Eternal Thief

The Hollow Ring of the Myriad Hollow, coiled around a vast central abyssal chasm—the Blackheart Maw, was like an endless maw of a beast.

Only the most esteemed and influential Council Members could have a resident in Hollow Ring, like the Evil Villa. One such resident was Crimson Vein Hall.

Rising like a petrified heart from a crimson lake, the Crimson Vein Hall pulsed faintly in the dark. Its walls were crafted from living obsidian, laced with rune veins that glowed a visceral red, pumping like arteries.

The owner of Crimson Vein Hall was Marquis Blood Fiend of the Abyssal Fiend Race, and this Crimson Vein Hall was rumored to be bound to his own heart.

Any who dared trespass would find their life pulse stolen; there were even stories of Abyssal Beings’ blood boiling within them until they burst in a silent, grisly death within the boundaries of the Crimson Vein Hall.

A haze of blood mist drifted lazily above the Crimson Vein Hall, seeping from cracks in the living obsidian walls as if the hall itself exhaled its malice.

At its base, the crimson lake lapped silently, its surface rippling without wind, reflecting only the flickering rune-veins pulsing like a heart in slumber.

Before the colossal front gates, carved to resemble twin fiendish skulls with tongues of bone, four figures appeared, draped in abyssal cloaks woven from precious gloom-thread.

They carried neither weapon nor visible aura, yet the oppressive presence of the hall itself weighed on them like a Guillotine.

Without a word, one figure among the four stepped into a summoning sigil etched in soul-script at the base of the gate. Crimson motes ignited in the air, drifting like dying embers before the rune-veins in the obsidian stirred, pulsating harder, as if sensing foreign blood.

Moments later, the eyes of the skull gates glowed with molten red light.

From the shadows flanking the gate, two guards stepped forth. Both wore living bone armor, etched with the fiendish crest of the Blood Fiend Clan—a twisted heart wreathed in chains and flame. The surrounding air smelled faintly of burnt iron and dried blood.

One of the guards, his horns polished obsidian and eyes glowing dimly, rasped,

“State your name and purpose, guest. The Crimson Vein Hall does not open for idle callers.”

The cloaked figure didn’t seem to be oppressed by those fiendish guards; instead, he raised his hand and shifted the abyssal cloak down just enough to reveal abyssal tattoos crawling along the back of his wilted claw-like bonny hand—markings of vassalage.

In a voice cold as the deep abyss, they intoned, “By the will of the Evil Diva, we seek audience with Young Mistress Seris Blood Fiend!”

At the mention of the ’Evil Diva’ and seeing the markings of vassalage, the guards exchanged a brief glance.

They knew no one in Myriad Hollow would use the name ’Evil Diva’ wantonly, not to mention those abyssal tattoos were real and carried a unique aura of the Evil Diva.

The lead guard stepped forward, pressing a clawed hand against the rune-carved gate. A blood-red glow flowed from his palm into the skull carvings. Slowly, the gates groaned open, parting just enough for the visitor to enter.

“Please follow, we’ll inform the Young Mistress!” The guard commanded curtly.

Beyond the gates, the inner courtyard unfolded—a grand, shadowed expanse paved with soulstone tiles that faintly pulsed underfoot.

Blackbone lanterns burned with cold crimson flames, throwing misshapen shadows across walls where rune-veins pulsed in intricate patterns. The air smelled of charred incense and old blood.

They passed under archways carved into the shape of coiled fiends, flanked by statues of past clan champions with empty eye sockets that seemed to follow each step.

At length, they reached a smaller gate adorned with the sigil of a single rose of living bone—delicate yet deadly, its petals sharpened like blades.

“The Young Mistress awaits in the Heart Chamber,” the guard announced.

“Do not stray. The walls listen, and the hall remembers.”

The gate swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a twilight corridor that pulsed gently with crimson light, leading deeper into the forbidden heart of the Crimson Vein Hall—toward the quarters of Seris Blood Fiend, the only daughter of the Marquis, and heiress of the clan.

One of the four figures at the very back of the four sent a spirit transmission to the other three, “Aliya, Ruth, and Ember, this place is extraordinary. We’ll go with Plan-8!”

The other three didn’t react as if nothing had happened as they moved towards the Heart Chamber!

—

Far away from the Crimson Vein Hall, half-submerged in a perpetual black mist, the Shrouded Reliquary was built as a sprawling palace of mirrored spires and hollow corridors, each wall etched with soul-script prayers that flickered in ghostly, pale flames.

Its owner, the Abyssal Demon Marquis Mist Abbess, was a devotee of the Demon God and was known for collecting relics and forbidden knowledge from the Wandering Realms.

At this moment, a lone visitor approached through the drifting mists—a figure cloaked in a long mantle of gloom-thread, its edges whispering softly over the soul-frosted flagstones.

They bore neither weapon nor heraldry, only a faint pulse on the back of their gloved hand.

Before the Veiled Gate—a grand arch of mirrored bone, veiled by drifting sheets of black mist—a pair of silent sentinels awaited. Both wore armor wrought from soulglass, faintly translucent yet harder than obsidian.

Instead of words, the sentinel on the right raised a mirror-sigil: a small disc of abyssal crystal, polished to reflect nothing at all.

The visitor removed their glove, revealing a pale, slender hand crawling with abyssal tattoos on the back of the hand—markings of vassalage.

Without a word, the person pressed the marked hand on the mirror-sigil. For a breathless moment, the mirrored surface rippled with ghostly flame—then calmed, turning inert.

Suddenly, one of the sentinels with an inclined head stepped aside and spoke in an eerie voice. “What does Evil Diva want from our Shrouded Reliquary?”

In a voice muted by the mist, the visitor replied, “I bear the goodwill of Evil Diva and seek audience with the Third Disciple of the Mist Abbess.”

The sentinels share a brief, unreadable look. Then, the left sentinel raised a chain of blackened bone, bearing a single glass talisman.

“Wear this talisman. It shields you from the Reliquary’s echo. Do not remove it, or we won’t be accountable for your misfortune.”

The visitor accepted the talisman silently, slipping it around their neck. Immediately, the oppressive weight of unseen gazes seemed to lessen.

With a slow, grinding sound like stone breathing, the Veiled Gate parted, and a narrow corridor emerged—its walls inlaid with pale flames dancing behind soulglass panels, casting trembling shadows that seemed to watch the newcomer pass.

Led by one of the sentinels, the visitor walked deeper into the Reliquary. The air grew colder, heavy with incense of bitter soul-lotus and the distant, metallic tang of ancient blood.

They passed halls where half-seen statues of abyssal demons knelt in eternal prayer, their heads bowed toward cracked reliquaries that hummed with trapped power. The mirrored floors reflected only shadow and flame, never the living.

At last, they reached a low doorway adorned with drifting runes that faded in and out of sight—the Mist Chambers.

The sentinel spoke, voice like frost over steel, “Wait here. The Third Disciple will receive you shortly. Speak only truth within these halls—the Mist hears all.”

The sentinel departed, leaving the visitor alone under the cold watch of a thousand mirrored fragments, each whispering faint prayers that slid like ice along the edge of sanity.

Beyond, the faintest echo of movement announced that the disciple of the Mist Abbess approached.

Under the long hood of the abyssal cloak, two silvery eyes flashed with a cold glint, ’Tsk, that she-devil didn’t scheme against me!’

—

Perched at the very lip of the Blackheart Maw, the Darkwell Citadel appeared to defy gravity, built from hexagonal slabs of deep-grey abyssal jade that drank in all light, reflecting nothing.

Its master, Earl Nyrath of the Shadow Night Clan, was famed and feared for her Law of Shadow and was an extremely terrifying assassin.

The citadel’s walls lay silent as midnight, watched over by sentinel statues sculpted in the likeness of blindfolded specters—eyes veiled, blades unsheathed.

Yet, through this citadel—famed as a place where even shadows feared to linger—another shadow moved all of a sudden.

A figure wrapped in dusk-cloth that drank in sound and color alike, limbs bending with impossible flexibility, as if each joint had forgotten what it meant to be bone.

Their presence barely stirred the dustless black flagstones; they became no more than a more resounding ripple in the darkness. They crossed a narrow bridge of abyssal jade, where below the Blackheart Maw gaped, its unseen depths whispering of oblivion.

The figure paused only once, its gloved hand brushing against a faintly shimmering rune ward—absorbing its glow into nothingness, erasing it with silent contempt.

Here, in the fortress of the most feared assassin of the Lord Circle of the Evernight Council, the intruder seemed less to sneak than to walk with deliberate audacity!