Smoke choked the sanctuary. Blood, hot and metallic, sprayed across Gwen’s face, painting his vision in a sickening crimson. Father Thomas’s limp form hit the cold stone floor with a dull, hollow thud. Vaelen stood over the body, his cybernetic optic-lens spinning with a cold, whirring click. "An unfortunate necessity," Vaelen’s synthesized voice echoed through the high vaults. "A purge of the obsolete." Screaming wasn't an option. Gwen’s throat felt as though it were lined with broken glass. Rage, black and greasy, bubbled up from his chest, bypassing his usual stuttering hesitation. He didn't think. He didn't try to negotiate. He lunged forward, sweeping his hands through the air. Instead of his usual soft, shimmering lights, a wave of oily, pitch-black darkness erupted from his palms. Templars screamed as the illusion took hold, their minds instantly flooded with their deepest, most visceral terrors. One soldier tore at his own face, convinced his flesh was melting into boiling acid. Another fell to his knees, clawing at his throat as he hallucinated choking on his own liquefied organs. Chaos erupted. Gwen grabbed Father Thomas’s heavy, lifeless shoulders. He dragged the priest backward, his boots sliding through the pools of fresh blood. Heavy iron doors crashed open behind him as he kicked his way into the torrential rain of the outer courtyard. Acidic downpours stung his skin, but he barely felt the burn. He hoisted the old man’s body onto his back, his muscles screaming under the weight. Behind him, the golden temple loomed like a gilded cage. He plunged into the dark, twisting alleys of the upper district, fleeing the searchlights. --- Rain washed the blood from the priest's grey hair, letting it drip onto Gwen's neck. Neon signs flickered overhead, casting sickly green and violet hues over the wet asphalt. He ran until his lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass. He kept his head down, navigating the labyrinth of crumbling stone and rusted pipes. Every step took him lower. Every turn led him deeper into the guts of Nineteenth North, away from the glittering spires of the cyber-elite. He descended the rusted steel scaffolding that led to the Under-Sump. This was the place where the city threw its garbage. This was the place where he had been discarded as a boy, left to rot in a pile of discarded wetware and toxic sludge. Father Thomas had found him here, shivering and half-dead, and had given him a reason to smile. Now, Father Thomas was just a heavy, cold weight against his spine. It felt like a brand. "I'm sorry," Gwen whispered into the dark. Nobody answered. Only the low, constant hum of the city’s massive air filtration turbines replied, echoing like a distant beast. He stumbled over a pile of rusted sheet metal. His knees slammed into the chemical-soaked mud, but he didn't let go of the body. He dragged Thomas into a secluded hollow beneath a massive, leaking sewer pipe. Gunk dripped from the ceiling, sizzling as it hit the puddle beside them. This was the exact spot where he used to hide as a child, waiting for someone, anyone, to come back for him. He had spent years trying to be good, trying to make everyone love him so they would never leave him again. What a pathetic joke. They had left him anyway. They had taken the only man who truly cared, and they had slaughtered him like an animal. --- Cold rain mixed with his tears, but the tears stopped quickly. Something inside Gwen was hardening, crystallizing into a jagged, unbreakable core of ice. Desperate urges to please, the constant anxiety of rejection—it all burned away, replaced by a freezing clarity. He began to dig. He didn't have a shovel, so he used his bare hands. Sharp rocks cut his fingers, and toxic mud lodged itself under his fingernails, but he didn't stop. "They won't hurt you anymore," Gwen muttered, his voice devoid of its usual tremor. His hands moved rhythmically, scooping out the black, oily earth. Soil here was dead, poisoned by centuries of industrial runoff, a fitting grave for a saint murdered by monsters. Hours bled together. He dug until his hands were raw and bleeding, the copper smell of his own blood mixing with the chemical stench of the slums. He laid Father Thomas into the shallow trench, straightening the priest's torn robes. Gwen looked at the old man's face one last time. A peaceful expression on Thomas’s face seemed out of place in this wretched city. "I was weak," Gwen said, his voice flat and hollow. "I thought if I was gentle, the world would be gentle back." He pushed the heavy, wet dirt over the body, covering the grey hair, the closed eyes, the quiet chest. "I was wrong." He patted the mud down, smoothing the grave until it was barely a mound in the shadow of the colossal pipe. Standing up, he wiped his bloody hands on his trousers. Bright neon towers glowed in the distance, a crown of gold belonging to Vaelen and the corrupt dynasties. They thought they could hunt him. They thought they could use him, break him, and discard him like trash. A cold smile touched Gwen's lips, unfamiliar and sharp. He felt no fear. He felt no desperate need for their approval, no longing for a home he would never have. He was home. The slums had welcomed him back, and this time, he would not beg for mercy. He would bring the entire city down to its knees. --- A strange warmth bloomed in his chest, contrasting violently with the freezing rain. Black magic he had absorbed—the Primordial Soup—stirred beneath his ribs. Usually, it felt like a parasitic infection, eating away at his memories, leaving blank spaces where his childhood used to be. But now, he didn't care about his memories. What use was a past full of pain and abandonment? Let the darkness eat it all. He closed his eyes and reached inward, not with his mind, but with his physical hand. His fingers pressed against his sternum, sinking into his own flesh as if it were nothing but liquid. There was no pain, only an intense, dizzying rush of power. Slowly, he pulled his hand back. Clutched in his bleeding fist was a swirling, viscous mass of raw, physical black soup. It writhed and bubbled, defying gravity, casting a strange, non-reflective shadow over the toxic mud. He stared at the substance, his eyes reflecting its deep, abyssal dark. In the past, using this power had fractured his mind, driving him to the brink of madness. But that was because he had fought it. He had tried to remain the gentle, innocent boy he used to be. If he embraced the darkness fully, if he let go of his fragile sanity and became the monster they feared, he wouldn't break. He would rule it. Gwen squeezed his fist, and the black soup pulsed in perfect harmony with his heartbeat. Gwen reaches into his own chest, pulling out a swirling mass of raw, physical black soup, realizing he can now control it without losing his mind if he embraces the darkness.

Chapter 25: The Cold Awakening