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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 — 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 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 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 — 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 — 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
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