Jayden_8148

In the fractured realm of **Everburn Labyrinth**, where ash falls like snow and forgotten gods whisper through cursed bloodlines, **Seryn Octavius**—the last heir of the soul-devouring **Emberdirge Dynasty**—barters memories for power. His family’s ancestral curse binds him to a grim truth: every drop of alchemical elixir he brews erases a fragment of his past. But when his exiled mentor, **Lady Eluinora**, is exposed as a traitor who sold his clan to the God of Oblivion, Seryn’s quest for vengeance unravels a millennia-old conspiracy: the very curses that cripple the ancient dynasties are shards of a slain primordial deity, and *he* is the crucible to resurrect it.  

To survive, Seryn must master the forbidden **Ashborne Alchemy**, turning his family’s funeral rites into weapons—distilling grief into corrosive mists, forging vows into chainblades, and weaponizing his own decaying soul. Allies become liabilities: a mechanized orc warrior whose heart ticks toward self-destruction, a moon-cursed assassin hunting her reflection, and Eluinora herself, whose lies may hold the only key to salvation.  

As the **Clockwork Throne** awakronsume cities into slag and the **Thousand-Eyed Abyss** hungers for his lineage, Seryn faces an impossible choice: embrace the erosion of his humanity to become the realm’s destroyer, or shatter the alchemical laws of the universe—and with them, every soul he vowed to protect

`Ember Oath: Erosion of Souls`

The crucible's shriek tore through the night. 

Seryn crashed through the chapel's stained-glass window into the torrential rain, his black robes billowing like raven wings. Behind him, the explosion of bronze shrapnel muffled the gurgling screams of Guild enforcers—fools who'd dared touch the Ashborne Core. As shredded flesh and metal shards pelted his back, he felt a twisted thrill. 

The *Oblivion Tincture* burned in his throat. *Three seconds.* His only chance. 

As the elixir took effect, the chapel's outline began to melt. Stone walls collapsed into tar-like sludge; pursuers' curses stretched into metallic drones. Seryn bit his tongue, anchoring his fraying consciousness with pain—a lesson Eluinora had drilled into him: *To erase memories, plant a thorn of truth within the lie.* 

When he staggered into a rain-slicked alley, blue phosphorescence shimmered in the puddles—the erased chapel's coordinates dissolving into runic trails. Seryn ripped off his soaked hood, finding the gear-shaped erosion on his wrist now crawling past his elbow, metallic veins pulsing beneath his skin. 

"Ignithera's rust…" He hissed. His mother's neck had snapped from the same mechanical plague on a snowy night a decade past. The Guild's use of a rival dynasty's curse as a weapon meant the Ashborne Core's value exceeded even his darkest estimates. 

Rot stabbed his nostrils. Seryn spun, hurling a bone-ash urn. The ash hardened into spikes midair—only to impale a *melting* corpse. A Guild apprentice, his chest burst open by clockwork gears, a brass key protruding from his eye socket. 

"Evening, Funeral Master." The corpse grinned, rust flaking from its teeth. "Need a dental check-up?" 

The key sprang forward. Seryn dodged, but the lens attached to its tip grazed his temple. Reflected in the glass wasn't his face, but Eluinora cradling an infant in the rain—the swaddle he'd tried to forget, now clearly bearing the harp sigil that mirrored his own. 

"Surprise!" The corpse dug a memory crystal from its brain, dripping with viscera. "The Guild sends regards. Oh, and—" 

Seryn's obsidian blade slit its throat first. Instead of blood, steaming liquid memory gushed out, coalescing into Eluinora's face. Her lips formed the same words from that night of betrayal: 

"*Some souls aren't even worth the ash.*" 

Agony exploded through his erosion marks. Seryn collapsed as gears erupted from his left knuckles. Steamcarriage engines roared in the distance—Guild hounds closing in. Trembling, he gutted the corpse and salvaged a half-empty vial of *Pain Amplifier*, its violet hue marking it as black-market premium. 

When the tincture hit his tongue, the world split. 

In the material layer, rain fell straight. In the other, droplets reversed into glowing vascular networks. Seryn saw the city's underbelly—a throbbing mechanical organ, every pipe grafted to living hearts. At its core loomed the Guild's inverted tower: not a building, but a mechanized brain stewing in emerald fluids. 

"Found you." A raspy voice echoed above. 

Seryn looked up. A female orc perched on a fire escape, her left arm a cannon barrel, right eye a weeping pearl. Mermaid scales glinted in her rain-soaked hair. But the chain-pierced eye brand on her neck seized his breath—the mark of House Sargamar. 

"Want to survive tonight?" She tossed a rusted gear-key. "Follow the liar's blood." 

The orc pricked her finger, flinging a silver droplet that snaked through the alley, painting shifting paths on walls. Seryn gripped the key, its teeth meshing with the gears beneath his eroded skin. 

<p>The storm worsened. As he chased the blood deeper into the city's bowels, a sound froze his blood—the creak of an obsidian coffin opening. *His* coffin, birthing something in the rain. </p>

**Chapter 2: Rusted Gears and the Blood of Lies**

Chapter 2: Rusted Gears and the Blood of Lies