No horn, no signal—just instinct. One by one, the soul hunters stood from their bedrolls in the cold gloom of the upper caverns. Shadows stretched long in the half-light, cast by pulsing veins of crystal embedded in the walls. Not morning. There was no daylight here. Only shifts in the pulse of the world below.
The camp was makeshift. Temporary. Just one of many above Namarra's threshold. The ground was uneven, scarred with old claw marks, and the walls whispered when no one spoke.
It was time to go.
They stepped into the tunnel like mourners into a grave too large for any one man.
The world behind them narrowed into a pinprick of dying light. The camp above—its flickering fires, its whispers, its fading warmth—was swallowed by the dark. What remained was only stone, pulse, and silence.
This was the descent.
This was the road to Namarra, the City of Silence—thirty miles of buried sorrow winding through the bowels of the world. Beneath them stirred something ancient, immense, and half-asleep. Something that listened.
The Net.
They walked on eggshells made of bones and memory. They moved like shadows afraid of being seen. Words had no place here. Even thoughts grew sharp with the wrong shape.
A mistake here was not death.
It was worse.
The soul hunters marched in a narrow column—twenty-two Firstborns wrapped in gray and black, their featureless masks pulsing faintly with embedded sigils. Three figures led them, tall and terrifying, their steps lighter than breath.
The Veiled.
The first walked ahead like a phantom. A humming dread radiated from her as if silence itself had bent around her. She moved like someone who'd long forgotten she had bones.
To her left stalked another, clad in tattered, layered silks as dark as coal smoke. His mask had jagged ridges, as though it had been broken by screams and stitched back together with sin. His every movement whispered of violence waiting to be remembered.
Behind them came the last—a broad-shouldered giant, unmoving, his mask sculpted like a flame frozen mid-burst. But there was no fire in it. Just hollow light. Just extinguished fury. His armor didn't clink—it groaned.
Riven walked near the back, steps careful, heartbeat not.
His pulse was louder than footsteps. Louder than breath. He felt it in his ears, his teeth, his spine.
But worse than the pulse was the voice.
That voice inside him. Always waiting. Always watching. It woke like an itch in the dark, slithering up from beneath his thoughts.
"Here we are again," it said. "The bottom of the world. Shackled. Do you remember the chains, Riven? The screams? Your mother, eyes glassy and red? Your father, broken before he could beg?"
His fingers twitched.
"You were nothing then. You're nothing now. You're being led like meat, just like before. And you'll die here. Forgotten. Again."
"Shut up," Riven mouthed. His hands were trembling. He blinked— —and saw it.
The reflection in the crystal vein beside him.
His face. Pale. Hollow. Dead-eyed. Blood matted black pale hair to its brow. It grinned.
"Still just a slave."
"Shut up," he breathed. "Shut up, shut—"
A hand gripped his arm, sharp. A Firstborn beside him—taller, older—shook his head. Eyes hard. Don't. Not here.
Riven's breath slowed. The reflection faded.
But the weight remained.
Hours passed.
Or maybe only minutes.
Time stretched thin in the tunnels. Even light struggled to move.
Then the tunnel opened into a wide chamber—a collapsed pocket of ancient stone, veined with the faintly glowing bones of the Net. The air changed. Cold, still, heavy.
And something was waiting.
From the cracks in the walls they came. Crawling. Slithering. Watching.
Wraithspawn.
Thin-limbed, hairless, with skin like stitched parchment. Mouths where their chests should be. Limbs too long, heads tilted sideways like broken marionettes. They moved like dancers with their strings cut.
Dozens of them. Silent. Cautious. Not attacking. Not yet.
The column froze.
The leading figure raised a hand. The one beside them tilted their head, muscles coiled. The third stood like a mountain bracing for a storm.
They could pass. Slowly. Quietly.
But fear is louder than footsteps.
One of the younger Firstborn stepped forward.
His eyes wild. His grip unsure. His soul shaking.
"No," mouthed the first.
"Don't," breathed the second, the air around him bending.
"Wait," growled the third.
The boy didn't.
His blade sang through the dark.
A shriek—dry, keening, bone-chilling.
The Wraithspawn fell, writhing. And then...
Silence shattered.
The ground beneath their feet thrummed. The crystals in the walls pulsed with sick red light. The Net had felt it.
One death became a scream.
And a scream became a flood.
The walls cracked.
The ceiling groaned.
Eyes lit up in every shadow. Crawling. Pouring. Thousands of them.
Wraithspawn. So many they drowned the dark.