Chapter 75: Edge of Madness

As Dakarie stared up into the darkened sky, a sickening ripple distorted the heavens. Through the smog-wreathed clouds, a shape descended sleek, spined, and unmistakably Mahasimu.

A Thal'karn-class dropship.

Dakarie's stomach dropped.

"They found us," he muttered. Then louder, to his guards: "We move. Now. The Mahasimu are onto us already."

The two Royal Sentinels towering figures in golden exo-armor marked with the sigils of House Xiran tightened formation around him. Plasma halberds at the ready, they vanished into the fog with their prince.

The world of Jha'mor'ak was dense with a kind of deathless pressure. Psychic smog crawled over the ground, brushing against the skin like fingers, whispering in every tongue ever known.

Shapes swam through the vapor. Memory-wraiths. Echoes. Lies.

Then it appeared a pyramid-monolith, unlike any Dakarie had ever seen. Its obsidian sides wept black fluid from veins etched with soul-iron. Massive, silent. Waiting.

At its mouth stood figures the Faceless.

The Faceless – Slaves of the Seers

Their forms were humanoid, draped in gray-black ceremonial cloth stitched with soulwire, their heads enclosed in tight wraps and smooth porcelain masks utterly blank. No eyes. No mouths. No voice, unless permitted.

They did not need to see, nor speak. Their minds were shackled directly to the will of the Broken Seers.

Eons ago, when the Seers began to dream too loudly and collapse minds by accident, they commanded that no being in their presence shall ever again look upon them or tempt fate with curiosity.

So the Faceless were made. Once mortals, perhaps Zelith, perhaps something older now hollow things, stripped of identity. Their names burned from existence. Their only identifiers were soul-bonded numbers, etched in glowing script across their bare chests or on branded iron tags woven into their robes. These numbers bound them for eternity to their masters' desires.

One stepped forward, bearing the number:

"VII:743-Delta."

It tilted its head to Dakarie and somehow, in his mind, the voice came:

"What seeks the child of the Starshade now, in the land of forgotten gods?"

"I seek audience," Dakarie said, carefully, "with the Broken Seers."

"You are being hunted."

"Do you know what follows you?"

"They wear the face of death… the faceless of another kind…"

Another Faceless emerged from the fog behind the first this one cloaked in royal purple, etched in spiraling obsidian plate.

The noble castes.

One of the Five Faceless Kings.

Its number burned bright across its robes: I:1-Aurum.

"We remember," the King intoned, and even Dakarie's guards fell to one knee instinctively.

"We remember the Ancient Shadows. They once walked here. They bled here. And they shall again."

Ruthen – Descent into Seerworld

The Thal'karn dropship howled through the atmosphere like a descending god of war.

Inside, Ruthen stood motionless, claws gripping the restraints. Her Thal'karn were chained, agitated. The beasts had begun to whisper through their tethered minds the planet did not want them here.

The ship smashed into the broken plains of Jha'mor'ak, carving a molten trench through the obsidian crust. The hatch blew open Ruthen emerged, leading her handlers and unshackling the Thal'karn into the fog.

"Fan out. Interlink your psy-chains. We track by thought."

The hunt began.

Cracked bone obelisks passed them, scrawled with glyphs that seemed to blink. Dunes shifted without wind. Distant moans echoed from the land itself.

But soon, Ruthen saw something movement through the mist.

Not Dakarie.

A Faceless warrior, plated in bronze with binding chains draped across its torso, stepped between her and the psychic trail.

It carried no weapon. It needed none.

"Step aside," Ruthen barked, eyes narrowing.

It did not move.

Then Ruthen looked up.

Not far, standing at the steps of a monolith, she saw him.

Dakarie.

And standing before him a Faceless King.

"Tighten formation," Ruthen whispered to her handlers.

"This just got… complicated."

The Thal'karn growled. The air screamed.

And the world of the Seers watched with hollowed eyes.