> "Sorrow, when gathered and focused, becomes a weapon. It can bind flesh, shatter hope, and pave the way for a tyrant's will."
> — Fragments from the Queen of Sorrow's Private Canticles
>
The air grew heavy, thick with profound, channeled grief. Ash and his companions watched from their hiding place, concealed by the dense mist and crumbling ruins. Before them, beneath a colossal, half-submerged archway, the Ashen Choir performed a chilling ritual. Cloaked figures, their masked faces turned towards the archway, swayed in a perfectly still circle. Their eerie, mournful wailing intensified, no longer just a lament but a powerful, resonating force that pulled at the very essence of despair in the Drowned East.
At the center of their circle, a dark energy pulsed from the water, rising to a shimmering, translucent orb of pure, distilled sorrow. Ash felt the pervasive grief of the land being siphoned, channeled, and concentrated into this orb. It was not just emotion; it was raw power, ready to be wielded.
"They are siphoning the accumulated sorrow of the Drowned East," Selene whispered, her voice tight, her Path of the Hollow flaring faintly as she felt the powerful ritual. "They are harvesting the land's despair. Channeling it for the Queen of Sorrow."
"For what purpose?" Kael muttered, his face grim. The overwhelming grief from the ritual pulled at the deep sadness that still lingered in him from the Shard of Grief, making him clench his jaw. His Path of Frost kept him outwardly still, but Ash sensed the inner battle.
"To amplify her Will," Master Elara breathed, his eyes wide with horror as he watched the ritual's intensity grow. "The Shard of Will she acquired, combined with this raw grief... she means to forge despair into absolute dominion. To impose her sorrow on all of Aerthos, to create an unyielding Order born of universal apathy!"
Ash felt the Core of Binding pulse urgently in his hand, echoing the Queen's powerful, demanding Will. He could sense her intent through the channeled grief: she sought to weaponize sorrow itself, to bend reality to her vision of a world so bound by grief that it could never know pain or joy again, only quiet, eternal despair. The Ashen Choir were not merely cultists; they were extensions of her insidious control, her method of gathering the very emotional fuel for her power.
Suddenly, the orb of sorrow at the ritual's center began to expand, pulsing with dark, internal light. The wailing of the Ashen Choir reached a terrifying crescendo, and from the depths of the ocean beyond the archway, something began to stir. The water rippled violently, and a vast, shadowy form began to rise from the mist-shrouded depths. It was immense, a colossal shape made of dark, swirling water and solidified grief.
"She's drawing power for something vast!" Selene cried. "A summoning! Or an empowerment!"
Ash knew they couldn't let it continue. The pure, overwhelming despair being channeled was too dangerous, too corrosive to the very Harmony he represented. He had to disrupt it. He had to cut the source.
He pushed his Will into the Core of Binding, focusing not on the sorrow, but on the connection—the Ley Lines that the Choir was using to channel the despair. He then unleashed a controlled surge of Chaos from his Path of Flame, not a destructive blast, but a precise, discordant pulse aimed at the heart of the ritual. He sought to unravel their perfect concentration, to break the flow of their grief-fueled power.
The Ashen Choir shrieked, their wailing abruptly snapping into jarring discord. The figures convulsed, their perfect circle breaking. The orb of sorrow at the center of the ritual flickered violently, struggling against Ash's disruptive Chaos. The immense, shadowy form rising from the ocean depths shuddered, its growth momentarily halted.
"Now! Move!" Lyra yelled, seizing the moment of disruption. She darted forward, her knife flashing, not at the Choir, but at the ancient, dark banners hanging from the archway, cutting them down. The Choir was momentarily confused by the physical disruption amidst their mental assault.
Kael, his face grim but resolute, took advantage of the Choir's disarray. He charged towards the nearest masked figures, not to kill, but to push them apart, to break their formation. His Path of Frost allowed him to move with terrifying focus, unburdened by the residual despair now filling the air.
Ash kept his focus, pouring Chaos into the ritual, maintaining the disruption. Selene, seeing Ash's power, unleashed a wave of negation from her Path of the Hollow, not at the Choir, but at the strained Ley Line connections they were forming, hoping to sever their link to the pervasive grief.
The Ashen Choir scattered, their ritual broken, their wailing reduced to panicked, individual cries. The orb of sorrow at the ritual's center exploded into a fine, black mist that dissipated quickly, and the colossal shadowy form in the ocean depths sank back beneath the waves with a mournful sigh, its summoning interrupted.
Ash sagged, utterly drained, the Core of Binding heavy in his hand. They had disrupted the ritual. They had escaped the Mourning Tide and the Choir's direct control.
But as the mist momentarily cleared from the archway, revealing the vast, churning waters beyond, a sight that sent a profound chill through Ash's very soul became terrifyingly clear. Far across the water, barely visible through the perpetual gloom, a massive, ancient vessel drifted slowly. It was a ship of nightmares, its mast a skeletal tree, its hull woven from blackened, weeping wood and draped in dark, sodden banners. It moved without sails, without oars, propelled by an unseen, sorrowful force. And from its towering bow, a single, masked figure stood, regal and utterly still, radiating an immense, cold Will that pierced the pervasive grief of the Drowned East like an ice splinter. It was the Queen of Sorrow herself, and her gaze, even from across the vast, misty waters, seemed to fix directly on Ash, confirming she knew of his presence, and that the interrupted ritual was merely a prelude to her personal encounter.