Chapter 13 – The Chamber Below
The whispers didn't fade.
All through the following week, Karl felt them at the edges of his hearing—soft as breath, sharp as glass. They came when he trained, when he ate, when he tried to sleep. Sometimes they sounded like words, other times like a thousand voices tangled together. Always, they pressed against him like unseen hands.
He didn't tell Jax or Lira. Not yet. He wasn't sure if he feared frightening them… or if he feared the look they'd give him if they knew the truth.
But it wasn't just Karl. The academy itself seemed restless. Shadows in the halls lingered too long, wards flickered faintly at night, and even the professors looked unsettled when they thought no one was watching.
On the seventh night after the duel, it began.
---
Karl was leaving the library when he noticed the faint shimmer. At first, he thought it was his tired eyes playing tricks—moonlight bent strangely across a stone wall at the corridor's end. But when he drew closer, the shimmer didn't vanish.
It grew.
The wall itself was alive with faint symbols, glowing like embers buried under ash. The runes crawled across the stones in curling patterns, forming shapes that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Karl?"
He turned sharply. Lira was behind him, a stack of books in her arms. Jax peeked around her shoulder, yawning.
"What are you staring at?" Jax asked, then stopped. "Oh. That's… not normal."
The runes flared brighter as the three of them stood before the wall.
Lira dropped her books to the floor. "I've seen these before. In one of the old grimoires. They're warding runes… but broken. Like something's been sealed here for centuries."
"Sealed?" Jax repeated, rubbing his hands together. "As in dangerous sealed, or treasure sealed?"
"Usually both," Lira muttered.
The glow pulsed again, then lines of light shot outward, tracing a door that hadn't been there before. Slowly, with the grinding sound of stone shifting, the wall split open.
A dark passage yawned before them.
Karl's chest tightened. He didn't know why, but his fists curled automatically. Something in that darkness felt familiar.
"Do we go in?" Jax whispered.
Lira's jaw tightened. "If it's been sealed this long, someone didn't want it found. Which means we probably shouldn't."
Karl stepped forward. "Which means we have to."
---
The passage descended into the earth, narrow and damp. Their lantern cast a thin circle of light that barely pushed back the shadows. The air was cold, smelling of stone and something older—like burnt metal and ash.
The deeper they went, the more the walls changed. At first they were simple stone, but soon strange carvings appeared: twisted shapes, clawed hands, spirals that made Karl's head ache if he stared too long.
"What is this place?" Jax muttered.
"A catacomb," Lira answered quietly. "But not for people. These markings… they're containment sigils. This whole corridor is a prison."
Karl said nothing. He felt it too. The deeper they walked, the louder the whisper became in his skull. Not words this time. Just hunger.
At last, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber.
The ceiling soared high above, vanishing into darkness. In the center stood a massive circular platform, etched with glowing runes that flickered like dying stars. Around it, black pillars rose from the ground, cracked and leaning as though struggling under invisible weight.
And at the far wall—an enormous mural.
The three of them stopped, staring.
The mural showed a man. Or something like a man. His body was made of shadows, his face hidden behind a crown of jagged bone. One arm stretched outward, holding chains that bound a figure kneeling before him. The kneeling figure… looked human.
But what froze Karl was the face.
It was his.
Crude and old, worn by centuries, but still undeniably his.
"That's…" Jax stammered. "That's you. Karl, that's you!"
Lira touched the mural with trembling fingers. "No. Not you. A prophecy. A figure who looks like you. It could be coincidence—"
"It isn't," Karl said. His voice was rough. His chest felt hollow. "This is what the whispers meant. Fracture. I'm the one they chained."
The runes on the platform suddenly flared. The air shook.
Cracks split the stone under their feet, light bursting from below. The pillars groaned as energy surged through the chamber. The mural's shadowed figure seemed to move, as though the chains were tugging in the present, not the past.
"We need to leave!" Lira shouted.
But it was too late.
The platform shattered, and something clawed its way out.
It wasn't the Void King. Not fully. But a fragment—an echo of his power. A creature born of shadow and ash, taller than a man, with arms that bent like broken branches and eyes burning red.
Karl stepped forward. Instinct. Muscle. Rage.
Jax grabbed his arm. "Karl, don't—"
But the whisper in Karl's skull was louder now, clearer.
Break it. Break them all.
His fists burned.
And he charged.