Chapter 61 – The Awakened Fragment
Previously…
In the hidden chamber of the Council, an intruder possessed by a fragment of Elarion was hurled across the void. His body burned from within and without, again and again, in a rhythm of agony.
He lay motionless. Each breath cracked like shattered glass. Black blood dripped from his nose, mouth, and ears, spreading across the cold stone floor. Yet beneath the ruin, his eyes slowly opened. Within them gleamed a light—one that was not his own.
The Fragment of Elarion.
Not merely a power, but a sacred shard of something that should never be touched by mortals.
A woman's spirit spoke from beyond the veil, her voice trembling through a fragile mist.
> "What will you do now? I… I dare not even show myself. That fragment… it's too divine for me."
The intruder coughed, splattering blood onto the earth, yet a faint smile curved his lips.
> "I haven't decided yet. But I've opened something—something sealed for ages. And what lies within… will change them all."
He rose, half-staggering, his body trembling beneath the weight of that forbidden power. Still, the strange force straightened his spine, making him stand proud even as his bones screamed in protest.
> "Let's see how they react—the Council, the Hellseers, the dwellers of Prufen. All of them will tremble. All of them will change… or burn."
The woman fell silent. Only her sigh remained, a prayer that would never reach its god.
Meanwhile, the Seven Council members guarded the fractured sky, still trembling from the battle of Maxcen, Elarion, and Enver. Enver had managed to seal the rift—temporarily.
But now, something was creeping in.
Something they had never foreseen.
Not merely a crack in the sky—but a fracture within their very souls.
From the roots of their hair to the marrow of their bones, an alien chill seeped through them.
Saelmir grasped his head, whispering through broken breaths:
> "The whispers… they're not mine. Do you hear them?"
Kavdrin stared at his black-red scales of judgment. The needle trembled uncontrollably.
> "Sin… not human sin. Something older."
Ysera lowered her gaze. Her usually merciful hands now dripped with frozen blue light.
> "This… is not something to pity. This is something else."
They exchanged glances, realizing that something had been unveiled beyond their comprehension.
---
In the collapsing secret realm, Enver remained unconscious. Fragments of the world fell upon him—stone, light, even shards of shadow piercing his skin.
Yet every drop of his blood did not spill in vain. It cloaked him, weaving itself into a robe of life's essence.
He did not rise. Nor did he vanish. He slept between being and nothingness.
In the Council's chamber, silence broke at last.
> "He still lingers in that hidden realm," one of them murmured. "I can feel his pulse… faint, but there."
Chaos erupted. Voices clashed like storms.
> "How do we bring him back? We don't even know where that place is!"
"Don't worry. He'll return. His blood is the path. He won't fade so easily."
But another voice slithered in—cold, sharp, emotionless.
> "Let him be, if he never returns. Perhaps that's for the best. Without him, the balance of sin will be clearer."
The others reacted instantly, tension rising.
> "No! The world will spiral into chaos! Sins will scatter like sand in the storm—wild, unbound. Without the Hellseer, there will be no restraint. Do you want the disaster from a thousand years ago to repeat itself?!"
The room roared with argument.
Outside, the sky trembled, as if echoing their strife.
And somewhere in the dark, the intruder who carried Elarion's fragment walked forward—his smile still faint, his eyes glowing with the fire of something reborn.
The Corroding Resonance
The fragment of Elarion began to stir within the intruder's body.
The Hellseer Council felt something foreign, something sharp, piercing both their flesh and souls.
Enver still slept within the shattered hidden world—his blood shielding him from complete annihilation.
Above Maxcen, the sky rumbled—not with cracks or fire, but with echoes—a sound that came from neither heaven, earth, nor hell.
In the Council's chamber, each of the Seven began to feel the same thing:
their bodies were no longer their own.
Saelmir clenched his eyes shut, sweat streaming down his temples.
> "Memories… not mine. They're flooding in—faces I don't know, sins I never carried!"
When he opened his eyes, his irises reflected hundreds of alien faces. They screamed, then fell to their knees.
Kavdrin grasped his trembling black-red scales of judgment. The needle spun wildly, as if blown by an unseen wind.
> "There's no balance. Everything is collapsing… sin and virtue, tangled into one! There's no straight line anymore!"
Ysera, the voice of mercy, wept. But the tears that flowed were not water—they were shards of blue light, shattering into dust before fading away.
> "My compassion… rejects me. Something is clogging its flow… something older than mercy itself."
Dorvas, the warden of chains, clutched his chest. Astral chains erupted around him, binding his body, tightening.
> "The prison chains… they defy their master. They seek to free themselves from me!"
Each of the Council felt cracks forming in their essence—
as if the leaking fragment of Elarion had seeped into their souls, corroding them without consent.
(Note: What the Council felt was caused by an ancient seal being forcefully opened—by someone, with intent, and with purpose.)
Then… a foreign voice echoed through the chamber.
Not theirs.
Not of this world.
Just a whisper—soft, yet cutting like a blade through silence.
> "You hold what you cannot contain. Neither the living nor the dead should ever bear such weight."
The chamber trembled. The Council looked up, searching for the source—
but there was no one. Only the echo spinning across the walls of that secret hall.
Noveras, the Furnace of Judgment, rose. The spiral flame in his hand ignited on its own.
> "Who speaks?!"
The whisper replied—its tone like laughter held behind clenched teeth.
> "The fragment… has awakened. You are merely borrowing time—
and time is now reclaiming its due."
---
In Prufen—the realm of pure souls—those once purified by the Hellseers began to stir in unrest.
They usually lived in serenity, guided only by the faint light of innocence, untouched by sin.
But that day, the sky of Prufen trembled.
Thin shadows appeared upon the ground—stains of darkness that could never be cleansed.
A small child, newly arrived in Prufen, screamed, pointing upward:
> "The sky is cracking! Something's falling!"
And from above, droplets of black light began to rain down—corrupting Prufen's purity, drop by drop.
In the Council chamber, Ysera cried out,
> "The fragment… it's breached the veil and is weakening Prufen!
If that world becomes tainted—every pure soul will lose its way!"
Miredan, the Silence of Ends—who seldom spoke—finally raised his voice.
It was deep, echoing like a broken black moon.
> "If Prufen collapses… human souls will return to the mortal realm unfiltered.
Sin will spread faster than light—
the world will drown in directionless births and deaths without waiting."
The air froze. Silence thickened.
Then, one of the Hellseers guarding the chamber whispered softly,
> "Then… the only one who can seal it again—is him."
Every gaze turned toward the unspoken name—
but all of them knew whom they meant.
Enver.
The only question that remained—
was whether he could ever return…
or whether he had already vanished within the fallen secret world.