The tenth bell's toll was not merely a sound—it was an event. A shuddering, world-breaking force that sent cracks spiraling through reality itself. The sky twisted, the streets of Ebonfall split like fractured glass, and the darkness surged forward in a tidal wave of hunger.
Vael barely had time to react before the Void Prince moved. One moment, it was standing amidst the swirling abyss; the next, it was inches from him. A shadow-wreathed hand lashed out, faster than thought.
Vael raised Vesperfang just in time. The cursed blade howled as it clashed against the Prince's touch, an unnatural force colliding with something older, something deeper. Sparks of eerie blue fire burst from the contact, illuminating the creature's hollow, ember-lit eyes.
"You resist," the Void Prince whispered, voice slithering through Vael's mind like oil. "Good. Struggle. It makes the claiming all the sweeter."
Then the world lurched.
A new chime rang out—a clear, crystalline note that sliced through the cacophony like a dagger through silk. The chains of darkness binding Vael snapped, recoiling like severed veins.
Seraphine Duskborne stepped forward, her silver eyes gleaming with cold fire. She lifted an ornate, rune-etched bell in one hand—a relic of impossible craftsmanship, its surface engraved with symbols that pulsed with raw power.
"You talk too much," she said.
She rang the bell again.
The sound was agony to the darkness. The air itself rippled, and the Void Prince staggered, its form momentarily flickering, as if struggling to maintain its shape. The swirling mass of horrors beyond the rift recoiled, shrieking.
Vael didn't hesitate. He surged forward, Vesperfang a blur of death. His blade struck true, cleaving through the Prince's form. Shadows screamed as the cut severed more than flesh—something deeper, something vital.
For the first time, the Void Prince recoiled.
But the battle was far from over.
The eleventh bell rang.
The rift convulsed, widening further. From within, something vast and writhing began to emerge—something too large, too alien, its form incomprehensible to mortal sight.
Lyra grabbed Vael's arm. "We have to stop this now!"
Seraphine's gaze remained locked on the Void Prince. "We need to reach the cathedral. The heart of the bells' curse is there."
Vael nodded, tightening his grip on Vesperfang. "Then we carve a path through hell."
The city of Ebonfall, already dying, was about to descend into something far worse.
Chapter Four: The Cathedral of Ash
The eleventh bell's toll sent a tremor through Ebonfall, deep enough that even the dead beneath the city must have felt it. The rift above yawned wider, and something vast stirred within—limbs, or perhaps tendrils, shifting in the abyss beyond sight.
Vael barely had time to think. The Void Prince was weakened but not defeated, its shadowed form still coiling at the edges of reality. Seraphine had shaken it, but the battle was far from won.
"We move now," Seraphine commanded, striding toward the ruined cathedral at the city's heart. "Before the twelfth bell rings."
Lyra's tome flared with light as she traced a warding sigil in the air. "And if it does?"
Seraphine glanced back, her silver eyes burning. "Then the veil shatters completely. And Ebonfall will become the first city to fall to the Dark Between."
The Dark Between.
Vael had heard whispers of it before, in half-forgotten myths and the ramblings of dying men. A place beyond life and death. A void between worlds, where the Taken were born and horrors older than time waited for the barriers to thin.
He gritted his teeth. "Then let's move."
They ran.
A Secret Unveiled
As they neared the cathedral, the air grew heavy, thick with the weight of something ancient and watching.
The doors loomed ahead—half-collapsed, wreathed in eldritch symbols that pulsed faintly. But before they could reach them, the shadows shifted.
The Void Prince reformed before them.
But it wasn't alone.
Figures stood beside it, their bodies wrapped in the same liquid darkness, their eyes hollow voids.
Vael's breath caught. He knew these faces.
Knights of the Blackened Veil. The elite warriors of Ebonfall. Once mortal. Once heroes.
Once his brothers-in-arms.
A sick realization crashed over him. They had not vanished in the war against the darkness. They had become it.
The Void Prince tilted its head, sensing his horror.
"You were not the first to bear the mark, Vael Ardent," it whispered. "Nor will you be the last."
The twelfth bell began to toll.
And the gates of the cathedral blew open.