Ashes scattered in the wind as the spire's remnants disintegrated behind Kai and Venri. The land groaned beneath them—an eerie, subterranean hum like ancient roots stirring restlessly in the dark. Though the corruption had been purged from the surface, its tendrils had sunk far deeper.
They stood in reverent silence, the weight of a greater threat pressing on them, heavy as the dead sky.
Venri broke the silence. "We'll need help."
Kai's eyes narrowed. "More than we've got."
They climbed toward an abandoned outpost wedged between high cliffs, long-forgotten by time. Rusted solar towers creaked in the breeze, shattered glass crunched beneath their boots. Inside, the command chamber still pulsed faintly with reserve power. Dust floated like ghosts.
Venri unslung a containment satchel and retrieved a smooth obsidian star map. Her damaged stave crackled as it flared to life, sparking against the map's surface. Energy bled from Kai's Wyrm-Sigil, and the ancient device responded, constellations igniting in a slow pulse of alien light.
Stars flared into view—then flickered. Each pulse ended in a jagged, crimson mark. Venri frowned.
"Every mark… a spire," she said grimly.
There were dozens.
Kai's brow furrowed. "Some stars are missing."
"Not gone," Venri whispered. "Covered. Hidden beneath the Depths."
A chill touched Kai's spine as Voryn stirred within him, the resonance dragon humming with unseen threads. His eyes drifted to a fading crescent-and-sword constellation in the lower quadrant of the map. "That's near the Dethari Belt, right?"
Venri nodded. "Formerly inhabited by an old sanctum. Devourered by darkness almost a decade prior. They said it was an accident."
Kai folded his fists. "It wasn't an accident. It was the start."
Then—something shrieked in the air.
A shriek of metal ripped from the star's bones. A shining form fell from space, leaving blazing lines of energy in its wake. Not a comet. A dragon, but no such natural creature. Its form plated in black alloy, arms bordered with pulsing red circuit-runes. Its wings spread—mechanical, raven-tipped, cosmic-core fueled.
It came down hard, earth bursting outward. One figure sprang from its back, tall and lean, dressed in red-streaked armor that glimmered with mirrored darkness. Her voice, twisted and cold, rang through the fog.
"You are Kai. Bearer of the Wyrm-Sigil."
Kai advanced, sword lowered but cautious. "Who are you?"
The armor hissed and recoiled like melted metal, showing a silver-haired woman whose skin was marbled in circuitry and whose eyes flared like malfunctioning satellites. She was both artificial and hurt.
"Lysara," she declared. "Of Silvenreach's lost colony. You torched a spire. You're a threat."
Venri's tone was biting. "To whom?"
Lysara's eyes didn't blink. "To the Depths' controllers."
Kai's grip on his blade tightened. "So you're on their side?"
I was created by them." Her voice dropped. "I made a different choice.
She dipped into a pouch on her belt and flung a crystalline data shard. Kai caught it, pressing it to his bracer. A hologram unfolded—displaying a colossus hanging in the space between two withering stars. Not constructed, but grown, like a cancer of stone and wire. Hundreds of tainted cosmic stones revolved about its center like black suns, their light twisted into detumescent spirals.
Its name throbbed in blood-red glyphs:
THE SINGULARITY CRADLE
"It's where the tainted are born," Lysara explained. "Where they shape stones warped by emotion. Despair. Anger. Fear. The Depths consume it."
Kai gazed at the picture. The building seemed off—familiar like a bad dream. His dragons shifted uncomfortably, sending warning whispers through the Sigil.
"They're attempting to create Bound Ones," he said.
"No," Lysara replied. "They're attempting to remake the world.
The silence that followed was hollow.
Then Kai spoke: "We'll need a bigger ship."
Venri smirked despite herself. "And a better plan."
Lysara stepped forward, her voice colder. "You'll also need allies long thought buried by history. The Depths hunt them too. And you'll need more than dragons."
Kai's gaze drifted to the star map again. The constellations pulsed with danger—and destiny.
Among the dim light, one faint star flickered again.
A location he hadn't considered in years.
A location connected to his blood.
"…My father once spoke of a gate past the edge. Said it opened into a chamber older than the stones. Perhaps he was correct."
Venri looked at him. "You believe he knew all this?"
Kai didn't respond right away. His tone was quiet, far away.
"He disappeared pursuing something. I believed it was madness. Perhaps it was a warning."
Behind him, the Sentinel glyphs throbbed. The dragons inside him stirred once more—Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, Void, and Voryn—restless, vigilant.
Kai glanced up. The stars flickered in and out, like embers breathing.
This was no longer about dungeons.
It wasn't even about tainted stones.
It was about rescuing the world's soul—before the Depths consumed it whole.