CHAPTER 142 :The tunnel bent sharply, a carved scar in the mountain’s throat, its walls vibrating from the pressure of the eruptions above. Every step Billy took sent a new spike of pain through his skull—like two different frequencies were fighting inside him. The Curator’s resonance was getting closer, threading through the stone, through the air, through the heat. A predator humming through the volcanic chambers.Owen led the way with a flashlight, though the beam looked weak compared to the pulsating glow now trailing them from behind. Tyla kept glancing back, jaw tight, breath ragged—not from fear, but from calculation, panic trying to sharpen into clarity. She wasn’t going to lose Billy again. Not in a place like this. Not like this.Billy felt her eyes on him even when she wasn’t looking. The bond between them wasn’t romantic and wasn’t casual; it was a tangle of need, anger, history, and unfinished sentences—and right now it vibrated with the same threat pulsing in his bones.

CHAPTER 144 :The chamber rumbled like a throat swallowing fire.Billy Anderson didn’t hear the shaking at first — the relic was screaming too loudly inside him. It pulsed behind his ribs like a second, violent heartbeat, trying to shove him into a rage he couldn’t step back from. Lava churned beneath the fractured Luoshen altar, bubbling and spitting up molten sparks that lit the cavern walls in blistering gold.And trapped between Billy and the boiling pit was him —The Curator.His robes were half-burnt from the fight already, ash clinging to his face, that eerie calm still plastered across his expression as though the world collapsing around them was some routine clerical inconvenience. His silver-rimmed spectacles had cracked down one lens, hanging crookedly on his nose, but his voice stayed maddeningly measured.“Billy,” he said, “your father chose this fate. The gateway did not take him — he walked into it.”Billy’s breath left him like a punch.Not a lie.Not a distraction.Th

CHAPTER 146 :Billy Anderson’s chest heaved as the heat of the volcano’s core pressed against his skin, sweat stinging his eyes. The chamber around him was a storm of molten rock and ancient Luoshen glyphs, twisting and pulsing with energy that made his very bones vibrate. The star-point before him—a towering construct of interlocking relics and glowing crystals—throbbed with the anticipation of completion, a rhythm that seemed to echo across the earth and sky. Every fiber of the relic’s energy called to him, tempting him to yield, to let the constellation complete its cosmic alignment. But Billy’s mind was unyielding. He couldn’t let it happen—not while the Curator still breathed, scheming to twist that power for his own domination.He took a step closer, boots crunching on fractured rock. The air shimmered around the star-point, a distorted heat haze interspersed with arcs of pure energy that sizzled with the relic’s resonance. His fingers brushed over the outermost crystal, and imm

CHAPTER 148 :The heat hit them first. Not the kind of heat that comes from mere fire or molten rock, but a living, almost sentient burn that pressed into every nerve ending. Billy Anderson could feel it crawling under his skin, racing along his veins, reacting to the fragments’ energy like a pulse within him. Behind them, the remains of the volcano star-point had erupted in a frenzy of molten energy, sending rivers of incandescent rock streaming across the chamber, carving paths that glowed like veins of fire through the collapsing earth. Smoke and ash hung thick in the air, obscuring their vision, filling their lungs with acrid bitterness.And there, in the middle of it all, the Curator teetered on the edge of the lava pit, the heat warping the edges of his form. His robes were singed, his hair and skin streaked with soot and sweat, but his eyes—icy, calculating, impossibly alive—locked onto Billy with an intensity that made the fragments inside him pulse harder. Billy could feel th

CHAPTER 150 :The transport platform slammed to a stop with a violent jolt that sent all three of them stumbling. Dust billowed into the air. Billy’s knees buckled first; he caught himself against the wall, gasping as the relic inside his chest sent a jarring shock up his spine.Tyla was immediately beside him. “Billy—hey, breathe. Slow down.”“I’m fine,” he muttered.He wasn’t.His vision pulsed like someone was dimming and brightening the world with a switch.Owen scanned the tunnel ahead, gun raised, shoulders still tense from the drop. “This way. I think daylight’s close.”Billy forced himself upright and moved, though every step felt like he was dragging a ghost tethered to him. Not the Curator—something older, something cold, something that had been waiting far longer than any human could.The tunnel widened gradually until a faint glow appeared in the distance.Not Luoshen light.Real sunlight.Warm, steady, natural.Tyla exhaled. “Finally.”They stepped out into the open air.