A brief pause.
Then he reached out.
Lucien didn't flinch.
Didn't resist.
The artifact was taken from his hands just as easily as it had been given.
No ceremony.
No struggle.
The instant Draven's fingers closed around it, he guided it through the ring.
Not physically forcing it.
Not moving it through space in any visible way.
Just directing it through the opened storage.
Space folded silently.
The artifact vanished.
Gone.
Lucien blinked once.
Empty hands.
The faint hum that had lingered in the air vanished with it, as if it had never existed at all.
Draven lowered his hand.
The ring dimmed again, settling into a dormant state.
But the change remained.
Because now, everything that mattered in this place—
was under his control.
Draven glanced at them once.
Brief. Unreadable.
Then turned slightly.
The oversized robe shifted with him, dragging softly against the stone as he moved.
Draven didn't say another word.
Not to Lucien.
Not to Seryna.
Not to anyone.
He simply moved.
One step.
Then another.
And then he was gone from where he stood.
Fast.
Not reckless. Not rushed.
Just decisive.
The oversized robe shifted with him, dragging for a fraction of a second before settling into the motion, flowing behind him as he cut through the prison corridor like it had already accepted his direction.
The others followed.
Not because they were told to.
Because stopping no longer felt like an option.
Lucien moved first, quick to catch up, eyes fixed on Draven's back as if trying to find some explanation in the way he moved—something readable, something human.
Tharic followed, less steady, but keeping pace through instinct more than confidence.
Kaelira slipped forward with effortless silence, her earlier curiosity sharpening again into something more attentive, more focused.
Seryna and Lucien's sister came last—not slower, just controlled, observant, measuring everything they passed.
The prison stretched around them.
Broken cells. Bent iron. Doors half-torn from their frames. Stone corridors that had once held order now reduced to evidence.
Empty.
Too empty.
Their footsteps echoed faintly, but the sound didn't feel like it belonged to a group anymore.
It felt like something trailing behind something else.
Draven didn't slow.
Didn't look back.
His path was already defined.
Forward.
Or deeper.
No one could tell yet.
But no one asked.
Because right now, he was the only one who seemed certain.
The corridor ended abruptly.
Stone gave way to reinforced architecture—older, thicker, deliberately built to last beyond anything else in the structure.
A massive door stood before them.
Towering.
Seamless.
Its surface was layered with aged metal plates and faint runic engravings buried beneath wear and time.
Everyone stopped.
Not in command.
In instinct.
Tharic exhaled slowly.
"…That door…"
His voice carried a subtle unease.
"…I've seen something like this before."
Kaelira tilted her head slightly.
"…Same design," she murmured.
"…Every high-security prison has one."
Lucien stepped closer, studying it.
"…People tried to break it," he said quietly.
A pause.
"…It didn't open."
Silence settled again.
Heavy. Familiar.
Then Draven stepped forward.
No hesitation.
No discussion.
Both hands pressed flat against the door.
His fingers spread—not gripping the surface, but reaching into it, sensing it.
A breath passed.
Then mana moved.
Not violently.
Not outward.
Inward.
Controlled threads of dark energy slipped from him into the door, spreading along its structure, threading through engraved pathways like they had always belonged there.
The runes reacted instantly.
**HUMMMMM—**
Light surged across the surface.
Layer after layer igniting, awakening a dormant system built to resist intrusion.
Draven's eyes lowered slightly.
Too complex.
The structure wasn't just a lock—it was layered security, recursive containment, multiple redundant systems stacked into one another.
His control slipped slightly at the edges.
Not failure.
Limitation.
Not enough precision to fully dominate it at once.
A brief tension passed through his jaw.
Then—
It doesn't matter.
He adjusted.
Not trying to control everything.
Just one part.
One mechanism.
One weakness.
A single point of collapse.
**THUMM.**
Something inside the door responded.
A shift.
A release.
A fracture in its layered logic.
The seam at the center split.
A thin line appeared, barely visible at first, then widening just enough to matter.
Draven moved immediately.
His fingers shot into the gap, locking into position.
His stance dropped—feet planting firmly against stone.
The door resisted.
Pressed back.
Tried to seal itself.
But he held it.
Then he pushed.
Muscles tightened. Mana flowed through his frame in controlled force, not explosive, but absolute.
The gap widened.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
Stone groaned under pressure. Metal strained with a deep, resonant protest.
Behind him, the others watched in silence.
There was nothing to add.
Nothing to question.
Then light slipped through the opening.
And with it—
voices.
"…what the—"
Two guards.
Visible now through the widening gap, caught mid-reaction, eyes snapping wide in shock.
"You—what are you—?!"
They didn't finish.
Seryna moved first.
Lightning cracked along her body in a sharp, immediate surge. She slipped through the opening like a strike of lightning given form.
Kaelira followed—silent, fluid, almost effortless.
Lucien and Tharic came right after, hesitation gone, replaced by motion.
Lucien's sister stepped through last, composed, precise, observing even as she moved.
On the other side—
impact.
Seryna's lightning hit first.
One guard collapsed instantly under the surge.
Kaelira closed distance in a blur—clean, efficient motion.
The second guard barely managed to react before she was already there.
Lucien and Tharic arrived together, their combined force finishing what remained.
Two bodies fell.
Silence returned.
Brief.
Sharp.
Draven stepped through next.
The moment he cleared the threshold, the massive door behind them shifted.
Then slammed shut.
**THUMM.**
Sealed again.
Like it had never opened.
Draven straightened slowly.
The robe settled around him once more, heavy and unfamiliar in its shape but stable in its function.
Ahead stretched a new corridor.
Deeper. Older. Less controlled.
Unknown.
Unsecured.
Open.
No one spoke.
Because there was nothing left to interpret.
Only one direction remained.
Forward.