The air grew colder as Alex, Nyssa, and Soren raced through the winding tunnels beneath the Cathedral Ruins. The ancient corridors twisted like veins in the earth, laced with dormant glyphs and scattered bones of those who had wandered here long ago. Mana pulsed through the walls like a heartbeat—erratic, unstable.
"They're not just collapsing the surface," Soren muttered as the ground trembled again. "They're activating the fail-safes. This place was never meant to be rediscovered."
Alex didn't respond. His mind still burned with the vision from the chamber—the Ancient Saint floating in stasis, the prophecy echoing in his blood. The child of two worlds…
He didn't feel like a chosen anything.
Just someone standing on the edge of too many expectations.
A low growl halted their advance.
From the shadows ahead, a shape emerged—then another. Dozens of gleaming eyes opened in the dark, and out stepped creatures made of twisted mana and bone—Zeta-born beasts, corrupted remnants of the ancient civilization's failed experiments.
Nyssa moved first.
Her blades sang as she darted into the fray, a blur of precision. Alex followed, flames erupting from his palms and sweeping through the monsters—yet their resilience was unnatural. One tackled him to the ground, snarling with jagged, crystalline teeth.
Alex reacted instinctively.
His mana surged—not just fire, but water and wind combined, forming a spiraling vortex that blasted the creature off him. For a split second, his eyes glowed violet, mana crackling wildly through his veins.
Nyssa noticed it. "That's new."
He breathed hard. "It's happening more often. Like I'm… losing control."
Soren stepped between them, electrocuting another beast with a jolt of arcane lightning. "Your Saint blood is responding to the deeper Zeta energy. It's raw, primal. If you don't learn to harness it, it'll burn through you."
The group pressed forward, deeper into the tunnels. At the heart of the complex, they stumbled into a wide, circular chamber. A glowing map hovered above a dais—ancient pathways, vaults, sealed relic sites... and Imperial outposts.
"Looks like the Empire's already embedded itself deeper than we thought," Nyssa said.
"But there's something else," Soren added. "Here."
He pointed to a pulsating mark at the very center of the map: The Obsidian Heart.
A vault, sealed since the fall of the ancients. Said to house something capable of rewriting mana itself.
Alex stared at it. "If the Empire gets there first…"
"They won't," Soren said flatly. "Because we're going there."
Before they could move, the chamber lights dimmed—then surged.
A figure stepped out of the tunnel behind them. Cloaked in black and gold, with silver eyes and a Saint's pointed ears.
"Found you," the man said coldly. "By order of Emperor Orion Valerius… you are to be detained."
Nyssa's stance dropped instantly into a defensive crouch. "Inquisitor."
Soren's lips curled into a snarl. "Damn it. It's Lucan."
Alex's blood froze. He knew the name. An Imperial enforcer. Cold, brilliant, and lethal. Said to have killed entire resistance cells with a word.
Lucan raised a single hand.
The mana in the air thinned immediately, as if the walls were inhaling it.
Mana suppression.
Nyssa stumbled slightly. Soren hissed, his lightning flickering out.
But Alex—
His body surged with defiance.
You can't suppress what you don't understand.
His hybrid blood resisted the suppression. A flame burst in his palm, black-edged and unstable.
Lucan's brow arched. "So. The Emperor's bastard truly lives."
Then the clash began.
And nothing in the Empire's arsenal was prepared for what Alex had become.