That’s when Marduk had drawn his blade.

He pressed his bleeding hand against the altar socket.

The chamber was circular, domed, lit by a single shaft of pale light from above. In the center stood an altar of fused obsidian and bone. And on the altar, a single, empty socket—exactly the size of the stone now seared into his flesh.

And Kaelen?

Bootsteps at the entrance. Three silhouettes.

They had been his party. His nakama .

The stone slid free from his flesh without resistance, as if it had been waiting. It clicked into the altar with a sound like a key turning in the last lock of the world.