Chapter 95 up
The tremor lasted only a moment.
It passed through the ruins of Velkaris like a whisper moving beneath the earth, so faint that if they had not been standing at the very edge of the crater, they might have missed it entirely.
But they did not miss it.
All three of them felt it.
Kael slowly turned his head toward the darkness of the crater.
“…Nope.”
Corvin blinked.
“Nope?”
“Nope,” Kael repeated firmly. “That was definitely movement.”
The massive scar in the city remained silent. Dust drifted lazily in the air above the abyss, and the broken edges of the crater crumbled occasionally under their own weight.
Nothing else moved.
Still, the unease in the air remained.
Elara tightened her grip around the small crimson shard in her hand.
The fragment pulsed faintly—warm, alive, and responding to something far below.
“It felt that,” she said quietly.
Corvin frowned.
“What did?”
“The shard.”
Kael looked down at the fragment glowing in her palm.
“Wonderful. The magical rock is nervous.”
Corvin crouched beside her, examining the faint crimson glow.
“The Heart’s energy is still active inside that piece.”
Elara nodded.
“I can feel it.”
“What does it feel like?”
She hesitated.
“Like… a heartbeat.”
Kael grimaced.
“That’s not comforting.”
Another small tremor rippled through the ground beneath their feet. This one was even weaker than the last, but it confirmed what none of them wanted to say aloud.
The Devourer was not dead.
Corvin stood slowly and brushed the dust from his robes.
“We need to leave Velkaris.”
Kael glanced around the broken streets.
“Finally something we agree on.”
The city had become dangerously unstable. Entire sections of the outer ruins had collapsed during the destruction of the Heart, leaving jagged cracks across the ancient streets.
Staying here too long was asking for trouble.
Elara tucked the glowing shard carefully into the fold of her cloak.
The moment she released it, the warmth inside her chest faded slightly.
But not completely.
Whatever connection she had felt during the vision remained.
Corvin noticed the movement.
“You’re keeping it?”
Elara nodded.
“I think we need it.”
Kael raised an eyebrow.
“Need the cursed fragment of a magical prison?”
Corvin rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“She might be right.”
Kael stared at him.
“Of course she might be right. You two are always right when it involves terrifying ancient magic.”
Corvin ignored him.
“That shard may help us understand the other Hearts.”
Elara glanced toward the distant canyon wall where the narrow path they had used to enter Velkaris wound upward.
“If the other prisons exist, we need to find them.”
Kael sighed.
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
They began walking toward the outer edge of the ruined city.
The silence of Velkaris followed them like a shadow.
Without the Heart’s crimson glow, the ruins felt colder, emptier. The broken statues that lined the streets seemed more like grave markers now than monuments.
The ancient city had lost its purpose.
Halfway through the district, Corvin slowed his pace.
“Something is wrong.”
Kael immediately placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.
“That sentence again.”
Corvin knelt beside a section of cracked pavement.
The stone there had shifted slightly.
Not collapsed.
Moved.
“These cracks weren’t here before.”
Kael frowned.
“The explosion did that.”
Corvin shook his head.
“No.”
He traced the line of the fracture with his finger.
“This happened after the collapse.”
Elara looked around the street carefully.
The ancient buildings on either side of them stood silent and broken. Dust coated every surface.
But Corvin was right.
The cracks in the ground were fresh.
Kael muttered under his breath.
“Please don’t tell me the giant monster is digging.”
Another tremor rolled through the earth.
This one stronger than before.
Small stones bounced along the street.
Elara felt the shard inside her cloak grow warmer.
“It’s not digging.”
Corvin looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s moving.”
Kael’s face tightened.
“That’s worse.”
They continued toward the canyon path, moving faster now.
The city felt different.
Not dead.
Watching.
Every distant creak of shifting stone sounded like movement. Every whisper of wind between broken towers carried an edge of tension.
When they reached the outer ruins, the canyon wall rose steeply above them. The narrow trail they had used earlier still clung to the rock face, though several sections had crumbled during the collapse.
Kael studied the path.
“Well… that’s encouraging.”
The trail was barely wide enough for one person at a time, and parts of it looked dangerously unstable.
Corvin sighed.
“We don’t have another option.”
Elara placed her foot on the first ledge.
“I’ll go first.”
Kael immediately shook his head.
“No.”
She looked back.
“I know the path.”
“I also know gravity,” Kael replied. “And I would prefer not to watch you fall into a canyon.”
He stepped past her and tested the stone with his boot.
“If anyone is going to fall, it should be me.”
Corvin muttered.
“That’s not how safety works.”
But Kael was already climbing.
The path wound upward along the canyon wall in a slow spiral. Loose gravel shifted beneath their feet as they climbed higher and higher above the ruined city.
From this height, the destruction of Velkaris was even more dramatic.
The central district had completely vanished.
The crater looked like a wound carved into the earth.
Elara paused halfway up the path and looked back.
For a moment, she could almost imagine the city as it had once been—alive with people, light spilling from the towers, the Heart burning at its center.
Then the image faded.
The city was gone.
A sudden pulse of heat rushed through her chest.
She froze.
The shard.
It was glowing again.
Brighter this time.
Corvin noticed immediately.
“Elara?”
She didn’t answer.
The warmth inside her chest was building rapidly.
The fragment beneath her cloak burned like a coal.
And then—
The ground below exploded.
A massive section of the crater collapsed inward with a deafening roar. Dust and stone shot upward into the air like the breath of some buried giant.
Kael turned instantly.
“Oh come on!”
Something enormous moved beneath the collapsing debris.
For just a second—
They saw it.
A massive black shape shifting under the rubble.
A scale the size of a shield briefly caught the sunlight before disappearing again beneath falling stone.
Corvin whispered in horror.
“It survived.”
The Devourer had not escaped.
But it was not completely buried either.
Another tremor shook the canyon.
The walls groaned.
Kael grabbed Elara’s arm.
“Climb.”
They moved quickly now.
Loose rocks tumbled down the cliff as they scrambled upward along the unstable trail.
Behind them, the crater continued to collapse in slow, grinding waves.
Deep below, something roared.
The sound echoed through the canyon like thunder trapped in stone.
Elara’s heart raced.
The shard in her cloak burned hotter with every passing second.
As if responding to the creature beneath the ruins.
Corvin climbed beside her, breathless.
“The Heart fragment…”
“It’s reacting to the Devourer,” she said.
Kael shouted from above.
“That’s very interesting but I would like to survive the canyon first!”
The path narrowed sharply ahead.
A section of the trail had completely broken away during the collapse, leaving a gap between two jagged ledges.
Below them stretched hundreds of feet of empty air.
Kael stopped at the edge.
“Well.”
Corvin peered down.
“Oh no.”
The gap was too wide to step across safely.
But there was no other path.
Behind them, another distant roar rose from the crater.
The Devourer was moving again.
Kael took a step back.
“I can jump that.”
Corvin stared at him.
“You absolutely cannot.”
“I absolutely can.”
Elara stepped forward.
“Kael.”
“What?”
“You jump first.”
He blinked.
“That was my plan.”
She met his eyes calmly.
“If the rock holds, we follow.”
Kael nodded once.
Then he ran.
His boots slammed against the edge of the broken path as he launched himself across the gap.
For a moment he hung in the air above the canyon.
Then he landed hard on the opposite ledge and slid slightly before catching himself on a jutting piece of stone.
He exhaled.
“See?”
Corvin stared nervously at the distance between the ledges.
“I do not like this plan.”
Elara turned toward him.
“You won’t fall.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Another tremor shook the canyon.
Dust rained from the cliffs.
Corvin swallowed.
Then jumped.
His landing was less graceful than Kael’s, but he managed to grab the edge and pull himself onto the ledge.
Kael hauled him up.
“That was impressive for someone who hates adventure.”
Corvin glared.
“I hate you.”
Elara took a step back from the edge.
The shard burned fiercely now.
Something deep beneath the ruins was roaring louder.
The Devourer was waking.
She ran.
Her feet struck the stone as she leapt across the gap.
For a heartbeat she felt nothing but wind beneath her.
Then Kael caught her arm and pulled her safely onto the ledge.
The three of them continued climbing without another word.
Behind them, the ruins of Velkaris trembled again.
And far beneath the mountain of broken stone—
The Devourer began to dig.