Chapter 81 This is bigger than us.
The border bell hadn't rung in years.
It was a deep, ancient sound, reserved for tragedies that history books insisted on calling extinct. Still, it echoed through the cold morning air, piercing walls, streets, and consciences.
One toll.
Then another.
And then the third—prolonged, desperate.
I was in the east corridor of the castle when I felt the Link react. It wasn't pain. It was a sudden tug in my chest, as if something had been forcibly ripped from a place it shouldn't be touched.
"No..." I murmured before I even understood.
Servants began to run. Guards shouted orders. The castle, still waking up, plunged into chaos in seconds.
"Southern border!" someone shouted. "Virel's market!"
Virel.
My heart sank.
It was a small, simple village. Farmers, healers, children running barefoot between fruit stalls. A place of no strategic importance. No walls. No magical protection.
The kind of place that is only attacked when the intention is not to win...
To frighten.
"The erasers," said Conrad, appearing beside me already wearing his battle overcoat. His eyes were dark, alert. "They never attack without reason."
"That's the reason," I replied, feeling the Link pulse once more. "The people need to see that they are not safe. That I failed."
Conrad held my arm.
"Don't start with that."
But I already felt it. The shadows were moving.
I closed my eyes for a second, and images invaded my mind like shards: stalls being swallowed by darkness, muffled screams, bodies falling bloodless—just empty, drained of everything they were.
Erased.
"They're already there," I whispered. "And there aren't many. There are few... but enough."
"Then let's go now," Conrad said. "Before..."
"No." I opened my eyes and stared at him. "They don't want soldiers. They want fear. If the army goes, they'll retreat. They need the impact."
"Maya..."
"I'll go."
"I won't allow it."
The silence between us was heavy.
"That's my job." I state the obvious.
"Things have changed now."
I see Conrad's gaze waver and his eyes go to my stomach. I swallow hard, also feeling fear invade me.
"I'm the only one who can stop them. While we're having this conversation, people are dying. This is bigger than us."
Conrad takes a deep breath and brings our bodies together. He kisses my lips tenderly and looks at me with a deep gaze.
"I'll go ahead of you." Conrad guaranteed it.
I nodded.
The Link enveloped me as I crossed the portal, but this time it wasn't violent. It was careful. Protective.
Virel was... wrong.
The sky seemed lower, darker, as if the clouds had been pulled closer to the earth. Shadows moved where they shouldn't exist. Between boxes. Inside houses. Under people's feet.
I saw the first eraser near the central fountain.
It had no defined shape—just a flawed human outline, made of absence. Wherever it passed, sound disappeared. Smell disappeared. Life disappeared.
"Run!" I shouted, my voice echoing louder than it should have.
Some heard me. Others were already too gripped by terror to react.
I looked around and didn't see Conrad. No sign of him.
The eraser turned to me.
It sensed the Link.
It advanced.
I didn't conjure magic.
I didn't attack.
I opened myself up.
I let him touch me.
The pain came like an internal fire, but along with it something different—a reverse flow. The shadow tried to consume... and was consumed.
I screamed, falling to my knees, as the creature dissolved into fragments of emptiness that evaporated into thin air.
My body trembled. My stomach churned violently.
"Stand up," I whispered to myself. "They can't see you fall."
I stood.
There were three more.
And they had learned.
Fear was no longer just the people's.
Now, it was theirs too.
They took a few steps back, like cornered animals that finally realize their prey also has teeth.
The air grew heavy, dense, difficult to breathe. People screamed, ran aimlessly, stumbled over each other. A woman fell near me, clutching a child to her chest.
"Please!" she cried. "Don't let them take my child!"
Something inside me broke.
"Look at me," I said, holding her face carefully. "Run east. Don't stop. Don't look back."
She hesitated, her eyes filled with panic.
"And you?"
I forced a smile I didn't feel. "I'll stay."
The woman ran, pulling the child, and the sound of her footsteps seemed to fade as the shadows advanced again.
The erasers began to move in slow, calculated circles. They didn't attack immediately. They observed. They learned.
"So you feel fear now," I murmured, feeling the Elo pulse hot beneath my skin. "Good. Learn this."
The first one came too quickly. It didn't give me time to breathe. The shadow passed through my shoulder like burning ice, and a scream escaped my throat before I could contain it.
I fell to my knees again.
My body reacted strangely. The energy didn't flow as before. It accumulated, heavy, almost suffocating. It was as if something inside me demanded more care... more control.
"Not now," I whispered, pressing my hand against my belly without realizing it. "Please, not now."
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Instead of pulling their energy forcefully, I enveloped it. I let it flow to me slowly, like a receding tide.
The shadow screamed.
Not with sound, but with absence. An emptiness that hurt more than any noise.
It dissolved into dark particles that were sucked into me. My body arched, and I vomited onto the blackened earth, trembling all over.
When I raised my head, only an eraser remained.
It didn't advance.
It retreated.
Its fear was almost palpable.
"Run," I said, my voice hoarse. "Tell the others what happens when they touch me."
The creature dissolved into the shadows, fleeing between the destroyed houses.
Silence fell abruptly over Virel.
People began to emerge from their hiding places slowly, as if the world could break again at any second. Some looked at me with reverence. Others, with pure terror.
I stood up with difficulty, every muscle protesting.
That's when I felt it.
A sharp dizziness. My heart racing. And that strange weight, unlike anything I had ever felt before.
"Something is wrong," I murmured to myself.
Before I could think any further, the portal opened behind me, and Conrad came running out.
"Maya!"
He caught me before I fell.
"Are you hurt?" he asked desperately, his eyes scanning my body.
"No... I don't think so," I replied, resting my forehead on his chest. "But something has changed."
He held me gently, as if I were made of glass.
"The people saw," he said softly. "They saw you save them."
I closed my eyes, too exhausted to answer.
Because, at that moment, while the Link still pulsed weakly within me, I knew that battle had cost more than just energy.
And that nothing, absolutely nothing, would be simple from then on.