The transition from the scorching, iron-grit of the Rust-Dunes to the Salt-Marshes was like moving from a furnace into a stagnant, briny lung. The air here didn't just carry heat; it carried a thick, viscous humidity that tasted of ancient mineral deposits and decaying organic matter. The ground beneath the Ember Spark's boots was no longer solid, but a treacherous crust of white salt-crystals covering deep pools of black, anaerobic mud.
"Keep your voices down," Sissik hissed, his throat-frills vibrating with an instinctive, reptilian dread. The lizardfolk druid was in his element, yet he moved with a caution that bordered on terror. "This is the Liturgy of the Still Water. The marshes don't have eyes, but they have ears. The 'Echo-Leeches' in these pools don't hunt by sight. They hunt by the resonance of a beating heart—and by the sound of a voice."
The landscape was a nightmare of white and grey. Stunted, calcified trees—skeletons of the forest that had once stood here—poked out of the mist like the fingers of drowning giants. Every step the party took produced a sickening crunch-squelch sound that seemed to echo for miles in the heavy, preternatural silence.
"My sensor is useless," Pip whispered, his mouth barely moving. He pointed to his brass dial; the needle was spinning in frantic, silent circles. "The salt concentration is so high it's refracting the Echo. It's like trying to find a specific drop of water in a waterfall. We're flying blind."
Kaelen felt the Scepter of the Unspoken pulsing against his spine. The ruby was no longer glowing; it was inhaling. It was drawing in the heavy, stagnant mana of the marshes, turning Kaelen's right arm into a leaden weight. The Obsidian-Jade Graft had reached his shoulder now, a permanent interlocking pattern of black glass and green stone that felt cold to the touch.
"Stop," Ria commanded with a silent gesture. She pointed her spear toward a pool of obsidian water twenty yards ahead.
The surface of the water was perfectly still, like a sheet of dark glass. But then, a ripple appeared—not from the center, but from the edges. Slowly, a creature emerged. It was the size of a wolf, but it had no bones. It was a translucent, gelatinous mass of muscle and suckers, its body pulsing with a rhythmic, sickly violet light. It had no eyes, only a flared, trumpet-like snout that twitched in the air, seeking the "vibration" of life.
An Echo-Leech.
"There's more of them," Elara breathed, her hand gripping her staff so hard her knuckles were white.
From the salt-crust around them, dozens of the creatures began to slide out of the muck. They didn't growl; they made a sound like a wet finger rubbing the rim of a glass—a high-pitched, vibrating hum that set Kaelen's dragon-brand on fire.
"THEY ARE THE VOID'S TONGUES," Ignis rumbled, his voice a low, internal vibration that Kaelen struggled to suppress. "THEY DO NOT EAT FLESH, ECHO. THEY EAT THE FREQUENCY OF YOUR SOUL. IF THEY LATCH ON, THEY WILL DRAIN THE CINDER UNTIL YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A SALT-SHELL."
"Don't run," Ria whispered, her eyes darting between the encroaching leeches. "If you run, your heartbeat will become a beacon. We have to move in sync with the marsh's own rhythm."
But the Scepter of the Unspoken had other plans. The relic, sensing the proximity of the Sunken Cathedral, suddenly let out a massive, resonant thrum. The sound was like a temple bell being struck in a tomb.
The effect was instantaneous. Every Echo-Leech in the clearing turned toward Kaelen, their snouts flaring. With a collective, wet shriek, they lunged.
"Combat formation!" Korg roared, his voice breaking the silence like a hammer on an anvil.
The battle in the Salt-Marshes was a frantic, terrifying struggle against an enemy that couldn't be "cut" in the traditional sense. When Ria's spear pierced a leech, it simply divided into two smaller, hungrier organisms. When Korg slammed his shield into one, the gelatinous mass absorbed the impact and wrapped itself around his arm, instantly beginning to drain his stamina.
"They're eating my Echo!" Korg yelled, his green skin turning a sickly grey as a leech latched onto his shoulder.
"Kaelen, the fire! Burn them!" Elara shouted, casting a Gust spell to push the creatures back.
Kaelen reached for the "Expansion" heat, but the salt-mist suppressed it. The fire wouldn't catch. He felt the leeches closing in, their vibrating hums harmonizing into a frequency that was paralyzing his nervous system.
"IMITATE THE STILLNESS," Ignis commanded. "YOU HAVE THE WEIGHT OF THE FORGE. YOU HAVE THE SCEPTER. STOP BEING THE PREY."
Kaelen didn't try to burn them. He did something he had never dared before: he Inverted the Scepter. Instead of letting the relic draw energy from the marsh, he forced his own "Obsidian-Weight" into the bone-staff. He slammed the scepter into the salt-crust at his feet.
"Vibration... Nullify!"
He didn't create an explosion of heat. He created a Zone of Absolute Silence. The kinetic energy of his strike didn't move outward; it stayed localized, vibrating at a frequency that cancelled out all other sounds in a fifty-foot radius.
The Echo-Leeches froze. Their sensory snouts twitched frantically, but they could "hear" nothing. To them, the Ember Spark had simply vanished from existence.
"Now! While they're stunned!" Kaelen hissed, the strain of maintaining the silence making his eyes bleed gold.
The party didn't hesitate. They didn't fight; they sprinted. Led by Sissik's knowledge of the hidden "Salt-Paths," they raced across the treacherous crust, leaping over pools of black mud as the leeches behind them began to recover their senses and shriek in frustration.
They didn't stop until they reached a massive, tilted spire of white marble rising out of the center of the marsh. It was covered in barnacles and salt-veins, but the architecture was unmistakably the same as the other temples. This was the entrance to the Sunken Cathedral.
"We made it," Pip wheezed, collapsing against the marble spire. He looked back at the mist, where the violet pulses of the leeches were still visible. "But we're trapped. Those things are going to circle this spire until we come back out."
"Then we won't come back out the same way," Kaelen said, his voice sounding flat in the wake of the "Silence" he had just commanded. He looked at his right arm. The obsidian-jade graft was glowing with a faint, rhythmic light that matched the scepter in his hand.
The entrance to the cathedral was a submerged archway, filled with thick, black water that smelled of ancient incense and salt.
"The third relic is down there," Sissik said, his golden eyes reflecting the dark water. "The Lens of the Unseen. It is the eye of the King. If we take it, he will no longer be able to track us through the Echo. But the cathedral is a tomb, Ash-Walker. It was not built for the living."
"Neither was I," Kaelen replied.
As the Ember Spark prepared to dive into the dark, suffocating depths of the Sunken Cathedral, Kaelen felt a new sensation. It wasn't the dragon's hunger, and it wasn't the forest's fear. It was a cold, clinical Certainty. He was no longer a boy running from his fate; he was a weapon being sharpened by the very world that tried to break him.
The "Salt-Marsh" arc was reaching its crescendo, and the true trial of the "Silent King" was waiting beneath the water.