NOVPUBWith Bloodlit Dominion active, the cavern itself became his blade. He vanished, reappearing mid-air, riding a crimson sigil that burst from the floor like a serpent. His hand snapped down—Soul Passage surged forth, elongated into a scythe of screaming violet, blood trailing behind it like a comet's tail.
Hal-Kareth raised his blade in reply—Noctis Sever drinking the silence, feeding on it, growing darker. The air around him shimmered as if protesting the Sovereign's presence. His helm tilted, just slightly.
"You dance well, child of the living. Let us see how well you bleed when Death itself strikes."
He thrust forward. Not a stab, but a tear—his sword parting the fabric of space like parchment. Asher's scythe met the strike, but the moment of contact imploded into a sphere of null energy, sucking sound and motion inward. The clash erased the air, leaving a void that devoured sensation.
Asher skidded back, the Sanguine Supreme flaring to full intensity—his aura forming wings of liquid blood-essence behind him. He slid a hand along Soul Passage and hissed, "Third Vein—Abyss Vein."
The scythe drank his blood and writhed.
Vein lines etched in darker red surged across his skin like burning serpents. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat stopped.
And then it restarted—but out of sync with the world. One beat for every ten seconds. Each beat sent a ripple of time distortion around him. His body phased between moments, slipping past the boundary of cause and effect.
The Abyss Vein let Asher touch the seams of time and existence. Not control—but understand, sidestep, slide between.
Hal-Kareth slashed downward—but Asher was already gone, flickering like a broken frame between moments.
"Time distortion," Hal-Kareth murmured, adjusting. "Clever."
He planted Noctis Sever in the ground, and for the first time, chanted.
"Silence: Perfected."
A ring of anti-sound exploded outward. It wasn't just silence. It was the annihilation of presence. Asher's time-bending flicker snapped—anchored, crushed. He fell from the air, crashing into a wall of bones that shuddered as they tried to remember they were once part of the living.
Hal-Kareth stepped forward.
Asher coughed, wiping blood from his lips, eyes gleaming. "You silence all things... but what of echoes?"
He raised a hand, and the blood that lingered from earlier battles responded. Echoes of himself—made of blood and memory—rose around him. Each one held a different weapon: swords, chains, bows—all crafted from Soul Passage fragments and death law-infused essence.
"Sanguine Supreme—Echo Legion!"
Twelve crimson constructs launched forward in unison. Hal-Kareth met them with quiet devastation. Each swing of Noctis Sever dispersed their forms, but not before one detonated in a blossom of soulfire, another latching onto his leg with crimson barbs.
Asher used the moment.
Teleportation wasn't needed. He stepped—through his own blood, using it like a portal. He emerged from the pool behind Hal-Kareth, his scythe dragging the authority of the Soul Passage down in a brutal arc.
The scythe landed. Noctis Sever tried to block, but Asher's weight of understanding buckled through.
It struck Hal-Kareth's shoulder—scraping soul, not flesh.
And for a second, the ancient Sovereign screamed.
But the scream never reached the air. He devoured it, forced it back down.
"I remember… what pain is," he whispered.
His armor cracked along his arm, veins of silver essence leaking into the air.
Asher's own form wavered. The Abyss Vein cost dearly. Time backlash laced his organs with wounds no healer could touch. But he didn't stop.
"You don't need to be a monument to silence anymore," Asher said.
"I am not!" Hal-Kareth roared.
He slammed his sword down.
Reality fractured. A wave of dark-light surged outward—unmaking the blood Asher had sown, unraveling the battlefield. It was Hal-Kareth's true Sovereign Domain: Annihilation Without Sound.
It swallowed echoes, erased sigils, even undid wounds—both theirs and the ones scarring the land.
Asher fell to his knees under the sheer metaphysical pressure.
But then—his heart beat again.
And another vein opened.
"Fourth Vein—Blood Requiem."
Blood seeped from Asher's wounds, mouth, pores—but it didn't fall. It sang. Each drop turned to a note, each note to a hymn. His blood began playing a requiem for all who had died in this cavern, and all who would.
The symphony built around him.
His scythe vanished—replaced by a violin of bone and sinew, its strings stretched from his own soul. He played.
And the cavern answered.
The dead stirred—not rising, not reanimated. But watching. Lending essence. The Blood Requiem drew on every drop of grief, every buried will. It turned loss into melody, pain into momentum.
Asher rose once more, eyes glowing—not red, but gold.
"Your silence has been heard," he said. "Now hear my truth."
He rushed forward—faster than before, but with no trail. Only notes lingered in the air, fading echoes of blood-song.
The final clash was not one of weapons—but wills.
Hal-Kareth's blade of silence met Asher's requiem of blood.
And at the apex of the collision—
—they both shattered.
The helm cracked. Noctis Sever broke in two.
Asher fell to one knee, exhausted. His veins were raw fire. But he looked up—
And saw Hal-Kareth standing. No longer in combat stance. His eyes—finally visible—wet with molten tears.
"Then carry it better than I did… Sovereigns of the New Path."
He stepped back.
And let go.
His soul faded—free, luminous—and left behind a single relic, slowly drifting down into Asher's hand.
The Fifth Sovereign Key. A sapphire light, humming with peace.
Valeris knelt beside Asher, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He didn't speak.
They both listened—to the silence Hal-Kareth left behind.
"A silence that, at last, no longer hurt."
"I really wonder now if coming to this dungeon was right or wrong," Asher said as he slowly stood up.
"This place is already a lost and dead world," Valeris replied, brushing her hair back as she exhaled. "And this is just one echo of that memory. There's no need to feel anything more about it."
She stepped forward and gently picked up the fifth Sovereign Key, its sapphire glow reflecting in her eyes. "Only two more keys remain… and then we can get what we need."
" and I am looking forward to what that thing is" Asher said as she replied " you will be surprised heavily" She said as he nodded.
