"The horses are ready, Young Master," Sebas said, breaking the silence. "And Sir Valerius has arrived. He... expressed some skepticism about taking orders from a child, but the Dame Seraphine seems to have corrected his outlook."

  Lucien stood up, his cloak billowing around him as he walked toward the door. "He doesn't have to like me, Sebas. He just has to be useful."

  As they stepped out into the night, two massive figures in gleaming plate armor waited on horseback. The silver of Seraphine and the gold of Valerius caught the moonlight, making them look like celestial guardians.

  "The Eastern Aqueducts are 10,000 steps away," Seraphine said, her voice echoing through her visor. "If your math is right, the mastermind will be there in three hours, giving us an hour to hide."

  "Then let's not keep him waiting," Lucien said, mounting his horse.

  As they rode off, the silence was heavy and awkward. Sir Valerius Dawnward was staring daggers into the back of Lucien’s head, his golden armor clanking with every stride of his horse. Lucien didn't mind. He kept his eyes on the horizon, watching the sun dip lower as they rode through the afternoon.

  Halfway to their destination, they crested a hill and met a powerful force. The Church had arrived with an army—hundreds of soldiers in white and silver, their banners snapping in the wind.

  Lucien paled at the sight. "What the hell are they doing here?" he asked, his tone sharp and angry.

  Dame Seraphine opened her mouth to answer, but Sir Valerius beat her to it. "They are the army that will confront our enemies and crush them with righteous force," he said, his voice booming with pride.

  Lucien turned in his saddle, glaring at the giant of a man. "Are you stupid?"

  Sir Valerius did not take kindly to that. His face flushed, and he emitted a crushing aura of intimidation, the sheer weight of his holy energy making the air vibrate. "Are you insulting a Paladin of the Church, boy?"

  Lucien ignored the pressure, his Equilibrium acting as a shield that kept him rooted and calm. "It’s not an insult if it’s a true observation."

  Sir Valerius was stunned for a second, taken aback by the boy's immunity to his aura, but his anger only flared hotter. "Pray tell, then," Valerius growled, "what do you recommend, 'expert'?"

  "I recommend stealth," Lucien answered flatly. "You can’t sneak an entire army underground. If the mastermind catches wind of this many boots hitting the stone, we lose everything. They'll collapse the tunnels, vanish, and we’ll have to restart from zero while more people turn to glass."

  Lucien leaned forward, his storm-grey eyes narrowing at the Paladin. "This isn't a battlefield, Sir Valerius. It's an operation. An army is just a loud way to fail."

  "Let's listen to our expert," Dame Seraphine intervened, her voice slicing through the tension like a chilled blade. She moved her horse between the two, effectively acting as a buffer. She wanted to de-escalate the situation, but mostly, she wanted to save Sir Valerius's face. It was a pathetic sight—a decorated Paladin of the Church losing his temper and his dignity in a shouting match with a thirteen-year-old boy.

  Sir Valerius scoffed, looking back at his gleaming army with a stubborn jaw. He opened his mouth to argue further, but Lucien didn't give him the chance.

  "I guess the word of an expert means nothing," Lucien said, his voice dripping with feigned disappointment. He sighed dramatically, leaning back in his saddle. "I suppose my ability to wake the sleepers and extend their lives was just a fluke. The Church must have already solved this curse that's been causing them such a headache. What do I know? I’m just a nobody."

  Lucien’s mockery was sharp and calculated. He was throwing Valerius’s own arrogance back in his face, highlighting the fact that for all their soldiers and holy light, the Church had been helpless until he arrived.

  "You—" Valerius started, his face turning a shade of purple that rivaled a bruised plum.

  "He's right, Valerius," Seraphine said, her green eyes fixed on the dark entrance of the aqueducts ahead. "An army is a hammer. This curse is a shadow. You can't hit a shadow with a hammer. We go in as a small unit. The army stays here to secure the perimeter and ensure no one escapes the tunnels once we flush them out."

  Valerius grumbled, but he finally lowered his aura of intimidation. The weight lifted from the air, though the "awkward silence" had now curdled into a cold, professional resentment.

  "Fine," Valerius spat. "But if we find ourselves surrounded because we lack numbers, I will personally carry your remains back to the capital."

  "I'll hold you to that," Lucien replied coolly. "But let's focus on making sure there are no remains to carry."

  They left the thundering footsteps of the army behind, the bright banners fading into the twilight as the four of them—Lucien, Sebas, and the two Paladins—approached the yawning stone mouth of the Eastern Aqueducts. The air here was damp, smelling of old rain and a faint, sickly-sweet scent that Lucien recognized all too well.

  It was the smell of salt and death.

  They entered the ducts and walked in silence, their footsteps dampened by the thick layer of fine white dust that coated the floor. One of the few benefits of traveling with Paladins was that they were essentially light incarnate; their armor cast a steady, warm glow that pushed back the oppressive shadows of the deep earth.

  Lucien pulled out the map, reading the intricate charcoal lines with ease. To anyone else, the route would have been a death trap of confusing turns and false walls, but Lucien had practically lived in these tunnels for the last year and a half. He moved with a predatory confidence, navigating the labyrinthine pipes as if they were his own backyard.

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  Eventually, the narrow tunnel opened up into a space so vast their light couldn't reach the ceiling. They had arrived at the underground Cathedral of Salt.

  When the Paladins' light hit the walls, the entire chamber ignited in a blinding, crystalline sparkle. Massive pillars of translucent white salt reached upward like frozen lightning, and the floor was a bed of crushed crystals that crunched like fresh snow. Despite the dark origin of this place, it felt undeniably sacred—hushed, grand, and terrifyingly beautiful.

  Lucien found himself catching his breath. He knew this place was a factory of death, but the sheer scale of it was awe-inspiring.

  "I can feel holiness here," Dame Seraphine whispered, her hand moving instinctively together for a prayer. Her emerald eyes scanned the shimmering vault with a mixture of reverence and wariness.

  "I agree," Sir Valerius added, his usual boisterous voice hushed to a respectful rumble. "The holy energy is dense here... it feels like a sanctum."

  Lucien’s frown deepened as he scanned the shimmering expanse. The "holiness" the Paladins felt was dangerous.

  "Don't let the beauty fool you," he warned, his voice cutting through their wonder. "I don’t know where this holiness is coming from, but I know this isn't normal. It seems our bet might actually pay off. This has to be the next location for the curse."

  He began surveying the perimeter, his eyes darting between the massive salt pillars and the natural indentations in the cavern walls. He quickly identified two strategic vantage points.

  "Sebas and Sir Valerius, you hide there," Lucien commanded, pointing to a jagged outcrop near the western entrance. "Dame Seraphine and I will take the grotto over here." He gestured toward a small, arched alcove on the opposite side of the chamber.

  Sir Valerius looked at Lucien with scathing eyes, his hand tightening on the grip of his mace. "Why separate us like that?" he demanded, his voice echoing in the vast space. "We are stronger as a single unit."

  "Because I don't like you," Lucien said flatly, not even bothering to look back.

  Valerius’s face turned a dangerous shade of crimson, his aura beginning to flare again. But before he could roar a retort, Lucien added, "It’s also better to have us attack from both sides. We catch them in a pincer movement—total surprise. It prevents them from finding an easy exit if the mastermind tries to vanish on us."

  The tactical logic diffused the immediate tension, though Valerius still looked like he wanted to grind Lucien into the salt floor.

  "Let's hide," Lucien said, his tone turning hushed. "This isn't a guaranteed success yet. Let’s not take any risks by standing out in the open."

  They moved into their respective positions. The grotto was cramped and smelled of brine, forcing Lucien and Seraphine into close proximity. From their shadows, the cathedral looked even more surreal—a silent, sparkling stage waiting for a performer.

  Minutes turned into an hour. The only sound was the slow, rhythmic dripping of mineral-rich water somewhere in the distance. Then, the air began to vibrate. It wasn't a sound at first, but a pressure against their eardrums. A faint, low hum started to resonate through the salt pillars, making the crystalline walls glow with a soft, rhythmic pulse.

  In the cramped darkness of the grotto, Lucien could feel the warmth of Seraphine’s presence and the faint, steady rhythm of her breath. After a year and a half of cold stone and the smell of death, the proximity of another living soul—especially one as vibrant as hers—was a welcome distraction. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to simply exist in that warmth, a rare luxury for a man who had lived through an apocalypse and returned to prevent another.

  But the moment was short-lived. He had work to do.

  Equilibrium was a fickle, terrifying mistress. He had spent the last 2 years testing its boundaries in the dark. He hadn’t even told Sebas about the time he’d smuggled a bottle of wine into the tunnels; he had tried to "tilt" the concentration of the alcohol, and a single sip had sent him into a blackout that lasted twelve hours. It was a power that shouldn't belong to a mortal—the ability to shift the fundamental "weight" of concepts, senses, and physical reality.

  He feared the source of this power. In his experience, gifts this great always came with strings that eventually tightened into a noose. But if he was going to challenge the mastermind or any higher power, he needed this edge.

  Sitting with his eyes closed, Lucien began his silent drills. He tilted his hearing until he could hear the scrape of a beetle three chambers away, then tilted his density until his body felt as heavy as lead.

  Beside him, Dame Seraphine was watching with a mixture of suspicion and awe. She could feel the air around them warping. One moment, the gravity in the grotto felt so heavy she could barely lift her hand; the next, she felt light as a feather, as if she were standing on the very peak of the world.

  She studied the boy's profile in the dim light. When the "Expert" first appeared, she had been skeptical. A thirteen-year-old boy, as he was now claiming to hold back a curse that had stumped the High Priests seemed like a farce. Then there was his arrogance—refusing every royal and holy summons, blowing off the Church as if they were pesky creditors.

  Who are you, Lucien D'Roselle? she wondered. Seraphine quickly looked away, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was a High Paladin; she had faced demons and stared down heretics without flinching, but the weight behind that boy’s eyelids felt like a physical pressure. It wasn't just wisdom—it was the flat, hollowed-out look of someone who had seen far too much and had simply run out of room to care.

  No child should have eyes that look that dead, she thought, her grip tightening on her silver scabbard.

  Seraphine stole another glance at him. Despite the dirt and the grime of the tunnels, Lucien was an undeniably handsome young man. He had a sharp, refined jawline and a natural grace that even a year of digging in the mud couldn't suppress. His white-blond hair was a chaotic mess of strands, yet it fell across his forehead in a way that felt elegant in a careless, effortless fashion.

  His flirtatious attitude when they first met had been shocking, borderline blasphemous, but strangely, she didn't hate him for it. She has given her heart and soul to the Goddess Solennea—so she took no real offense to it. He possessed a strange, magnetic charm that somehow allowed him to pull it off. He didn't feel like a boy playing at being a man; he felt like a king who had forgotten his crown, his storm-grey eyes holding a depth that made her feel like she was staring into a hurricane.

  "How are you doing that?" Seraphine whispered, her voice barely audible. "The world... it feels like it's leaning. What are you?"

  Lucien didn't open his eyes, but a small, tired smile played on his lips. "I'm just a boy with a very good sense of balance, Dame Seraphine. And right now, the scale is about to tip."

  The heavy, artificial silence Lucien had cultivated shattered like glass. He snapped his eyes open, the storm-grey irises sharp and focused.

  From the darkness of the interconnected tunnels, a new sound emerged—not the haunting, melodic hum of the salt, but the frantic, rhythmic slapping of bare feet and heavy boots against the crystalline floor. Dozens of people were running toward the cathedral in rapid succession, their breaths coming in ragged, desperate gasps.

  Accompanying the noise was a wave of pure, visceral wrongness. It was a greasy, eerie sensation that made the hair on Lucien’s arms stand up—a feeling of absolute spiritual decay.

  "They're here," Lucien hissed, his body coiling like a spring.

  Dame Seraphine shifted, her hand hovering over her blade, her emerald eyes tracking the shifting shadows at the far end of the hall. The "holiness" she had felt earlier was being choked out by this new, putrid energy.

  "Our bet has paid off," Lucien said. He was strangely looking forward to what was coming.