All Chapters of KING OF STIGMA : Chapter 31
- Chapter 34
34 chapters
Echoes Beneath the Flame
The rain had stopped hours ago, but the city still smelled of it—iron, smoke, and wet stone. In the high wards, torchlight shimmered faintly across puddles, casting golden veins through the darkness. Somewhere distant, a bell tolled once, hollow and cold.Most of Lundar slept uneasily that night. Some prayed. Others sharpened their blades in silence. All waited for dawn that might not come.But Blaze didn’t wait for dawn.He walked alone through the lower corridors of the keep, his steps echoing faintly against walls blackened by fire. His aura flickered around him in a dim glow, faint enough not to draw attention, bright enough to chase away the dark.The mark beneath his skin pulsed again—slow, deep, like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own. It tugged him downward. Toward the tunnels. Toward something ancient that whispered his name in a voice that didn’t belong to anyone living.He’d told no one where he was going. Grim would’ve called it reckless. Valor would’ve insisted on sending gu
The Serpent and the Silence
The first tremor hit just before dawn.It was faint at first, a low, pulsing vibration that rippled through the stone foundations of the guild keep. But within moments, the quiet tremor deepened into a growl. Chandeliers swayed. Maps fluttered from their pegs. Soldiers jolted awake, reaching for weapons before they even knew why.In the tower’s highest chamber, Grim’s eyes snapped open.The old general had been half asleep at his desk, a cup of untouched wine beside scattered reports. He froze, listening. The rumble was coming from below — far below. Not from the streets or outer walls, but the roots of the city itself.He was on his feet before the second tremor hit.A single streak of red light flashed through the window — faint, but wrong. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t aura. It was something older.“Hydra.” Grim’s voice was a growl.The great serpent materialized before him in a ripple of golden mist, his eyes burning like miniature suns. The air seemed to bow beneath his presence.“Yo
Embers of the Fallen
The silence after the collapse was worse than the roar.It stretched on, heavy, aching, endless. Only the distant crumble of stone broke it, echoing like a dying heartbeat through the fractured vaults of Lundar.Blaze sat against the cold wall, his breath ragged. Dust and ash clung to his skin, sweat streaking through the soot. Every muscle screamed. Every pulse of his heart throbbed against the Stigma’s mark, flickering between molten gold and dying red.He could still hear Hydra’s last words—Forgive me, Regal… the fire was never meant to be yours.They repeated in his mind, again and again, like a curse that refused to fade.Grim crouched nearby, binding a gash along his arm, his face set in grim silence. Valor paced back and forth, armor dented, eyes burning with restless fury. Keith lay unconscious on a cot of scavenged cloth, his breathing shallow, his fingers twitching with the faint pulse of residual magic.The air reeked of scorched stone and iron. The heat still radiated from
The Siege of Veins
Morning never truly came.The sun rose weak and red, its light filtered through the haze that blanketed Lundar like a burial shroud. Ash drifted through the air, soft as mist but heavy as memory. From the battlements, Blaze could barely see beyond the broken spires and half-collapsed towers of the outer ring. The world beyond the city walls was a horizon of flame and ruin.The Sovereignty had arrived.Their banners shimmered faintly in the distance—obsidian cloth embroidered with silver veins that pulsed like living arteries. The army stretched beyond the far hills, a dark sea of movement. Siege engines rolled forward in slow, grinding lines. Black airships hung like vultures in the smoky sky, their hulls humming with unnatural resonance. Each pulse echoed faintly through the ground, like the heartbeat of a monster.Every few minutes, a low hum rippled through the air—an unnatural vibration that made even the stones beneath Blaze’s boots shudder.He rested both hands on the cracked ra