Inside one of the side alleys, they were led by a simple note from Caen—a faint red mark on the stone wall—to a half-metal door hidden behind piles of boxes and scrap.
"Do you see this?" Cain whispered, pointing to the sign. "I've seen it before, in a village near the Loren River... before everyone in it burned."
Without commenting, William put his ear on the door, listening for seconds... steps, whispers, and light metal blows. He signaled them to prepare, then slowly opened the door.
The air inside the lower corridor was heavier, saturated with the smell of rust, moisture and blood. The walls were covered with strange inscriptions, and some of them seemed to be written with blood.
"This is not just a hiding place..." Jane muttered, her features starting to change—as if something in this place had awakened something old in it.
They continued to advance until they reached a spacious underground hall, lit by faint torches. In the middle, a ritual circle drawn on the ground, centered by a broken statue of a huge bird, whose body is interspersed with red fragments that resemble gemstones.
"The phoenix..." William said it as if the name came out of him in spite of him.
Suddenly, a voice of darkness sounded:
"You are not one of our men... who are you?"
A man appeared in black wether clothes, accompanied by five others wearing bone masks. But before anyone answered, Jin took a step forward, her voice calm and steady:
"We are the shadows of a past that you tried to bury... and we came to take back what was stolen."
The priest raised his hand, and with one sign, his men rushed towards them.
"Now?" Cain asked with a nervous smile, as he reached out to his dagger.
William nodded briefly, and chaos broke out.
Cain moved like a tornado, repelling and attacking fiercely, while Jane was using two small daggers at lightning speed, moving them with deadly accuracy. As for William, he stood in the center of the circle, drawing strange symbols with a small knife at his comfort, as if he was calling something.
A moment of silence... Then the place trembled under their feet, and the walls began to shake.
The priest retreated, his eyes widened with real fear:
"Impossible... are you one of their descendants?!"
William smiled, drops of blood bleeding from his hand, his voice more like a whisper:
"The curse you planted... will kill you first."
And the earth exploded from under them.