The path wasn’t named for mercy… only for memory. I stepped into the crumbled remains of what once must have been sacred ground. Ornate statues stared blindly over broken altars. Candles still burned here, though no living hand could’ve lit them. It felt like walking through the aftermath of a prayer that had been rejected.
They call it the Path of Devotion. But I saw no peace in it. Only mourning. And anger. Whispers clung to the stones like frost. Isaac. His name rang through the hollow chambers, etched into walls, tangled in relics and blood. He had been a Paladin once—devoted to Orius, bearer of the sacred flame. But something broke him. Betrayal, perhaps. Or the absence of his god in the hour of need.
In the ruins, I found visions. His past playing out in fragments. He had stood here once, defiant, faithful. Until the silence answered him louder than any prayer. That silence drove him to take up his blade not for devotion, but for vengeance.
And so he remained. Bound to this place, a holy warrior stripped of light but still wielding its echo.
I met him beneath the crimson sky, where his cathedral had collapsed into dust and memory. He did not speak. But his blade sang. Each strike was a sermon, every swing a judgment. He moved like the ghost of a forgotten truth—precise, relentless.
My shield met him first, my flail soon after. I had to be faster than faith and harder than memory. He wielded fire, divine and wrathful, but his spirit was cracked. I struck not at the man, but the hollow that remained where his purpose once lived.
When he fell, there was no scream. Only a soft breeze, like the exhale of a soul finally let go. The light in his armor faded—not extinguished, only released.
I stood alone again. The path behind me strewn with echoes, the path ahead waiting to be carved. Isaac had walked this path in service. I walk it now in clarity. Not for gods. For the living.
#LotF2023 #PathOfDevotion #Isaac #LordsOfTheFallen #Partisan #Heilay
Accompany the partisan Heilay on her journey: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQRPy70pDgKXsdb4gtFobn-vOZqhx2QGS
