Niko stood, legs trembling beneath him, dust and static trailing from his battered frame. That same vibrant gleam remained burning in his eyes—wild, untamed, brighter than before. He had never been a rageful person. Not really.
But the anger…
The anger from what he saw in that chamber. The piled bodies. The madness. The loss.
It hadn't left him.
It had rooted in him.
And now, it was keeping him upright.
He raised his arm, barely, his fingers twitching. The blade—his blade—still hung in his grasp, glowing with wild energy, static screaming off of it in arcs, like the thing couldn't decide if it was a weapon or lightning barely shaped. The jian cackled with electricity, white-blue and violent.
Across the cracked hallway, the First Prophet stood still.
Watching.
Then—he laughed.
"I'll admit it," he said, brushing off invisible dust from his sleeve, "I'm surprised you got up."
Niko grinned. Or maybe it was a grimace. Either way—it was unhinged.
Blood trickled from his lip. His jaw ached. One eye had already begun to swell shut. But still—he smiled.
"You thought that would kill me?" Niko spat, raising the sparking blade again. "Ah, think again… you filthy son of war."
The Prophet's smile twitched.
He didn't reply. Not immediately. But behind the folds of his hood—something changed.
A flicker.
A shift.
And through the shadows cast by that hood, Niko saw them—golden eyes.
Not just yellow. Burning. Lit from within like molten metal, like dying suns, staring at him with something between recognition and fury.
Niko blinked—and that was all it took.
The Prophet vanished.
No sound. No flash. No blur.
Just—gone.
Then—wham—
An arm locked around his torso mid-breath, twisting him midair—
—and a knee crashed into his stomach with cataclysmic force.
Crack—
It was like being hit by a divine hammer. Niko's breath imploded from his lungs, his ribs buckled—and he flew.
Upward.
The impact launched him clean through the corridor ceiling in a shockwave of shattered stone and shredded air.
He exploded through it like a meteor, trailing dust and debris as he rose. A beat of weightlessness.
And then—gravity remembered him.
He arced. Spun. Fell.
Back down.
Hard.
Before Niko could even feel gravity's full pull, a hand caught his cloak mid-fall.
The First Prophet.
His grip—iron.
Without a word, without effort, he slung Niko straight back up into the stone ceiling with an even greater force, launching him like a ragdoll caught in a divine tantrum.
Boom—!
Stone cracked—then dirt—then more layers above as Niko was hurled like a projectile, his body tearing through the strata of the underground. His bones screamed. His consciousness blurred.
But the Prophet wasn't done.
He followed—somehow keeping pace—and unleashed a brutal barrage of punches through the dirt. Each strike timed with surgical precision, turning the space around Niko into a rolling hell of compressed earth and pressure.
Boom—crack—boom—crack—
Every hit felt like getting struck by a landslide.
A mountain.
A god.
Niko's mind staggered. Pain blurred into white static. The sound of his ribs giving way echoed in his head like distant thunder. His body was no longer under his command—it was just being moved, struck, broken.
Up, up—through the crust of the underground.
Until—finally—
He burst through the final layer.
The air hit him like ice.
And suddenly—he wasn't underground anymore.
He was in the sky.
High above the treeline, Niko's limp form spiraled through the air. Cold wind tore past him. His eyes half-lidded, barely open—just enough to see.
Trees. Forest.
And beyond the trees—light.
The Sanctuary.
That city of safety. Of power. Of secrets. Towering spires glimmering like stars stitched to earth.
And above all of it—
That dark tower.
The one that bled shadow. That warped the skyline like a wound.
It pulsed in his vision. Cold. Unmoving.
Watching.
And as he kept falling, tumbling through sky and fate alike—
Niko realized something simple and devastating.
He wasn't ready for this.
Not yet.
Not even close.
The Prophet appeared above him like a descending judgment, his cloak fluttering like ink bleeding into the sky.
With a sharp, chopping motion—one clean, decisive strike—his hand cracked against Niko's back mid-air.
Boom.
Niko crashed into the forest below like a comet.
Trees snapped. Dirt erupted. Leaves spiraled into the sky as his body slammed into the earth with an unforgiving thud, dragging across the ground and tearing a long scar into the forest floor. When he came to a stop, he looked less like a person and more like a heap of broken will.
Mangled. Crushed. A breath away from death.
But he was still alive.
Somehow.
Barely.
Coughing blood, his limbs twitching, Niko lay half-submerged in the dirt, heart thudding like a war drum too stubborn to quit. His body wouldn't move. His jian was gone. Every nerve screamed. But in his chest—deep, somewhere under the ruin—his determination burned.
The Prophet landed nearby with the poise of a falling feather, boots whispering against grass. His coat settled around him in quiet elegance. No blood on his hands. Not even a scratch. Just calm—like this had been inevitable.
He looked down at Niko.
"…How?" His voice, for once, was not mocking. "How did you know?"
Niko choked on blood, spit, and the sting of pride. His face was a mess of bruises and dirt. One eye was nearly swollen shut. But he managed a smile.
A crooked, bleeding, taunting smile.
"I read your stupid tale," Niko coughed, wheezing through cracked ribs.
He looked up, one eye locked onto the Prophet.
"You… you're Chalice."
There was a pause.
Then the Prophet—Chalice—tilted his head slightly.
And slowly, deliberately, he reached up and pulled back his hood.
The light struck him.
And Niko blinked—because the book hadn't done him justice.
His hair flowed like liquid gold, cascading over his shoulders in strands too perfect to belong to anything mortal. His skin was smooth, unmarred, a sculptor's dream. But the eyes—
Those eyes—
They glowed with a depth and heat like twin suns.
Not kind. Not warm. Just… unreal.
He looked like a being from a forgotten myth. Regal. Impossible. Too beautiful to exist—and yet he was here.
Standing over Niko like a statue carved from golden flame.
"…No way," Niko muttered under his breath, groggy and confused.
"That's you?"
He squinted harder, blood still trickling down his lip.
"I mean—seriously? That's really your face? You look like a damn painting. A divine pretty boy. Who gets beat up by a guy like that?"
Chalice blinked once. No smile. No anger. Just stillness.
And then—unexpectedly—he chuckled.
Not a laugh of cruelty.
But of pure amusement.
"I suppose the books did leave a few things out."
Niko coughed again, wincing from the pain. "Yeah… like the part where you're an arrogant jackass."
Chalice smiled, slow and unfazed.
Even as Niko lay dying beneath him, he didn't strike again.
He only watched.
And for the first time—it wasn't clear if Chalice saw him as prey.
Or as something else entirely.