All Chapters of BENEATH THE MASK: REVENGE OF SAMUEL HAYES: Chapter 531
- Chapter 540
621 chapters
532
The ruins of the Guardian Watchtower groaned in the wind. Crimson sand swept across the broken floor as Ilara stepped inside, her boots crunching over the bones of fallen Sentinels. Her silver eyes reflected the dying sun, but her face remained unreadable.She had come alone.Behind her, the others waited in silence outside the broken perimeter, unsure of what would happen next. Even Samuel had not spoken when Ilara declared her intention to enter the Watchtower. This was something she had to do herself.In her hand, she held the final seal.A sphere of glimmering white flame, pulsing with a heartbeat of its own.As she stepped deeper into the tower, echoes of the past returned—shouts, clash of weapons, fire against darkness. The memories clung to the stone like smoke, whispering her name in forgotten tongues.Ilara stopped before the inner sanctum. A circular chamber, marked with runes only she could read.It had been centuries since she had last been here. The Watchtower had been on
533
Smoke curled across the ruined city, trailing through shattered windows and rising into a sky tinted with unnatural red. The ground still burned in places, hot enough to warp metal. What had once been a thriving urban sanctuary was now just another mark on the map—one more loss in a war that had too many.Samuel stood at the edge of the crater where the city center had once been. Bits of scorched rubble crumbled beneath his boots as he stepped forward. The scent of ash and ozone stung his nose, and deeper than that… something older. Something wrong.It had taken less than an hour for the Sentinel’s fire to consume the entire city.Behind him, the others remained silent.Sarah’s jaw was clenched, her knuckles white around the hilt of her blade. Lin stood slightly apart, her expression unreadable, but her body trembling faintly. Dareth had one arm in a makeshift sling, and Nyra knelt beside a body that had been too charred to identify.Ilara wasn’t with them.After the Watchtower, she h
534
The air in the mountain pass was thin, brittle with cold, and edged with a silence so sharp it made footsteps sound like thunder. Samuel trudged forward, flanked by Ilara and Dareth, their cloaks snapping in the wind as snow crunched beneath their boots. The world had turned pale here—sky white, cliffs white, even the bones of the dead white where the blizzards had left them exposed.And yet, in the heart of that lifeless cold, something pulsed.A shard.“I feel it,” Ilara whispered, eyes closed, hand extended. “It’s recent.”“Then the Gatekeeper is ahead of us,” Samuel muttered, drawing his flame into his hand like a slow breath. “Again.”“No,” Dareth said. “This one’s different. Doesn’t feel like the others.”They followed the pull toward a narrow cave entrance carved by ancient water and time. No signs of technology, no remnants of battle. Just a darkness deeper than shadow, humming with quiet power.Samuel entered first, his flame casting long, flickering light against walls carve
535
The silver sky shimmered like molten mercury, flowing with unnatural currents across the firmament. Samuel stood on a ridge overlooking the valley below, heart pounding as reality itself seemed to shift. Ilara and Dareth stood behind him, silent, watching as the final piece of the world they knew began to dissolve.“It’s starting,” Ilara murmured. “The Gate is responding.”Samuel didn’t speak. His eyes were fixed on a ripple in the horizon—a jagged seam, like the tear in an old painting. Beyond it, a mirrored world flickered, inverted and broken.The Gate was opening.“Where’s the team?” Samuel asked.“Scattered,” Dareth answered. “Joey went east, Sarah’s still recovering from Lin’s attack. Nyra hasn’t checked in. We’re down to fragments.”Samuel didn’t wait. He stepped forward and descended the ridge alone, flame gathering in his palms, eyes burning with a purpose too long denied. The mountain slope gave way to ancient stone steps, as if built by something older than time. With each
536
But not the blinding kind of white Samuel expected from death, or rebirth, or annihilation. It was still. Empty. Quiet. A silence so complete that it swallowed even thought. No breath. No beat. Just existence, suspended like dust in still air.Then—sound.Faint at first.Drip... drip... drip.He opened his eyes.He was standing on a shore—if it could even be called that. The ocean was pitch black, waves moving like oil, slow and thick, with a sickly sheen across its surface. The sky was ash gray, with no sun, no stars, no moon. Just haze.This wasn’t Earth. Or any version of it he’d seen.It was a future. A dead one.Behind him, the Gate hovered half-shattered, spinning slowly like a dying star.“Samuel.”He turned.Lin stood there—barefoot, glowing faintly. But her eyes weren’t hers.“Lin?” he asked.She shook her head. “No. Not anymore.”“What happened?”“You broke the Gate,” she said calmly. “But not enough to destroy it. Only enough to step through it… and see.”“See what?”Lin lo
537
Lin stood at the edge of the flame circle, her eyes closed, body trembling. Around her, the energy crackled — wild, unstable, barely restrained. Sarah watched from a distance, hand tight around the hilt of her blade, while Ilara murmured chants under her breath, the language ancient and stinging in the ears.“She’s resisting it,” Ilara said. “But it’s already inside her.”Samuel stepped forward slowly. “Then what do we do?”“There’s no spell that can force it out. She has to choose. Or the voice inside her… will.”He glanced toward Lin again. Her feet floated just above the earth, toes glowing. Her breath was shallow, her skin pale like moonlight. Every few seconds, her lips moved — silent. But she wasn’t speaking.She was listening.To something only she could hear.And then—Lin’s eyes opened.But they were no longer her own.One golden. One black.The light around her exploded outward, knocking everyone back. Sarah crashed into a boulder, Ilara into the trunk of an ash tree, and Sa
538
Rain pounded on the jungle canopy like war drums.Sarah moved through the underbrush with silent steps, her cloak already soaked. The humidity clung to her skin like a second layer, and every breath she drew tasted of moss and rot. The ancient jungle of Zareth was said to be haunted — not by ghosts, but by memory beasts. Creatures that fed on regret. Ilara had warned her, but Sarah had insisted she go alone.She had to do this.For her mother.Each step deeper into the jungle sent a sharp pulse through her spine. The shard buried in these lands had been calling to her for days — not in words, but images. Blurred snapshots of a woman’s hands, a shattered locket, a scream lost in the wind.Sarah stepped into a clearing.And stopped breathing.Because there — kneeling beside a small fire — was her mother.Alive.Whole.Smiling.“Sarah,” the woman said, her voice the exact tone Sarah had memorized in childhood. “You’re late.”Sarah didn’t move. Her hands were clenched into fists. “You’re
539
Joey dragged himself across the shattered plains, every breath a knife in his lungs. The battle against the Echo Sentinels had torn his squad apart—Kael lay barely breathing on a slab of scorched rock behind him, and Aria stood alone at the edge of the cliff, her cloak fluttering like a broken banner."Aria!" he shouted hoarsely.She didn’t turn.Wind howled around them, thick with ash and memory. The final beacon had lit the sky hours ago. The Gatekeeper was close now. The shards were nearly all awake.Joey took a step forward. His leg buckled from the earlier strike, but he pushed through.“You don’t have to do this!”Aria finally turned.Her face was pale, eyes glowing faintly with shard-light. Her once-proud stance was slumped, like something inside her was rotting.“I’m already gone, Joey,” she said quietly. “I let the shard in. There’s no reversing it.”“That’s a lie.”“No. It’s the only truth I have left.”Joey swallowed hard. “Then let me fight beside you. We can still get bac
540
The wind carried the scent of scorched earth and betrayal.Samuel stood in the middle of what used to be the sentinel outpost in the Red Desert, ash clinging to his coat like a second skin. The fire hadn’t stopped burning, even with the relic destroyed. He could still feel Aria’s death echoing through the tether they once shared.Joey hadn’t spoken since he returned, carrying Kael’s unconscious body and the news that shattered the team’s already-fractured morale.Aria was gone.Dareth hadn’t said a word either. He just stared at the flames.Until now.“I want it back,” Dareth said, his voice a low growl.Samuel didn’t look at him. “Want what back?”“My fire.”“You have it.”“No,” Dareth whispered, turning toward him. “That fire. The old one. The pure flame. The one I gave up when I agreed to follow you.”Samuel turned at that, his eyes narrowing. “You think I took something from you?”Dareth stepped forward, the gold in his irises pulsing unnaturally. “You said we were fighting for ba
541
The air was different around Lin now.Not just colder—emptier. Samuel stood several feet away from her, the once vibrant glow of her presence now dimmed, as if the world around her refused to acknowledge her existence. She wasn’t speaking. She hadn’t spoken since the battle near the Nexus Tower.But something inside her whispered louder than any scream ever could.Ilara stood nearby, arms crossed tightly, every rune on her skin glowing faintly. She glanced at Samuel. “We have to destroy it.”He didn’t answer immediately.Instead, his gaze was locked on the relic clutched in Lin’s trembling hands.The fragment—the shard infused with Gatekeeper residue—had embedded itself into her chest like a second heart. Faint pulses of black flame seeped from the wound around it. And though her lips moved now and then, no words emerged.Just silence.Samuel finally broke it. “If we destroy the relic, we might destroy her.”Ilara exhaled sharply. “And if we don’t, we will lose her.”He knew she was r