Chapter 8: Crown of Blades

Smoke hadn't even cleared from the clearing before the next wave hit.

No time to regroup. No time to speak. No time to breathe.

The air screamed—a shriek of broken pressure and ruptured silence.

A cultist dropped from the canopy.

No chant. No warning. Just impact.

He hit the ground like a meteor, sending out a shockwave that flattened the nearby trees and hurled Leon like a ragdoll into the ridge with a crunch. Branches exploded. Rocks cracked. Dirt surged outward in a ring of force.

Cid reacted before the dust settled. He didn't think—he moved.

Chains burst from the ground like hungry serpents, aiming for vital points—but the man dodged them all with inhuman grace. He twisted mid-air at impossible angles, his body glitching, warping in stuttering skips of reality. One second his shoulder was leading, the next his spine—he didn't move like flesh. He moved like a corrupted memory.

His Cipher wasn't just enhanced.

It was broken.

Deliberately.

"You're not getting away this time," Cid growled, voice low, thunder beneath ice.

The cultist turned—and opened his mouth.

Cid's voice came out.

Twisted. Echoing. Filtered through distortion and death.

"We are what you will become."

That tore it.

Cid lunged.

This wasn't like before. These weren't disposable zealots with unstable Ciphers and suicidal magic burns. These were Ascendants—cultists who had devoured their own Ciphers, rebuilt themselves from agony and soul fracture, twisted into avatars of the Hollow King's will.

The forest turned to chaos.

Vaelra barely raised a ward in time as a lance of void-light split the sky in half. The spell passed within inches of her face and she screamed—not in pain, but in effort—as the barrier collapsed a moment later. Trees behind her were atomized.

Iris blinked out of sight, then reappeared mid-air—floating, daggers already gleaming with soulcurse. She dropped onto another Ascendant whose face had been replaced with a spiral of eyes. With a cry, she slashed across its chest and temple. Blood sprayed—black, like burned oil—but it wasn't enough. The creature shrieked and swung wildly.

Leon rejoined the fray, staggering with a gash across his ribs. His sword ignited with glyphfire. He screamed war rites between clenched teeth and charged.

Cid ignored it all.

He met his double in the eye—and tore into him.

They clashed like gods.

Chains versus blade-skin. Curse-forged steel against flesh that didn't bleed right.

Every blow detonated shockwaves. Trees cracked. Ground ruptured. Leaves burned midair from the heat of their magic.

Cid moved first—launching a soul-rip, an ancient spell designed to tear mind from matter. The cultist didn't block it. He absorbed it. His body opened—ribs curling back like the petals of a monstrous flower—and drank the spell. He laughed as it vanished down his chest.

"What the fuck are you?" Cid hissed.

The man's ribs reformed with a sickening squelch.

"Closer to you than they are."

Then he spoke a Name.

Not a word. Not a spell. A Name. A true one. One that scraped across reality like broken glass on bone.

Cid staggered.

Magic faltered.

The world around him rippled like a mirage. His chains spasmed, uncertain—like prey sensing something older and hungrier than them.

Then the ground split.

And something crawled out.

Not a creature. A limb. Towering. Boneless and jointed wrong, covered in glyphs that moved on their own. It dragged itself through the rent in space and collapsed onto the forest floor, twitching, heavy with unnatural gravity.

A hand. A god's forgotten hand.

"Do you see now?" the cultist rasped. "We serve the true King. We are opening the wound."

Cid's eyes burned.

"Then I'll cauterize it."

He pointed.

Chains exploded forward like razors—soulmetal streaking through the air. They wrapped the limb, cutting through flesh-glyphs, biting deep.

It screamed.

Not with one voice. With many. Ancient. Layered. Nonhuman. The sound shook bark loose from trees and ruptured the ears of the living.

Still, Cid crushed it—coil after coil tightening until the limb popped, imploding into a slurry of ash and cursed marrow.

Iris moved next.

She appeared beside the spiral-eyed cultist again, dagger humming. With a single, savage motion, she stabbed through his temple, the blade glowing with cursed silver. Then she twisted.

The cultist spasmed violently. His Cipher collapsed in a shower of burning sigils. His mouth opened, but only blood poured out—and something else. Maggots of memory slithered from his tongue before he finally stopped thrashing.

Vaelra, blood on her lips, raised one hand and hurled a ball of pure null-energy at another Ascendant. The spell hit dead center.

The cultist evaporated.

Literally. Gone. No scream. No remains. Just flickering particles vanishing like snow in firelight.

But the leader remained.

He hadn't lifted a hand.

He just watched. Eyes glowing. Smile fixed.

Waiting.

Cid broke through his opponent's guard, slammed a punch laced with shadow-curse into the man's gut. The cultist folded in half. But he didn't fall.

His skin rippled. Peeled away in threads.

Not blood. Not flesh.

But maggots.

Made of light.

Thousands of them poured from the corpse-shell, scuttling across the clearing, chittering in Cid's voice:

"We are what you will become."

Cid recoiled, a rare flicker of disgust.

Vaelra cursed. "It wasn't real. A decoy construct. Light-mimicry using soul fragments. The real caster's—"

"—Here," said a calm voice.

Behind them.

Cid turned.

The cultist had walked into the center of their formation. No flash. No warning. Just presence. Calm. Controlled. Almost reverent.

Chains rose. Cid's eyes narrowed.

"You stayed," he said.

The cultist inclined his head.

"This is the moment. You're ready to see."

"See what?"

"Why the world fears you. Why the Hollow King dreams of you."

And then he moved.

Not teleportation. Not spellwork.

Speed.

Pure speed, enhanced by runes carved directly into his flesh. They flared with red-black light, burning with death-oaths.

He hit Leon first—shattered the boy's sword with a flick of his hand.

Then he turned.

Iris lunged—he blocked both her blades with two fingers, then breathed on her.

The impact launched her thirty feet into a boulder.

She hit with a crunch.

Vaelra raised a shield.

He walked through it. The shield shattered like paper.

Only Cid remained.

And that was how the cultist wanted it.

"You want to fight me alone," Cid said. "Fine."

His voice dropped an octave.

"I'll bury you alone."

He stepped forward—and released.

Chains spun like hurricanes. His soulform ignited—ashen wings outstretched, crown of rusted blades forming over his head. Eyes burned with cursefire. The ground cracked. The air bled.

Their auras collided.

The forest ceased to exist.

Trees disintegrated. Wind stopped. Sound bent.

Every punch shattered the air. Every spell ruptured reality.

The cultist fought like entropy incarnate—reshaping his limbs into spears, turning his blood into glyphs, his mouth into black fire.

Cid devoured every blow. Absorbed, redirected, reversed.

"You're not a god," he hissed, slamming a fist into the man's jaw. "You're a warning."

The cultist coughed blood—but smiled.

"You haven't even seen your Cipher's true shape."

Cid grabbed his throat.

"Then show me."

And finally—the cultist bled for real.

He collapsed, knees hitting ash.

Cid stood over him. Breathing hard. Chains swirling like storm serpents.

The cultist's eyes dimmed—but his grin remained.

"You'll remember this," he whispered. "When the King wakes. When he calls your real name."

Then his body lit up from the inside—symbols burning through his skin. A fail-safe.

He exploded into dust.

Gone before they could question him.

Silence.

Utter.

The team was broken.

Iris staggered to her feet, nose bleeding, eyes glassy. Leon lay on his side, barely moving. Vaelra whispered healing rites with trembling fingers, her face pale as death.

Cid didn't speak.

He stood alone in a ruin of forest.

And for the first time since entering Hollow Vale…

He felt cold.

s bones, he knew—

This wasn't over.

This was invitation.