The Forgotten Tunnels were behind them, but Kieran couldn’t shake the feeling that something had followed them out.

  His team emerged into the lower halls of the Bastion of Ash, deep beneath the fortress.

  No alarms had been raised.

  No guards stood watch.

  The Keepers had never expected an attack from below.

  And now, they would pay for their arrogance.

  Selene pressed her back against the cold stone wall, scanning the corridor ahead.

  "We’re inside," she whispered.

  The air was stale, thick with the weight of centuries of secrecy.

  Kieran's pulse steady, his focus razor-sharp.

  Everything had led to this.

  He turned to Veyren, who was already unsheathing his twin blades.

  "We have three objectives."

  "We seize the command center. We disable the fortress gates. And we make sure no Keeper leaves this place alive."

  The silence in the chamber was heavy—not from fear, but from determination.

  They had all lost too much to hesitate now.

  Veyren gave a curt nod.

  "We do this fast, or we die slow."

  Kieran smirked.

  "Then let’s move."

  The corridors stretched ahead of them, a twisting labyrinth of ancient stone and flickering torchlight.

  The Bastion of Ash had stood for centuries, untouched by time.

  It was not just a fortress.

  It was a sanctuary for the Keepers—their last refuge.

  But tonight, it would become their tomb.

  Kieran ran his fingers along the cold stone walls.

  Symbols were etched into them—old magic.

  The Keepers had not just ruled through power.

  They had ruled through fear.

  Through control.

  Through rewriting the very fabric of history.

  But history had caught up to them.

  A sound—soft footsteps.

  Kieran froze, signaling to the others.

  A Keeper patrol was approaching.

  Two men, heavily armed, draped in black robes lined with silver threads.

  Their eyes were cold, emotionless.

  They were trained to kill without question.

  Without hesitation.

  Kieran pressed himself against the shadows, waiting.

  As the first guard passed, he struck.

  His dagger slid effortlessly between the man’s ribs, severing his throat before he could make a sound.

  The second guard turned, startled—

  Veyren was already moving.

  His blade slashed across the man’s throat, his body hitting the ground with a dull thud.

  Selene exhaled.

  "Clean kills."

  Kieran nodded.

  "But they’ll notice the bodies soon. We move fast."

  They reached a cross-section of the fortress, where towering bookshelves lined the walls.

  Old tomes. Scrolls. Documents sealed behind iron-reinforced glass.

  Veyren grunted.

  "What is this place?"

  Selene's eyes narrowed.

  "The Keepers’ archives."

  Kieran scanned the spines of the books.

  Some of them were centuries old.

  History that had been erased.

  Knowledge that had been kept from the world.

  "Burn it," Kieran said.

  Selene hesitated.

  "There could be valuable information here—"

  "And it’s valuable to them. That’s reason enough to destroy it."

  Veyren was already setting the torches.

  Fire licked at the parchment, smoke curling toward the ceiling.

  The history of the Keepers was turning to ash.

  And Kieran felt no remorse.

  They reached the inner control chamber, a reinforced room filled with mechanical levers, arcane seals, and steel-reinforced doors.

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  This was it.

  The heart of the fortress’s defenses.

  Once they disabled this, their army could storm the Bastion.

  Two heavily armored Keepers stood guard inside, their robes lined with the insignia of command.

  Kieran held up three fingers.

  Then two.

  Then—

  They struck.

  Veyren went left, his blades flashing.

  The first Keeper barely had time to react before his throat was sliced open.

  Selene lunged right, driving her dagger into the other man’s ribs.

  The Keeper choked, gasping as he collapsed.

  Kieran moved to the control panel, his eyes scanning the intricate network of levers and glyphs.

  "How long?" Selene asked.

  Kieran smirked.

  "Give me a few seconds."

  He pressed his hand against the central glyph.

  Magic flared, rejecting his presence.

  He gritted his teeth, focusing.

  Then—

  The fortress shuddered.

  The inner gates unlocked.

  And outside—the war horns sounded.

  The Keepers had no idea what was about to hit them.

  A deep metallic clang echoed through the fortress.

  The inner defenses were collapsing.

  The Keepers would realize it soon.

  Selene wiped her blade clean.

  "Time to go."

  Kieran nodded, his heart pounding.

  The doors to the fortress had fallen.

  Which meant—

  Their army was coming.

  Outside, the battle had begun.

  The Undercity’s forces surged through the broken gates.

  Steel clashed against steel.

  Magic crackled through the air.

  Kieran could hear the sounds of war echoing through the corridors.

  It was happening.

  The Keepers, who had erased so many, who had rewritten history itself—

  Were now on the defensive.

  And by the time this night was over—

  The Bastion of Ash would be nothing but ruins.

  The inner gates had fallen.

  And outside, the war began.

  Kieran heard the first shouts of battle echo through the stone corridors.

  The Undercity’s fighters poured through the gates, their weapons flashing in the moonlight.

  Steel clashed against steel.

  Arrows whistled through the air.

  And the Keepers—for the first time in centuries—were unprepared.

  Kieran moved fast, leading his team deeper into the fortress.

  The Bastion of Ash had been built as a sanctuary, a place where the Keepers could hoard their knowledge in absolute secrecy.

  They had never designed it to withstand a siege.

  Because they had never believed anyone would dare to attack them.

  Now, their arrogance would be their undoing.

  Veyren pulled his blade from a fallen Keeper.

  "They’re scrambling."

  Selene smirked, wiping blood from her dagger.

  "They don’t know how to fight a real war."

  Kieran nodded.

  "Then we don’t give them time to learn."

  The hallways were chaos.

  Keeper enforcers—once feared assassins—were now panicked, disorganized.

  They fought in the open, trying to hold choke points, but their numbers were thinning fast.

  Kieran cut through two of them, dodging a wild sword swing before burying his dagger in a man’s throat.

  Blood splattered across the stone walls.

  Selene threw a dagger, hitting a Keeper in the eye before he could chant a spell.

  They were winning.

  But Kieran knew—this wasn’t over.

  Not yet.

  They reached the fortress’s central chambers.

  Here, the Keepers had stored their deepest secrets.

  Ancient scrolls. Forbidden relics.

  Things that should never have existed.

  Selene paused, frowning.

  "This isn’t right."

  Kieran glanced at her.

  "What?"

  She gestured around them.

  "No guards. No traps. Nothing."

  "It’s too easy."

  And then—

  The shadows moved.

  A figure stepped forward from the darkness.

  Tall. Cloaked.

  A man wearing the highest sigil of the Keepers.

  His voice was cold, ancient.

  "You have come far, Kieran."

  "But this is where your journey ends."

  Kieran’s blood ran cold.

  This wasn’t just a high-ranking Keeper.

  This was a Rewriter.

  One of the few men who could bend history itself.

  The Rewriter raised his hands, and the air shifted.

  Reality itself wavered.

  The walls of the fortress blurred, twisting into something impossible.

  Kieran felt his mind shake, his memories warping.

  He saw flashes of different timelines—

  His own past changing before his eyes.

  A life where he never existed.

  A world where the Keepers had already won.

  "No."

  Kieran gritted his teeth.

  Fought against the magic.

  And then—he understood.

  This wasn’t just a battle of swords.

  This was a battle of wills.

  Kieran focused.

  He pushed back against the false memories, anchoring himself in reality.

  In the truth.

  The Keepers had spent centuries rewriting history.

  But Kieran had lived it.

  He was proof they had failed.

  And that meant—he could fight back.

  His hand clenched into a fist.

  "You will not erase me again."

  Magic flared through his body.

  The Rewriter staggered back, shocked.

  For the first time—someone was resisting.

  Selene moved first.

  She threw a knife, forcing the Rewriter to stumble.

  Veyren lunged, slashing at his robes.

  The Keeper hissed in pain, blood spilling onto the stone floor.

  But Kieran knew—he had to end this himself.

  He stepped forward.

  His dagger glowed faintly, pulsing with something deeper than magic.

  It was truth.

  And when he drove it into the Rewriter’s chest—

  Reality itself shattered.

  The fortress groaned.

  The magic holding it together collapsed.

  Kieran stumbled back, watching as the walls cracked, the ceilings split.

  The Keepers had used their own fortress as a prison of reality.

  And now—it was crumbling.

  Selene grabbed his arm.

  "Time to go!"

  The team ran, dodging falling debris as the Bastion of Ash collapsed around them.

  Keeper bodies littered the halls.

  The war was over.

  The Keepers had lost.

  And now, only ruins remained.

  By the time they reached the outside, the sun was rising.

  The battlefield was quiet.

  The last Keepers were dead.

  And the Undercity fighters—victorious.

  For the first time in history, the Keepers were gone.

  Kieran looked at the burning fortress.

  At the ashes of their lies.

  And he felt nothing but satisfaction.

  Selene smirked.

  "So, what now?"

  Kieran exhaled.

  "Now? We rebuild."

  "But first—"

  He turned toward the horizon.

  "We find out what they were hiding."

  Because something was still out there.

  And this war?

  It was only just beginning.