Path of the Forsaken Sigil

Chapter 34

The blinding, white-hot broadsword of High Inquisitor Bontus came down. 

Time seemed to slow to a complete stop for Bruce Thompson. He lay on the cold stone floor of the ruined antechamber. His right arm was a burned, blackened mess. His dark mana core was cracked and bleeding inside his chest. He could not move his legs. He could not lift a single finger to defend himself. 

He watched the holy blade falling toward his face. 

The heat coming off the sword was incredible. It was hotter than a forge. It was hotter than the summer sun. The holy fire was so bright that it erased all the shadows in the tiny, cramped room. Bruce could feel the skin on his cheeks blistering just from the heat of the approaching weapon. 

"I failed," Bruce thought. A single tear rolled down his dirty, bruised cheek, instantly evaporating in the extreme heat. 

He was not afraid of dying. For nineteen years, his life had been a nightmare of freezing stables, empty stomachs, and cruel beatings. Death did not scare him. 

But he was completely heartbroken because he had failed her. He had finally found his mother. He had finally learned that she was not a traitor, but a hero who had sacrificed everything for him. And now, he was going to die right in front of her eyes, leaving her trapped in that terrible Golden Cell forever. 

"I am sorry, Mom," Bruce whispered softly, closing his silver eyes. He waited for the burning sword to cut him in half. 

But the sword never hit him. 

Inside the Golden Cell, Victoria Thompson watched the executioner's blade falling toward her only child. 

For nineteen years, Victoria had been a perfect prisoner. She had let the Iron-Heart Clan drain her magic. She had let the Order of the Solar Flame bind her with hard-light chains. She had stayed quiet, enduring the daily torture, because she knew that as long as she was useful, the clan would let her bastard son live in the stables above. 

Her obedience was the price she paid for Bruce’s life. 

But now, they were breaking the rules. They were trying to take the only thing she cared about. 

"No," Victoria whispered inside the cage. 

Her voice was weak, but her spirit was a roaring ocean. 

Victoria lifted her head. Her silver eyes glowed with a terrifying, absolute determination. She did not have much life force left. Her physical body was starving and broken. But a mother's wrath is the most dangerous magic in the world. 

She looked at the thick, glowing chains of hard-light that pierced her wrists and her collarbone. These chains were designed to suck her magic away and send it to the vats. They were designed to take her energy slowly, drop by drop, so she would not die. 

Victoria decided to give them everything she had all at once. 

She tightened her frail hands into fists. She pulled on the chains. She did not try to pull them out of her skin. Instead, she pushed her own pure, silver soul essence directly into the hard-light bindings. 

She opened the floodgates of her spirit. She dumped every single drop of her remaining daily life force into the Inquisitor Ward. 

"Take it!" Victoria screamed at the top of her lungs. "Take it all!"

The Golden Cell was a perfect machine, but it was not designed to handle a sudden, massive surge of pure guardian spirit energy. It was like trying to pour an entire ocean into a small teacup. 

The ten-foot-wide sphere of solid light began to vibrate violently. The high-pitched humming sound turned into a deafening, terrifying screech. The golden light began to swirl, mixing with Victoria’s brilliant silver soul essence. 

High Inquisitor Bontus was only inches away from cutting Bruce in half. The tip of his flaming sword was almost touching Bruce's nose. 

Suddenly, the pristine white room behind Bontus exploded. 

It was not an explosion of fire or stone. It was an explosion of pure, unstable light. 

The Golden Cell flared outward like a miniature supernova. 

A massive, blinding flash of gold and silver light completely filled the Deepest Vault and the tiny antechamber. It was a million times brighter than the sun. There were no shadows left. There was no color. There was only absolute, overwhelming brightness. 

"MY EYES!" High Inquisitor Bontus screamed in pure agony. 

Bontus was facing the flash directly. The unstable light hit his eyes like physical needles. His retinas burned instantly. He dropped his heavy broadsword, throwing his hands up to cover his ruined face. 

Because Bontus lost his concentration, his massive execution spell immediately shattered. The holy flames on his sword sputtered and died out. The sword clattered harmlessly onto the stone floor next to Bruce’s head. 

The magical recoil of the broken spell was violent. It shocked Bontus's body, throwing the massive man completely off his saddle. Bontus flew through the air, crashing hard into the stone wall of the tiny room. 

Without the Inquisitor's constant magical focus, the giant horse of solidified sunlight neighed in panic. The horse lost its shape, melting into a puddle of golden sparks before vanishing into thin air. 

In the main chamber, pure chaos erupted. 

The dozens of elite Inquisitors who had just dropped through the hole in the ceiling were also caught in the blinding flash. They dropped their golden shields. They dropped their spears. They fell to their knees on the white marble floor, screaming and clawing at their burning eyes. 

"I can't see! I am blind!" one Inquisitor yelled, swinging his sword wildly in the air, almost cutting his own partner. 

"Protect the High Inquisitor! Form a circle!" another soldier shouted, stumbling blindly over a pile of broken rocks. 

Inside the tiny antechamber, Bruce opened his eyes. 

Because he was lying flat on the floor, and because the Ashen Seraph had instinctively thrown a smoky wing over his face, Bruce was not blinded by the flash. The intense light faded just enough for him to see again. 

He looked through the hole in the wall. 

The Golden Cell was still there, but the light was flickering weakly. The Inquisitor Ward had survived the overload, but it was badly damaged.