All Chapters of HEAVEN'S FORSAKEN SON: Chapter 21
- Chapter 30
40 chapters
Arin and Lyra captured by the beast
The wind stilled after the beast’s final cry, as if the Citadel itself held its breath. Frost drifted from its corpse in soft spirals, melting before it touched the ground. Arin wiped the edge of his sword, its silver light pulsing faintly with each heartbeat. Little did he know that he was about to face the worst. The Core in his chest echoed that pulse, slower now—uneasy.Lyra looked back at the body. “That thing… it spoke your name.”“They all do,” Arin said, voice low. “They remember what I am, even if I try not to.”Lyra fell beside him, her staff trailing faint sparks. “You should have taken its offer.”“No,” Arin said. “The moment I share my cause with something bound to darkness, my war becomes theirs. I won’t let that happen.”For a moment, only their footsteps answered—the crunch of snow, the whisper of distant gears. Then a sound rose from behind them.A low vibration, deep as thunder. Lyra froze. “Do you hear that?”Arin turned, eyes narrowing. The corpse of the beast h
The Darkveil's interrogation
The ice had barely settled before the news reached the Darkveil scouts.A runner stormed into their hidden chamber beneath the Citadel’s lower rings.“Commander! We found traces—Core signatures. Two of them. Faint, but unmistakable.”The Darkveil leader, , straightened. “Arin and Lyra?”“Yes. And… the Echo Beasts dragged them toward the Rift Vault.”A cold silence cut the air.The Darkveil's leaders hissed, “So the beasts succeeded where we failed.” His gaze sharpened. “Prepare the veil-carriers. If the beasts hold them, then Arin’s Core is weakened. This is our chance.”His second-in-command frowned. “What of the Council’s order?”The Darkveil's leader shook his head. “Forget the Council. If we get Arin’s secret, the Celestial power becomes ours. And if we get the witch? We gain leverage.”THE CAPTURELyra woke first.Her head pounded. Chains of spectral metal bound her wrists to a pillar of fractured ice. Arin lay beside her, unconscious, his Core flickering weakly like a failing em
The Rift Forest Breakout
The Echo Beasts struck the chamber like a collapsing avalanche.Their bodies weren’t made of flesh but of serrated light—jagged silhouettes that flickered between the physical plane and some far, deeper void. Each step burned the ice beneath them, each exhale scattering pale embers.Arin and Lyra had barely crossed the threshold of the Sub-Level tunnel when the first beast lunged, its maw splitting open with a scream sharp enough to make the air ripple.“Faster!” Arin shouted, dragging Lyra along, feeling her stumble as her balance wavered.But behind them—far behind them—someone else was not running.Varyn.He had lingered.He hadn’t fled fast enough.Because greed held his feet to the ground longer than sense ever could.And the Echo Beast saw him.Varyn turned, cloak whipping around his armored form as the massive creature slammed onto the icy floor beside him. The shockwave ruptured cracks through the chamber, sending up shards of frost.The commander tried to disappear into shado
The EarthBlood Descent
The wind on the cliffside bit into Arin’s skin like frost-tipped needles, but he barely felt it. His body trembled with exhaustion—his Core flickering like a dying ember—but Lyra’s quiet breathing beside him steadied the world.For a long moment, both simply breathed, allowing the silence of the plains to wash over them after the chaos of the Rift Forest. Then the SYSTEM stirred. SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC User Arin: Core integrity unstable. User Lyra: Vital energy depleted. Recommendation: Subterranean shelter — Earthblood Corridors (Depth: 400 meters). Warning: Passage unstable. Ancients dormant. Arin swallowed.“Beneath the earth… you can’t be serious.” Lyra opened her eyes slowly.“The SYSTEM hasn’t been wrong yet.” He looked at her, hesitating. She looked fragile, barely held together by will. If the SYSTEM said the surface was unsafe, he believed it.Darkveil operatives would regroup. The beasts could still hunt. Varyn was alive.The forest couldn’t protect them forever. He
Varyn attacked
The wind of the upper plains felt different now—heavier, thick with an electric charge that made Arin’s skin tingle as he and Lyra emerged from the portal.The world they returned to was not the same one they had left. Smoke curled into the sky from distant fires, the echo of war drums in far-off towns vibrating through the earth itself.Shadows stretched unnaturally over cities, and the skies above the Rift Forest were a bruised purple, as if the world had been cut and not yet healed.Arin’s Core pulsed with renewed strength, but he did not smile. Not yet.He scanned the horizon. The system’s alerts flared in his vision:SYSTEM ALERT: Multiple Darkveil factions converging. Target: High-priority.Lyra’s hand squeezed his. “They’ve grown stronger.”“I know,” Arin murmured. “But we’ve grown stronger too. And smarter.”The pair moved swiftly, traveling across scorched lands and over broken towns, tracking the echoes of Darkveil activity.Reports, intercepted whispers, and the faint energ
The Darkveil's infiltration
The fires of the broken city cast long shadows as Arin and Lyra moved quietly among the ruins. The SYSTEM had analyzed the chaos of the fractured Darkveil factions, highlighting weak points, leadership gaps, and potential infiltration routes.SYSTEM UPDATE: Target: Darkveil remnants. Probability of successful infiltration: 76%. Recommended approach: stealth, Core-assisted deception, intelligence gathering.Arin adjusted the strap of his satchel, feeling the hum of his Core ripple beneath his skin. “We go in quietly. No direct assault. Not yet.”Lyra nodded. “And what exactly are we looking for?”Arin’s gaze swept across the horizon, where smoke rose in erratic columns. “The source. Varyn is stronger than he looks—but he isn’t the true power behind the Darkveil’s resurgence. There’s something—or someone—guiding him. We need to find it before he consolidates.”SYSTEM ALERT: Potential Core anomaly detected within Darkveil leadership. Suggest monitoring.They moved through abandoned stree
Ancient Core Awakening ARC
The night winds howled across the broken expanse as Arin and Lyra stood at the cliff’s edge, the SYSTEM pulsing warnings through Arin’s senses. The ruins glowed faintly beneath moonlight, jagged silhouettes stretching like skeletal remains. But even the destroyed cities seemed to recoil from the presence approaching from the distant dark.A tremor rippled through the soil, subtle yet undeniable.Lyra stiffened. “That wasn’t natural.”Arin’s Core responded instinctively, a low hum vibrating through his bones. “No. Something’s waking up.”The SYSTEM flared to life:SYSTEM ALERT: Ancient Core resonance detected. Source: unknown. Age: immeasurable. Proximity: increasing. Threat level: catastrophic.Arin felt the reverberation run down his spine — a resonance that didn’t belong to this era or this world. It was older than the Corridors. Older than the first Core-users. Older than the SYSTEM itself.He steadied his breath. “Lyra… this is what powered that amplifier. Not the Darkveil. Not
VARYN’S BETRAYAL & THE FALL AT THE PRIMORDIAL BATTLEFIELD
The world burned in spirals of ancient light.The Primordial descended like a collapsing star, tearing apart the battlefield as Arin, Lyra, and Varyn rushed forward.Energy shrieked.Reality warped.The ground shattered under the colossal weight of the ancient being.Arin’s spear of crystalline Core-light clashed against a wave of primordial distortion, pushing him back meters at a time. Lyra darted around him with dazzling precision, her daggers cutting through corrupted fragments of energy trying to invade their bodies. Varyn’s shadow-forged blade ripped through chunks of condensed void the Primordial hurled at them.For a moment — just a moment — it felt like the three of them were united.And then—Something changed in Varyn.Arin didn’t notice at first.Not until the shadows behind Varyn began to shift.Not until the air bent around them.Not until Arin felt the sting.It happened in less than a second.A shockwave hit Arin from behind — not from the Primordial, but from Varyn’s
The lie beneath the shadows
The Shadow Corridors breathed like a living thing.Ancient stone veins pulsed faintly with runic light, rising and falling as if the earth itself slept uneasily beneath Arin’s feet. Every step echoed too loudly, every breath felt borrowed. The air tasted of dust, old blood, and forgotten oaths.Arin leaned against a fractured obsidian pillar, chains still clamped around his wrists. Cracks of unstable energy danced across the metal, hissing whenever his Core surged too close to the surface. He forced himself to breathe slowly, to calm the storm inside his chest.Lyra knelt a few steps away, pressing a cloth torn from her sleeve against the wound at her temple. Blood stained the fabric, but her hands were steady. Her eyes — sharp, calculating — never stopped moving.They had escaped.But escape was not victory.Not yet.“They’ll be searching already,” Lyra said quietly, breaking the silence. “Darkveil doesn’t forgive humiliation.”Arin gave a short, humorless laugh. “Good. Let them hunt
What the shadow fears
What the Shadow FearsThe danger was not what Arin did next.It was what he didn’t do.Varyn lay broken at the center of the ruined Nexus, breath shallow, aura shattered into flickering remnants that refused to stabilize. Any other victor would have finished him.Any tyrant would have made a spectacle of it.Arin simply turned away.That choice sent a ripple through the SYSTEM so sharp it hesitated—just for a fraction of a second.Lyra felt it.She had seen monsters. Warlords.Ascendants drunk on borrowed divinity.None of them walked away from their enemies.“Arin,” she said quietly, watching his back, “if he survives this… he’ll hate you more than he ever did.”Arin paused.The air around him bent—not violently, not explosively—but precisely, as if reality itself leaned closer to listen.“He already does,” Arin replied. “Hate is predictable.”He finally looked back at Varyn.“What terrifies him,” Arin continued, voice calm, almost distant, “is uncertainty. He built his empire on the