All Chapters of SHADOWS OF THE VEIL: Chapter 221
- Chapter 230
235 chapters
BOOK 2 — CHAPTER 225_THE RITUAL THAT WOULDN’T WAIT
The ritual wasn’t done.And the monster was coming.Rick’s body trembled in midair, held upright by the swirling strands of light and shadow that wrapped around him like living ropes. The pedestal beneath him vibrated, pulsing harder with every beat of his heart. The shard above him spun faster and faster, its glow intensifying until it was almost blinding.But the forest behind him exploded.BOOM!Trees snapped like toothpicks and a wave of dust and glowing leaves blasted outward. Something huge was forcing its way toward the clearing—massive, relentless, unstoppable.Rick clenched his teeth.“Hurry—hurry—hurry—”The ritual didn’t speed up.If anything, it slowed.The threads around him thickened, sinking deeper into his skin like they were engraving something onto his bones.The voice inside him echoed again—calm, ancient, maddeningly unbothered:“Veilborn initiation requires full imprint. Remaining duration: 63 seconds.”“Sixty-three seconds!?” Rick yelled. “Are you insane?!”The f
BOOK 2 — CHAPTER 226_THE FIRST TEST OF A VEILBORN
Rick’s eyes flared with silver and shadow.“Then come get me.”The Scion lunged.Its four limbs struck the ground so hard the earth cratered beneath each impact. Trees snapped apart behind it as its hulking body launched forward in a blur far too fast for something so massive.Rick barely had a second.He raised his hand.Shadowlight surged instinctively——but sputtered, wild and unstable.“Oh, come on—!”The Scion’s claw swept toward him like a falling boulder.Rick dove sideways.The creature’s strike ripped a trench through the dirt where he’d stood, spraying soil into the air like an explosion. Rick tumbled, rolled to his feet, and sprinted across the clearing.His legs felt lighter.Stronger.The Veilborn imprint was already changing him.But the Scion was faster.It burst forward again, a blur of monstrous limbs and glowing eyes.Rick skidded to a stop and thrust his hand out again—Shadowlight, shadowlight—DO SOMETHING—!A spark formed in his palm.The Scion leapt.Rick shut hi
BOOK 2 — CHAPTER 227_THE VEILBORNE EXAMINER
The clearing suddenly felt much, much smaller.The hooded figure’s voice curled through the air like frost:“Prepare yourself… for the real test.”Rick’s throat tightened.“The real test? That thing—” he pointed weakly at the half-dead Scion twitching on the ground, “—that THING was just warm-up?”The figure didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.But Rick felt its presence pressing down on him—heavycoldancient.“Stand.”Rick’s legs trembled.“I… I am standing.”The figure tilted its head.“Then rise.”Dark energy wrapped around Rick like invisible hands, lifting him upright despite the pain in his ribs and the ringing in his skull. His feet hit the ground, but the pressure didn’t release.He realized——this being wasn't just evaluating him.It was measuring him.Like weighing a blade before deciding if it should be reforged… or discarded.Rick swallowed.“Who… who are you?”For the first time, the hood peeled back slightly.Only darkness was inside.But two silver shapes gleame
BOOK 2 — CHAPTER 228_The Trial of the Veilborn
Rick didn’t move at first.The clearing pulsed—breathing, almost—its silver mist rolling like a living tide around his ankles. Above him, the Veilborn sigil burned faintly in the sky, shifting between the mark he carried and something older… far older.Across from him, the creature—now fully emerged—towered like a nightmare given flesh.Twisted antlers of black crystal.Eyes like molten obsidian.A body woven from shadow, bone, and flickering silver fire.A Veilborn Warden.Its presence pressed down on him like a storm made of gravity.Rick swallowed, only partly willing.“So… this is the real test.”The Warden’s head tilted, its voice scraping into the air like a broken violin string.“You seek power, mortal child.”Rick’s pulse hammered. “I seek control. Over myself. Over the Veil. Over what you all keep claiming I’m supposed to become.”The Warden’s burning chest cracked open like unfolding jaws—revealing a swirling heart of shifting symbols.One of them glowed as bright as a star.
BOOK 2 — SHADOWS OF THE VEIL_Chapter 229
“The Enemy Wearing His Face”Rick didn’t move.The words “That one is against me” echoed inside his skull like a cold laugh.The shadow-double stood across the broken clearing, identical to him in shape, height, even the way it breathed—except for the eyes.Rick’s were silver-ashen.The double’s were a drowning, bottomless void.It took a slow step forward, and the glowing roots beneath the mud recoiled from it as if afraid.Liora whispered behind him, trembling,“Rick… that thing—it's not just copying you. It’s… rejecting you.”Rick didn’t reply.Not because he didn’t hear her—but because the double tilted its head exactly as he would when studying an enemy.Mocking him.It raised one hand.Shadow dripped from its fingertips like ink falling upward.“Why are you here?” Rick asked, voice low.The double grinned—his grin, twisted wrong.“To correct the mistake.”A pulse hit the ground.The earth cracked.The glowing forest flickered like a candle in a storm.Liora stumbled. “Rick, i
BOOK 2 — SHADOWS OF THE VEIL_Chapter 230_“Claim What Was Stolen”
The instant the silver chains shattered, the shadow-double launched forward like a starving beast.Rick felt the air fold around it—too fast, too heavy, too wrong.But this time, Rick didn’t step back.He stepped toward it.Their fists collided mid-air.Shadow and silver erupted like two storms crashing head-on, exploding in a shockwave that flattened the trees in a circle around them.Rick gritted his teeth as he skidded backward, boots digging trenches in the dirt.The double didn’t skid at all.It stood still—smiling Rick’s smile, sharpened with hatred.Liora yelled from behind a fallen tree,“Rick! Don’t fight it like an enemy! It’s a part of you!”“I KNOW THAT!” he shouted back, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.Vaelen watched, unmoving, his glowing eyes measuring every motion, every breath.The double blurred again—Rick barely dodged the elbow aimed at his temple.He countered with a knee to its ribs.It didn’t flinch.It spun and slammed an open palm into his chest.Ric
BOOK 2 — SHADOWS OF THE VEILChapter 231_“The Whisper That Knows His Name”
The moment Rick steadied himself, the glowing forest changed.The lights dimmed.The colors bled into deeper shades.The roots beneath the soil trembled—as though something enormous had just shifted far, far underground.Liora felt it first.Her ears twitched—subtle, unnatural.“Rick…” she said quietly.“Something heard you reclaim your shadow.”Rick exhaled, steadying his breathing.His shadow moved on its own again—stretching an inch behind him, like a protective animal.“It can hear me?” he asked.Vaelen’s answer came slow, cautious.“Not hear. Recognize.”Rick frowned. “Recognize what?”Vaelen met his gaze.“Your existence.”The trees around them creaked, bending as if under a heavy wind—yet no wind blew.The air thickened.Rick rubbed his chest.The new, merged energy inside him felt unstable—silver and shadow swirling like two storms trying to become one.“I feel like I’m vibrating,” he muttered.“No,” Vaelen corrected.“You’re resonating. And that makes you visible to the an
BOOK 2 — SHADOWS OF THE VEIL_Chapter 232_“Something Beneath the Trees”
Rick didn’t speak for a long moment. The clearing felt colder now, like the air itself was avoiding him. Even the glowing leaves overhead had dimmed, retreating from whatever presence had just vanished into the dark. Liora’s ears remained flat, her tail puffed with raw fear. Vaelen kept his back to Rick—not out of dismissal, but because he now watched the forest like a soldier expecting arrows at any second. Rick finally broke the silence. “…It knew my name.” Liora shivered. “You’re lucky that’s all it said.” Vaelen lowered his wings slightly but didn’t turn around. “Rick Vale, understand this clearly: what you saw was not a creature.” Rick frowned. “It had eyes.” “Some predators do not need bodies to look at you.” “That’s very comforting,” Rick muttered. Liora tugged on his sleeve urgently. “Don’t joke. Listen to him.” Rick looked between the two of them. “Okay. Fine. Then tell me—what was that thing?” Vaelen exhaled slowly, as if choosing his words w
BOOK 2 Chapter 233 – Into the Hollow
Rick fell.Not through air—through absence.The world didn’t rush past him. There was no wind, no sense of speed. It felt as if he had been removed from reality and placed somewhere unfinished.Darkness pressed in from every side, thick and heavy, like wet fabric wrapped around his body.Rick tried to breathe.The air answered—barely.His lungs burned as he forced himself to stay calm. Panic would make it worse. Panic always made it worse.Think. Stay awake.His body suddenly struck something solid.Hard.Cold.Rick groaned, rolling onto his side. Stone scraped against his palms. He pushed himself up slowly, vision swimming.The darkness shifted.Not lifted—shifted.As his eyes adjusted, Rick realized he wasn’t alone.The ground beneath him wasn’t stone.It was bones.White fragments, cracked and layered, forming the floor like ancient ruins. Some were human. Some were not. Long spines curved unnaturally. Skulls with too many eye sockets stared up at nothing.Rick swallowed hard.“Ok
BOOK 2 Chapter 234 – The One Who Returned
Light didn’t fade.It pressed.Rick felt it crush against him from every side—hot, cold, sharp, and numb all at once. His body twisted as if being pulled through a narrow opening that refused to fit him.Then—He slammed into the ground.Air rushed violently back into his lungs. Rick coughed, rolling onto his side, hands clawing at soil instead of bone, heat instead of cold.Grass.Real grass.The scent of earth and rain hit him so hard he almost laughed.Rick pushed himself up, heart hammering. He was kneeling in a wide clearing beneath a dim, silver-lit sky. Towering trees ringed the area, their leaves glowing faintly like frost-touched glass.The Veilborn Domain.But something was different.The forest was silent.No whispers.No moving shadows.No watching eyes.Too silent.“Rick.”He turned.Kaela stood several feet away, her swords lowered but ready. Her face was pale, eyes wide—fixed on him like she wasn’t sure he was real.“Hey,” Rick croaked. “You look like you just saw a gho