The wind howled with a voice that did not belong to nature.
Asari and Aicha stood at the mouth of a valley hidden behind the cliffs north of Warthram. After leaving the dreaming library, the Codex had burned a single map into Asari's mind—a path to one of the Seven Forgotten Cities.
A city erased from memory.
A city where even the dead whispered to stay away.
Its name was Noctelleth.
It wasn't on any known map. Even the elder had never heard of it. Yet, the moment they stepped into the shadow of the valley, they could feel it—wrongness.
The Eather here pulsed in reverse.
Instead of flowing through their veins, it seemed to pull, draining slightly with every step.
"Do you feel that?" Aicha asked, her hand glowing faintly with defense-type Eather.
"Yeah," Asari said grimly. "It's like something's feeding off the land itself."
He summoned his sword, and with it, activated one of his lesser-known skills—Phantom Edge. A technique that allowed him to feel the weight of time on any weapon drawn.
His blade shimmered, flickering like a dying flame. The Eather in the area was thick—but unaligned. Twisted.
They passed under a stone arch wrapped in thorned vines. The air smelled of rust and rot. And beyond the arch, they saw it:
Noctelleth.
A city of dark marble towers and crooked spires, built around a massive chasm. The buildings pulsed with strange light, and shadows flickered even without a source.
Aicha whispered, "This place shouldn't exist…"
And then they saw them.
People.
Or what used to be people.
Pale-skinned figures with hollow eyes and stitched mouths walked the streets silently. None reacted to their presence.
"These aren't undead," Asari muttered. "They're trapped in something."
Aicha nodded. "Like broken puppets."
One figure stumbled forward. Asari raised his blade—but the figure did not attack. Instead, it reached out, placing a hand on Asari's shoulder.
Its eyes rolled back. Its mouth unstitched on its own, splitting open like torn cloth.
A voice emerged—not from the figure, but from the very walls.
"You've come to awaken what was sealed. Are you the heir… or the harbinger?"
Before Asari could answer, the ground trembled.
A massive tower at the center of the city began to unfold—its sides peeling away like blooming petals of a nightmarish flower.
From its depths, a presence emerged.
A creature with ten limbs and a veil of cloth soaked in symbols.
Its face was a mask, black and featureless, save for a symbol etched in glowing red: a spiral with an eye in the center.
Aicha trembled. "That's not a beast… it's an entity."
Asari narrowed his eyes. "That's the warden."
He stepped forward and muttered, "Let's see if you bleed."
He activated Ghost Walking, his body blurring like a shimmer of heat. In an instant, he reappeared behind the entity and slashed.
CLANG!
The entity blocked it with one of its long limbs. The force knocked Asari back several meters, embedding his feet into the stone street.
Aicha cast Chain of Light, throwing out six spectral links of radiant Eather. They coiled around the entity, tightening as she fed her core energy.
But the entity let out a screech—a sound that pierced the soul.
The chains shattered.
Asari didn't hesitate.
He called forth his newest technique:
"Devil Cry: Step Two – Black Requiem!"
A surge of corrupted Eather wrapped around his blade. Shadows screamed from its edge. Asari dashed forward again, his movement exploding the ground behind him.
He slashed upward.
The Requiem carved through the air like a song of slaughter.
The entity screeched again—but this time, it bled.
Its veil tore.
A burst of sickly green blood sprayed, evaporating midair.
The city moaned. The people stopped walking. And the chasm at the city's center rumbled.
Something beneath Noctelleth had stirred.
"You cut its mask," Aicha whispered. "You weren't supposed to do that…"
The mask cracked.
And with it, the entity's form collapsed into the shape of a small, frail child—eyes wide, mouth sealed.
Asari lowered his blade.
"It was… a guardian," he said. "And I broke the seal."
The chasm exploded.
Flames and void surged upward, and from the abyss crawled another figure.
This one wore a crown.
Half its face was skull, the other half a mirror.
Its voice was like a song sung in reverse:
"Welcome, heir of the blade. Welcome to your city."
---
"Even a forgotten king waits for the right one to return."
— End Chapter 50 Quote