Lin Feng's POVAll I needed to do was one adjustment, that was all it would take.A slight disruption, a redirected current. And it had to be perfect if I didn't want to turn to a vegetable underneath this place. I had to show the difference between a controlled summoning and total collapse.My fingers moved closer, and then the air solidified from how it was before. Pressure slammed into my back like an invisible wall, freezing my body mid-motion. Every instinct and nerve I had screamed all at once, I was I danger, an immediate and overwhelming danger. "Who goes there?" A voice followed, the voice wasn’t loud. Of course even if it was there was no point, no one was meant to be underneath this place anyway. It was heavy, resonant. Like the tolling of a cathedral bell echoing through stone. The sound made me freeze completely, I had been struggling with the invisible air, but now I just went still. Even my breath halted in my chest.Slowly, carefully, I drew my hand back and shift

Lin Feng’s POVThat night after returning from the feast, I found it very difficult to sleep. It's going to be a big day tomorrow, Chen's execution which he believes is something else entirely. I have great pity for him, I know his eyes wouldn't be open in time to realise it. When the morning came, I hurried into the bathroom. I hadn't eaten anything in the past two days and my tummy grumbled. That earned me a couple of points on the tablet, I heard it ring in my head. Although it wasn't enough to do anything with.I ate a little something, put on a cloak as a diguise to avoid being noticed by anyone, then left before Shen woke up. When I arrived at the Capital, I saw Chen walking into a building with some Elders. I hid perfectly so he wouldn't see me cause I know he'd expect me to be there.When it was time for the ritual, I watched Chen strapped to the alter by something controlled by powerful mana. A lot happened as I watched from where I was. The air around the Altar had lost

Lin Feng’s POVChen looked very frightened, I couldn't even tell if he could hear what I had told him. I believe he did, because he wouldn't have had the look of confusion mixed with that fright on his face. I marvelled. I remember when he first betrayed me, I was fifteen and he was thirteen. Not even in my wildest dreams would I have thought my beloved brother would do that to me just because I was a nullity. The thought of it made me even more angry now, but I pushed away the anger. The atmosphere at the apex of the Altar had now collapsed into something unrecognizable.It wasn’t air anymore, it wasn’t even mana in its refined, structured form.It was ruin.Gravity itself had lost its authority here, it was reduced to a weak suggestion that flickered in and out of existence.The world tilted and corrected itself in uneven pulses, as if reality were struggling to remember its own rules. The once “Divine” air which was pure, radiant, suffocating in its perfection, had been replace

A High Priest’s POVThe silence that followed the collapse of the ritual was not natural for us, it did not belong in a place like this.The Great Altar had always been a place of sound, of hymns, of proclamations, of divine resonance that filled the air and pressed against the soul. Even in its quietest moments, there had always been a hum beneath everything. A presence to anchor everyone who stood close to it. Within the twinkle of an eye, there was nothing.The silence hung in the air like a fragile pane of glass, threatening to shatter at the slightest disturbance.I stood amidst the ruins of our sanctum, my chest rising and falling unevenly as I tried to steady my breath. The marble beneath my feet was cracked and scorched, the once-perfect surface now marred by fractures that spread like veins of decay. The great conduits that had once carried liquid sunlight lay ruptured, leaking thick, blackened residue that stained everything it touched disgustingly. This place… This sac

Lin Chen’s POVIt happened so quick, and at the same time slow, maybe because of how I felt it, the floor was cold on my cheek, but the silence was colder.It wasn’t just the absence of sound, it was the absence of everything. The roar of the ritual, the hymns of the Priests, the divine resonance that had once filled my veins… all of it was gone.It felt like it yanked out, I felt naked? What remained was a pit, so vast it echoed inside my skull, a void that mocked me with every breath I struggled to take.My body felt like a hollowed-out tree, brittle and useless. The "Ancestral Light,” The power I had built my identity upon, was gone, leaving behind a dull, aching vacuum where my pride used to live. Even the air felt heavier now, pressing down on me as though the world itself recognized my fall, I tried to move, but the pain shot through me. Fuckkking helll.. I felt it in my jaw, deep in my guts too, it burned!!! Every inch of my body screamed in protest as I dragged myself across