The white light dissipated slowly, thinning like mist as the chamber exhaled the aftermath of what John had done.For a long moment, no one moved.Dust drifted through the sanctum like falling snow. The air felt still, heavy, hollow. Every heartbeat echoed like thunder in the silence.John stood at the centre of it all, the Crestborn Blade lowered at his side. Its glow had softened to a slow pulse, no longer frantic, no longer wild. It settled into something calmer and deeper, as if the weapon understood the weight of the act just performed.Harold’s body lay motionless at John’s feet.The metal frame that had once moved with terrifying force was now cracked, silent, and empty. The blue core flickered once, then faded completely.Rita moved first.She approached slowly, breath trembling as she knelt beside the remains. She reached out but stopped herself before her fingers touched the metal surface. Her voice came out barely above a whisper.“John… are you alright?”He did not answer.

John stood frozen as the image before him finished taking shape.It was Rita.Not a shadow. Not a distortion. Not a flickering memory.Her form was solid, precise, painfully real. Every detail was exact; The faint scar near her collarbone, the controlled way she carried herself, he calm strength in her eyes that always steadied him when the world tilted too far.Except those eyes now glowed faintly with Crest symbols, rotating slowly like a quiet judgment.John’s grip tightened around the Crestborn Blade.Lucien’s voice echoed through the chamber, calm and merciless. “Do not mistake this for illusion. The sanctum does not fabricate lies. It manifests truths drawn from the deepest parts of you.”John swallowed hard. “Then she is not real.”Lucien stepped into view, his presence steady and authoritative. “She is not Rita. She is what you fear becoming inevitable.”The Rita figure took a step forward.The sound of her boots echoed across the chamber with unsettling clarity.“You look sur

The sanctum did not close behind them.It waited.John led the way through the long ascending passage, the Crestborn Blade resting against his back like a quiet promise. The glow from the symbols etched into the walls followed his movement, responding to his presence as though the structure itself recognized his authority.Rita walked beside him, close enough that he could feel her steadiness even when neither of them spoke. Morgan brought up the rear, watchful and unusually silent. Elias leaned on Celine’s shoulder, wounded but unbowed. Kael moved ahead and behind at once, alert to every shift in the air.Something had changed.Not just in John.In the world.The moment they reached the final threshold, the ground beneath their feet vibrated with a low tremor that rolled through the passage like distant thunder.Celine stopped. “Do you feel that?”Kael nodded slowly. “The Crest’s activation sent a signal. Not a broadcast. A resonance.”Elias frowned. “To whom?”Kael looked at John. “

The tunnels swallowed them whole.The moment the resistance passage sealed behind them, the city above felt distant, muffled, like a storm heard through thick glass. The ground vibrated faintly beneath their boots, not from collapse, but from movement. Trains long abandoned. Systems waking after decades of dormancy, Old infrastructure responding to a new purpose.John walked at the front without speaking.The Crest beneath his skin remained quiet now, but not dormant. It pulsed with restrained awareness, as if listening to the city through him. Every step forward felt heavier than the last, not from exhaustion, but from consequence. Chapter 113 had drawn a line the Council could not erase.They were past denial.Rita kept close to his right, her attention split between the tunnel ahead and the echoes behind them. Her posture had shifted since the confrontation. Less reactive. More deliberate. She was no longer guarding a man in danger. She was protecting a symbol under threat.Morgan