Light, it was the first thing he felt before anything else.

  Before sound, before thought, before even the sense of himself. The warmth pressed against his skin, soft and steady, cutting through the cold that had wrapped around him for so long.

  His eyes fluttered open.

  The sky stretched above him, vast and blue, untouched by stone or shadow. The ruins loomed, ancient, crumbling, ghosts of a world long past. The ground beneath him was solid, dry, and real.

  For a moment, he simply lay there, empty, thoughtless. The sensation of the open world pressing down on him like something foreign, something he couldn’t quite grasp.

  Then, like a blade through the fog, memory returned. The prison, the climb, the creatures beneath, and his body tensed.

  The creatures hadn’t gone, not completely. He could still hear them beneath the tunnel door, clawing, hissing, their wails now distant, muffled. The echoes no longer shook the air as they had in the depths. They were still there, only weaker now. Farther, but not gone.

  He exhaled, slow and steady, he had made it. Then he noticed something else.

  He felt…fine. No, more than fine. His body was light, his breaths smooth. No pain, no exhaustion, no deep ache in his bones from his struggle. Even after all that, he felt, whole.

  His hands ran over his body, searching, expecting wounds, bruises, torn flesh, but there were none. Only scars, scars where wounds should still be open.

  His heartbeat quickened. His fingers dug into his arm, pressing against the skin, but nothing felt wrong. No soreness, no sensitivity, just…health, perfect, unnatural health.

  Slowly, his gaze fell to his clothes. They were ragged, torn, streaked with dried blood and grime, they spoke of suffering, of battle, of pain that his body no longer carried.

  His breath came shallower now.

  The voice was gone, at least for now. No whispers curling through his skull, no twisted words slithering into his thoughts, but the silence didn’t comfort him. If anything, it made him more aware. How did he heal?

  His fingers curled, hesitating, before settling on his left hand, his new hand, the one that was no longer entirely his own. It felt… natural now, more than before, as if it had always been part of him, as if it belonged.

  That thought made him shiver, and with a slow, nervous gulp, he willed the numbers to return. They did.

  Eclipse – 10

  Core – 0

  Assimilation – 4

  The Core points were gone, emptied entirely. In their place, Eclipse had doubled, reaching into the double digits. Assimilation had crept higher as well.

  His pulse pounded against his ribs. Something had changed. He didn’t feel wrong, not exactly, but something inside him had shifted, a whisper-deep change in his being. The difference wasn’t sharp or overwhelming, but it was there, settled in his bones, woven into his soul.

  He was less human than before, and more of... something else.

  The thought coiled around his mind like a snake, cold and unshakable. His fingers curled into a fist, and the numbers faded.

  No time for fear, no time for doubt.

  Slowly, he pushed himself upright. The ruins stretched before him, waiting, and somewhere, deep beneath the earth, the creatures still stirred.

  He turned, taking in the ruins around him. Massive, worn stone pillars stood like the skeletal remains of a civilization long past. Jagged walls, broken in places but still towering, loomed overhead. The grand design, the placement of shattered archways, the faded engravings, this was no ordinary structure.

  A law court.

  The realization settled in his mind, heavy with unspoken meaning. Did that mean they sent prisoners down there?

  His gaze drifted toward the tunnel, the place he had barely escaped. The echoes of the creatures still slithered up through the cracks, faint but persistent, different kinds of creatures.

  A thought struck him, cold and unbidden.

  What if those creatures, those horrors lurking in the dark, were once human?

  A sharp chill ran through him. No, No, that was impossible.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  He shoved the thought away, not because he had a rational answer, but because he didn’t want to entertain it. He couldn’t.

  The ground beneath him trembled.

  Not violently, not like an earthquake, but with a steady pulse. A rhythmic shaking that came in intervals. Every few seconds, a faint tremor rolled through the stone, as if something enormous was moving.

  His breath steadied, he had to move. He wove through the ruins, climbing over fallen columns, stepping over shattered marble. The tremors grew stronger as he moved, subtly at first, then unmistakably more intense.

  Then he reached a wall, towering even among the ruins, at least 500 feet high, its dark stone cracked and fractured with time, yet still standing. Parts of it had crumbled, revealing gaping wounds where stone had given way to the elements.

  The shaking was strongest here. His gaze was drawn to a broken section of the wall. He hesitated, then stepped forward, just enough to see through the jagged gap.

  His stomach twisted.

  A dragon.

  Obsidian-black, its form rippling with a cruel, unnatural sheen, its jaws clamped shut by thick, rune-etched chains. The beast writhed, its massive body straining against its bindings, locked in an agony that sent tremors through the very ground.

  It wasn’t just trapped, it was suffering. A deep, primal dread filled his chest, and he moved.

  Turned away, as fast as his body allowed. Distance, he needed distance from that place, from it.

  His steps quickened, his heart pounding, his mind racing. He needed to find a gate, an exit, anything that would lead him away, but every few minutes, the ground shook again, and he remembered why.

  The tremors didn't stop. Each pulse through the earth reminded him of the chained beast in the depths, its agony rippling across the ruins. He moved carefully, his steps measured, his senses stretched thin. Every broken archway, every crumbling corridor, he checked them twice before stepping forward. Anything could be hiding here.

  After what felt like an eternity, he entered a vast open ground, or what remained of it.

  This seemed like the heart of the law court, or what had once been its main hall. Unlike the other sections, which still had half-standing walls and shattered pillars, this place was almost entirely destroyed. Collapsed beams, shattered stonework, jagged metal, ruins upon ruins.

  At the very end of the clearing, was a massive gate.

  As tall as the towering walls that surrounded the court, its metal doors looked impossibly heavy, reinforced with runes long since faded. If there was a way out, it lay beyond this gate, it had to.

  His eyes traced along the ruins, searching, until he found the lever.

  It stood near a burning pillar, an obelisk of dark stone, its surface split by veins of molten light. He frowned, it didn’t look natural. The flames didn’t consume the stone, yet the heat warped the air around it.

  His body tensed, something was wrong, and yet, he needed to get out of here.

  He approached slowly, steps cautious, gaze flickering to the shadows of the ruins. Nothing yet, and then suddenly...

  A flicker, a shift, and the pillar... moved. It wasn’t just a column of fire, itt was attached to something else. Stone cracked, metal groaned, and from the wreckage of the ruins, it rose.

  A golem, or what was left of one. The Broken Warden, his mind supplied, somehow knowing.

  It was collapsed, its form half-destroyed, its once-mighty frame now a ruin of cracked stone and exposed metal joints. Yet its core still burned, a molten heart, faintly pulsing, sending heat waves through the air. Its head was tilted, half its face missing, yet the other half turned to him.

  It moved, faster than something so broken should. It attacked, moving like a specter of war, its shattered form betraying none of its lethality.

  It came at him with relentless, brutal precision. No wasted motion, no hesitation, only the cold execution of something that had fought a thousand battles before.

  He could barely keep up.

  Each strike from the golem sent shockwaves through his bones. His shadow flared instinctively, twisting, trying to defend, trying to counter, but it was clumsy, sluggish. His instincts were wrong, his body was wrong.

  He was too slow, too unrefined. The ground trembled, and a quake rippled through the ruins, the distant agony of the dragon bleeding into reality. The golem didn’t falter, didn’t pause. If anything, it moved faster, using the unsteady terrain against him.

  He stumbled, and the Warden was on him.

  A ruined arm, still powerful, still burning, slammed him into the ground. The impact sent fire through his ribs, his vision flickering as pain blurred the world. Then the weight, searing heat, molten stone, crushing him, breaking him.

  He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe. The heat ate at his skin, his lungs burned, his shadows failed.

  He was going to die, and then it came, a memory of what happened in the prison, a realization.

  No, a truth.

  He shivered. Even now, the thought of it made his stomach turn, his soul recoil, but he had no time.

  His hand shot forward, fingers digging into the golem’s half-broken frame. The heat was unbearable, his skin bubbled, blackened, burned. The golem leaned in, its fractured face inches from his, its core’s glow devouring his sight.

  He couldn’t reach it. So, he did it anyway, not with his hands, but with his face, he reached, felt, tasted, and the voice returned.

  "Ah. Good."

  He shivered.

  The Warden’s molten glow flickered, and it evaporated in a dark vapor, a rush of shadows, a surge of something else, something he couldn't name, something that shouldn't have been there.

  The heat vanished, his wounds sealed, his breath returned, and in the silence, as the trembling of the earth faded for just a moment, he realized.

  He felt even stronger....and even less human.

  He stared at his hand, at the faint scars left behind by the heat. Burn wounds, real wounds.

  Would they heal too?

  His fingers curled into a fist.

  The Broken Warden was gone, but it wasn’t. It was inside him, somehow, in some twisted, unnatural way, he had taken it, absorbed it.

  But how?

  His pulse quickened. His skin felt wrong, his body felt foreign, as if something was settling, shifting, taking root inside him. The silence in his mind felt heavy, too heavy, because the voice was gone again, and yet, he knew it wasn’t.

  He shivered, and slowly, he called the numbers.

  The sigils shimmered into existence above his arm, the glowing marks searing themselves into his vision. His breath caught.

  Core: 1

  Assimilation: 5

  Eclipse: 25

  He exhaled sharply. A massive increase, a dangerous increase.

  What had he done?

  The ground shook, a deep tremor, rippling through the ruins, rattling stone and dust, a reminder. A reminder that he wasn't alone. The prison beneath was still there, the things inside it still stirred, and the dragon...

  He clenched his jaw, turning toward the massive gate. He couldn’t stay here, not with it so close. Dragging himself forward, aching, burning, mind still reeling, he reached the lever, and with an exhausted sigh, he pulled.

  The gates groaned, and with a shuddering roar, they opened.