The silence after the battle was suffocating.
The guardian knight's shattered armor lay in scattered chunks across the polished black floor, chains twitching as if still bound to something that refused to die. Wisps of energy evaporated from the greatsword, which now lay cleaved in two. A pool of qi-laced blood—not human, not quite beast—slowly seeped into the grooves of the ancient runes etched into the stone.
Tae Hyun's shoulders heaved. His breath came in ragged gasps. Blood dripped from a deep gash along his ribs, staining the waistband of his robes. Jinhwan knelt nearby, one hand clutching his bruised side, the other gripping the remnants of his broken blade. Yul leaned against a cracked pillar, her left arm limp at her side, bone likely fractured beneath torn muscle.
They had won—but only just.
And even victory tasted like ash in their mouths.
No words passed between them as they gathered what little strength remained. The guardian had fought with the precision of a seasoned general, the relentlessness of a golem, and the wrath of something long dead and deeply vengeful. Every strike it made had forced them to react, retreat, and adapt. They had survived through grit, teamwork, and Tae Hyun's shadowflame finally piercing its core.
It felt less like triumph and more like being granted the right to breathe a little longer.
As the silence settled again, it was Yul who first noticed it—the faint hum beneath the marble floor. Subtle. Almost indistinguishable from the ringing in their ears. But it was there. A pulse.
"…It's not over," she whispered.
Tae Hyun turned toward the far end of the chamber. There, beyond where the guardian had stood, an archway beckoned. Not ornate like the murals or the statues before it—just raw stone framing a passage of pure darkness.
The hum grew louder with each step.
What awaited them wasn't another enemy, nor a tomb.
It was an altar.
The chamber it stood in was circular, hewn into the earth by something ancient. Stalactites hung like fangs from the ceiling, glowing faintly with moss. In the center, a raised stone platform stood, smooth as glass, with seven faintly glowing sigils carved into its edges.
And upon its surface—engraved in precise, elegant script—was a poem.
Tae Hyun approached it first. The air here was colder, heavy with power. He reached out and laid his fingers against the stone. As he did, the script began to shimmer faintly, as if recognizing his presence. The words unraveled, each letter igniting with soft purple light.
He began to read aloud.
---
Born not of womb, but forged in night,
In chaos' cradle, shunned by light.
Blood of the dragon, black as coal,
Abyss within, a fractured soul.
She walks alone where shadows bloom,
A child of dusk, a voice of doom.
When flame and void at last align…
---
The moment the final line left his lips, the altar pulsed. Once. Twice.
Then the entire room began to shake.
Dust rained from the ceiling. Cracks slithered across the floor like spiderwebs. The sigils along the altar's edge lit with eerie violet fire, one after another, flaring like dying stars.
Yul stumbled back, clutching her head. Jinhwan braced himself against the altar, his eyes wide.
From deep within the walls—no, beneath the earth itself—came a sound.
A low, rumbling growl. Not beast. Not man. Not dragon.
Something older.
A voice like grinding stone filled the chamber.
It did not echo—it resonated.
"Welcome… my daughter."
And then silence.
Total, terrible silence.