Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion

The wind was colder than usual.

Blackblood Forest loomed on the horizon. A distant line of dark that seemed to breathe, slow and heavy. Eli approached, quietly.

"They're coming," Ian murmured.

Eli stood beside him.

"Yeah."

"You think we'll survive?"

"I don't know," Eli said. "But we'll give them hell trying."

——–—

Days Later.

The cries began in the southern market, and by nightfall they echoed across every ward of Esgard.

"Reopen the Crucible!"

"Let the blood run!"

"Let us feel alive again!"

It started as whispers—half-sung in the smoky corners of bars, tucked between verses of old pit-fighter songs. But by the third day, those whispers had grown teeth. And by the seventh, they had banners, protest lines, and a thousand voices gathered at the square steps, chanting as if blood alone could keep the city breathing.

They weren't hungry for violence.

Not really.

They were starving for noise.

Ever since Velrosa's death and Ian's rampage beneath the blackened sky, the city had fallen into a hush so deep it felt sacred.

The arena closed. The betting houses shuttered. The taverns, once roaring with laughter and cruelty, became mausoleums where even a spilled drink sounded like sacrilege.

Esgard became a city of ghosts.

Until the ghosts got tired of being quiet.

Now they screamed.

And what they screamed for was blood.

Lots of it.

---

The Hollow Council sat beneath banners of bone and black silk. The war chamber was high above the central spire, windows stretched tall and narrow like watchful eyes.

The wind outside moved strange tonight—curling, circling, as if listening.

Thalia spoke first. She usually did these days.

"They want the Crucible reopened. I've had three petitions from district elders, two merchant unions, and one from the gutter wards signed in blood. Literal blood."

Blackrat, late as always and halfway through a honeyed fig, gave a dry snort. "Fools get loud when the gallows go quiet."

"The city is cracking," Velmira said. "Commerce is bleeding out. The Crucible stops, and so do the coinflows. No bets, no food. No food, no order. They don't just want a show. They need one."

"They need a wall more than they need a war game," growled General Drael. "The beast tide isn't a rumor anymore. We've had spottings every day this week. You want to throw a party while the forest prepares to kill us?"

"We want the people ready to follow us into hell," Velmira snapped. "Give them fire now, and they'll bring it to the front lines when it counts."

"And when they die screaming because we wasted resources on a bloodsport instead of building defenses?" Drael asked. "Will they still cheer?"

Across the obsidian table, Serel Vaunt, Archmage of Arcane Affairs, adjusted the cuffs of his robe and finally spoke. His voice, as always, was clean and cool.

"If I may—symbolic theater may bolster morale, buy us time, and veil the scale of the coming draft. A one-night reopening. Minimal cost. Maximum effect. If done right."

Thalia nodded. "Make them cheer while we conscript their sons."

"Efficient," Eli murmured from the corner shadows.

All eyes turned to Ian.

The First Chair. The Sovereign of Hollow Flame.

He hadn't spoken. Not once.

He sat unmoving in his tall black seat, eyes half-lidded as if the entire room bored him.

But he was listening.

Watching.

Not the council. The window.

Outside, the sky glowed copper against the dying sun, and far off—the treetops of Blackblood Forest shifted like a beast's breath.

Then his gaze dropped.

To the empty chair at his right.

The one that had once belonged to Velrosa.

When he finally spoke, his voice came quiet, cold.

"Plan it."

No cheers. No approval. Just the scratching of quills, the turning of plans, the silence of a council that had no illusions about what they were doing.

The Crucible would reopen.

One night. One grand match.

Just enough to reignite the city's pulse.

Just enough to blind it before the tide.

---

The room was beginning to exhale again when the doors creaked open once more.

A scout limped in.

He was wrapped in bloodied linen from thigh to shoulder. One arm hung limp at his side. His eyes looked like they hadn't seen sleep in days.

Caelen stood at once. "Report."

The scout bowed, unsteady.

"We lost contact with Vanguard Unit Three. Four days ago. Deep Blackblood. No signal flares. No manabeacons. Nothing."

A hush fell like ash.

Eli leaned forward slightly. "Did you send retrieval?"

"We did." The scout's voice broke. "They followed the vanguard's path to the foothills. Found a campsite. Torn apart. Burn marks. Bone trails… melted into the soil."

He stopped. Hesitated.

Drael's voice cut through the silence. "What else?"

The scout stepped forward, fumbling at his side. From a pouch, he drew a small stone wrapped in scorched cloth.

He set it on the table like it might bite.

"A recording stone," he whispered. "We think it came from the squad leader's beacon."

Ian reached for it.

The moment his fingers touched the stone, magic bloomed—faint, fragmented.

A voice screamed through the chamber.

> "Too fast—! It's too fast, it's—gods, gods, it's—"

Then silence.

Then teeth.

Then nothing.

Ian set the stone down gently.

No one moved.

Serel spoke at last, quiet and shaken. "That was a B-rank suppression team. Twenty-three mages. With Calamity protocols."

"They didn't even slow it down," Caelen muttered. "Whatever it was."

Thalia exhaled. "We can't risk another team. If we're blind to what's stirring in that forest... we've already lost."

Even Blackrat didn't have a joke.

Velmira turned, voice low. "Ian. We need answers."

He stood.

The chamber quieted.

The wind outside rose suddenly, howling low against the stone like a warning cry.

Ian walked to the window, facing the distant treeline where Blackblood Forest waited like a living thing.

"If you want something done," he said.

He placed a hand against the glass.

"Do it yourself."

No one argued.

Because they all knew—

He was the only one who might return.