Chapter 62 – Debate Upon the Fracture
Previously…
An ancient incantation planted by an unknown hand began to seep into the flesh and souls of the Council. Prufen—the world of pure souls—was now tainted by creeping shards of darkness. Every gaze turned toward the one name no one dared to speak aloud: Enver.
Was he the only one capable of restoring it?
The air in the Council Chamber grew sharp, as though lined with thorns. The trembling sky above them seemed to listen, reacting to every word of their heated debate.
Saelmir, his eyes haunted by visions of unfamiliar faces, whispered softly,
"He's still alive. I can feel his pulse—faint, distant… bound to the hidden world. If we don't bring him back, he'll drown there forever. And vanish without a trace."
Kavdrin slammed his black-red scales onto the floor. The metallic echo resounded like a death knell.
"Let him be! Without him, human sin will be revealed in its truest form. Every truth will stand naked—untainted by the hands of a Hellseer."
Ysera, whose tears had turned into dusts of fading light, shot him a fierce glance.
"You call that truth? That's not purity—it's primal slaughter. Without purification, humans will devour one another. That is not enlightenment; it's extinction."
Dorvas gripped his trembling chains. His voice was heavy, like boulders dragged into the abyss.
"If he doesn't return… these chains won't hold the Gate. The astral realm will bleed into the mortal one. You all know that."
The Council was now divided in two:
The Saviors: Ysera, Saelmir, and Dorvas — those who believed Enver must be brought back.
The Rejectors: Kavdrin and Noveras — those who desired his absence for the sake of a "new balance."
The Silent Weighers: Elhara and Miredan — who said nothing, but whose eyes weighed more than their words ever could.
Then, a trembling voice rose from one of the Hellseers once sent by Ysera to accompany Enver.
"You don't understand… Enver isn't just a Hellseer. He is a different kind of balance. He does not weigh, bind, forgive, judge, or kill. He only… purifies. If he disappears, no one will see sin in its true form again."
Miredan lifted his head, his deep voice breaking the silence.
"Then the question is not whether he should return… but who among us has the right to awaken and bring him back. If we force it, the world may collapse along with his consciousness."
Elhara finally spoke, her tone a whisper between veil and mist.
"I see the curtain. Enver lies behind it. If we tear it open by force, we may awaken only his shadow—not the man himself."
Silence fell heavy as stone.
Then, Noveras's spiral flame flared higher. His gaze burned with the fury of a sun ready to consume worlds.
"Then I'll speak plainly. I choose a world without Enver. A world that shows human sin unfiltered, unpurified, unrestrained. A world that no longer hides behind sanctity."
Ysera turned to him, her voice trembling with both rage and dread.
"That world belongs to no one. That world is hell disguised as heaven."
A small fracture appeared in the sky. Not large, but enough to drip black light.
Far below, Prufen trembled again. Pure souls fled in terror as the dark stain crept across the ground like rotting roots.
Saelmir struck the floor with his staff.
"We're out of time. If this fracture widens, the pure world will crumble into nothingness. And if Prufen falls—then every realm falls with it. Including us."
Dorvas stared at his rebellious chains, their glow flickering wildly.
"There's only one choice left. We must decide now… whether to bring Enver back—or let him drown with his world."
The chapter ends with a single hanging line:
"The choice is simple: a world with Enver… or a world without him."
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*The Stained Prufen*
Previously…
The Hellseer Council had split into three factions. The fracture in the sky had reopened, and Prufen—the realm of pure souls—was beginning to darken as its strength waned. The decision regarding Enver remained unmade, while time itself thinned away, like a disease corroding the body of eternity.
Prufen had once been a place of untainted light, gleaming like the endless fabric of purity untouched by sin.
But that day, something unprecedented began to unfold.
Black stains rained down from the sky like droplets under a rising sun. Each drop scorched the white sacred ground of Prufen, leaving wounds that not even time could heal.
Children screamed, running in terror. Faces once serene and pure were now clouded by confusion and fear.
In the air, faint whispers slithered—neither prayers nor songs, but something that pierced the soul:
> "Purity… is only a disguise. All will return to filth."
An old man who had lived in Prufen for centuries clutched his chest and looked down at his trembling hands. Those hands—once immaculate—were now veined with cracks of darkness.
"I… I can feel it again. Anger… envy… hunger…" His voice broke, as if his spirit had been thrust back into a mortal cage.
"Why… why are these feelings returning to me?"
One by one, the purified began to taste the shadows of their former selves. Prufen quaked, like a mirror fracturing from within.
Souls once cleansed by the Hellseers slowly reverted—caught between nightmares that never ended, children crying endlessly, beings who ate and drank without rest, slept but never awoke, or awoke but could not dream.
Meanwhile, in the mortal world, the intruder possessed by the fragment of Elarion kept walking. His body still bled, yet every drop that fell was no longer red—
but a black light, pulsing like a living heart.
The spirit of the woman who followed him trembled, her voice breaking in horror.
"What have you done? You've… opened a path between Prufen and the mortal world…"
The intruder smiled faintly, his gaze cold.
"No. I merely broke the seal. The fragment itself opened the way. And look—
even the pure world cannot deny it."
He lifted his hand, and black light poured from within his body.
It did not illuminate; it devoured.
Behind his frail mortal shell, another form began to flicker into existence—
Broken wings formed from shards of radiance, eyes without iris, only spinning voids,
and on his chest, a living sigil pulsing like a forgotten heartbeat.
It was Resonance—the manifestation of the Elarion Fragment.
Inside the Council Chamber, all the Hellseers felt it at once—
a tremor that was not their own.
A presence both foreign and divine, too real to ignore.
Ysera staggered, her trembling hands clutching at the air.
"This isn't mere resonance… The fragment has found a master. It's… taking form."
Noveras smirked, his spiral flame roaring higher.
"Good. At last, the world will learn there is no eternal purity. Everything will burn back into dust."
Saelmir struck the floor with his staff, his voice quivering with fury.
"You fool! If that fragment completes its union, not only the mortal realm—
even Prufen itself will collapse into the abyss. We'll all be erased before we can even fight!"
Meanwhile, in the shattered hidden world, Enver still lay motionless.
His blood continued to shield him, weaving itself into a cloak of living light.
But through the fractures of that realm, a foreign shadow began to creep toward him—
as though the same fragment sought to pierce even his sanctum.
The chapter ends with a haunting narration:
> "In Prufen, the pure are becoming tainted,
and the Council trembles—
not merely because Prufen weakens,
but because something higher than heaven
has rooted itself into their world."
> "In the mortal realm, the fragment takes shape."
"And in the secret world, Enver lies upon the edge of darkness."
"Three worlds… begin to fall as one."