The path forward was shrouded in darkness.
Celestine followed Elias and the Obsidian Order through a hidden entrance beneath the Blackspire ruins, the air growing colder as they descended. The tunnel was unlike any of the city's known passageways—ancient, untouched, its walls lined with rusted conduits and forgotten sigils.
Alistair stayed close, his every movement tense, but he did not question her decision. Not yet.
Elias walked ahead with familiar ease, as though he had tread this path many times before. "Noctis-Lux is built upon the remnants of something far older," he said. "Something the Light Council buried."
Celestine remained silent, her gaze scanning the walls. There were carvings—faint outlines of automatons, but not of any design she recognized. These weren't built for war, nor for labor.
They looked… sentient.
The cloaked woman with the mechanical face—still unnamed—paused before a heavy steel door. A series of intricate gears were embedded into its surface, and with a flick of her wrist, she twisted one, activating an unseen mechanism. The door shuddered, releasing a hiss of trapped air before slowly creaking open.
A vast underground chamber stretched before them.
Celestine's breath caught.
Lining the walls were dozens of towering automatons, their bodies partially disassembled, their inner workings exposed to the elements. Unlike the machines of Noctis-Lux, these constructs were crafted with obsidian cores, their forms almost human in nature.
She stepped forward, brushing dust from a control panel. The symbols were ancient, predating even the earliest records of the city.
"What is this place?" she murmured.
Elias met her gaze. "The first city," he said. "Before Noctis-Lux, before the Light Council." He gestured toward the dormant automatons. "They weren't tools, Celestine. They were alive."
A cold realization crept up her spine.
The Light Council had buried this.
They had rewritten history.
Celestine clenched her jaw, her mind racing. If this was true, then everything she had fought for—everything she had believed—was built on a lie.
Alistair exhaled sharply. "Tell me this isn't what I think it is."
But Celestine had no answer.
The truth had finally begun to surface.
And it threatened to change everything.