The North Gate of the Scra-Valkun was little more than a jagged rent in the Dreadnought's hull, patched with rusted plates and heavy chain-link. Outside, the orange haze of the Rust-Wastes had deepened into a bruised, sickly violet as the "Taint-Eaters" approached.
The sound reached them before the dust did—a rhythmic, mechanical grinding of spiked treads and the wet, guttural bellows of beasts that had been fed too much Celestial waste.
Nel-Eak stood at the edge of the threshold, his serpent-scale coat snapping in the dry wind. He wasn't looking at the horizon. He was watching Kiron limp toward him, supported by Nyra.
"You look like a stiff breeze would snap you in half," Nel-Eak said, his scarred face unreadable. "Yet you carry that slab of charcoal like it's your only lifeline."
Kiron didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat felt like it was lined with glass. He gestured for Nyra to let go. He stood on his own, his boots crunching on the metal filings that littered the floor. With trembling hands, he began to unwrap the heavy cloth from Lament.
"Kiron, don't," Nyra whispered, her hand hovering near her own blade. "The 'Decline' is already reaching your neck. If you pull from the marrow now, you won't come back."
"I'm already gone, Nyra," Kiron rasped. "I died in Koda. Everything since then has just been a long walk to this gate."
The first of the Waste-Raiders appeared over the crest of a scrap-dune. They weren't just men; they were stitched-together horrors, their limbs replaced by hydraulic pistons and their eyes glowing with a frenzied, purple light. In the center of the horde sat a massive, bloated figure atop a throne of rusted pipes—the Taint-Eater.
The monster raised a hand, and the war-party screeched to a halt.
"The star-boy," the Taint-Eater's voice was a wet gurgle that echoed through the hollows of the Dreadnought. "The Celestials want your skin, but I... I only want the taste of your 'Prayer.'"
Nel-Eak stepped forward, his daggers sliding into his hands with a metallic whisper. "If you want the boy, you have to pay the toll. And the price today is your head."
The Raiders charged.
The air was suddenly filled with the scream of engines and the clash of iron. Nel-Eak moved like a flicker of lightning, his blades weaving a tapestry of red as he danced through the first wave of attackers. He was a master of the "Flow," his movements so fluid they seemed to defy the weight of the air.
But for every Raider he felled, three more surged forward.
Kiron stood still. He gripped the hilt of Lament. He didn't try to ignite the gold fire. He did the opposite. He reached into the cold, hollow space in his chest—the void that the "Decline" had carved out of him.
I am nothing, he told the sword. I am the ash of Koda. I am the silence of the Shush.
The sword responded.
The charcoal steel didn't glow. Instead, it began to weep a thick, black smoke that smelled of ancient funerals. As the first Raider lunged at him with a spiked mace, Kiron didn't swing with his muscles. He let the sword's own gravity dictate the arc.
The collision made no sound. The mace didn't break; it simply ceased to exist where the blade touched it. The Raider's arm followed, the flesh turning to grey dust instantly.
Kiron took a step forward. Then another.
He wasn't a warrior. He was an erasure.
Every time he swung, a section of the battlefield was silenced. No blood sprayed. No bones cracked. There was only the sudden, terrifying absence of whatever the blade encountered.
Nel-Eak paused mid-strike, his eyes widening as he watched the boy move. He isn't fighting them, the hunter realized, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. He's unmaking them.
But the cost was visible. With every strike, the black veins on Kiron's neck climbed higher, creeping toward his jawline. His skin was turning the color of weathered bone.
The Taint-Eater roared, realizing his horde was being deleted by a ghost. He leaped from his throne, his massive, hydraulic-enhanced fist aimed at Kiron's head.
"Kiron!" Nyra screamed.
Kiron looked up. His eyes weren't gold anymore. They were two pits of absolute, lightless black. He didn't raise the sword to block. He simply pointed the tip at the descending monster and spoke a single, mirrored word—the secret name of the first Grave-King.
"Ma-Lam."
The air between them folded. The Taint-Eater's massive fist struck an invisible wall of pure "Authority." The shockwave didn't blow outward; it imploded. The monster was sucked into a microscopic point of darkness, disappearing with a wet pop that left the battlefield in a stunned, ringing silence.
The remaining Raiders didn't wait. They turned their engines and fled into the violet haze, terrified by the child who had just swallowed a giant whole.
Kiron stayed standing for a heartbeat. Then, Lament fell from his hands.
He didn't collapse forward. He fell backward, his body as stiff as a statue. As Nyra caught him, she realized his skin didn't feel like flesh anymore.
It felt like cold, polished stone.