The vaults of Chronopolis trembled as the Brassclaw Devourer surged forward, its molten brass body hissing and spitting embers that scorched the air. Kai sprinted, the hammer's eye-rune blistering his palm with every stride. Behind him, the abomination's claws screeched against stone, its jagged maw spewing fire.
"HEIR… YOUR BLOOD WILL QUENCH THE FORGE!"
Zephyr sliced through a barricade of Eclipse glyphs, shouting over the chaos, "Left! Now!"
Kai veered into a narrow passage, the Devourer's molten tail whipping past his head and shearing through a pillar. The walls here pulsed with murals of the Forgotten King—his hammer raised high, striking down a horned beast with eyes of liquid fire.
"Keep moving!" Zephyr barked, severing a tendril of molten brass snaking toward Kai's ankle. "This thing doesn't tire!"
"Neither do I," Kai lied, his lungs burning.
They burst into a cavernous chamber littered with skeletal remains. At the center loomed an anvil the size of a warship, its surface etched with the same eye-rune as Kai's hammer.
Zephyr skidded to a halt. "Ambush. Move!"
The Brassclaw Devourer oozed from the ceiling, molten brass pooling beneath it like a living shadow. "YOU DARE DEFILE THIS PLACE, LITTLE KING? YOUR ANCESTORS DIED SCREAMING HERE."
The skeletons stirred, reassembling into towering Eclipse Revenants with violet eyes. Zephyr's daggers flashed, decapitating one, but three more surged forward.
Kai swung the hammer, void-fire erupting in a black crescent. The flames devoured two Revenants, but the Devourer lunged, its claws screeching against the hammer's shaft. The impact sent Kai sprawling, his back slamming into the anvil.
"Pathetic," the Devourer hissed, molten drool sizzling on the stone. "The Forgotten King's blood runs thin in you."
"Kid! The anvil!" Zephyr yelled, impaling a Revenant through its ribcage.
Kai slammed the hammer onto the anvil. The eye-rune ignited, chains of black lightning erupting to coil around the Devourer's molten form.
"NO! THE PACT WAS BROKEN—"
"Not anymore!" Kai roared. The chains tightened, dragging the Devourer into the anvil's core. Its claws scraped furiously against the stone, but the void-fire consumed it, leaving only a fading scream.
Silence fell.
Zephyr stared at the now-quiet anvil. "You just imprisoned a thousand-year-old abomination. In a hammer."
Kai collapsed, his hand raw and blistered. "What's next? Stuffing a hurricane into a bottle?"
As they fled the vaults, the hammer pulsed violently. A vision seared Kai's mind:
The Forgotten King stood atop a mountain of corpses, his hammer raised to a sky bleeding crimson light. "The All-Devouring Clock is no weapon," he boomed. "It is a cage. Shatter it, and the Void's maw devours all."
The vision shifted: A shadowy figure with Kai's face stood amidst ruins, the Clock fused to his chest, his eyes hollow voids. The Brassclaw Devourer knelt at his feet, whispering, "We are the same."
Kai gasped, the vision dissolving.
Zephyr steadied him. "What did you see?"
"A lie," Kai muttered, though his hands trembled.
The safehouse door creaked open. A figure stepped inside—silver hair, a clockwork eye, and a soul-blade humming with Eclipse runes.
"Hello, brother," Astra purred, her gaze locking on Zephyr. "Did you miss me?"
Zephyr's daggers clattered to the floor. "Astra… you're alive."
His sister's clockwork eye whirred as she stepped into the dim light, her soul-blade casting jagged shadows across the rusted gears of the clocktower. "Alive?" She laughed, cold and hollow. "The Council remade me, brother. Stripped my soul, reforged my bones. All because you abandoned me."
Kai tightened his grip on the hammer, its eye-rune pulsing in sync with his racing heartbeat. "Zephyr—move!"
But Zephyr stood frozen, his face pale. "I tried to save you. The vaults… the traps—"
"You left me to rot!" Astra's blade flashed, slicing a hair's breadth from Zephyr's throat. "Now watch as I carve your new pet into scraps."
She lunged at Kai, her movements a blur of Eclipse-forged steel. He barely raised the hammer in time, the clash of metal-on-metal ringing through the tower.
Astra fought like a storm—relentless, unpredictable. Her blade danced, each strike aimed to maim, not kill. "The Council wants you broken, heir. A puppet, like your sister."
Kai's void-fire erupted, but Astra dissolved into smoke, reappearing behind him. Her blade bit into his shoulder, venom searing his veins. He stumbled, the hammer slipping from his grasp.
"Pathetic," she hissed. "The Forgotten line ends with—"
Zephyr's dagger pierced her shoulder.
"RUN!" he roared, shoving Kai toward the shattered window.
Astra snarled, wrenching the dagger free. "Sentimental fool!"
Kai leapt into the night, the hammer clutched to his chest. Behind him, steel clashed—brother against sister, betrayal against regret.
Kai woke to the stench of burnt oil and the sting of a needle. Torren hunched over him, stitching his wound with glowing golden thread.
"Where's Zephyr?" Kai rasped, his throat raw.
"Gone," Torren muttered, avoiding his gaze. "Astra dragged him back to Chronopolis. The Council'll flay his soul for what he knows about the vaults."
Kai's void essence flared, black flames licking at his fingertips. "We're getting him back."
Torren snorted. "With what? That fancy hammer couldn't stop one Eclipse lackey."
"Then I'll make a better weapon." Kai staggered to his feet, ignoring the pain. "The Soulforge—Elyse's essence is tied to it. If I destroy it—"
"You'll kill her." Torren tossed him a cracked mirror. "See for yourself."
The reflection showed a woman in obsidian robes, her face hidden beneath a hood. She stood atop a floating fortress, a scythe in her hand—its blade forged from the gears of Kai's All-Devouring Clock.
Elyse.
Her white hair glowed with void energy, and her eyes… Kai's breath caught. Her eyes were twin voids, flickering with faint amber light—his sister's light, buried beneath layers of Eclipse corruption.
"They hollowed her out," Torren said quietly. "Fed her soul to that scythe. Break the Soulforge, and you break her."
Kai's grip tightened on the hammer. "Then I'll tear the Council apart until they fix her."
The hammer pulsed, the Devourer's voice slithering into Kai's mind: "Free me… and I'll feast on their bones."
Kai glared at the weapon. "You'll stay in your cage."
"You'll change your tune," it hissed. "When your sister's scythe carves out your heart."
Torren tossed Kai a bloodstained map. "Soulforge moves at dawn. Your move, heir."
Kai studied the coordinates—a floating fortress above the Shattered Wastes. But as he turned to leave, Torren's hand shot out, gripping his arm.
"One more thing." The old forger's eyes hardened. "The Council's offering a fortune for your head. Enough to buy a kingdom."
Before Kai could react, Torren slammed a cursed sigil onto the hammer. The eye-rune dimmed, its power stifled.
"Sorry, kid," Torren muttered. "But gold spends better than hope."