Chapter 128: Anchor Battle - Kael
The carriage crashes in the hills behind the castle.
Not a landing—a crash. The levitation core runs out of power, and the carriage drops like a rock into the bushes, rolling and falling apart. I get thrown out, my back slams into a tree trunk, and everything goes dark.
Leah crawls out of the wreckage. Blood's running down her forehead, her left arm's dislocated, but she braces her right arm against a tree trunk, clenches her teeth—click—and snaps it back in.
"Move." She pulls me up.
Screams come from inside the castle.
Not human screams. Night Walkers. That high-pitched, piercing shriek, like scraping glass.
We burst through the back door. Night Walker bodies everywhere in the hallway. Their golden vertical pupils still open, but their bodies ripped to pieces. Silver blood splattered on the walls—the evolved Night Walkers bleed a different color.
"Adrian!" Leah yells.
No answer.
We run toward the stone room. The door's smashed to bits. Claw marks on the door frame, each scratch five centimeters deep.
Inside the stone room, the mummy's still lying on the stone bed. But standing in front of it—
The three-faced monster.
Its body's grown three times bigger. The chest wound's healed, the black core now protected by a layer of bone. All three faces turn toward us, six eyes locked on.
It's eating the mummy.
No, not eating—absorbing. The mummy's body is shriveling up, like wood being drained dry. The Gatekeeper's anchor energy is being sucked into it.
"Stop!"
I charge forward.
No weapons. Lost the UV scalpel back at the platform. All I've got are my fists and the fake strength from the adrenaline.
The monster's side head—Christina's face—opens its mouth. A silver beam shoots out.
I dodge. The beam hits the stone wall behind me, instantly turning the stone to dust. That's not a physical attack—it's energy breakdown.
Leah fires. Her last three UV rounds. All three hit the monster's front face.
The rounds stick in its skin but don't go through. The monster raises a front claw and swipes at Leah.
She rolls away. The claw smashes a floor tile.
"The core!" I yell. "Hit the bone plate on its chest!"
"How do we break through it?" Leah yells back.
I look around. What's in this stone room? The mummy, the stone platform, broken blood-crystal mirror pieces, and—
Adrian's body?
No. She's still alive.
I see a small hand moving behind the stone platform. Adrian's curled up there, her white nightgown soaked in blood, but she's still breathing. Her fingers feel around under the stone platform, pressing a hidden switch.
The stone platform splits open.
Something rises up from inside.
Not a vampire artifact—a human weapon. Thick metal barrel, hooked up to a blood-crystal energy core, aimed at the monster.
A UV focusing cannon.
"Catch!" Adrian's voice is weak but clear.
She tosses me a remote.
I catch it. Two buttons on the remote: red and green.
Red says: FIRE.
Green says: OVERLOAD.
The monster turns toward Adrian. All three faces show the same look—hunger. It lunges at her.
I press red.
The focusing cannon roars. Not a solid shot—a pure UV beam, twenty centimeters across, hitting the monster's side.
A howl.
Christina's face takes the beam head-on. The skin instantly burns black and peels away, showing muscle and black core underneath. The monster stumbles back, crashes into the stone wall, debris falling down.
But the beam only lasts five seconds.
The energy core starts beeping. The barrel overheats, making a sharp whining sound.
The monster isn't dead. It's healing, just slower now. Black threads crawl out from the core, patching up the burned wound.
"The core!" Leah shouts again.
I look at the remote. The green button.
Overload.
Meaning dump all the energy at once. Enough to break through the bone plate and destroy the core.
But the barrel will blow. The blast will cover the whole stone room.
"Get down!" I yell.
I press green.
Leah dives toward Adrian, covering her with her body. I duck behind the stone platform.
The focusing cannon lets out one last roar.
The beam changes from purple-white to blinding white. It punches through the monster's chest, breaks through the bone plate, stabs into the black core.
The monster screams.
Not three faces—countless faces screaming together. Its body starts to swell, like a balloon being overinflated. The black core shatters in the beam, breaking into tiny pieces.
Then—
Explosion.
The shockwave throws me back. My back hits the stone wall again, everything turns red. Ringing in my ears. The sound of bones breaking. Air forced out of my lungs.
I black out.
I don't know how long.
Someone's slapping my face.
"Kael! Kael!"
Leah's voice. Far away, like it's coming through water.
I open my eyes. Everything's blurry, seeing double.
Leah's face is above mine. She's crying, blood and tears mixed together.
"Is it dead?" I ask.
"No," she says, voice shaking. "It's badly hurt. But it... ran."
I turn my head, barely.
There's a crater in the middle of the stone room. Pieces of the focusing cannon everywhere, still smoking. The monster's body isn't there—just a puddle of black goo and silver blood.
Claw marks on the wall. Fresh ones. Leading into a tunnel.
"Where'd it go?"
"Underground," Leah says. "Deeper underground. Adrian said... there's another level under the castle."
I look at Adrian.
The little girl's sitting against the broken stone platform, chest heaving hard. Her injuries are worse than they look—a hole through her stomach, probably ruptured intestines. She won't make it much longer.
But she's still talking.
"The next level..." she breathes, barely there. "The real door... is there. Not for connecting... but for... sending back. Exile Door... throws monsters back... into the void..."
"How do we use it?" I ask.
"It needs... two people..." Adrian's eyes start to glaze over. "One stays on Side B... works the crystal... One goes to Side A... to receive..."
Her hand drops.
"Don't die." Leah grabs her hand. "Tell us how to use it!"
"Control crystal... under the stone platform..." Adrian's voice is barely a whisper. "Leah... you go back to Side A... Kael stays... because he's the Gatekeeper... only a Gatekeeper can work it..."
Her hand goes cold.
Leah puts her ear to Adrian's chest.
No heartbeat.
Leah lifts her head. Her silver-gray eyes are filled with dried tears.
The stone room goes quiet. Just the sizzling of the broken focusing cannon, electrical sparks crackling.
I crawl toward the stone platform. Push aside the rubble, find a hollow underneath. There's a crystal embedded inside. Fist-sized, with a blood-red glow flowing through it.
Control crystal.
I grab it.
The Gatekeeper bloodline connects with the crystal. Light bursts from my palm, projecting an image in the air—
The Spiral Tower on Side A. Xiao Qi's standing at the base of the tower, looking up at the sky. The black hole in the north is falling.
She's shouting something. No sound, but I can read her lips:
"Run!"