, suffering spreads like rot, hidden beneath the illusion of order. The world is a prison built by fools. And you... You are the crack in its walls.
The boy recoiled, but the voice pursued him, inexorable.
You are the variable unaccounted for. The anomaly. The flaw that will unravel this diseased fabric. You see only your pain, but your pain is proof. Proof that you do not belong to this dying dream. You are destined to awaken it—to tear down this lie of a world and sow the seed of a new reality.
The boy's voice trembled. Who are you...?
The shadow's edges sharpened, its form stretching toward the boy, a crown of darkness seeming to emerge where its head should be.
I am Laplace. The name was a tolling bell, a promise of ruin and rebirth. The hand that writes the new Equation. The end of this failed age. Walk with me, and together, we shall unmake the falsehood called existence—and forge a world worthy of your pain.
And like that, the memory was severed—shattered like glass. My vision cleared, and I stared at the Cambion's face—truly saw it for the first time. The black inferno that had cloaked its form guttered and died, leaving behind the figure of a man, translucent, spectral. A sleeveless robe of faded crimson draped his frame, baring pale, scarred arms. His silver hair fell across a face lined with sorrow, its scars speaking of endless battles. And in his eyes, there was no malice. Only regret.
"It seems…" he murmured, voice soft and hollow, as if confessing to no one at all. "It seems my death was the key after all—the final cipher in this cruel design. The fragments have gathered, the seed is planted, and the Equation shall be born anew. I thought burning the town would end his return… that I could break the chain. But I was wrong. Even in death, I was fated to remain what they always called me... a Devil."
"Stop who?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"You know who." His eyes, dim and haunted, met mine. The name slipped from his lips like a curse, barely audible yet heavy with dread. "Laplace."
At that instant, the floating crystal cracked apart, scattering into countless red shards. The ritual circle splintered with it, its magic unraveling. The air itself thickened—cold, wrong, expectant. And from the collapsing weave of runes, a mass of shadow boiled forth, coiling upon itself like a living storm of smoke.
"Lil, protect your mind!" Aeternum's voice rang in my head, sharp and urgent.
But my gaze was locked on Jen—on her wide, horrified eyes, frozen in grief for Neil. The shadow struck before I could react, surging around her, seizing her in tendrils of black fog. She was lifted from the ground like a puppet on strings.
Then... time stopped.
The world held its breath. Ben and Ella froze mid-motion, suspended in an instant that should not have existed. I alone remained untouched, able to move, to see.
And Jen's lips moved, but it was not her voice that emerged.
"We meet again, Seedling," the shadow spoke through her, its voice layered—many voices woven as one, echoing with endless depth.
"You…" I stared at the thing inhabiting her. "What are you?"
"I am but an echo," it intoned, dark and patient. "A remnant will, caged within these walls. A shadow of what once was, bound to this place by purpose and design."
Its gaze, if it had one, turned inward, as if recalling some ancient sorrow. "Loridien… in life, he was faithful. He clung to the promise of salvation, bore the weight of the task I set before him. But salvation… Ah, salvation was too heavy a burden for his mortal soul. In the end, it broke him."
"Salvation?" I said quietly, the word bitter on my tongue. "His memories… I saw them. You chose him. You spoke to him. Tell me—what does destroying Thornhill have to do with saving the world?"
"Nothing." The voice almost laughed, a sound without joy. "That tragic fool believed he could halt my return by razing the town. But his sacrifice was futile. He misunderstood the design. Thornhill… Thornhill is special, yes. But not for the reasons he imagined."
My pulse quickened. "What makes this Dungeon so special?"
"Ah, you see Thornhill is nothing more than a prison..." The shadow's voice deepened, becoming as vast as the void. "You have no idea how many things are locked within this Dungeon."
"The Weaving array," I said. "It wasn't for summoning like we thought."
The shadow's form pulsed, smoke rippling outward as if exhaling millennia of secrets.
"Ah… the Weaving Array. You see it now for what it truly is, don't you? Not a weapon for Loridien. Not a ritual to summon or banish. It was my cage, made to lock me within this floor." Its voice coiled around me, cold and vast, as if the walls themselves were listening. "This array—this lattice of runes and time—was designed long ago by those who feared what I am. A net of law, interwoven with the bones of this Dungeon, meant to bind the last fragment of my will. As long as the Array endured, I was trapped. A ghost in the machine. A shadow denied the world beyond."
It let Jen's body drop a fraction, as if weary of the charade.
"But Loridien… poor, broken Loridien. The fool. I could not break the Array by force. So instead, I shaped the destiny of my resurrection. From the void, I resummoned him, the remnant of the will once known as Loridien. He served me once when he was alive, so it made sense in his oblivion, he should serve me once more. But the poor fool, even as twisted as he became, refused my service. He had lost all faith in the salvation I once promised him. And so he thought to oppose me, not knowing that his twisted purpose was what I intended. He believed that destroying Thornhill, razing it to ash, would prevent my return. And so he did. Again, and again. But each time, the Dungeon reversed the act, crafted temporal phantoms of the town and its people. Not out of mercy, no… but to preserve the seal. The illusion of Thornhill was necessary to keep the Array intact, the balance undisturbed."
"So you were using him," I said. "You created him to destroy the array that imprisoned you. But for what reason? Why go to all this length? All this manipulation."
"The Weaving Array—so ancient, so intricate. It was no mere spell, no simple ward. It was a lattice of causality itself, a metaphysical cage forged to bind me. To chain the last fragment of my will, my echo, within this space. Every rune, every thread of the Array was designed to tether my essence, to hold me within the marrow of this place—forever denied the world beyond."
The shadow rippled, tendrils of smoke brushing the ruined remnants of the shattered array, as if mourning and mocking in equal measure.
"But such chains cannot endure unchallenged. They rely upon constants—upon the law of cause and effect remaining undisturbed. And that… that is where Loridien came in."
"Since I could not break the array, I could shape the hand that would. Loridien—a soul steeped in sorrow, a heart heavy with the weight of his own perceived damnation. I bent his purpose until he believed salvation could only be bought with fire. I nudged his will to burn Thornhill, again and again, making him fall deeper into the sea known as Despair."
"The fool had no idea that the Weaving Array required the existence of the town. The seal was tied to Thornhill's existence—the town was not a town at all, but a lynchpin of the cage. So long as the town's pattern endured, the Array held. The Dungeon's power remade what was lost to preserve the prison. And so Loridien, poor fool, became its unwitting warden. His every act of ruin served only to strengthen the cycle."
"And I broke it," I said. "But..."
"Ah, Lilith… how poetic it was, how perfect the design. You wonder why your hand, your blade, was the key to this unmaking? Let me illuminate the tragedy you've woven yourself into."
The shadow's voice grew heavier, the weight of centuries pressing down in its words.
"Loridien's will was not merely a force opposing me — it was the final pillar of the Weaving Array itself. His despair, his endless struggle, his doomed quest to stop my return… these were the threads that kept the seal whole. Every time he razed Thornhill, the Array fed upon his torment, and the Dungeon remade the town to preserve his agony—for his agony was the lock."
The smoke coiled closer, as if whispering secrets directly to my soul.
"But the Weaving Array was not crafted to endure forever. The architects knew that such a cage would require an end — a key. They built that key into the fabric of causality itself. The lock would break only when Loridien's will was ended not by his hand, not by chance, but by the one chosen by fate's spiral — the outsider introduced into the weave, the variable that could disrupt the design. That variable… was you."
The Dungeon seemed to shudder around us as the truth settled like a blade in my chest.
"When you struck him down, you severed the living thread. The Array's purpose was fulfilled — not to protect this world, no, but to await this moment. The moment when the will that bound me was unmade by the hand meant to carry me forward. And now, Seedling… my cage is gone. And you have become the gate."
"So you needed him gone. Since he had become part of the weaving array, his death would undo the power that remade the town." I said, understanding what it meant. "So, how do I come in. You said I was chosen. I was the variable that could disrupt the design. Why me?"
" Do you think your arrival in Thornhill was a coincidence. My will might be trapped within this cage, but my influence goes beyond it. Those who have tasted despair, those who seek salvation, are nothing but instruments in which my will on causality is set. The Weaving Array was more than a cage for me—it was a loom. A loom upon which causality was spun and shaped. A net of threads I could pluck, ever so gently, to set the right pieces in motion."
"It was I who steered the winds of events that lined up so that you would return home, Lilith Kain." The Shadow being said. "Surely by now, you should have realized the connection between you and the town. Enoch Mansion, Enoch Estate, the Enoch forest, the land in which the Array was carved. And surely you know who is responsible for the sealing of me within this Dungeon."
"My father," I said. I looked at this otherworldly being that was possessing Jen. I had always wondered what had happened to my father. He had left me in the Black Forest, promising to return for me. But he never did. Instead, the Ashtarmel had been the one to find me and take me in. They had given me the news of my father's death, and as such, I was forced to grow up, to move on with a new purpose.
"Jonathan Kain. What a powerful being. I daresay he was the most powerful Vampire in existence I had laid eyes upon. He was almost godlike. And yet, in the end, his prison could not hold me, not even an echo of my will. He crafted this prison, so it made sense that his blood would free me. For centuries, I waited, bided my time, setting the events that would bring you back home while setting up the conditions that would allow you to destroy Loridien. In the end, it all happened according to the equations I set forth."
The Implications that this thing...this echo was responsible for the death of not just my father, but the actions of Nehemiah Ashtarmel, the fall of King Rafael, and Ella's family, all so I could return to Thornhill. I couldn't understand it all. I couldn't understand this...thing.
"What do you want?" I said. "I assume you told me all this because you wanted something, right?"
The shadow rippled, its smoke coiling tighter around Jen's suspended form, and for a moment the air seemed to hum with anticipation, like the pause before a predator's strike.
"What do I want?" The voice was velvet over steel, smooth and inexorable. "I want you, Lilith Kain." The smoke bent toward me, as if tasting the air around me. "Your body… your soul… your vessel. You are the perfect host—the culmination of everything this Dungeon has waited for. The ideal shell for my true resurrection. I offer you a choice, a simple bargain: surrender yourself to me, and I shall release this girl."
Jen's body trembled in the shadow's grip, her eyes wide, her tears frozen in mid-fall.
"Refuse…" The shadow's tone darkened, deepened, until it felt as though the floor itself shuddered beneath its promise, "and I will tear her apart before your eyes. I will claim the girl called Ella instead—her flesh will suffice. And if you deny me again, I will open the seals that hold the Demonic Beast Horde at bay within the forest. I will unleash them upon the town, and you will drown in their cries of despair."
Its smoke twisted, forming a jagged grin where no face should have been.
"So choose, Seedling. You, or them. What is their existence worth to you?" The monster within Jen said. Come on, Jen, fight it. I didn't know if she was still there, or if that thing had completely taken control.
For a heartbeat—just one—Jen's body convulsed in the shadow's grasp. Her lips twisted, her fingers clawed at the air, at the tendrils of smoke binding her. A flicker of her will, desperate and defiant, surged forth.
"Li—l…!" she choked out, her voice raw, strained, a gasp between sobs. Her eyes, wet with terror, locked onto mine—pleading, fighting, refusing to be a pawn. I could feel it, even from here: her soul clawing at the shadow's grip, trying to wrench herself free, to reject the parasite that sought to hollow her out. "Kill me..."
But the shadow tightened, coiled around her like a serpent of night. The glimmers of resistance dimmed, smothered by the crushing weight of its will. Jen's body went rigid—her struggle extinguished like a dying spark beneath the boot of a giant.
"Admirable." The shadow's voice dripped with dark amusement. "But futile."
My heart pounded, my hands trembling at my sides. Think, Lil. Think!
"Aeternum!" I cried out, mind screaming for its guidance, its voice, its strength. "Aeternum—I need you!" Silence. No whisper. No spark of inner light. No steadying presence. It was as if Aeternum had been ripped from me, torn from my very essence. I reached inward, desperate—but found only emptiness where once its certainty dwelled.
"No..." I breathed, my voice cracking.
The shadow loomed larger, feeding on my hesitation, savoring the taste of my dread.
"She asks you to kill her—but can you?" the shadow murmured, its voice like silk over steel. "Can you destroy what is precious to you? This girl… she loves you. I've seen her memories—how long she waited, hoping to reunite. You might have forgotten, but she never did. How she dreamed of that date you owed her. She came to Thornhill because it was your home. And now? You've returned… and don't even remember her. So tell me—can you end her life?"
The shadow drifted closer, Jen limp in its grasp, tendrils of smoke curling toward me like claws.
"One final offer, child. Give yourself to me. Spare her. Spare yourself the agony of watching them die."
The world seemed to hold its breath. My choice teetered at the edge of the abyss. My fist clenched tight. All I had known since waking in that forest was death. Kill. Survive. Kill again. But then, I met Ella. My reason to exist. My purpose. She was everything. And protecting her? That was worth the world.
I looked at Ella—my anchor, my light.
"Forgive me."
My gaze met Jen's. The emerald light of her eyes was gone, swallowed by the void. I gripped my katana, Aeternum's power flaring as I triggered Hyperfold Dash. In a burst of golden light, I drove the broken blade into Jen's chest. The shadow had no time to react. My strike found her heart, the blade igniting in the orange glow of Everlasting Sunset.
"Fuck off," I hissed.
The shadow howled, torn from Jen's body in a violent storm of darkness and light. The blast consumed even her form, the Dungeon quaking under the force. The sky, once awash in chaotic color, blackened beneath the shadow's fury. A pressure like none I'd felt before smothered the air.
But through that darkness rose a sun, crimson and gold, its radiance scouring the shadow. I turned, breathless, to see Ella, bow raised—the bow I'd given her—now shining like a golden sun, losing solar flares into the night. And beside her stood Aeternum, its form pure light.
_
Ariella
The instant the crystal shattered, I felt it—the ancient malevolence pouring from the circle, twisting the air, poisoning the floor with its presence. Flashes of vision struck me: Thornhill in ruin, Ashtarium consumed in flame. I didn't know what it meant—not yet. And in that moment, I didn't care.
"Lil, protect your mind!" Aeternum's voice snapped me from the haze.
I turned, saw Lil's horror as the shadow seized Jen. I tried to move, but the world froze around me.
Time had frozen. The malevolent presence controlling Jen had seized the flow itself, bending it to its will. My body was locked in place—but my mind remained free, left to witness the nightmare unfolding before me. I watched helplessly as the thing inside Jen spoke—revealing its purpose, its manipulations, the grand design that had brought us all to this moment.
I could barely comprehend what I heard.
It claimed responsibility for my uncle's betrayal, for twisting his despair until it served its schemes. But how? Why? Why had my uncle fallen so far? What sorrow had made him vulnerable to this monster's whispers? And how had it swayed Sanders to lead us here—to this cursed place? My thoughts spun, questions burning, the horror of it all sinking deeper. Even the idea that Thornhill had been destroyed again and again, only to be resurrected by warped time and causality—it was almost too much to bear.
Then—
Ariella, can you hear me?
A voice. I couldn't turn to find it, but a mote of light appeared before me, coalescing into Aeternum's strange, alien form.
"It worked," it said.
You… you're Aeternum, I spoke with my mind, astonished.
"Yes."
How…?
"You and Lilith share a bond," Aeternum replied. "A bond I do not fully understand—but one I knew I could rely on. I foresaw it would serve us in moments like this."
Why are you here? Why aren't you with Lil?
"Because right now, the events I calculated are unfolding." The codex said.
"If you knew this would happen, why didn't you warn Lil? Why didn't you stop her from killing the Cambion?" I demanded.
"I couldn't." Aeternum's voice was steady, but carried the weight of regret. "When I awoke from my dormant state, she was already locked in battle with Loridien. There was no time to share what I had discovered. And... the events that followed—had to happen."
"What kind of nonsense is that?" I thought bitterly.
"What I mean is this: nothing you or I could have done would have changed what came next," Aeternum said. "The threads of fate had already been woven. All that remains is to endure their pattern."
Despair twisted inside me. "And now what? I can't do anything. I can't protect Lil while she suffers. Again—I'm powerless. I couldn't save my family. I was forced to run. And now I'm forced to watch her make a terrible choice. I won't let her."
"You can't stop it. You know that, Ariella." Aeternum's tone softened, as if trying to ease the blow. "Lilith is no ordinary Manaborn. She carries the blood of Kain—the oldest bloodline in this world. She has yet to awaken its full power. But she will."
"I know the history of the Kain family," I said, my thoughts fierce. "But I refuse to believe she's cursed. I won't accept that she must bear this alone."
"Neither you nor I can change it," Aeternum replied. "From the moment she first laid eyes on you, Ariella, this choice became inevitable. What matters now is not stopping it—but ensuring that her choice is not in vain." Aeternum's words echoed through the stillness, but I barely heard them. My heart pounded, fury and sorrow crashing together inside me like a storm. Threads of fate. Inevitable patterns. Endure the pattern.
No.
I had endured enough. I had watched enough. My family lost. My home burned. My uncle broken. I had been powerless for so long — always too late, always just out of reach of saving anyone. And now? Now I was supposed to stand by and watch Lil bear the burden of this choice? Alone?
No more.
The weight of despair tried to crush me, but I pushed it back. The darkness pressing in, the shadow's suffocating presence — I felt it all, and I rejected it. My fingers twitched, my mind surged. Even if time was frozen. Even if the world itself tried to bind me. I would find a way.
"Aeternum," I thought, my voice within sharper now, steady. "If Lilith is destined to make this choice, then so be it. But I will not stand by while she faces it alone. Tell me — how do I break this stasis? How do I fight beside her?"
The mote of light that was Aeternum seemed to flicker in response, as if feeling my will blaze into something undeniable.
"There is always a way," I told myself. "And I will find it. Not fate. Not shadow. Not even the weave of this cursed array will stop me."
My resolve became iron, my fear burned away, and I focused everything I had on breaking free — not just for myself, but for her. For Lilith.
The shadow's grip on the world felt absolute. Time hung suspended, a dead weight pressing down on everything—on me. But within that silence, within that void where despair tried to claim me, something else stirred.
No more.
The words weren't just a thought. They became a spark—deep, primal, burning at the core of my being. I felt it: the radiance buried within my blood, the Sin of Radiance—that forbidden light I had denied, feared, tried to chain. But now it rose, answering my will, blazing against the darkness.
The pressure shattered inward as light erupted from me, raw and blinding. The world's frozen grip cracked. I felt the flow of time shudder, the threads of stasis fraying at the edges. And in my hands—Noct Aeturnum pulsed, the black bow drinking in the light of my awakening. Its form shimmered, and for one breathless instant, it was no longer Noct Aeturnum at all.
It was Sol Aeturnum.
A bow of golden brilliance, forged of sunlight and fury, thrumming with the essence of my Boundless will. I drew the string—felt time itself tremble at the act—and shaped the shot with all the defiance in my soul.
"You will not have her," I whispered, and my voice felt like it echoed beyond this place, beyond this moment.
The arrow formed, a lance of pure golden fire: Judgement Shot. The air around it warped, the frozen world unable to hold back the force of it. And then I loosed it. The golden lance tore through the stasis, ripped through the shadow's coiling tendrils, and streaked toward the darkness that clung to Lil and Jen. Light flooded the floor, cleansing, searing, divine. For the first time, I felt it—Boundless. A force not chained by fate, not governed by design. And as the lance flew, I knew this was only the beginning.