2025-07-31 08:37:40
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Chapter 91 — The Silence Below
The silence in the stone corridor was unbearable.Kael’s footsteps echoed as he moved deeper into the mountain temple, torchlight dancing along walls etched with forgotten prayers. Behind him, the others lagged—Lira wounded and barely keeping pace, Nyra holding her arm. Their breaths were ragged, their nerves frayed. The spiral mark on Kael’s back burned like fire beneath his cloak, a familiar warning that whatever they approached was older than time and twice as cruel.A heavy door loomed ahead, iron-bound and sealed with ancient wards that pulsed faintly in the dark.Kael stopped.He raised the torch. The symbol carved into the stone was one he had seen once before—deep in the Archive’s forbidden wing, in the section no mortal scribe dared enter.“Are you sure this is it?” Lira whispered. Her voice cracked. Blood stained her side from the blade that grazed her during the escape from the Sunborn’s ambush.“I saw it in the vision,” Kael said. “This is the chamber.”Nyra stepped up bes
Chapter 90 – The Weight of Names
Kael stood over the fractured altar, the silver of his blade still glowing faintly with the remnants of the last rite. Blood had pooled around his boots, not all of it his. The chamber trembled as if the very mountain had begun to breathe, and he could hear the echo of his name whispered back by the stones. But they were not his stones. This was not his sanctuary.He looked up. Lira knelt in front of the shattered idol, her shoulders shaking with grief or fury or both. She held what remained of the sigil scroll in her hands, but it was burned through the center, its glyphs crawling in pain before they dimmed. She did not look at him.“You destroyed it,” she whispered.“I had to,” Kael said. His voice was hoarse. “That rite was not salvation. It was a snare.”“You think you can choose for all of us?” Her voice cracked, and when she turned to him, her eyes were wet but blazing. “Do you even know what you just gave up?”He said nothing. His hand clenched around the hilt of the sword, and
Chapter 89: The Tower That Should Not Be
The tower loomed in the distance, jagged and wrong, like it had not been built but clawed its way out of the earth. It stretched toward the sky where the red sun now hung, casting no warmth, only shadow. Its shape shifted when Kael tried to focus on it, as if the structure refused to exist within the rules of his world.None of them spoke for a long moment. Even the wind had gone still.Kael’s breath steamed in the air though the day had not grown cold. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, not in readiness but for something to hold on to.Lira broke the silence. “You saw him too.”He nodded.Nyra’s eyes remained on the tower. “That was not just a reflection. That was real.”“Another version of me,” Kael said. “The same face. But… older. Worn down.”Nyra shook her head. “Not older. Farther.”Kael frowned. “What do you mean?”She turned to face him, her voice low. “That is the version of you who walked the spiral and did not turn back. That’s who you become if you follow this path
Chapter 88: The Voice Beneath the Stone
Kael dragged his hand across the wall, the texture smooth yet humming with buried magic. Each footstep echoed deeper into the hollow corridor beneath the Ashvault Keep. Behind him, the others followed in silence. Lira walked closest, her blade already half drawn, while Nyra stalked just behind with her cloak tight around her. The passage spiraled like the mark on Kael’s chest, curving down and down into a place the world had forgotten.They had followed the broken map hidden within the Archive’s last page, traced the ink made from blackroot and burned gold, and now the path was opening into a chamber unlike any they had seen.A circular chamber pulsed with violet light. The stone was carved with runes older than the Veiled God, older than even the Dead Cities. Suspended at the center of the chamber was a stone disk floating in midair. It spun slowly, casting mirrored reflections against the walls, but none of them reflected Kael.Nyra’s voice cut through the silence. “This is a gate.”
Chapter 87: The Gate That Whispers
Kael had never seen the world bend like this.The storm had shattered the sky hours ago, but the remnants still hung heavy over the hollowed cliffs of Nareth. Lightning forked in the distance, streaks of violet and white clashing against the bruised heavens. Wind howled between the jagged arches carved by time, sweeping Kael’s cloak around his legs as he stood before the ancient gate.It was not a gate made by human hands.The stone frame pulsed. Faint etchings writhed like snakes trapped beneath the surface, symbols older than the tongue of kings, older than even the Wyrm’s name. With every gust of wind, the gate moaned. Not groaned, not creaked. It moaned, like something alive was trapped inside.Lira’s breath hitched behind him.“Kael,” she whispered, “this place is cursed.”He said nothing. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade. It had begun to tremble in its scabbard the moment they crossed the final threshold. Even the Archive’s shard embedded in his wrist flickered
Chapter 86 - The Flame Below
The sky split open like torn parchment, spilling violet light over the scorched peaks of the Ashfang Divide. Kael stood at the jagged edge of a crumbling cliff, his boots leaving scorched prints on the obsidian ground. His blade pulsed at his side, still humming with the fury of the last battle. The wind carried the smell of burnt stone and something older, something buried.Below, the canyon opened like the throat of a beast. Fire roared deep beneath the surface, casting wild shadows on the broken walls. Lira was at his side, her breath shallow, her eyes flickering with fading light. The cost of keeping the veil open had bled her nearly dry.“You said there was a path,” Kael muttered, scanning the ledges below.“There is,” she breathed. “But it’s not meant for the living.”Kael tightened his grip on the sword. “Then good thing we’re not exactly living.”She gave him a weak smile, but it vanished as the cliffs groaned under their weight. The ground behind them was collapsing, inch by
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