The underground chamber pulsed with lingering energy, its walls carved with magic-infused circuits that shimmered faintly in the dim light. The air was thick, heavy with expectation. The children had already vanished into their trials, their forms consumed by the paths they had chosen.

  Silence settled once more, but it was not empty. It was the quiet of something unfolding—of a shift too subtle to yet be understood.

  And in that silence, Eo turned.

  Frid and Caelum stood at the edge of the chamber, watching. One was faceless, a man who had torn his own identity away. The other was whole, but marked by an encounter he could never forget.

  Eo regarded them both, then spoke.

  “Come with me.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” Frid murmured.

  He followed without question.

  Caelum hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward.

  The corridor beyond the chamber was vast, its stone walls embedded with veins of magic that pulsed like the lifeblood of something ancient. Their steps echoed against the silence. Neither Frid nor Caelum spoke, but their presence carried weight—one steeped in madness, the other in silent apprehension.

  Frid walked with a controlled stillness, his faceless countenance turned toward Eo like a disciple awaiting revelation. He did not tremble, nor did he question. He simply followed, his reverence absolute.

  And every now and then, he whispered.

  “Do you see, Agatha?”

  His fingers twitched, as if tracing an unseen figure beside him.

  “He will grant it… He will give us eternity…”

  Caelum ignored him. He had long grown used to the muttering. The dead did not answer, but Frid spoke to them nonetheless.

  Instead, Caelum’s thoughts drifted elsewhere—back to the forest, back to it.

  The massive black wolf.

  A creature of perfect predation, its molten gold eyes had locked onto him that day, not with hunger, but with understanding. He had only glimpsed it before it vanished, and yet… it had stayed with him. A memory lodged too deep to dismiss.

  Now, in this place, standing behind Eo, he knew the truth.

  That wolf had been his creation.

  A chill that had nothing to do with the cold stone beneath them crept up Caelum’s spine.

  He did not voice it.

  Eo, of course, knew.

  The chamber they entered next was unlike the last. It was smaller, more contained. The walls bore no markings, no carvings of ancient runes or forgotten tongues. Instead, the center of the room was dominated by a single structure.

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  A sigil.

  It was unlike any formation seen in conventional magic—neither drawn with ink nor etched in stone. Instead, it lived within the space, its lines shifting, pulsing, adapting as though aware.

  The Fleshbound Sigil.

  Eo stood before it, the dim glow of its form casting flickering shadows across his body.

  Then, without preamble, he spoke.

  “You seek power.”

  Frid did not move, but his presence seemed to shift, as though something within him strained forward at the words. Caelum remained still, waiting.

  Eo’s gaze did not waver.

  “This is power.”

  He gestured to the sigil, and it responded—its shifting lines rippling outward, expanding, stretching. It was neither magic nor science, and yet it was both. A creation of logic, structured by the very principles Eo had unraveled and rewritten.

  A system unbound by the limitations of the world.

  “The Fleshbound Sigil,” Eo continued, his voice even, unchallenged by doubt. “A construct capable of rewriting the body. Not through crude reinforcement or borrowed magic, but through a fundamental shift. It does not ‘enhance.’ It does not ‘strengthen.’ It transforms.”

  Silence followed.

  Then—

  Frid stepped forward.

  There was no hesitation. No moment of doubt or consideration. He did not ask what it required, nor what it would cost. He simply moved, drawn not by greed, but by something deeper—something carved into the very fabric of his being.

  “Master,” he murmured, voice steady despite the madness that lurked beneath. “Will this… bring me closer?”

  Eo regarded him. The faceless man, the one who had discarded identity in pursuit of eternity.

  Frid was not asking for strength. Not for power.

  He was asking for immortality.

  For the means to defy the ending that all things were bound to.

  To undo the fate that had already claimed Agatha.

  Eo did not offer comfort. He did not offer lies. He simply spoke the truth.

  “This is only a step.”

  Frid exhaled, slow and measured.

  His hands twitched. “Did you hear that, Agatha? A step… A step closer to you…”

  And then, he kneeled.

  Caelum watched.

  He had expected many things. Hesitation. Bargaining. Fear.

  But there was none.

  Only acceptance.

  His hands curled into loose fists at his sides. He understood Frid’s devotion, but he did not share it. Unlike the faceless man, he was not searching for something lost.

  He was searching for something undiscovered.

  Something beyond himself.

  And so, even as the sigil’s glow intensified, even as the air grew thick with something unexplainable—

  He did not step back.

  Eo turned his gaze to him. “And you?”

  Caelum hesitated. But only for a breath.

  “…What do you need from me?”

  Eo studied him for a moment. Then, rather than answering, he lifted a hand.

  A shift in the air.

  A command unspoken, but absolute.

  And from the shadows, something began to move.

  Eo was preparing to return beneath the Abyss.

  But he would not leave without securing the surface first.

  The world above was chaotic, fragmented—ruled by those who did not understand it.

  That would change.

  Eo had no interest in ruling, no desire for control. Only the pursuit of knowledge.

  But knowledge was fragile. Research could be destroyed. Discovery could be erased.

  If he simply left, if he allowed time to take its course, the progress he had made would be swallowed by the world’s ignorance.

  That was unacceptable.

  And so, before he descended once more, he would leave something behind.

  A structure.

  An order.

  A hidden hand in the shadows.

  He did not require servants. He did not require followers.

  What he required were minds that could grasp his vision.

  A foundation from which his work could continue without him.

  And so, he tested them.

  The children.

  Frid.

  Caelum.

  Each of them chosen, not by fate, but by design.

  If they survived, if they proved capable of adaptation—

  Then the surface world would no longer be blind.

  And even in the Abyss, Eo’s hand would still reach forward.

  “…Do you see, Agatha?”

  Frid’s whisper slithered through the silence. His fingers traced the empty air beside him.

  “Master will lead us to eternity.”