The soldier Lucian possessed stood at the gate of Bastion Ardent—an outpost nestled high in the razor-back cliffs.
He blinked slowly, eyes dulled with the weight of two minds inside one skull. The guards didn't notice. Not yet.
Inside his chest, Lucian's soul coiled, waiting.
This was no mere test.
It was a message.
---
He walked the soldier's body straight into the command tent.
"Private Tenner," the officer barked. "Report."
Lucian didn't answer.
He simply drew a knife from his belt and slashed the table in half with unnatural precision.
The officer stood, startled. "What the hell—?"
Lucian smiled through Tenner's mouth.
"You left your doors open."
And then he seized.
---
Back in the Abyss, Lucian's real body arched backward in the circle of runes, eyes glowing like twin novas.
He pushed.
Through Tenner's body, he summoned heat—not flame, but friction. Static energy built in the air until papers curled, lamps shattered, and the officer collapsed screaming, convulsing from pure magical interference.
Guards burst in too late.
Lucian—the mind inside Tenner—made the soldier speak once more:
> "Tell the Sancturm this: the Light they buried walks in your dreams now."
Then he tore himself out.
---
In the Hollowed's chamber, Lucian gasped and slammed a fist into the stone.
He had done it again.
No blade. No war.
Only fear.
---
He walked out into the training hall where his seven awaited, ready and wordless.
"They know we're real now," he told them. "But they still think they're safe."
Tyen asked, "What next?"
Lucian glanced at the wall-map carved into ancient obsidian. "We give them nightmares."
---
That night, Kaenra returned with a scroll. "Intercepted Sancturm communiqué. They're holding trials. Rooting out the 'weak-minded.' They fear you."
Lucian opened it. His eyes narrowed.
"Trial's at Bastion Merinth."
His hands trembled.
That was where they executed Lira.
---
He didn't speak for the rest of the day.
But that night—he called his team.
"We move tomorrow."
---
The journey through the Abyss tunnels took six hours. They emerged from the shadows like ghosts, cloaked in spells of silence and illusion cast by Brael.
Lucian led the charge personally.
At the gate of Bastion Merinth, they didn't knock.
They entered.
Kresh tore apart the western wall with root-vines. Solvyr sang a low, humming death-chime that made five guards collapse before they could scream.
Tyen teleported inside the command hall, placing glyphs of silence that swallowed sound itself.
Lucian walked into the center, his new blade humming with bent time.
One by one, the officers dropped.
He didn't kill them.
Not yet.
He made them look at him.
He made them remember.
"Lira," he whispered.
And then he burned the Sancturm's seal from the stone with a single swipe.
---
When he left, the walls still trembled.
He didn't smile.
But he felt something crack open in the world above.
A realization.
He was no longer the one falling.
They were.