The room smelled of burnt steel and old silence. Cold light flickered above the squad of five, shadows cast sharp against the war-table's holo-map. Dull echoes of distant alarms bled through the reinforced doors. The Final Trial wasn't a simulation anymore. This was real.
High Command's projection crackled in the center of the table faceless, towering, cloaked in static.
"Designation: Specter Team," it began.
Seren barely flinched. Her greatsword stood beside her like a silent oath. Her codename was Iron Howl. Elen, leaning back with eyes half-closed, nodded as Glass Echo. Vera Timeveil watched the shadows crawl behind the speaker, arms crossed. Sorin and Lira, twin pillars of arcane finesse, went by Ashwake and Frostweave.
The voice continued.
"Your mission: Deep-entry incursion into the lower levels of Ghar Ultan. Locate and neutralize a rising Scourgeborn cluster. External communications will be restricted past Entry Node Sigma-Three. All tracking ends there."
The room shifted colder.
"Survival likelihood: 18%."
A pause. No reaction.
"You are authorized to deploy lethal force on all hostiles. Prioritize team integrity. If one falls, you adapt."
Another pause. Then: "Something is active in the ruin. Unclassified presence. Move with care. Move with silence."
The feed cut. A single metal door opened behind them with a hiss. The team rose.
No farewells. No speeches. Only movement.
Ghar Ultan, Entry Node Sigma-Three
The ruin breathed.
That was the first thing Lira noticed. Not metaphorically. Literally. The walls seemed to inhale. Exhale. A faint mist curled along the ground silver, tinged with old blood. Stonework flickered between ancient technology and decayed flesh. It was not natural.
"Temporal folds are weak here," Vera muttered, blades twirling around her fingers. "Something's warping the air."
Elen gripped the sheath of her katana. "Keep positions tight. Wretched are pack-beasts. They strike when we split."
The descent began.
First contact came less than two minutes in.
A wretched shrieked from the corridor ahead distorted, bone-thin, crawling sideways along the ceiling. Then three more. Then dozens. They poured out of vents and crevices like infected memories, black-veined and soulless.
Seren stepped forward with zero hesitation.
Her greatsword hit the ground with a thud.
"Clear the corridor," she growled.
She moved like thunder one swing decapitating three wretched in a single arc. Sparks burst from stone as her blade bit into wall and monster alike. Beside her, Sorin raised his hand. Arcane glyphs spiraled into being and erupted in a sunburst of fire, charring flesh and shattering limbs.
Lira, eyes glowing blue, froze a cluster in place with frost sigils, then shattered them midair with precision blasts. Her movements were methodical like surgery with a glacier.
Elen weaved through the backline, katana silent and fast. She moved without breath, every slice a memory erased. A wretched lunged for her blind spot Vera was already there, daggers flashing once, twice, thrice. The thing collapsed, convulsing.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to.
By the time they reached the inner ring of the ruin, forty-nine wretched were dead. None of the five bore wounds.
Seren exhaled. "That's the easy part."
Lira nodded slowly. "Where are the Scourgeborn?"
Sorin knelt, touching the cracked ruin floor. "Blood resonance is thick. They're near."
Then Vera froze.
"Wait."
Everyone stilled.
Something moved behind the wall.
No inside it.
The stone pulsed. Then cracked. A shape began to push through a figure, wrong and jagged, barely humanoid, its face an inverse mirror of Vera's own. Hollow eyes. Teeth like inverted bone. Blood dripped upward from its limbs.
A Scourgeborn and not a weak one.
"Contact," Elen said softly.
The ruin groaned.
From every corner, more began to stir.
And above them, unseen and far deeper, something watched.
The first trial had truly begun.