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Home / System / System Activated: Divine Talent Granted / Chapter 235
Chapter 235
Author: Yeshua Yin
last update2025-08-17 23:39:14

The march back felt longer than the trek in. Oliver carried the unconscious scout across his shoulders, every step grinding into his bones.

Mara walked ahead, torch in one hand, knives strapped and ready. The spearman limped with the boy’s support, his face pale but determined.

The tunnels pressed close around them, roots still twitching faintly in the stone. Every scrape of boot on rock echoed far too loudly, like a signal in the silence.

Oliver’s mind replayed the Mycotitan’s shriek over and over. The smell of rot clung to his clothes, buried in his skin.

But worse than the smell was the scrape burned into the cavern wall. He hadn’t told Mara about it. Or the others. The Seeker’s mark didn’t belong in words.

When they reached the rebel camp, the guards at the entrance froze at the sight of them. One ran ahead shouting, “Survivors! Garrick!”

The cavern stirred awake. Faces peered from the firelight, some with hope, more with suspicion. The boy dropped the sack of fungus with a thud,
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  • Chapter 243

    The thread shimmered faintly at the edge of Oliver’s sight, thin as a hair, glowing with a sickly light only he and Elias seemed to notice. It tugged eastward, toward the narrow tunnels that broke away from the camp.The rest of the rebels still slept, their snores echoing softly in the cavern. Only a few guards paced near the fires, their torches swinging back and forth.Oliver’s pulse quickened. The whispers coiled in his skull like smoke. “Follow it. Take them. It leads where you need to be. To me.”He swallowed hard. His mouth was dry. He wanted to refuse, to stay here where the campfire was warm and safe, but deep down he already knew the truth: if they ignored this threat, it would strangle them later.Mara tightened her grip on her knives. “We move now,” she said in a low voice. “Before someone notices.”Elias shifted nervously, torch shaking in his hand. His young face was pale, but his jaw was clenched. “I can lead. I can feel it pulling.”Oliver looked between them, the boy

  • Chapter 242

    The camp was awake long before the torches were lit. People whispered in small groups, some sharpening blades, some gathering fungus sacks, others whispering prayers that echoed against the stone walls. A heavy tension filled the air, the kind that made even laughter sound wrong. Everyone knew they were going deeper soon, into the Hollow, the place where shadows never slept.Oliver walked slowly through the camp, the coin heavy in his pocket. His footsteps were steady, but inside his chest, his heart felt like a hammer that refused to stop. He could feel the whispers again. They were quiet this time, like a snake resting, waiting. They curled around his thoughts, offering answers he didn’t ask for. “Move the scouts to the western tunnel. They will be safer there. Garrick will not think of it, but you can.”He clenched his fists. He hated that the voice was right near the fires. Elias was crouched low, trying to light a torch with trembling hands. The boy’s face was pale, his eyes s

  • Chapter 241

    The camp should have felt alive. Torches burned brighter than usual, fungus stew boiled in great clay pots, and laughter, rare, brittle laughter, echoed off the cavern walls.For the first time since Oliver had arrived, the rebels allowed themselves to celebrate. They had faced the Seeker and come back breathing, but Oliver couldn’t share their joy.He sat at the edge of the firelight, coin warm in his palm, watching shadows twist against stone. To everyone else, they looked harmless, shaped by firelight. To him, they were threads, faint strands pulsing with intent. Some belonged to people nearby: the nervous flicker of the boy, the steady flame of Garrick, the sharp, bladed tension of Mara.Others pulsed from deeper in the tunnels, cold and hungry. Waiting. The Seeker wasn’t gone. It was watching.Garrick called him into the leader’s chamber later that night. The scarred man leaned over a crude stone map, his single eye sharp as ever. “The anchors are destroyed,” Garrick said, tappi

  • Chapter 240

    The return to camp was not triumphant. Their boots dragged through the tunnels, wet with blood and shadow-ichor, carrying the silence of the dead. Mara walked ahead, shoulders squared, her knives sheathed but her back rigid with tension. Oliver followed, the boy trailing close, torch clutched so tight his knuckles were white. They had no bodies to bring back. Only memory.The rebels waiting at the barricade rose when they saw them. Faces lit with hope, relief. Voices whispered: “They’re alive.” “They made it.” “The Seeker’s gone?”Oliver couldn’t meet their eyes. He saw only the gaps. The missing. The two veterans whose names he hadn’t even learned.Mara lifted her chin. “The anchors are cut. The Seeker is weakened.”The camp erupted in cheers. Oliver flinched at the sound. That night, a fire burned high in the cavern, brighter than usual, fed by carefully hoarded wood. Garrick stood before it, sword in hand, his scarred face lit by flame.“The Seeker bled. Its roots are ash. And th

  • Chapter 239

    The tunnels grew wrong. The air thickened, no longer just damp but heavy, like breathing through wet cloth. The walls wept with black condensation, streaking down in rivulets that pulsed faintly, glowing in rhythm with a heartbeat that wasn’t his.Oliver’s Echo Sense throbbed in his skull, pulling him forward. Every step dragged at him, not just with weight but with certainty. He knew where the last anchor was. He also knew something else. They weren’t walking toward it. They were walking into it. The Seeker was waiting.The boy stumbled behind them, torch shaking in his hand. His eyes were wide, white with terror. “It’s here. I can feel it.”Mara grabbed him by the collar, forcing him forward. “So can we all. Keep moving.”The two veterans said nothing, but their knuckles were white around their weapons.Oliver’s throat was dry. He wanted to say something, comfort, reassurance, anything, but the words wouldn’t come. The System’s cold hum filled his ears instead.System Notification

  • Chapter 238

    The rebels moved in silence. Their boots pressed into damp stone, their breath misting faintly in the cold air of the deeper tunnels. The firelight of the camp was long behind them now, swallowed by twisting paths and dripping walls. Only the faint red crystals lit their way, and even those seemed to dim the further they went.Oliver walked at the front, coin pressed against his palm, the System’s faint hum in his mind. He had never led before, not like this. In the Traveler exams, in the raids, he had fought, yes, but always under someone else’s command. Now every step he took pulled others with him. And every wrong step could mean their deaths.Behind him marched Mara, silent as a blade, her eyes always scanning the shadows. The boy from the fungus fields trailed nervously at the rear, carrying a bundle of torches. Two more rebels, hardened veterans, walked between. All looked to Oliver with a mixture of suspicion and grim expectation. He could feel it pressing on him. The weig

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