LightReader

Chapter 17 - Interlude: The One Who Watched It Scream

WORLD: THE REALMS OF VAHANRA

The novel is set in a continent known as Vahanra, a land divided into multiple Martial Realms, each ruled by powerful clans or sects. Cultivation is done not only through spiritual energy but also through Weapon Resonance—the art of syncing one's spirit with the soul of a weapon.

Key Realms:

1. Aethros Realm – Where Raen lives. Known for its strict clan hierarchies and elite sword sects. Most of the great sword clans reside here.

2. Jyothra Realm – A land rich in elemental cultivators, especially those who harness fire and lightning arts.

3. Lorran Depths – A forbidden region where demonic cultivators and cursed weapons are rumored to dwell.

4. Skyreach Plateau – Floating islands where ancient sects isolated themselves. Believed to house extinct arts and "Heavenly Techniques."

The One Who Watched It Scream

Before she was Commander Seyra of the Unspooling Vein...

She was Seyra Taval, a daughter of the Mountain Hollow Sect.

A healer. A listener. A gentle voice among whisper storms.

And once, she witnessed a god die.

---

It began during the final years of the Silent Uprising, when sects hunted relics born from the Whisper Wars. Seyra, a low-ranking scribe at the time, was sent to catalog a decaying ruin just beyond the Scorchvale. She expected bones and ash.

Instead, she found it.

A boy, no older than sixteen, chained to a stone pillar.

Eyes black with whisper script. Mouth sealed shut by steel threads.

And in his chest, embedded directly into his heart—

The Veinblade.

No longer a sword.

Now a parasite.

Every breath he took whispered a different name. Every tear that fell carved sigils into the stone. Seyra watched in silence, unable to speak. Even the other scribes went mad before the hour ended.

But she remained.

And she listened.

For three days, the boy wept stories no one should know.

Of ancient gods breaking the sky.

Of realms that bled light.

Of a weapon that was once a man.

And on the third night, the boy stopped whispering.

He looked at her with eyes empty of self.

And said:

> "If you pull it out…

I become you."

She fled.

---

📍 Years Later – Crimson Fang Temple

She stood before the elders, her eyes no longer soft.

Her voice—measured. Cold.

"I want to join the Coilblood Circle," she said.

They warned her it would cost her name. Her past. Her mind.

She didn't care.

The boy's eyes still haunted her.

She thought that joining the Fang, becoming the enemy, would make her immune.

But when she saw Raen wield the Veinblade for the first time—from a crystal perch half a realm away—she felt that old chill return.

The way he moved.

The way the blade sang through him.

> It wasn't the boy she'd met…

It was the weapon that killed him, reborn.

---

📍 Present Day – Coilblood Stronghold

Seyra stood before a shrine of broken chains.

A blood ritual circle glowed before her, whispering back her own voice in fractured sentences.

She dropped a scrap of Raen's cloth—taken during the battle at the Memory Hollow—into the pool of whisper oil.

Flames rose.

The blade's voice echoed—not Raen's—but someone else. Older. Angry.

> "We remember you, Seyra. You saw it scream."

She did not flinch.

"I'll see it scream again," she whispered.

"And this time… I'll be the one holding the leash."

More Chapters