Chương 128: What Vaults Cannot Keep

Cassiel did not fight like Drakhar. Drakhar struck to break. Cassiel struck to deprive. Each ring on his fingers opened a different chamber in the Vault District. Each chamber spat out a weapon, a shadow, a metal beast, a stolen oath, a chain with a name still hanging from it. Zayn cut through the first wave in silence. An empty suit of armor raised a black sword. He cut it down. A vault-beast lunged for his leg. He crushed it. Three chains shot up from the ground to seize his right palm.

The mark of Avarice opened. The chains recoiled. Not out of fear. Out of recognition. Zayn smiled.

"Now you know." He placed his right hand on one of them.

"Right of Seizure." The chain twisted, resisted, then gave in. It wrapped around his forearm like a serpent of black gold. At once, Cassiel closed his fist. The chain turned against Zayn. It tightened. Bone. Flesh. Nerves. Zayn grunted. Cassiel spoke from the broken walkway above.

"You can take things. But you still don't know how many masters a thing can keep." Zayn activated the forge-blood. His veins ignited. The chain heated, glowed red, then split under Ruined Time.

"Then I kill the old masters." He tore the chain off his arm and hurled it at Cassiel. The General avoided it with a single step. Too easy. The chain was not the attack. Elyra had already understood. She cast her light onto the chain the moment it passed behind Cassiel, turning it into a bright line, almost invisible, stretched between two collapsed pillars. Cassiel stepped back. His heel touched it. Zayn was already in front of him. The fused scythe came down. Cassiel raised three rings.

Three vaults fell from the sky. They did not open. They crashed down. The first struck the scythe and knocked its edge aside. The second fell onto Zayn's right wing and crushed it against the ground. The third exploded in front of Elyra, sending her rolling several meters away.

"Elyra!" cried Lumeï. Zayn saw the princess fall. One second. Cassiel saw it too.

"She has become a recurring expense in your decisions." That sentence was a mistake. Zayn tore his wing free. The flesh ripped apart. Voragna's regeneration tried to seal it. Drakhar's blood burned in his veins. The edges of his black wing caught fire. He did not free it cleanly. He ripped it off. Then he hurled himself at Cassiel. The scythe struck. Cassiel blocked with a blade drawn from one of his rings.

The white spectral edge passed through the blade like a filthy prayer, cutting not the metal, but the link attaching it to the vault. The weapon fell, dead. Cassiel stepped back. Zayn advanced. The General opened one hand. The floor beneath Zayn vanished. Not a pit. A vault chamber opened vertically. Iron arms came out of it, seized him by the ankles, and dragged him toward an interior filled with living locks. Zayn drove the scythe into the edge of the floor. The iron arms pulled. The scythe screeched.

The weapon's dark voice shouted,"I refuse to be shelved!" The spiritual voice, weaker, murmured,"Not… in the dark…" Zayn clenched his teeth. His right palm landed on the edge of the vault. Avarice burned. He did not try to take the whole vault. Too heavy. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Too bound to Cassiel. He took something simpler. The exit.

"Right of Seizure." The black lines from his palm sank into the metal. The vault tried to swallow him. Zayn pulled in the other direction. And tore its door off. The vault screamed. Not Cassiel. The vault. Like a beast being flayed. Zayn climbed back up holding the ripped-off door in one hand. Then he threw it at Cassiel. The General raised his arms. Four vaults opened around him to absorb the impact. But the ripped-off door still belonged to his own system. It passed the first defense. Then the second.

Cassiel had to dodge for real. Zayn smiled.

"You move better when you lose." Cassiel landed on a side chain. His face had lost its perfection. Not his control. But his certainty.

"And you understand better when you destroy what you wanted." Zayn raised the scythe.

"I wanted Elvarin. You sold him. I wanted answers. You hid them. I wanted my first status. You put it in a vault." He advanced.

"Now I just want you to have nothing." Cassiel went silent. Then he laughed.

"You're right." Elyra got back to her feet with blood at the corner of her mouth.

"Zayn, be careful." Cassiel raised his left hand. All his rings went dark. The entire city seemed to hold its breath.

"If you want to ruin me, then look at what remains when the vaults are taken away." The walls of the Vault District opened. Not onto gold. Not onto guardians. Onto people. Dozens. Hundreds. Beings suspended in alcoves of black glass: demons, humans, elves, beastfolk, unknown creatures. Some alive. Some not. Some reduced to fragments of voice or shadow. Elyra turned deathly pale.

"What is this?" Cassiel answered simply,"Collateral." The scythe growled. Zayn did not speak. Cassiel opened his arms.

"There is the truth you wanted to avoid. My vaults do not only keep things. They keep the consequences of other people's choices. These beings were sold, given, traded, promised, abandoned." He looked at Zayn.

"If you destroy everything, you destroy them with me. If you strike too hard, some chambers fall. If you seize badly, their seals break." Elyra murmured,"He's forcing you to choose." Zayn looked at the alcoves. Open eyes behind black glass. Hands pressed against the walls. Mouths without sound. Shadows without bodies. The mark of Avarice in his palm began to burn. Take. Keep. Reclaim. Everything. Too much. Cassiel's voice turned soft.

"You see? Avarice is not the strength to take everything. It is the curse of understanding that every seizure leaves something outside your hand." Zayn remained still. The Vault District creaked around him. The Mother Vault had fallen. The towers were shaking. The chains were losing tension. He could not save everything. He did not want to save everything. But he did not want to let Cassiel keep deciding what fell and what remained. He closed his eyes. For one second. Then he raised his right hand.

"Elyra." She straightened.

"What?"

"The alcoves. Can you hold them?" She looked at the hundreds of chambers.

"Not all of them."

"Choose the ones still breathing." The sentence hit her. Not because it was beautiful. Because it was horrible. And possible. She clenched her teeth.

"Lumeï." The spirit of light appeared beside her.

"I know. I hate this, but I know." Elyra raised both hands. Her light split into threads. Not enough for all of them. But enough to reach the living. Cassiel narrowed his eyes.

"You delegate pity." Zayn smiled.

"No. I'm taking the spectacle away from you." He drove the fused scythe into the ground. Ruined Time spread out. Not across the alcoves. Across the locks. The mechanisms aged. The seals cracked. The bolts began to fall away. Cassiel tensed.

"You cannot open them without transferring the debt." Zayn raised his right palm.

"I'm not transferring anything." The mark of Avarice turned black.

"I'm confiscating." Right of Seizure spread through the ground. A black wave passed from lock to lock. Zayn did not take the beings. He took the locks. One by one. Each lock ripped free entered his palm like a bite. His right hand tore open further. His skin split to the wrist. His arm shook under the weight of hundreds of small, useless possessions. But the alcoves opened. The living fell. Elyra caught them with threads of light. Not all of them. Some hit the ground. Some did not move. Some crawled.

Cassiel watched the collateral fall from his walls. And for the first time, his voice trembled.

"You just stole my losses." Zayn looked up. His smile was covered in blood.

"No." He opened his right hand. Hundreds of broken locks fell to the ground.

"I made them worthless." Cassiel attacked. No more guardians. No more vaults. No more distance. The General lunged at him with dry speed, his rings transformed into black-gold claws. He aimed for the throat, the eyes, the right hand. Zayn parried with the scythe. The white edge cut one claw off. The black edge opened Cassiel's forearm. Cassiel slipped under the blade and drove two fingers into the palm of Avarice. Pain shot through Zayn all the way to his skull. Cassiel smiled, his face close to Zayn's.

"Found it." His rings lit up. He tried to seize the Downfall itself. Not to take it. To classify it. To name it. To limit it. Zayn screamed. The mark in his palm twisted. Cassiel whispered,"All property has a definition." Zayn grabbed his wrist with his left hand. The forge-blood ignited. His arm burst into flame.

"Not that one." Zayn's flesh burned at the same time as Cassiel's. The General clenched his teeth. Zayn dragged their hands toward the edge of the scythe.

"You wanted my hand?" He smiled.

"Keep yours." The scythe cut. Cassiel's hand fell. Rings and all. The General's cry was brief. Very brief. Zayn caught the severed hand before it touched the ground. The mark of Avarice opened.

"Right of Seizure." Cassiel went pale.

"No." Cassiel's rings tried to return to their master. Zayn forced them to stay. Not all of them. Too many. But enough. He fused three rings with the broken locks in his palm. A new symbol formed on his right hand: black lines circling three fractured golden rings, like vaults forced open. The system appeared. [Possession fusion accomplished.] [Conceptual object: Locks of Ghelkar.] [Effect: increased resistance to seizures, bindings, and confinement.] [Limit: heavy mental load. Prolonged use not advised.] Cassiel stepped back, clutching his severed wrist. His Soul Force wavered. [Cassiel Varn — Estimated Soul Force: 226 → 198.] He was not dead. But he had fallen below his own threshold as a General. The Vault District felt it. Ghelkar felt it too. All the vault chambers stopped obeying at once. Cassiel looked around. His city. His vaults. His collateral. His losses. Then Zayn.

"You didn't kill me." Zayn advanced.

"Not yet." Cassiel smiled through the blood.

"You should."

"Yes."

"Then why hesitate?" Zayn raised the scythe. Then stopped. Something gleamed behind Cassiel. A mirror. It had not been there before. Tall, black, vertical, with no visible frame. Its surface did not reflect the Vault District. Pieces were missing from it. Cassiel saw it too. His face hardened.

"Seryth." The mirror split into a smile. A female voice, layered, soft, mocking, came from the glass.

"Cassiel, Cassiel… You guard things so well that you always forget to watch who is watching the guardian." Zayn turned the scythe toward the mirror.

"Show yourself." The voice laughed.

"No." Then the mirror showed an image. The black plate of Zayn's first status. Not lost with the Mother Vault. Not destroyed. Held in a dark hand with shifting reflections. Elyra exhaled,"She stole it." Cassiel, white with rage, murmured,"It was in my vault." Seryth's voice replied,"Exactly. That is where everyone looks when a vault falls. I look at what refuses to fall." The image changed. Nhaless. A city of terraces. Dark canals. Reflective palaces. And no one. No crowd. No guards. No servants. No cries.

Only mirrors. Everywhere. In the streets. On the walls. In place of windows. Suspended above the canals. Planted in empty plazas like gravestones. Seryth whispered,"Come then to the Mirror of Nhaless, Zayn Veylor. You wanted to reclaim what was taken from you at the beginning. I have it." Another reflection passed. Faster. A nocturnal garden. Ancient dragons carved in stone. A woman with fine horns, seated beneath a black moon.

All the mirrors around her were turned toward the ground, as if they did not dare look at her. Seryth's voice lowered.

"And if you want to know why even the Generals prefer to speak of Lyséa from a distance… you will first have to understand what my mirrors refuse to reflect." The mirror shattered. Cassiel turned to Zayn at once. Not to fight. To speak.

"Do not go to Nhaless without burning every reflection behind you." Zayn looked at him.

"You advise me now?" Cassiel gave a bitter laugh.

"No. I refuse to let her gain for free what I paid so dearly to lose." Zayn raised the scythe. Cassiel closed his eyes. Then Zayn brought the blade down. Not on his neck. On the rings lying on the ground. He destroyed them one by one. Cassiel opened his eyes.

"Why?" Zayn answered,"Because living without the power to keep will take longer." Cassiel understood. His face emptied. Zayn turned to Elyra. She was exhausted, surrounded by the freed beings who were barely breathing on the shattered stones.

"We leave."

"Nhaless?"

"Yes." Lumeï trembled.

"An empty city full of mirrors. I already want not to go." The fused scythe smiled.

"So we're going." Elyra looked one last time at Cassiel. The General of Avarice was still standing in the middle of his ruined district. Alive. Ruined. Stripped bare. For him, that might have been worse. Zayn left Ghelkar without looking back. In his right palm, the Locks of Ghelkar burned around the mark of Avarice. Ahead of him, Nhaless was waiting. Empty. Silent. Full of reflections.

And somewhere beyond the mirrors, a road was already beginning to take shape toward Lyséa, the General even the other ancients avoided looking at for too long.