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Chapter 41 - Chapter 18 – Veins of Tomorrow Part 1

Ash and Dawn

The dawn after the sealing was unlike any other. For the first time in years, the sky above the capital burned clean—no black veins of cloud, no metallic shimmer of corrupted mana. Only sunlight, fragile and real.

Zero sat on a broken step outside the Cathedral of Echoes, the morning wind threading through the tatters of his cloak. His fingers still trembled from the effort of pulling himself back through the Rift. Each breath felt heavier than it should; every sound in this half-ruined city rang a little too sharp, as though the world had not yet adjusted to having him in it again.

Lira moved quietly among the rubble, wrapping splints, checking the injured sentinels who had come after the final pulse. Kael had already organized a perimeter, his voice steady but his eyes hollow. None of them truly knew whether the danger had passed—only that, for the moment, the air no longer screamed.

When Lira finally approached, she carried three tin cups of water. "You should drink," she said. "Your aura's still burning holes in the air."

Zero managed a weak grin. "Just giving the morning some character."

She didn't laugh. Instead she knelt and pressed her palm lightly against his chest. Her touch sent a shiver through him—not from pain, but from the way the chaos in his veins quieted at once.

"The seal took more than energy," she murmured. "It took pieces of you. Whatever you pulled back through the Rift isn't only your power. It's… fused."

Zero looked down at his hands. Gold flickers rippled under his skin like fireflies trapped in amber. "So part of the Abyss came with me."

Kael joined them, wiping dust from his armor. "Then we contain it before it decides to start whispering again."

"I can control it," Zero said, though even as he spoke, he wasn't certain. The warmth in his veins felt alive—restless, curious, dangerous.

Kael gave a slow nod. "For now, maybe. But the Council won't take your word for it. They'll call for a purge."

The word struck like a blade. "They can try."

"Zero." Lira's tone cut through his anger. "We just saved the world. Don't start another war the same morning."

Her words landed heavier than a reprimand—they sounded like a plea. He exhaled, forcing the tension from his shoulders. "You're right. But if the Council wants to chain me again, I'll break every lock they have."

Kael's expression softened slightly. "Let's get you through the night first. Then we'll argue politics."

They made camp inside the shell of a half-collapsed library. The city around them was a labyrinth of glass and shadow, empty except for the echoes of their own voices. As the fires burned low, Kael unrolled an old parchment—maps of the central provinces, the territory still under the Council's control. He traced one scarred finger along the borders.

"After the collapse, the outer bastions went dark," he explained. "The eastern lines are gone entirely. If the Rift's shockwave spread, half the continent will think the world ended for good."

Lira frowned. "And the Council will move fast to fill that silence. They'll call the sealing their victory."

Zero leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "They didn't fight beside us. They ran."

Kael shrugged. "History doesn't care who ran. It cares who writes it."

The silence that followed was heavy. Outside, a distant tremor rolled through the ruins—a sound like thunder, but deeper, older. Zero stiffened instantly.

"Tell me that's not what I think it is."

Lira stood, scanning the horizon. The light of dawn flickered strangely, dimming for a heartbeat before returning. "Residual distortion. Maybe. The Rift's edges could still be shifting."

"Or something's trying to open it again," Kael muttered.

Zero felt the pull in his blood tighten, as if answering a call. He clenched his fists until the glow dimmed. "If it's calling, it's calling me."

"That's exactly why you're not going near it," Lira snapped. Her calm had cracked for the first time since the battle. "We can't risk another fusion."

He met her gaze. "And we can't risk ignoring it. If the Rift left echoes, someone will try to use them. You've seen what power does to desperate people."

Kael grimaced. "He's right. Rumors of Ascendant relics alone will draw every cult and scavenger for leagues."

Lira looked from one to the other, frustration burning behind her eyes. Finally she sighed. "Fine. But we move on our terms—quietly, before the Council sends their hunters."

They left the ruins before sunrise. The journey north took them through valleys warped by old magic—trees twisted into silver spirals, rivers that ran uphill for a few meters before falling again. The land was still healing, just like them.

By the third night, they reached the border of the inner provinces. From a ridge they could see the distant spires of the Council's citadel gleaming like frozen spears. The air here was thinner, colder, but thick with the scent of civilization—smoke, oil, and fear.

Kael pulled his hood low. "If we walk through the main gate, we'll be recognized in seconds. I'd rather avoid another trial."

Lira smirked faintly. "When's the last time you followed a rule anyway?"

He ignored that, focusing on the city. "There's an old aqueduct below the eastern quarter. Leads straight into the archives. If we can get there, we might find what the Council's hiding about the Rift."

Zero tilted his head. "You're sure they're hiding something?"

Kael gave a dry laugh. "They always are."

The aqueduct stank of rust and stagnant mana. The three moved in silence, torches guttering in the damp air. Every few steps, Zero's aura flickered, casting momentary bursts of golden light that reflected off the tunnel walls.

At one point, Lira stopped and touched the stone. The moss beneath her fingers pulsed faintly. "These walls are alive," she whispered. "The Council's been feeding the barrier net with blood sigils."

Kael cursed under his breath. "They're stabilizing the city by draining the provinces."

Zero frowned. "Meaning?"

"Meaning the people outside these walls are paying for this city's peace with their lives," Kael said. "Every crop that fails, every drought—it's feeding the barrier."

Rage simmered low in Zero's gut. "Then we end it."

Lira stepped between them. "Not yet. If we expose this without proof, the Council will erase us before the people even believe."

Zero's voice was cold. "Then let's find proof."

They reached the archives near midnight. The great library stretched beneath the citadel like a maze, shelves stacked with centuries of forbidden scripture. At its center rose the Hall of Records, guarded by mechanical sentinels—armor animated by binding cores. Their eyes glowed blue in the darkness.

Kael drew his blade, but Lira caught his wrist. "Noise will bring the inquisitors."

She traced a rune in the air; the symbols shimmered, wrapping them in a haze of silence. "Go."

They moved like shadows. Zero's heightened senses mapped the hall with ease—every heartbeat, every creak of metal. When one of the sentinels turned toward them, he extended a finger and snapped. A ripple of golden distortion froze the construct mid-stride.

They slipped past, climbing the spiral toward the top chamber. There, beneath the council's sigil, rested a crystal slab inscribed with the original Ascendant Oath. But the text had been altered—sections scorched away, others rewritten in crimson ink.

Lira's breath caught. "They erased the truth."

Kael lifted a broken page from the pedestal. "This says the Abyss wasn't born from chaos—it was created as a weapon. The Council forged it."

Zero stared at the words, every muscle in his body tensing. "They made the Abyss… then blamed the world for its hunger."

Lira whispered, "And when it broke free, they sealed it with lives—yours, the other Ascendants, everyone who stood against them."

A deep voice cut through the silence. "You shouldn't have found that."

The three turned as figures emerged from the shadows—Council enforcers in silver armor, their crests burning with the mark of the High Seat. At their head stood a tall woman in white robes, her expression calm and cruel.

"Zero Avenlight," she said. "Returned from death, bearing the Abyss in his veins. The Council thanks you for your service—and demands your surrender."

Kael moved instantly, blade drawn, but Zero raised a hand to stop him. "Surrender?" he asked quietly. "To the same cowards who built the thing I just sealed?"

Her smile didn't waver. "You sealed nothing. You only delayed the inevitable. The Rift's power belongs to the Council now."

She lifted her staff; energy flared, and from the far wall the air itself split. Not a full portal—just a wound, small but pulsing. Lira gasped. "You're reopening it!"

"Controlled release," the woman corrected. "With the Abyss under our authority, humanity will ascend again."

Zero stepped forward, fury and disbelief twisting his voice. "You'd risk the world for control?"

"Always," she said.

The enforcers attacked. Light and metal clashed in the dark hall. Kael met the first wave head-on, deflecting halberds with bursts of kinetic energy. Lira chanted, her runes weaving barriers that shattered under constant strikes. Zero moved through the storm like a blade—every motion precise, burning. The Abyss inside him stirred, eager.

He resisted for as long as he could. But when one of the enforcers drove a spear through Kael's side, something inside him broke.

Golden light erupted from his body. The floor melted. The Council seal above the chamber cracked. Energy flooded outward, consuming everything in its path. The wound in the air widened, screaming with the voice of the Rift.

Lira shouted his name, but he couldn't hear her. The Abyss had no language—only hunger. And now it was his heartbeat.

For a moment, time shattered. Zero saw both worlds overlapping—the mortal and the abyssal. He stood between them, every nerve aflame. Through the distortion he saw the white-robed woman, her face twisted in awe and terror. She was trying to harness the surge, drawing it into a crystal core at her chest.

He reached for her, not in hatred but to stop her. "You don't understand—"

The crystal exploded.

A wave of black-gold energy tore through the chamber, obliterating the enforcers and hurling Lira and Kael backward. The Rift screamed open for a heartbeat before collapsing again, leaving a crater of molten stone.

When the dust settled, Zero stood at the center, breathing hard. The glow in his veins dimmed. Around him, fragments of the Council's insignia rained down like ash.

Lira crawled toward him, coughing. "Zero—what did you—"

He sank to one knee. "It wasn't me. The Abyss reacted to them. It knows who made it."

Kael dragged himself upright, blood staining his side. "Then we don't have much time. They'll call this treason before the ashes cool."

Zero looked up at the fractured ceiling, where a thin beam of moonlight cut through the smoke. "Let them. I'm done hiding."

Lira caught his hand. "If you fight them now, the world burns again."

He met her eyes. "Then we'll find another way to change it. But not by kneeling."

Kael managed a faint, grim smile. "Looks like the Rebellion just found its symbol again."

Outside, alarms echoed through the citadel as the first bells of judgment rang. And far beneath, deep under the ruins of the Rift, something stirred in answer to Zero's heartbeat—a whisper not of hunger, but of awakening.

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