Chapter 473: Vane’s Alive?

The Obsidian Pass lived up to its name with a quiet, suffocating terror that felt far more dangerous than the roaring heat of the river they had just left behind.

Here, the path narrowed until it was barely wide enough for three people to walk abreast, wedged between two colossal walls of solid obsidian glass that stretched up thousands of feet, cutting off the blood-red horizon and throwing the pass into a bleak, violet-tinged twilight. The stone underfoot was slick, reflective as a dark mirror, and freezing cold to the touch. Every step echoed with a sharp, metallic ring that bounced off the glass walls, repeating three or four times before dying out in the distance.

Kyle walked at the head of the group, his dark coat sweeping against his calves with a heavy, rhythmic cadence. Outwardly, his posture was as unyielding as iron, his dark slitted eyes fixed straight ahead. But beneath his ribs, his core throbbed with a dull, persistent ache—a lingering souvenir from forcing his Full Synchrony Protocol back in the cathedral. Every breath of the biting mountain air felt like swallowing crushed ice, sharp and thin, cooling his lungs but doing nothing to ease the bone-deep fatigue settling into his joints.

Beside him, Falcon walked with her head slightly bowed, her dark brown skin glistening under the faint violet sheen of the canyon walls. Her four dark brown tails, usually swishing with restless, fiery confidence, hung lower now, their tips twitching only when a gust of mountain wind whistled down the pass. She kept rubbing the palms of her hands against her thighs, trying to scrape away the ghost-sensation of the endothermic green fire that had nearly drained her dry over the magma river.

"You’re limping slightly on your left side," Falcon said softly, her voice low enough that it didn’t echo too loudly against the glass. She didn’t look at Kyle when she spoke, keeping her eyes scanning the high ledges above. "Don’t try to hide it. I’ve watched you walk through four sectors, Kyle. You’re dragging your left heel half an inch."

Kyle didn’t slow his pace, but his jaw tightened. "My core is stabilizing. The fatigue is just kinetic buildup from absorbing the gravity domain."

"Right. And I’m a domestic house cat," Falcon muttered, a faint, dry smile fleeting across her lips before fading into a tired sigh. Her golden eyes softened as she glanced sideways at him. "You don’t always have to carry the whole mountain on your back, you know. Back at the river, when you told us to push the bubble straight through... if your blade had flickered for even a second, we would have been vaporized."

"It didn’t flicker," Kyle said simply.

"That’s not the point, you idiot," Falcon breathed, her tails twitching with a brief spark of emerald fire that immediately died out. She looked away, her voice dropping into a quiet, raw tone that carried the weight of everything they had survived since entering the Crimson Ridge. "The point is... we trust you. But every time you force that synchrony, it looks like you’re leaving a piece of yourself behind in that black smoke. One of these days, you’re going to push that system of yours past the brink, and there won’t be enough of you left to pull back."

Kyle remained silent for a long moment. The wind howled through a narrow fissure in the obsidian wall, sounding uncannily like a distant, mourning horn. He looked down at his left gauntlet—the dark metal smooth now, cold, showing no sign of the ravenous void that had consumed an Arch-Lich just an hour prior.

"If I stop pushing," Kyle said softly, his voice devoid of anger, carrying only a flat, heavy truth, "Vladimir takes everything. He takes the lower realms, he takes the Spire, and he burns whatever quiet lives any of us were trying to build. I don’t get the luxury of pacing myself, Falcon."

A few paces behind them, Seraphina walked with her ocean trident cradled across her forearms like a resting staff. Her azure hair, usually floating in a light, weightless halo of elemental moisture, now hung straight down her back, damp and heavy. The intricate silver runes woven into her shoulder guards were dark, their mana depleted after maintaining the high-pressure water sphere against eight hundred degrees of volcanic heat.

Yua walked beside her, but the crimson-haired demon’s usual wild, predatory bounce was noticeably muted. Her bare arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her long claws tucked inward as if she were trying to hold her own blood-mana from leaking out through her pores. Her bright red eyes, normally flashing with manic amusement at the prospect of a fight, were fixated on the ground ahead, watching their reflections distort in the black glass mirror beneath their boots.

"You’re quiet, Yua," Seraphina said softly, breaking the long silence between them. The sea princess’s voice was gentle, lacking the cold, authoritative edge she usually projected in battle. "That’s usually a sign that you’re either planning a slaughter or running out of steam."

Yua let out a short, breathy scoff, though there was no real bite behind it. "Steam? Please. I could tear through another hundred cultists right now." She paused, her claws digging slightly into the leather of her armor before her shoulders visibly slumped. "It’s just... the smell here."

Seraphina tilted her head slightly. "The sulfur?"

"No," Yua murmured, her gaze drifting up to the soaring obsidian peaks that blocked out the sky. "The blood in the air. It’s old. It smells like the deep pits back in the demon territories—the places where they lock up the failed experiments, the ones whose blood gets corrupted by Void essence until they forget their own names."

She stopped walking for a fraction of a second, her red eyes dimming as a rare shadow of vulnerability crossed her sharp features.

"When Kyle broke that third core back in the cathedral... I felt the soul-threads snap," Yua continued, her voice barely above a whisper. "For a split second, before the energy dissipated, I recognized some of those spiritual signatures. They weren’t just random lower-world cultists or nameless soldiers. Some of them were demon clansmen from my old district. People who disappeared three years ago when Vladimir’s scouts first crossed the border."

Seraphina paused, turning her head to look directly at the demon girl. She didn’t offer empty words of comfort or hollow pity; she simply reached out, her cool, smooth hand resting briefly against Yua’s leather-wrapped shoulder.

"Then we make sure the ones standing at the top of this pass pay for every single thread," Seraphina said, her blue eyes turning as dark and resolute as the deep ocean trenches. "We aren’t just clearing a path for Kyle anymore, Yua. We’re tearing down a slaughterhouse."

Yua looked at Seraphina’s hand, surprised by the steady warmth in the water user’s touch. A small, genuine smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, replacing the shadow in her eyes with a dangerous, familiar spark. "Yeah. Let’s make sure it hurts."

Up ahead, Kyle suddenly halted.

His dark slitted eyes narrowed as he held up a single gauntleted hand, signaling the group to stop. The metallic echoing of their boots died instantly, leaving only the thin, whistling sound of the mountain wind slicing through the glass walls.

’Kyle,’ Snow’s calm, precise voice resonated inside his mind, sharper than before. ’High-density physical signatures detected one hundred yards ahead at the narrowest bottleneck of the pass. I am picking up thirty elite heavy-armor constructs and three high-tier lieutenant officers. The spatial grid around them is heavily reinforced.’

"They’re waiting for us," Kyle said quietly.

Falcon stepped up beside him, her brown tails instantly fanning out behind her back, their tips reigniting with a steady, fierce emerald fire that pushed back the cold twilight of the pass. "How many?"

"Thirty honor guards. Three lieutenants," Kyle replied, drawing his dark shadow blade. The steel gave a low, resonant hum as it caught the dim light, though he refrained from igniting it with demon fire just yet, conserving his core strength for the opening impact.

As they rounded the final sharp bend of the Obsidian Pass, the path opened up slightly into a natural amphitheater of solid volcanic glass.

Standing in perfect, terrifying formation across the narrow exit were thirty elite **Obsidian Executioners**—seven-foot-tall constructs forged entirely from polished black glass and reinforced with red blood-gold filigree. They held long, heavy executioner’s broadswords that rested flat against their shoulder plates, their faceplates completely featureless except for a single, horizontal slit that glowed with a cold, pale yellow light.

Standing on a high obsidian ledge directly behind the construct phalanx were the three lieutenants.

Unlike the raspy, fanatical cultists in the Bone Church, these three wore sleek, functional blood-steel battle armor decorated with the high crest of the Blood Moon inner circle. The center commander—a tall, broad-shouldered man with ash-white hair and a long scar cutting across his left eye—held a massive, tower-sized dark steel kite shield planted firmly into the glass floor. To his right stood a female assassin wielding twin crimson short-swords that dripped with viscous black poison; to his left was a battle-mage holding a long, iron-bound staff topped with a hovering, void-infused orb.

The ash-haired commander looked down at the four of them, his single good eye cold, analytical, and devoid of any theatrical arrogance.

"Kyle Conner," the commander spoke, his voice deep, grounded, and carrying over the wind like grinding stone. "I am Vane, First Commander of the Obsidian Pass. We know the Bone Church has fallen. We know the River of Dross was crossed. You have fought well to reach this height."

Kyle took three calm steps forward, stopping twenty paces from the front line of glass executioners. "Then you know why I’m here, Vane. Stand down and let us pass to the castle, or die in this bottleneck."

Vane didn’t flinch. He tightened his grip on the heavy handle of his tower shield, the blood-gold runes along its surface slowly lighting up with a dense, kinetic suppression field.

"Lord Vladimir foresaw your arrival six months ago," Vane said steadily. "He told us you would come with fire in your hands and a shadow in your core. He also told us that by the time you reached this pass, your body would be broken from the burden of your own power. Look at you, Conner. Your core is trembling. Your companions can barely hold their elemental domains."

Falcon growled low in her throat, her four tails flaring brighter as the emerald poison fire cast long, dancing shadows across the obsidian walls. "Try us, scar-face! See if my fire feels broken!"

"It is not an insult, fox-woman," Vane replied, his voice terrifyingly calm. "It is an absolute tactical reality. You have expended ninety percent of your high-tier mana just to reach our doorstep. We, however, have been resting here, feeding on the ridge’s natural ley-lines, waiting for this exact moment."

Vane raised his heavy iron-bound shield three inches off the ground and slammed it down onto the glass floor with crushing force.

*THUUUUUUM!*

A heavy, visible shockwave of dark red kinetic energy expanded from the shield, locking the spatial grid of the entire amphitheater down completely. The air became heavy as lead, making even lifting a blade require twice the physical effort.

The thirty Obsidian Executioners raised their heavy broadswords simultaneously, stepping forward in perfect, terrifying unison.

*CLANG-STEP. CLANG-STEP.*

"Execution Phalanx," Vane commanded from the ledge. "Crush their forward line. Leave no survivors."

Yua cracked her knuckles, her crimson claws extending to their maximum length as she stepped up to Kyle’s left side. "He talks a lot for a guy standing behind thirty metal meat-shields."

"He’s right about one thing," Seraphina said, stepping up to Kyle’s right, her ocean trident held high as a powerful, blue aura began to circulate around her body once more, drawing upon the deep, hidden reserves of her royal lineage. "We are exhausted. Which means we cannot afford a long, drawn-out battle. We break their line in a single strike."

Kyle looked at his three companions. He saw the sweat on Falcon’s brow, the strain in Seraphina’s stance, and the fatigue lurking behind Yua’s wild eyes. Yet, despite the overwhelming odds and their depleted strength, not a single one of them was stepping back. Not a single one of them showed a shred of doubt.

A quiet, profound warmth cut through the icy ache in Kyle’s chest, stabilizing his core far better than any system recovery spell could ever manage.

"Snow," Kyle called out internally, his voice settling into a crystal-clear, razor-sharp focus.

’Ready, Kyle,’ Snow replied instantly, her tone matching his absolute resolve. ’Rerouting all available internal energy reserves to primary physical output. Full Synchrony is unnecessary. We strike with pure, concentrated synergy.’

Kyle raised his dark shadow blade, the steel reflecting the glowing red horizontal eyes of the approaching glass executioners.

"We don’t fight them individually," Kyle said softly to his team, his dark slitted eyes fixing on Commander Vane. "We combine everything right now. One push. One breakthrough."

Falcon grinned, her golden eyes flashing with fierce, unbroken spirit as her four brown tails whipped through the air. "Now you’re talking my language!"

Seraphina slammed her trident down, generating a surging wave of azure sea water that wrapped around all four of their weapons, while Yua infused the water with her dense, crimson blood-mana, creating a swirling, violent storm of red and blue energy.

Kyle stepped into the center of the formation, his black gauntlet flaring with a steady, roaring flame of pitch-black demon fire that merged seamlessly into the swirling storm.

"Charge!" Kyle shouted.

The four of them surged forward as one, launching themselves directly into the Obsidian Phalanx to clear the final pass to the Blood Moon Fortress.