God Of Last Regret

Chapter 9: Relic Hunt

The old temple sat rotting in a fog-filled valley like it was hiding from the world on purpose. Vines strangled the marble columns, thick as a man’s arm in places, and every breath tasted like dust and forgotten spells. The fog didn’t move the way fog should. It just sat there, pooled in the hollows between broken stones, like it was waiting for someone to disturb it.

Lirael had picked up rumors from one of her contacts a War Essence relic tucked away inside, something that might give our ragtag group a real edge in the next scrap. She hadn’t said much more than that. Lirael never did. She just laid the information out like cards on a table and let the rest of us decide what to do with it. This time we decided to go in at first light: me, Mira gripping her axe like it owed her money, Garrick muttering curses under his breath about wasted mornings, and a couple of jumpy scouts who flinched every time a bird called from the canopy. Lirael hung back to cover the exit. She was always the careful one. Someone had to be, I figured, with the rest of us built like we were allergic to subtlety.

My leg bitched the whole climb up those cracked steps, each one higher than it had any right to be, like the temple builders had wanted to filter out anyone who wasn’t already half-dead by the time they reached the doors. The old pain had started the night before, a dull throb that I’d ignored while we broke camp, but now it flared with every upward push, sending sharp reminders up my thigh and into my hip. I kept my mouth shut about it. Complaining never did anything except remind everyone I was the weak link, and I’d had enough of that look from Garrick to last a lifetime. The System had been buzzing low in the back of my head since the campfire confessions the night before, a faint hum like a held breath, like it was waiting for something. Or maybe just laughing at me. I’d stopped trying to guess which.

We reached the temple doors just as the first pale light of dawn crept over the ridge, painting the vines in sickly green. The doors themselves were gone, swallowed by time and stone dust, but the entrance hall yawned open like a mouth ready to swallow us whole. I took point, spear in hand, testing each step. The stone underfoot was slick in places, worn smooth by rain that never quite reached this deep valley. Every breath tasted thicker now, dust clinging to the back of my throat like it was trying to choke me out before we even got inside.

Inside, the halls were a mess half-collapsed, the ceilings sagging like tired shoulders. Faded murals of gods swinging swords at each other stretched across cracked plaster, colors long faded to the gray-brown of old blood. Pillars had toppled in some places, leaving gaps you had to climb through, stone dust sifting down with every footstep. We stuck close together, boots scraping too loud on the stone, the sound bouncing back at us from a dozen directions until it felt like the temple itself was mocking our attempt at quiet. At first it felt almost too quiet, the kind of silence that makes the hair on your neck stand up because some animal part of your brain knows better than to trust it.

Then the guardians stirred.

Stone things that weren’t quite statues anymore, seams of light running through them like cracked magma, all glowing fractures and bad intentions. They unfolded from alcoves and rubble piles I’d have sworn were just debris a second before, joints grinding like millstones. They came at us slow, then fast, the way predators do when they’ve decided you’re not worth the patience anymore. The first one rose from a pile of fallen rubble near the entrance, its form jagged and irregular, cracks leaking faint golden light that made the air hum.

For a minute there, everything clicked.

My runes lit up hot under my skin, power flooding in smoother than it ever had, like a river finally finding a channel wide enough to hold it. Glorious, almost. The surge made my breath catch, chest expanding with a rush of strength that pushed past the old ache in my leg like it had never been there. I moved like the limp didn’t exist, blade singing as I triggered Echo Strike clean, the world narrowing down to the next perfect angle of attack. The world seemed sharper, colors brighter, the temple’s rot and decay receding into the background. The first guardian shattered under the hit, marble chunks flying past my head, and for one suspended second I felt invincible—felt like the vessel actually fit, like maybe I’d earned this body after all. Garrick laughed rough and swung his hammer beside me, caving in another one’s chest with a sound like a cart wheel breaking. Mira carved through a third with her axe, grinning like a wolf that had just found the weak one in the herd. It felt good. Too good. Like maybe this broken vessel thing was finally settling into place, like the System had decided to stop punishing me for one merciful afternoon.

We pushed deeper, following a faint pull from the System toward the central chamber, a tug behind my sternum that got stronger with every hall we cleared. The scouts hung back at the threshold of the deep rooms, pale-faced, muttering about not getting paid enough for this. Nobody blamed them. That’s where we found her Elara. A young archer, barely out of her teens, pinned down in a side alcove by two guardians, her back pressed so hard against the wall I wondered if she was trying to fuse with it. She was firing arrows that barely chipped the stone, eyes wide with panic, quiver thinning fast. Looked like a scavenger who’d gotten in over her head, the kind of mistake that gets people killed in places like this.

“Help her!” I shouted, already charging, boots skidding on loose rubble.

I tore through the first guardian like it was paper, the surge in my chest singing louder than any battle hymn. The power was beautiful—strength pouring through my arms, the haze staying back for once, no static in my vision, no second-guessing in my swing. I saved the second strike for the big one pinning her against the wall. My sword slammed home with Echo Strike ringing loud through the chamber, cracking it clean in half, the two halves toppling away from each other like a dropped vase.

Elara stumbled free, grabbing her bow off the ground where it had fallen, hands shaking. “Thank you—I didn’t think—” she started, voice cracking.

Then it all went to shit.

The power cut out mid-swing on the next guardian. Just vanished. Like a candle snuffed in wind, no warning, no slow fade, just gone. My leg buckled hard, old pain roaring back worse than ever, worse than before the surge had ever started, like the body was charging interest on whatever it had loaned me. The headache exploded behind my eyes, white and total, and for a second I couldn’t see anything but static. I swung wild and weak, barely grazing the thing, the blade skipping off stone like I’d swung a stick instead of a sword. It backhanded me into a pillar, ribs screaming, breath punched out of me in one ugly grunt.

Elara screamed as the guardian turned on her, its glowing cracks brightening like it had picked a new favorite target. She got an arrow off but it bounced harmless off its shoulder, the shaft snapping. The stone fist came down, slow and final, the way these things always seemed to move right before they killed someone.

I forced myself up, gritting through the glitch, every nerve in my leg screaming that this was a bad idea and I should just stay down. “No!” I lunged anyway, tackle messy and desperate, more falling-into-her than any kind of technique, knocking her clear just as the fist smashed stone where she’d been standing, the impact close enough that grit sprayed across both our faces. My sword finally found a weak crack on the guardian’s side, but it was ugly work hacking and stabbing while my body betrayed me at every step, each swing slower than the last, like wading through mud that kept getting deeper. Garrick finished it with a roar, hammer crushing what was left into gravel and silence.

We got the relic. A pulsing red crystal shard sat waiting on the altar in the middle chamber, throwing faint light across the murals like it was breathing. Mira snatched it up while I leaned against the wall, breathing like I’d run ten miles with broken lungs, ribs aching with every gulp of air. The headache hadn’t faded. If anything it was getting worse, pulsing in time with my heartbeat like something trying to dig its way out from the inside.

“You alright?” Elara asked, helping me steady, one hand under my arm even though she barely came up to my shoulder. She had sharp eyes and a quiver nearly empty, three arrows left rattling against each other. Looked grateful, but scared, the kind of scared that doesn’t go away just because the danger’s passed.

“Yeah,” I lied. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

We made it out before more guardians woke, picking our way back through the collapsed halls with the scouts practically jogging by the time we hit open air. Lirael met us at the edge of the valley, taking the relic without a word, turning it over once in her palm before tucking away like it was nothing more than a strange rock. Elara stuck close the whole walk back, saying she owed us and wanted in, that she’d been tracking the relic herself for weeks before we beat her to it and she’d rather join than go home empty-handed. No one argued. We needed every bow, and the way she’d held her ground against two guardians before we showed up said something about her nerve, even if her aim still needed work.

Back at the makeshift camp that night, the fire throwing long shadows against the canvas of our tents, the System finally pinged, the words unrolling in my vision with that familiar cold clarity:

[War Essence Relic Acquired.]

[Essence Alignment Increased.]

[Level Up: Level 4 Achieved.]

[New Minor Trait Unlocked: Resilience Surge Temporary pain resistance during combat. Side effect: Severe backlash afterward.]

Level 4. A little stronger, on paper. But the numbers felt hollow when my head wouldn’t stop pounding, when every breath still tugged at bruised ribs, when I could still feel the ghost-weight of Elara’s near-death sitting in my chest like a stone I hadn’t managed to swallow.

The nightmares hit hard once I finally passed out. Earth again betrayals, blood on my hands, faces I couldn’t save, the same tired carousel of guilt dressed up in new scenery. Then Aresion bled into it the way it always did lately: Elara crushed under stone because I glitched at the wrong second, her face frozen mid-scream, the red haze laughing somewhere behind my eyes like it found the whole thing funny. I woke up sweating, leg throbbing in time with my pulse, the new trait already biting back with interest, a low ache settling into muscle and bone like it intended to stay.

Garrick was on watch nearby, hammer resting across his knees. He snorted when he saw me sit up too fast, hand pressed to my ribs. “Power left you hanging, eh? Glory one minute, cripple the next. Some vessel you are.”

Mira shot him a look from her bedroll but didn’t say anything, just rolled over with a grunt that managed to communicate exactly what she thought of him anyway. Elara slept a little ways off, curled up tight like she still didn’t trust the dark, bow within arm’s reach even in sleep.

I rubbed my temples and stared at the dying fire, watching the last coals pulse orange and fade, orange and fade. We had the relic. We had one more fighter. But that surge and crash—that whiplash between feeling unstoppable and feeling like a burden—it reminded me how thin the line was between the two. One bad glitch and Elara would’ve been a smear on stone because of me, because the System decided that was the moment to pull the rug out.

Another chance, I thought, pulling the threadbare blanket tighter against the night chill. Don’t let me fuck it up.

The fog outside the ravine seemed thicker now, pressing up against the firelight like it wanted in. Like the world itself was waiting to see how long I could keep pretending this second skin fit right.