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Chapter Sixty-six : When the Vault Calls
The ground broke beneath them. A surge of molten light raced across the battlefield, splitting through concrete, through cables, through flesh. The noise wasn’t just sound—it was pressure, like the world had been wound too tight and was finally tearing loose. Elysia dragged Shayne behind the wreck of a fallen transit pillar. Sparks showered from ruptured lines above, raining against her hair. His breathing came rough, uneven, each inhale seared by the echoing pulse of the Vault. “Stay with me,” she said, but even as the words left her mouth, the ground responded—not to her, but to him. The pulse under Shayne’s skin beat once, twice—then answered. The world folded. For a heartbeat, Elysia saw what he saw: the map of the city, stripped bare of streets and walls, replaced by veins of red light converging on one enormous heart beneath the earth—the Vault. Its rhythm matched Shayne’s. It was alive, aware, and waiting. Then the vision broke, and the noise came rushing back. Grant wa
Chapter Sixty-Five: The Seal’s Burden
Shayne’s breath came ragged, fogging in the cold air. His pulse hammered in his throat, in his wrists, in the cracked lines that blazed across his chest where the Seal lived. Every beat felt wrong—too heavy, too loud, like it wasn’t his heart at all but a drum meant to summon something else.He pressed a trembling hand against the glow beneath his shirt. The heat seared him even through the fabric, yet there was no comfort in it. Only hunger. Only the sense that the Seal wasn’t bound to him but was using him as a vessel—burning through his veins, chewing through his resolve.“Cursed.” The word escaped his lips before he realized he’d said it aloud.Elysia’s eyes darted toward him. For a moment, despite the flicker of fear in her, she looked almost ready to argue. But she didn’t. She knew better. She had seen what the Seal did to him—how it came alive in battle, how it swallowed light and shadow alike, how every time he used it, he came back hollower.The thought lodged deep in him: It
Chapter Sixty-Four: The Poisoned Choice
The drones’ rotors shrieked against the narrow stone walls, sealing the junction with a cage of metal and light. Their beams slashed through dust, painting the chamber in a sterile glow. Elysia’s blade was still raised, its edge humming with residual heat from the last volley she had struck down.But it wasn’t the machines that made Shayne’s chest tighten.It was the footsteps.Measured. Certain. Each one striking stone with a finality that made the air itself seem to shrink.Grant stepped into the chamber. No armor plates, no faceless mask—only the gauntlet at his wrist and the unshakable certainty that this was his arena.Shayne’s hand clenched around the wall for balance. The Seal burned like a star against his ribs, pulling toward Grant as though the man himself were its axis.“You ran far,” Grant said, his voice a steady baritone that filled the space without strain. His eyes flicked between Shayne and Elysia, lingering on the latter only long enough to acknowledge her defiance b
Chapter Sixty-Three: The Net Tightens
The tunnels had always been a refuge. Carved beneath the city’s bones, they wound like forgotten veins, carrying whispers and fugitives alike. Tonight, they felt more like a grave. Shayne pressed forward, each step dragging like iron. The Seal still burned across his chest, muted compared to the blaze from moments ago, but its rhythm was unnatural, its pull constant. He could feel the Vault even through the stone overhead, like a beacon fixed to his marrow. Elysia matched his pace, her face a mask of iron control. She carried none of his weight, not because she wouldn’t, but because she knew if she did, he would give in to it. Her voice cut the silence. “They’ll use every informant they can. Every runner, every frightened child. Don’t think anyone’s loyalty will hold.” Shayne gritted his teeth. He didn’t need reminding. The memory of the runner’s betrayal was still raw—a familiar face, broken by fear, selling them for the promise of mercy. “Doesn’t matter,” he rasped. “We keep m
Chapter Sixty-Two: Echoes of the Awakening
The streets had not known silence in years.Not the silence of curfews, or the hush that fell when drones passed overhead, but a heavier stillness—the kind that followed when the city itself forgot how to breathe.Civilians clustered in pockets across districts, staring upward. Power grids guttered one by one, not in rolling outages but in violent pulses, like the entire city was caught between heartbeats. Lights died, returned, then flickered again. Screens in windowfronts went to static. The only steady glow came from the sky: veins of molten light threading through the darkness, converging high above as though some vast shape was sketching itself into being.No one said the word Vault aloud—not yet. But the sight was burned into every memory, a whisper carried from half-forgotten rumors.“It’s him,” someone muttered in a district square. A young man, clutching his younger sister tight against his chest. His voice shook, but there was conviction in it. “It’s Marrow. He broke it open
Chapter Sixty-One – The Sentinel’s First Strike
The sentinel moved like thunder given form.It tore free of the molten veins, scattering fire across the platforms as its jagged limbs unfolded with impossible speed. The air screamed around its frame, every joint snapping into place like glass shattering in reverse. When it landed, the impact sent a shockwave rippling across the battlefield—shards of floating concrete fractured and spun away, drifting into the endless void.And its first strike came down.A blade of fire, longer than any street, sheared downward with surgical intent. It wasn’t random chaos. It wasn’t blind destruction. The sentinel’s faceless head turned, its aim locked, and the strike angled for one figure alone.Elysia.Shayne saw it an instant before it landed. His chest ignited, the Seal searing so violently it blinded him, but instinct took the reins. He hurled himself forward, arms slamming into her shoulders, knocking her clear. The fireblade missed her by inches, crashing into the platform behind. The ground
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