The Warden stood before me, a mountain of silent judgment. The grinding rumble in its chest was the sound of stone thinking, of an ancient purpose weighing a new variable. The massive maul rested on the ground, but the tension in the air was thicker than the mountain mist. It was waiting.
My body trembled from the effort of that shadow-declaration. The last reserves of my strength were gone, spent in that single, conceptual burst. I was a hollow reed, empty of everything but will. I met its faceless gaze, my own vision blurring at the edges.
Why? The unspoken question hung between us, as vast as the chasm I had crossed.
I had no grand speech. No righteous plea. I had only the truth that had been carved into me since my awakening in the dust. I focused on the cold fire of the compass in my chest, on the shard of godhood that was my soul, and I let it speak for me. I projected not a thought, but a feeling—the aching emptiness of a fractured thing, the relentless pull toward wholeness, the absolute necessity of the shard it guarded.
The Warden's stone form remained immobile, but the petrified oak tree growing from its chest seemed to shudder. A single, desiccated leaf, dark as obsidian and hard as flint, broke from a branch and clattered onto the stone floor between us. The grinding rumble shifted in pitch, from questioning to… recognition.
Then, something impossible happened. A fine crack appeared on the Warden's smooth, granite chest, right over where a heart would be. The crack spread, not like breaking stone, but like a web of light. A soft, silver radiance—the same silver as my Soul-Spark—began to seep from the fissures. The light pulsed in time with the thump that had echoed through the mountain, but the sound was fading now, becoming a faint, dying echo.
The Warden took a step back, not in threat, but in what looked like reverence. It lowered its massive head, the crown of stone branches dipping toward me. The grinding rumble softened into a deep, resonant hum that felt like a farewell.
"He recognizes the source of his own purpose," Croft whispered, his voice filled with awe. "He was not just a guardian. He was a creation of your god, Cassian. A piece of the Death God's will given form to protect his own shattered essence. You are not a petitioner. You are the heir."
As the hum faded, the silver light within the Warden intensified. Its stone form began to glow from within, becoming translucent. I could see the intricate web of divine energy that had held the mountain of rock and petrified wood together for eons. It was not dissolving or crumbling. It was… unraveling. Returning to its source.
With a final, soft sigh of shifting stone, the Warden's form dissolved into a shower of pure, silver light. The motes of light hung in the air for a moment, swirling like a constellation of tiny stars, before flowing toward me. They did not enter my Spark, but washed over me, a wave of cool, soothing energy that sank into my pores.
The ravenous hunger that had been eating me alive vanished. The mental fatigue cleared as if washed clean by a mountain spring. My body felt whole, revitalized, not by food, but by a surge of pure, divine vitality. It was a final gift from a faithful servant who had recognized its master and, in doing so, found its own release from an eternal vigil.
Where the Warden had knelt, the runic circle on the floor now glowed with a steady, earthen light. The stone within it flowed away, revealing the dark staircase.
The amphitheater was silent. The thump was gone. The mountain itself seemed to be holding its breath.
I stepped forward, my strength restored, my purpose clearer than ever. I was not just gathering pieces of a dead god. I was awakening his legacy, and his most ancient servants were acknowledging my right to do so.
I descended into the earth, the silence of the mountain my only companion, ready to claim what was mine.