The next three days were a whirlwind of documentation and discovery. Dr. El-Sayed and his team photographed every inch of the chamber, cataloguing symbols, translating what they could, and creating detailed maps. Dr. Walsh ran endless tests on the sealed Shard, though she refused to touch it directly after hearing what the guardian had said.
"We don't need another person bonded to one of these things," she said firmly. "Josh is enough of a science project already. No offense."
"None taken," Josh replied, watching her work from a safe distance. "Trust me, I don't want anyone else to feel what this is like."
The dimensional energy inside him had been acting up since they'd entered the chamber. The ice and fire were restless, agitated by the proximity to another Shard. It was like being near a relative—familiar but different, and somehow competitive.
Kyla found him sitting outside the temple entrance on the morning of the fourth day, staring at the desert sunrise.
"You've been quiet," she observed, sitting beside him. "Even more than usual. What's on your mind?"
"The guardian said the fragments corrupt slowly. That it's imperceptible until it's too late." Josh clenched his fists. "What if I'm already too far gone? What if the corruption has already started and I just can't see it?"
"Josh—"
"No, seriously. Think about it. I've got ice and fire inside me. I can levitate, throw fireballs, project my powers across continents. I'm becoming more powerful every day. Isn't that exactly what happened to those ancient people? They got stronger and stronger until they lost themselves?"
Kyla took his hand, forcing him to look at her. "You know the difference between you and them? You're scared of the power. You question yourself. You worry about losing your humanity. People who are being corrupted don't do that. They embrace it, justify it, convince themselves they deserve the power."
"Maybe. Or maybe fear is just the first stage. Maybe acceptance comes later."
"Then I'll be there to pull you back. We've been through this. You're not alone, Josh. And as long as you have people who care about you, who'll call you out when you're being an idiot, you won't become like Azazel."
Josh wanted to believe her. But the guardian's words kept echoing in his mind. "Great sacrifice." What if the sacrifice was him? What if the only way to stop Azazel was for Josh to give up his powers entirely, to somehow remove the Shard's energy from his body?
Could he do that? Could he go back to being normal after feeling this power, this connection to something greater?
He honestly didn't know.
"Come on," Kyla said, pulling him to his feet. "Dr. El-Sayed wants to show us something he found in the murals. Says it might be important."
Inside the chamber, Dr. El-Sayed had set up a makeshift workspace with laptops, translation notes, and detailed photographs. He looked excited, the way only a professor who'd made a major discovery could.
"I've been cross-referencing the symbols with other ancient texts," he explained, pulling up comparison images. "And I found something fascinating. These symbols appear in other locations around the world—Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, even ancient China. Different languages, different cultures, but the same underlying patterns."
"You're saying multiple civilizations encountered Shards?" Dr. Walsh asked.
"More than that. I'm saying they communicated with each other about them. Shared knowledge, warnings, survival strategies." El-Sayed pointed to a specific sequence of symbols. "This phrase appears in every location. Roughly translated, it means 'The Watchers Who Fell.' It's a reference to the Shards themselves."
"Watchers?" Josh moved closer to examine the symbols. "Like they were observing something?"
"Or someone. The texts suggest the Shards aren't random objects. They're tools. Weapons. Created by something far more advanced than we can comprehend." El-Sayed pulled up another image—a mural showing beings of light battling beings of darkness, with the Shards scattered between them. "There was a war. Dimensional beings fighting across multiple realities. And Earth got caught in the crossfire."
"So the Shards are basically abandoned weapons from an ancient dimensional war," Kyla said slowly. "That's... terrifying."
"It gets worse," El-Sayed continued. "According to these texts, the war never ended. It just moved. Shifted to other dimensions, other battlefields. But the weapons remained, scattered across countless worlds, waiting for someone to pick them up."
Josh felt sick. "Azazel didn't just find a random artifact. He found a weapon designed to corrupt whoever used it. Designed to turn people into soldiers for a war they don't even know they're fighting."
"Exactly. And the original creators—whoever or whatever they were—they're still out there. Still fighting their war. Still dropping weapons into unsuspecting civilizations." Dr. El-Sayed's expression was grim. "Earth isn't the first world to be caught in this conflict. And according to these warnings, it won't be the last."
Dr. Walsh was typing furiously on her laptop. "This changes everything. We've been treating Azazel like he's the main threat. But he's just a symptom. A victim of a much larger problem."
"Doesn't make him any less dangerous," Rodriguez pointed out. She'd been listening from the entrance. "Victim or not, he's still trying to freeze the planet."
"True. But it means we might be fighting the wrong battle." Walsh pulled up her dimensional readings. "If the Shards are weapons in a larger war, there might be other forces involved. Other factions trying to claim them, use them, control them. Azazel might not even be the biggest threat out there."
That thought hung heavy in the air. Josh had been so focused on stopping Azazel that he hadn't considered what else might be lurking in other dimensions. What if the Frozen Realm was just one of many realms trying to expand? What if there were worse things waiting?
"We need to report this to Admiral Russo," Rodriguez said. "This is way above our pay grade."
"Agreed," Dr. Walsh said. "But we should finish documenting this chamber first. The information here could be vital for understanding what we're up against."
They spent the rest of the day working. Josh helped where he could, using his dimensional sensitivity to identify symbols that were more than just decoration. Some of them were active, still channeling energy after four thousand years. Others were dormant, waiting for the right trigger to activate.
Around midday, Stevens appeared with food from base camp. "Heard you guys made a huge discovery. Ancient weapons, dimensional wars, the usual light reading material."
"Pretty much," Josh said, accepting a sandwich. "How are things topside?"
"Boring. Hot. Sandy. I've decided I don't like deserts. Give me a nice temperate climate any day." Stevens looked around the chamber with genuine awe. "Though I gotta admit, this place is pretty cool. Literally cool, actually. How is it so cold down here?"
"Dimensional energy," Dr. Walsh explained absently, still taking readings. "The symbols are channeling it from... somewhere. Creating a localized cooling effect."
"Science is wild," Stevens declared. "Hey Josh, want to hear a pyramid joke?"
"No."
"Too bad. Why did the pyramid go to therapy?"
Josh sighed. "Why?"
"Because it had too many layers to work through!" Stevens grinned. "Layers! Like pyramids have layers! It's perfect!"
"It's terrible," Kyla corrected, but she was smiling.
"Your face is terrible," Stevens shot back without heat. "Seriously though, be careful down here. This place has weird vibes. Some of the soldiers are reporting nightmares, seeing things in the shadows. Might just be the stress, but still."
After Stevens left, Josh mentioned the nightmares to Dr. Walsh. "Could the Shard be affecting people? Even the sealed one?"
"Possibly. Dimensional energy can influence human consciousness, especially in high concentrations. We should limit exposure time. Rotate teams in and out of the chamber." Walsh made a note. "And Josh, you should probably spend less time down here. You're already carrying Shard energy. Being near another one might amplify the effects."
But Josh didn't want to leave. He felt drawn to the chamber, to the sealed Shard, to the murals telling their warning. It was like the ancient civilization was speaking directly to him, showing him his possible future.
That evening, as the team prepared to return to base camp for the night, Josh lingered. He stood before the pedestal, staring at the Shard that had destroyed an entire civilization.
"Can you hear me?" he asked quietly. "The guardian said you were preserved. Are you still there?"
No response. Just the faint hum of dimensional energy.
"I don't want to become like them," Josh continued. "Don't want to lose myself to the power. But I need it to stop Azazel. To protect people. So how do I use it without being used by it?"
Still nothing. Maybe the guardian was truly gone, its energy finally depleted after millennia of waiting.
Josh turned to leave, then stopped. On the wall beside him, one of the symbols was glowing faintly. He'd examined this wall dozens of times over the past few days and never noticed this particular symbol before.
He touched it carefully. The moment his fingers made contact, images flooded his mind.
Not the past this time. The future.
Or possible futures.
He saw himself standing over Azazel's frozen body, victorious but changed. His eyes were pure ice-blue, no warmth left in them. The fire inside him had been extinguished, consumed by the cold. He'd won, but lost himself in the process.
In another vision, he saw himself frozen solid, trapped in ice like Azazel's victims. Kyla knelt beside him, screaming his name, but he couldn't respond. Couldn't move. The Shard had taken him completely.
A third vision showed him and Azazel fighting, their powers locked in stalemate. But instead of one defeating the other, they merged. Became something new and terrible. A being of ice and fire that consumed everything.
The visions faded, leaving Josh gasping and shaking. He stumbled back from the wall, his heart racing.
"Josh!" Kyla rushed over, having noticed his distress. "What happened?"
"The wall. It showed me... possibilities. Ways this could end. None of them good."
"What did you see?"
Josh told her about the visions. With each description, Kyla's expression grew more worried.
"Those are just possibilities," she said firmly. "Not certainties. We can change the future. Make different choices."
"Can we? Or are we just following a pattern that's played out countless times before? Ancient civilization finds Shard, civilization destroys itself. Rinse and repeat for thousands of years." Josh slumped against the wall. "Maybe we're not meant to win this. Maybe the Shards always win."
"No." Kyla grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "No. I refuse to accept that. We're not those ancient people. We have knowledge they didn't. We have each other. We have hope. That has to count for something."
"Hope didn't save them."
"Because they lost it. They gave in to despair, to the corruption. They stopped believing they could be better." Kyla's eyes were fierce. "But we're not going to do that. We're going to fight, and we're going to find a way to win without losing ourselves. Even if it seems impossible. Even if the odds are against us. Because that's what we do."
Josh pulled her into a hug, drawing strength from her conviction. "What would I do without you?"
"Probably become an ice tyrant. Lucky for you, I'm not going anywhere."
They stood like that for a long moment, two people trying to hold onto their humanity in the face of forces designed to strip it away. Then they left the chamber together, heading back to base camp and the relative normalcy of dinner and terrible jokes from Stevens.
But that night, Josh dreamed.
Not of Azazel this time. Of the ancient civilization. He walked through their cities in their final days, watching as Shard-users turned on each other. Brothers killing brothers, friends becoming enemies, all of them consumed by the need for more power.
And in every face he saw, he recognized something. A look he'd seen in the mirror lately. The subtle satisfaction that came with using his powers. The quiet pride in being special, being more than human.
The first signs of corruption.
He woke up in a cold sweat, his powers active without conscious thought. Frost covered his sleeping bag, and small flames danced across his hands.
Kyla was immediately there—she'd been sleeping in the tent next to his. "Josh? Another nightmare?"
"Yeah. But this time it felt like a warning. Like something was trying to tell me I'm running out of time." Josh dismissed his powers with effort. "Kyla, what if the sacrifice the guardian mentioned is me? What if I have to give up my powers to stop Azazel? Remove the Shard energy from my body completely?"
"Then we'll figure out how to do that when the time comes. But Josh, you've only had these powers for a few weeks. You can't be that far gone already."
"Can't I? I can fly, throw fireballs, freeze things with a thought. I'm more powerful than I ever imagined being. And every time I use these powers, they get stronger. What happens when they get too strong? When I can't control them anymore?"
"We find a way to control them. Dr. Walsh is working on it. We've got time."
"Do we?" Josh looked at his hands, watching small sparks of ice and fire dance across his skin. "I can feel them growing. Every day, every hour. The Shard inside me wants more. Wants to expand, to consume, to become stronger. And part of me wants that too. That's what scares me most. Not that I might lose control. That I might choose not to."
Kyla didn't have an answer for that. Because she'd seen it too. The way Josh's eyes lit up when he used his powers. The confidence, the strength, the sheer joy of being able to do impossible things.
The first steps toward corruption looked a lot like happiness.
And that was what made them so dangerous.
End of Chapter 33