The map was brittle with age, its curling edges etched in coal-ink veins that pulsed faintly under the aetherlamps. The scent of singed parchment clung to it like a ghost that had died whispering secrets no one should hear. Rayon's fingers hovered above the junction points—counting not men, but patterns. Patrol shifts, blind corridors, rotations no one had revised in years.
To him, the guards weren't people. They were arithmetic.
From a shadowed corner of the chamber, a whisper cracked the silence.
"If they trace it back to us…"
"They won't," Rayon said, eyes fixed on the map. "This is a path without echo. Not even the sun will catch my trail."
Talia stood behind him, armor rigid, her breath shallow beneath the Defender's plated mantle. She'd stripped the ceremonial cloak before entering, revealing the faded burns along her collarbone—evidence of battles fought and survived. But this? This was no battlefield.
It was a line she could not follow him across.
"You vanish now," she said, barely audible, "and the public will call you a coward. The nobles will name you defective. The guilds—traitor."
Rayon turned to her, gaze steady and cold.
"Let fools name me coward. I don't play to blind applause."
Bilden was pacing like a blade without a sheath. "You're throwing it all away—your record, your support, your place in the Hall. Level 10 before eighteen, and now you spit on it like it's dirt."
"I never asked for records," Rayon replied. He folded the map like a funeral letter. "I asked for silence. They gave me festivals."
A hush fell. In the vault's high rafters, somewhere beyond sight, a gear clicked softly—then another. Hidden mechanisms turned. Listening. Watching. The Order of the Silent Vale did not recruit. It observed. It judged.
A voice echoed from the stairwell—old, deliberate, composed like steel drawn in silence.
"So… the prodigy chooses exile over applause."
Rayon did not turn.
"I choose agency."
The figure emerged—cloaked in fractal gray, eyes lit with faint cerulean. Neither old nor young. Not a man to fear, but a shadow to respect.
"You carry no Tag. No sponsor. No Master," the observer said. "And yet you request entry to the Solmourne Gate. Alone. You understand the cost?"
Rayon reached into his coat and drew a shard of black iron shaped like a canine tooth, marked with the number 1.
"I've already died once. The rest is rehearsal."
The observer tilted his head. Then—smiled.
"So be it. The Gate of Solmourne opens in three days. You will enter with no banner. No escort. No salvation."
He stepped closer, voice colder now.
"You will emerge—or you will not. That is our price for those who claim to walk outside the system."
Rayon dipped his head—not in submission, but in precision.
Behind him, Talia moved. Just one step.
"Rayon… even for you, a solo Gate run—it's suicide."
He turned. His voice was calm. Final.
"So was staying. One kills the body. The other, the will. I prefer the clean death."
Talia's breath caught. She didn't answer. But her gauntlet trembled at her side.
Above, something unseen shifted in the dark. Watching. Measuring.
As Rayon climbed the vault stairs, a cold wind swept in from nowhere, as if the gate itself exhaled in anticipation.
And behind him, his voice drifted like a blade falling into shadow:
"Let them hunt trophies. I'll hunt truth."