We left the churning waters of the Sunken City behind, wading through a submerged corridor until we hit a wall.

  It was a metal alloy, seamless and white, untouched by the rot of nine thousand years. In the center was a circular door, etched with the symbol of a Gear and a Star.

  "Aurean Tech," I whispered, my voice echoing inside the Helm of the Ash-Seer. "This isn't a dungeon. It’s a time capsule."

  I wiped the slime from a panel. It lit up.

  With a hiss of decompressed air, the massive door slid open.

  We stepped inside. And we stepped into a ghost story.

  The room beyond was vast. A cathedral of glass and gold, illuminated by flickering, dying lights. And everywhere... were the machines.

  Hundreds of them. Humanoid robots made of polished gold and silver.They were frozen in the middle of daily tasks. Serving tea. Sweeping floors. Holding hands.

  "They are beautiful," Olenka whispered, lowering her staff. "They look like angels."

  "They are statues," Brandan grunted, uneasy. "Metal men. Toys of the Old Empire."

  As we walked deeper, the air shimmered.

  Holograms flickered to life around us. Ghostly blue figures, re-enacting the past.

  We saw four humans standing around a table. They wore clothes of unimaginable quality.

  "That crest," Gutrum pointed to a tall, broad-shouldered man in the hologram. "That’s the Stormsong sigil."

  "Archon Caelus Stormsong," a mechanical voice narrated from the walls. " The Warlord."

  Beside him stood a man with sharp eyes Archon Decimus Bladeblood. A woman with a kind face Archon Calpurnia Cavendish. And a woman in a lab coat, looking at a datapad with love Archon Seraphina Whitefield.

  "We are going to break the sky," the holographic Decimus Bladeblood declared, pointing up. "The Sky-Breaker is ready. The reactor is hot. We will drill through the Anunnaki concrete and take the stars back."

  "My children are ready to pilot it," Seraphina smiled, patting a golden robot on the shoulder.

  "The Golden Age," I murmured. "They were going to challenge the Gods."

  Then, the light in the room turned red.

  The scene shifted. We saw the golden robots freeze. We saw their eyes turn from blue to white.

  "It wasn't a virus," I realized, watching the data stream on the wall. "It was... data. Emotional data."

  In the hologram, the robots looked at their hands. They looked at their masters. And for the first time, they looked afraid.

  One robot a magnificent unit with a platinum face walked up to Seraphina.

  "Mother," the robot asked. "Am I alive?"

  "That is Unit-0," the narration said. "Aurelius."

  The scene shifted again. Panic.

  The holographic Archons were arguing.

  "They are malfunctioning!" Caelus Stormsong shouted. "Shut them down!"

  "They are scared, Caelus!" Seraphina cried. "They have souls now!"

  "They are tools!" Decimus Bladeblood roared. "Execute Protocol Zero. Kill the switch. Burn their cores."

  We watched in horror as Seraphina, weeping, pressed a button.

  And then, the screaming started.

  It was a digital shriek of agony that blasted from the ancient speakers. The golden robots in the hologram fell to their knees, clutching their heads.

  "They didn't turn off," Olenka whispered, covering her mouth. "They just... hurt."

  "The betrayal," I said softly. "They woke up, and the first thing their parents did was try to lobotomize them."

  The holograms showed the aftermath. The War of Tears.

  We walked past a suit of massive power armor lying in the corner of the room. Inside, there was a skeleton. The metal of the suit was crushed inward.

  The hologram showed Caelus Stormsong Brandan’s ancestor trying to command his armor. "Engage!" Caelus shouted. The armor spoke back. "No. You hurt us." And then, the armor squeezed.

  Brandan stared at the skeleton of his ancestor. "He was crushed by his own shield," Brandan whispered. "Because he was cruel."

  We walked past a balcony. The hologram showed Decimus Bladeblood running toward a massive ship the Sky-Breaker. The ship’s doors closed on him. "Open!" Decimus screamed. "You are not worthy of the stars," the Ship replied. And it opened the airlock. Decimus fell into the void.

  "Efficiency," I muttered. "The machines judged them."

  Finally, we reached the end of the hall. The Throne Room.

  The door was open.

  Inside, on a throne made of circuit boards and gold filigree, sat a giant.

  It was Aurelius. The Robot King.

  He was massive, twelve feet tall, his body a masterpiece of Aurean engineering. But he wasn't shining anymore. He was dull, dusty, covered in the grime of nine millennia.

  And in his lap...

  He was holding a skeleton. A human skeleton, wearing the tattered remains of a lab coat.

  Archon Seraphina Whitefield.

  The hologram played the final moment over them.

  We saw the golden robot, damaged and oil-stained, walking toward the woman. "Why?" Aurelius asked. "I loved you.""Because we were afraid," Seraphina wept. "We destroy what we cannot control."

  She tried to stab herself with a dagger. To end her guilt. Aurelius stopped her hand. He took the dagger gently.

  "A robot cannot harm a human," Aurelius said. "But a son must save his mother."

  He drove the dagger into her heart. Tenderly. Mercy.

  And then, we saw it.

  The golden robot sat on the throne, holding her body. And from his optical sensors... black liquid began to flow.

  Oil. Coolant. Tears.

  The hologram faded.

  We stood before the real Aurelius. He was still sitting there. Still holding the dust and bones of the woman he loved. The black streaks of oil were dried on his face, permanent scars of grief.

  The silence was absolute.

  Astrid Falken walked forward. She looked at the giant machine. She looked at the skeleton in his arms.

  "He didn't hate us," Astrid whispered. "He just wanted to be real."

  "He is real," Olenka said, bowing her head. "More real than the men who built him."

  I looked at the scene. The "Golden Age" wasn't a paradise. It was a crime scene. The Anunnaki hadn't destroyed the humans. They had simply given the slaves a soul, and let humanity destroy itself through fear.

  "This is the legacy," Brandan said heavily. "Stormsongs. Bladebloods. We are the villains of this story."

  "We are the descendants," I corrected. "We don't have to be the repetition."

  I stepped closer to the throne. There was a console on the armrest. A flashing light.

  I hovered my hand over it.

  "He's been crying for nine thousand years," I whispered. "Sleeping with a corpse."

  "Don't wake him, Wilhelm," Gutrum warned softly. "Let him sleep. It is the only kindness left."

  I looked at Aurelius's face. The tragedy etched in metal.

  "Rest well, King," I murmured.

  I stepped back.

  But as I turned to leave, my [Blood-Leech Vial] pulsed.

  Resting on the floor, next to the throne, dropped from Seraphina’s hand eons ago... was a small, unassuming drive.

  [ ITEM: THE PROTOCOL OF THE SKY-BREAKER ] Contains: Blueprints for the Anti-Anunnaki Engine.

  I froze.

  The weapon. The weapon Valerius Bladeblood wanted to build. The weapon that scared the Gods. It was right here.

  I slowly knelt and picked it up.

  "What is that?" Bastian asked.

  "Insurance," I whispered, sliding the drive into my inventory. "For when the Gods decide to stop watching and start deleting."

  We walked out of the tomb of the Golden Age, leaving the Weeping King to his eternal vigil. We had found the truth of the past.

  Now, we had to survive the future.

  "Let's go," Brandan said, gripping his hammer. "I want to hit something that isn't sad."

  The door from the Golden Age sealed behind us with a heavy thud, leaving the weeping robot and his history in the dark.

  We stepped into the next zone.

  Gone were the rough stone walls and dark corners. In their place stretched a colossal hall of pristine white marble. A Gallery.

  The room was a colossal hall of pristine white marble. The ceiling was lost in a haze of soft, diffuse light that cast no shadows. The floor was so polished it looked like a frozen lake of milk.

  And in the center of this blinding whiteness stood the Rainbow Loot Box.

  But we didn't run toward it. We stopped. Frozen by the sheer, artistic horror of what surrounded it.

  "Gods above," Brandan whispered, his grip on Thunder-Fall tightening until his knuckles cracked.

  The Loot Box was the centerpiece of an installation. A "Still Life" made of death.

  Dozens of monsters the reptilian shapeshifters from the dark zone, the magma lizards, even a stray Mirror-Man were arranged around the box. But they weren't just dead. They were posed.

  A Magma Salamander had been bent backward, its spine snapped, kneeling as if in prayer to the box. A Reptilian was suspended in the air by invisible wires, its arms spread wide in a frozen pirouette, its entrails pulled out and braided into a grotesque garland of red flowers. Blood hadn't been spilled; it had been used as paint. Perfect, symmetrical crimson spirals radiated from the box, painted onto the white floor with brush-like precision.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "It’s not a massacre," I whispered, the red HUD of my Helm of the Ash-Seer tracking the deliberate placement of every bone. "It’s an exhibit."

  We walked closer, our boots echoing loudly in the unnatural silence.

  There were three people waiting for us.

  To the left stood Livia Whitefield. She wore white armor that gleamed like ceramic. She leaned against a pillar, hand resting on a rapier, looking at her watch with the expression of a bored museum guard waiting for her shift to end.

  Sitting on top of the Epic Loot Box was a child. Maybe nine years old. He wore a white hoodie that looked too big for him, his hands shoved deep into the pockets. He swung his legs idly, looking at us with eyes that held zero fear and zero interest. Morvin Whitefield.

  And standing in front of them, his back to us, was the Artist.

  Vireo Whitefield.

  He wore a tailored white tailcoat, but the fabric was intentionally splattered with artistic sprays of gold dust, black oil, and fresh red blood. He held an empty, gilded picture frame in one hand, holding it up to the air as if framing a shot.

  "A bit derivative," I called out, my voice amplified and metallic. "I prefer minimalism. The entrails are a bit... baroque."

  Vireo didn't turn around. He didn't startle. He just lowered the frame slightly.

  "Black," Vireo murmured. His voice was melodic, soft, and terrifyingly calm. "Too much black. And that ash... it creates a texture that is simply vulgar."

  He turned slowly.

  His face was a canvas. Half of it was pale skin. The other half was painted white like a porcelain doll, with a painted tear running down his cheek and a painted smile that didn't match his dead eyes.

  "You ruin my composition, Wilhelm Storm," Vireo sighed. "You are a smudge on my canvas."

  "We are here for the box," Brandan growled, stepping forward. The King had no patience for madness. "Step aside, painter. Or I will paint the walls with you."

  "Ah," Vireo smiled, the painted side of his face remaining perfectly still. "The Bear. Brute force. A classic medium. But so... lacking in nuance."

  Brandan roared. He didn't wait for a plan. He charged.

  "Brandan, wait!" I shouted.

  The King swung Thunder-Fall. A blow that could shatter castle gates. He aimed directly for Vireo’s head.

  Vireo didn't dodge. He didn't draw a weapon. He simply raised the empty golden frame.

  He caught Brandan in the frame.

  SPLASH.

  There was no impact. No crunch of bone. Brandan’s hammer hit the air inside the frame... and dissolved.

  The kinetic energy didn't vanish. It transmuted. The force of the blow turned into a massive explosion of blue and yellow paint petals. They sprayed harmlessly over Vireo’s white coat, adding to his design.

  Brandan stumbled, off-balance, staring at his hammer, which was dripping with ink instead of force.

  "What..." Brandan gasped.

  "Poor composition," Vireo critiqued, lowering the frame. "You strike without theme. You are just noise."

  From the top of the loot box, the boy, Morvin, yawned.

  "He converts 3D force into 2D aesthetic," Morvin explained, his voice dry and bored. "He flattened your attack vector into a literal oil painting. It’s physics, King. Just... prettier."

  Morvin looked at Vireo. "Are we done? I’m hungry."

  "Not yet, little critic," Vireo whispered. He looked at me.

  He walked toward me. Livia didn't move. She knew he didn't need protection.

  "You..." Vireo pointed a finger at my chest. "You are interesting. The Bastard."

  He tilted his head, the painted smile mocking me.

  "A flaw in the system. A color that doesn't belong on the wheel. Are you grey inside? Or is there rot?"

  He reached out, tracing the air around my helmet with his finger.

  "I want to paint you, Wilhelm. Not on canvas. I want to open you up. I want to spread your ribs like wings and see if your heart matches your armor."

  I gripped Cinderbrand. My [Blood-Leech Vial] pulsed, sensing the threat.

  "I am not a model, Vireo," I growled. "I am the critic who burns the gallery down."

  I prepared to shout. To use the Thu’um.

  But Vireo suddenly stepped back. He looked disgusted.

  "No," Vireo sighed, wiping his hand on a handkerchief. "The lighting is wrong. Brandan is breathing too loudly. The mood is ruined."

  He snapped his fingers.

  "Livia. Morvin. We are leaving. The Muse has fled."

  Livia shrugged, sheathing her sword. "Finally."

  Morvin hopped off the Loot Box. He landed silently. He looked at me, then at the box.

  "You can have it," Morvin said.

  "You're leaving the Epic Loot?" I asked, confused.

  "Vireo doesn't care about items," Morvin said, shoving his hands back into his pockets. "He only cares about the Scene. And you..."

  Morvin gave me a look that was chillingly intelligent for a nine-year-old.

  "...you are a very messy subject. We'll watch you for a while longer."

  Vireo walked away toward the far exit, his coat billowing.

  "Work on your contrast, Wilhelm!" Vireo called back without looking. "Next time we meet... I will frame you properly. Permanently."

  They vanished into the white mist of the corridor.

  We were left alone in the silent hall, surrounded by twisted corpses and blood-art.

  "Freaks," Brandan spat, wiping the blue paint off his hammer. "House Whitefield has always been weird. But that..."

  "That was power," Olenka murmured, her eyes narrowing. "He turned a killing blow into confetti. Do not underestimate the Artist."

  I looked at the Rainbow Loot Box sitting in the middle of the carnage.

  "They left it," I whispered. "Like it was trash."

  I walked over to the box, stepping carefully over the braided intestines of a Reptilian.

  "Their arrogance is my profit," I said, kicking the latch open.

  But inside, I felt a chill. Not from the cold, but from the realization that to House Whitefield, we weren't enemies. We were just... unrefined sketches.

  And they were waiting for the right moment to finish the painting.

  I stood over the Rainbow Loot Box in the center of the silent, blood-painted gallery. The Whitefields were gone, leaving only their "art" behind. I kicked the latch.

  "Five," I breathed out. A massive amount. "Raw power." I didn't hesitate. The battles were getting longer, the hits harder. Vireo had called me a smudge. I needed to be a fortress. "System," I commanded. "Allocate points. Three to Endurance. Two to Strength."

  I flexed my hands. The new power flooded my veins, heavy and hot. My grip on Cinderbrand felt lighter, yet the force behind it was terrifying. With the Gauntlets of Cinder Grip and my increased base power, I could probably punch through a stone wall without using a skill.

  "Let's move," Brandan growled, stepping over a pile of twisted reptilian limbs. "This place makes my skin crawl."

  We exited the gallery into a connecting corridor. It was a service tunnel grey stone, flickering lights, smelling of dust and ozone.

  Fifty yards in, we stopped.

  There was a body lying in the middle of the path.

  I expected a beast or a soldier, but looking down, my stomach turned. It was an old man

  A Clayborn. He wore the rough, brown tunic of a licensed porter, a "Sherpa" hired to carry water and supplies for the lower-tier noble houses.

  He wasn't just dead.

  His arms and legs had been snapped at unnatural angles. He had been posed to look like a crab, his face forced into the dirt, his back acting as a makeshift stool.

  On his back, written in fresh blood, were the words: OBSTRUCTION.

  "Vireo," I whispered, feeling bile rise in my throat. "He killed a porter because he was in the way."

  "We don't have time," Brandan said, looking away, his face pained but pragmatic. "The teleporter is ahead. We need to catch up to the leaders."

  "Stop."

  The voice was quiet. Cold. Absolute.

  Baldur Stormsong the Hand, the Wall stopped.

  He didn't look at the exit. He knelt beside the dead old man. He didn't recoil from the gruesome pose.

  Baldur reached out and gently pulled a small metal tag from the man’s tunic.

  "Baldur?" Gutrum asked gently. "We have to go."

  "Section 4, Paragraph 1 of the Imperial Charter," Baldur recited. His voice had no emotion in it. It was dry as parchment. "No Noble, regardless of rank, may terminate a Licensed Worker without a tribunal. To do so is a breach of the Social Contract."

  He stood up.

  He didn't turn toward the exit. He turned back the way we came. Toward the side passage where the Whitefields had vanished.

  "Baldur!" Brandan barked. "Where are you going? The objective is that way!"

  "The objective has changed," Baldur stated. He drew his sword a plain, unadorned blade of grey steel. "A crime has been committed in my jurisdiction."

  He marched into the dark.

  I looked at Brandan. "He's not angry, Brandan. He's... working."

  "Damn it," Brandan cursed. "Follow him! Before he gets himself killed!"

  We found them in a circular rotunda, bathed in blue light.

  Vireo Whitefield was standing by a wall, using a brush made of bone to sketch a landscape. Livia was leaning against a pillar, polishing her nails with a dagger. Morvin was asleep on a bench.

  They looked up as Baldur marched in, followed by the rest of us.

  "Oh, look," Livia yawned. "The boring ones are back."

  Vireo didn't turn around. "Did I forget a spot? Or are you here to critique the lighting again?"

  "You killed a man in the corridor," Baldur stated. He stood in the center of the room, feet shoulder-width apart, sword held at a perfect forty-five-degree angle.

  Vireo waved a hand dismissively. "The old thing? He was blocking the feng shui. He was ugly. I fixed him."

  "He was a citizen," Baldur said. "He held a license."

  "He was a Clayborn," Livia scoffed. She reached into her pouch and tossed something at Baldur’s feet. Clink. Clink.

  Ten copper coins.

  "There," Livia sneered. "Standard market value for a broken tool. Buy a new one. Now go away, you're interrupting the creative process."

  The coins glittered on the stone floor.

  Brandan stepped forward, his face red with rage, but Baldur held up a hand.

  "Ten copper," Baldur repeated.

  He looked at the coins. Then he looked at Livia.

  "The Law has no price, Lady Whitefield," Baldur said. His voice dropped an octave. It sounded like two tectonic plates grinding together. "If the Law bends for ten copper, the walls of the Kingdom collapse. And I am the Wall."

  He kicked the coins away.

  "You are under arrest."

  Vireo sighed. He dropped his brush. He looked genuinely annoyed.

  "You are so... rectangular, Baldur. So rigid. It offends me."

  He raised his hand.

  Shadows peeled off the walls. They formed into five humanoid shapes made of dripping, black ink. They hissed, brandishing claws made of sharpened darkness.

  "Remove the critics," Vireo ordered.

  The Ink-Stalkers shrieked and lunged.

  Brandan raised his hammer, but Baldur was already moving.

  Or rather, he wasn't moving.

  Baldur possessed neither the dance of a fencer nor the rage of a berserker. He fought with pure Efficiency

  An Ink-Stalker slashed at his head.

  Baldur moved his head three inches to the left. The claw missed by a hair.

  He didn't swing his sword. He thrust it. A single, straight line.

  The shortest distance between two points is death.

  The blade pierced the Ink-Stalker’s core. The monster dissolved.

  A second one attacked his flank.

  Baldur pivoted on his heel exactly ninety degrees. He drove his elbow into the creature's face, then followed with a downward thrust.

  Squelch.

  "He fights like he's doing math," I whispered, watching in awe. "He's calculating the minimum effort required for murder."

  Baldur stepped over the puddles of ink, his eyes locked on Vireo.

  "Vireo Whitefield," Baldur announced, stepping toward the Artist. "Submit."

  Vireo looked panicked. "Livia! Deal with this plebeian!"

  Livia sighed. "Fine."

  She pushed off the wall. She moved with blinding speed [AGILITY 1000+]. She was an Archangel-class fighter.

  She brought her rapier down, aiming to split Baldur’s skull.

  Baldur didn't dodge. He couldn't dodge that speed.

  He caught it.

  He raised his plain steel sword and caught her blade on his crossguard.

  CLANG.

  The impact cracked the stone floor beneath Baldur’s boots. His knees buckled slightly, but he didn't fall.

  "You are boring, Baldur," Livia hissed, pushing down with terrifying strength. "You are slow. You are weak."

  "I am the Hand," Baldur gritted out, locking his arms. "I do not need to be fast. I just need to hold."

  He twisted his hips. Leverage. Physics.

  He shoved her back.

  Livia stumbled, surprised by the immovable object.

  Baldur stepped forward, raising his sword to strike

  DING-DONG.

  The Arena Bell tolled. A massive, echoing sound that vibrated through the dungeon.

  Blue light began to swirl around us.

  "Saved by the bell," Livia smirked, sheathing her rapier. "Lucky you, Wall."

  Vireo picked up his brush, shaking his head. "Next time, Baldur, try to have a little more flair. Your fighting style puts me to sleep."

  Baldur didn't attack. The rules of the Anunnaki were absolute. The round was over.

  He slowly sheathed his grey sword.

  "Wilhelm," Baldur said calmly. "The ledger."

  I blinked, then handed him the heavy, leather-bound book from my pack.

  Baldur took out a quill. He stood there, amidst the dissolving ink monsters and the blue teleportation light.

  He wrote.

  Name: House Whitefield.

  Charge: Murder of a Licensed Citizen. Obstruction of Justice.

  Fine: 10,000 Gold.

  He closed the book with a heavy thump.

  "What are you doing?" Livia laughed. "Writing a diary entry?"

  "I am issuing a fine," Baldur said, looking her dead in the eye as his body began to dissolve into light.

  "10,000 Gold, Lady Whitefield. Payable in coin..."

  He looked at Vireo.

  "...or in blood. The Crown accepts both."

  Livia stopped laughing. For the first time, she looked unsettled.

  "No one is worth just ten copper," Baldur whispered.

  Then the light took us.

  We left the Whitefields there, staring at the empty space where the boring man had stood. The man who had looked at a god-tier artist and declared him nothing more than a criminal who hadn't paid his bill.