Episode 25:
The night was unnaturally still. Alok couldn't sleep. The pendant on his chest pulsed faintly, as if it had a heartbeat of its own. Shadows in his room twisted and slithered, unnerving him more than ever.
"You are mine… but not yet."
The voice echoed again, distant and sinister. Alok clenched his fists, feeling the fire and chains stir inside him. He had grown stronger, but he didn't feel ready he could sense a far greater danger approaching.
A sudden gust of cold air ripped through the room. The shadows coalesced into a towering, writhing figure. Its form shifted constantly humanoid, bestial, then a mass of teeth and darkness. Its eyes burned like dying embers.
Alok froze.
He had heard whispers of a monster like this in fragments, but never imagined one would appear before him: the Extera.
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The Extera moved silently, its tendrils reaching toward him, pulsating with a hunger that made his chest tighten.
"Child of chains… your soul… mine…"
Alok raised his hands, flames sparking at his fingertips. Chains of light erupted from the ground, intertwining with the fire. But the Extera laughed or something like laughter, a soundless, mind-grating echo.
It lunged.
The chains wrapped around it, flames scorching its shadowy body but it shrugged them off like they were nothing. A massive tendril shot forward, smashing the pendant on his chest.
The pendant cracked with a brilliant flash of light. Alok fell backward, clutching his chest, heart hammering.
"No… not my pendant…"
The pendant glowed faintly, projecting a holographic map from its cracked surface. Lines, symbols, and coordinates hovered in the air, pointing somewhere far away somewhere hidden.
Alok stumbled to his feet. The Extera advanced again, but before it could strike, the ghostly guardian appeared. Armor gleaming, eyes burning with sorrow, she didn't attack. Instead, she pointed toward a hidden door in the far corner of his room a door he had never noticed before.
His chest tightened. He ran, the pendant pulsing violently in his hand. The cracked map floated above it, leading him to… his father's secret room.
Inside, dust and cobwebs filled the air. Ancient tools, scrolls, and blueprints lined the walls. His father had left a workshop, a place where the pendant had been created. Notes scrawled in a careful hand described its purpose: a guardian, a key, and a beacon for something far greater than Alok had imagined.
The pendant, though broken, pulsed again, guiding him toward a secret compartment in the wall. He opened it. Inside lay a crumpled parchment with labyrinth coordinates a hidden place in Sri Lanka, the Sigiriya Rock Fortress, with a note etched in glowing letters:
"The chains of eternity lie hidden. Only the awakened may claim them. Survive, learn, and follow the path."
Alok's jaw tightened. His fists clenched.
"…I'll survive," he whispered. "I'll find the labyrinth. I'll learn… and I'll fight back."
The Extera's growl echoed faintly from outside the secret room. The shadows quivered. It hadn't finished with him.
Alok glanced at the map floating above the broken pendant. Flames sparked in his hands, chains wrapped around his arms, and for the first time, he felt… ready.
"The journey begins… and they will regret ever chasing me."
With that, he stepped into the unknown, toward Sigiriya Rock Fortress, leaving the shadows behind for now.
But somewhere, far beyond the city, red eyes glowed in the dark. Watching. Waiting.
"The child awakens… the throne waits…"