pulled the lance free, her expression serene, untouched by the brutality of her strike. She withdrew the tip, leaving smoldering flesh, and shifted her silver eyes to Rheno. “Your resistance is… inefficient,” she stated, her voice like chimes of ice. “Surrender, or be cleansed.” She kicked off a ruined balustrade, clearing the perimeter wall in a blur of tainted brilliance. The Monolith, as if responding to her exit, flashed a new directive, urgent and demanding. [BOSS LOCATED: ANARYS FAEN (GATE SAINTESS). STATUS: FLEEING.] Rheno stopped. Blood bubbled between Vysa's fingers as she pressed against the cauterized, blackened fissure in her abdomen. The shades prowled the perimeter, edges flaring with residual heat, waiting on his command. Korin leaned forward, his smoky form pulling toward the breach where the boss had vanished. The system pinged pursuit coordinates against Rheno's vision, red and incessant, while Vysa’s breath rattled against the stone below him. The pursuit coordinates pulsed, a beacon to vengeance. Rheno ignored them. He dropped to his knees beside Vysa, the obsidian Void-Shard Blade still humming faintly in his grip. The dark tendrils that made up Korin’s form pulsed, a silent question. Rheno didn’t glance up. He pressed a hand to Vysa’s abdomen, the heat from the wound radiating through his glove. Her skin was clammy, her lips a pale blue. “The blade… it stopped the bleeding,” Vysa rasped, her eyes fluttering open. “For a second.” The heat was internal, cauterizing, but the wound was too wide, too deep. The pressure she applied was futile. Rheno saw the fear in her eyes, not of death, but of being left behind. “No,” Rheno said, his voice a low rumble. He gestured to Korin. “Bind her.” Korin’s form coiled, his inky tendrils extending. Vysa flinched, a small gasp escaping her. The other three thralls moved in unison, their forms solidifying, ready to obey. Vysa’s gaze darted between Rheno’s cold face and the approaching darkness. A tremor ran through her. “What are you doing?” Tycho demanded, scrambling over a pile of cracked display cases. His face was streaked with grime, his rifle clutched tight. He’d seen Rheno’s methods, but this felt different. More invasive. Rheno ignored him. He met Vysa’s gaze. “This will hurt,” he warned, his voice devoid of emotion, yet his eyes held a flicker she couldn't quite decipher. It was a promise, and a threat. Korin moved first, a tendril of pure void-matter snaking toward Vysa’s side. It shimmered with an unsettling light, then plunged directly into the wound. Vysa screamed, a choked sound that tore through the ruined mall. Her body arched, hands clawing at the stone. The other thralls followed, their shadowy limbs weaving into the gaping fissure, not just pressing, but *knitting* the wound together. The dark matter pulsed, like a living, alien suture. Vysa’s muscles spasmed, her body wracked with shuddering. Her scream faded into a ragged groan, then a choked whimper. Tycho stood frozen, his rifle lowering slightly. He had never seen anything like it. The apparitions, creatures of death, were mending living flesh. Slowly, the pulsing void-matter began to recede, leaving behind a faint, silvery-black scar where the Saintess’s lance had struck. Vysa lay panting, staring down at the dark-laced skin. The pain was still there, a dull ache, but the gushing blood had ceased. Her breath, though shallow, was even. [USER ACTION: EMERGENCY HEALING. TARGET STATUS: STABILIZED.] Rheno rose, wiping a smear of Vysa’s blood from his glove. He offered no explanation, no comfort. He simply turned away, his attention already elsewhere. Vysa watched him, a strange mix of terror and gratitude warring in her expression. He had saved her, but in doing so, he had used a power that felt profoundly wrong, intimately intrusive. “You… you stopped the bleeding,” Tycho managed, his voice strained. He looked at the scar, then at Rheno. “What was that?” “A patch,” Rheno replied, his gaze sweeping the shattered concourse. “Temporary.” He paused, then fixed Tycho with a stare. “We need to move. Where’s that workstation?” Tycho pointed to a flickering console embedded in a half-collapsed customer service desk. “I was working on it. Thought it might have district maps, security access.” He moved toward it, his fingers flying over the shattered screen, bypassing firewalls with practiced ease. As Tycho worked, Rheno scanned the desolate surroundings. The remaining commercial spaces stretched out, filled with debris and the husks of alien fauna. He could feel the residual energy signature of Anarys Faen, fading into the upper levels of the district, but no longer urgent. Vengeance would wait. Vysa was alive. Minutes later, Tycho grunted, a line of code flashing green. “Got it. Not just maps. This mall was part of a major communication hub. There’s… a lot here.” His breath caught as he scrolled through the retrieved data. “Mykelok’s location. Apex Tower. It’s marked as a ‘Nexus Point.’” Rheno stepped closer, his gaze falling on the holographic projection of a towering spire, glowing on the cracked screen. The Apex Tower, a landmark of Oshur’s pre-Collapse skyline, now stood as a dark beacon. “Nexus Point?” Rheno murmured. He had seen mention of a ‘Null Convergence’ in the Monolith’s stark prompts. “Yes,” Tycho confirmed, his voice tight. “The data suggests it’s not just a location. It’s… an event. This entire city, possibly the planet, is drawing in toward that tower. Mykelok isn’t just tracking us; he’s orchestrating a planetary alignment. The ‘Null Convergence’ is when all the dimensional gates bleed into a single point, at the summit. It’s like he’s trying to… pull something through.” Tycho’s face was pale, his earlier bravado replaced by genuine fear. “He’s using the gates as a funnel.” Rheno’s lips thinned. Mykelok wasn’t just a target; he was the eye of the storm. “Then we go to the tower,” he stated, his voice flat. “But not yet.” He turned to his spectral forces, their forms shifting restlessly. “We need more. Every beast in these adjacent zones. Every remaining survivor. They will join us.” He had seen the way his numbers swelled after each engagement. The more he consumed, the stronger his army became. He would turn Oshur into his personal harvesting ground. “You mean… farm them?” Vysa asked, her voice weak but clear. She had pulled herself into a sitting position, leaning against a broken planter, watching him. “Turn them all into… this?” She gestured vaguely at Korin’s shifting form. “If they resist, yes,” Rheno confirmed, no hesitation. “If they don’t, they will die anyway. We need an army to breach that tower. Mykelok won’t be waiting alone.” He looked at the vast expanse of Oshur, the visible spire barely discernible on the horizon. “We clear this zone. Then the next. And the next. We will build an unstoppable tide.” The cold resolve in his eyes was absolute. Vysa watched him, the man who had just saved her life with a touch of forbidden darkness. His methods were horrifying, his path ruthless, yet he moved with a chilling efficiency. The soft glow of the terminal cast strange light on his face, highlighting the sharp angles of his jaw, the depth of his shadowed eyes. “Rheno,” she began, her voice barely a whisper, a vulnerability she hadn’t shown since the Collapse. “I… I don’t know why you saved me, but I…” Her words were cut short by a piercing shriek from the outer sector boundary. The terminal’s screen flared red, a harsh siren wailing. [PERIMETER BREACH. HOSTILE FORCES DETECTED. HIGH DANGER THREAT.] The sound was followed by a series of thunderous explosions. The reinforced walls of the mall’s outer shell buckled, then ripped inward, sending concrete and twisted rebar flying. Through the gaping holes, a tide of hulking, multi-limbed creatures with chitinous hides surged into the mall, their segmented bodies scraping against the floor, their eyes glowing with predatory hunger. And at the vanguard, descending amidst the chaos, her silver eyes blazing with renewed conviction, was Anarys Faen, flanked by a dozen colossal gate-beasts, her lance already shimmering with corrupted brilliance.

Stitches of Night