Chapter 35 Beneath the Surface
The Dravorn catacombs began behind the temple altar—a square opening in the stone floor sealed by a granite slab as thick as an arm. Morrith had told them how to find it, but offered no company. “My legs are too old for that place,” she said. “And the ground down there doesn’t like uninvited guests.”
Ren went first. A spiral stone staircase that narrowed with every turn, its walls damp and covered in carvings too ancient to read. Sera followed close behind, oil lantern in her left hand, knife in her right. The lantern light made their shadows dance across the walls like creatures detached from their bodies.
The deeper they descended, the more Ren felt it.
The Void in his chest no longer hummed faintly—it pulsed. Rhythmic. Constant. Like a second heartbeat growing louder with every step, as if something in the depths was pulling an invisible thread tied to his ribs.
“Do you feel it?” Sera asked from behind.
“Yes.”
“How strong?”
Ren didn’t answer. He had no words accurate enough.
The catacombs opened into a wider network of corridors—stone passageways with arched ceilings, filled with symbols Ren recognized from the Gallax ruins in the Ashlands. But here, the symbols were intact. Sharp. And as Ren walked past them, some began to glow—a pale violet, barely visible, reacting to the Void inside him like fireflies stirred by warmth.
Sera observed the phenomenon without comment, but Ren saw her jaw tighten.
They walked in silence for several minutes. The air grew heavier, colder, older—Ren didn’t know how air could feel old, but it was the only word that fit. As if the oxygen here had existed long before Eryndal was ever built.
Sera’s lantern flickered. Died. Total darkness swallowed them.
“The oil’s gone,” Sera said, her voice calm but close—closer than Ren had expected.
They stood in perfect darkness. Not like night—night still had stars, still had silhouettes. This was absolute absence of light, the kind that made the eyes desperately try to invent what wasn’t there.
“Keep moving,” Ren said. “I can sense the direction.”
“You’re leading a blind woman through the dark. Ironic.”
“I’m not blind.”
“But I am now.”
Their footsteps echoed in the narrow corridor. Without light or faces to read, sound became their only bridge.
“Ren.” Sera’s voice came from the darkness, softer than before. “If all this ends… where will you be?”
The question was too large to answer, so Ren turned it back on her. “You first.”
Sera was quiet for a long time. Their footsteps filled the void—fourteen steps, Ren counted, before her answer came.
“In the same place as you.” A pause. “If you’ll have me.”
The words hung in the still air. Ren felt them land somewhere in his chest—not where the Void pulsed, but in a more human, more fragile place, one he hadn’t acknowledged in a long time.
He didn’t reply. But he slowed his steps by half a second, just enough for the distance between them to shrink, just enough for their shoulders to nearly brush in the dark.
Sera didn’t pull away.
The gate appeared at the end of the final corridor—and even in the darkness, Ren could see it.
A black stone slab four meters tall, smooth as glass, covered in symbols glowing violet across its surface. The light pulsed in time with the Void in Ren’s chest—the same heartbeat, the same frequency. The gate recognized him.
“It only reacts to you,” Sera whispered. Thanks to the gate’s light, she could see again now. Her face was bathed in pale purple, eyes wide.
Ren raised his hand. His fingers touched the stone surface.
The world vanished.
Gallax in its prime—a vast underground city like a colossal cathedral, its ceilings lit by thousands of floating Void crystals. People walked streets of obsidian stone, and Void flowed between them like rivers of light—used for cooking, building, healing, communicating. Everyday energy. Children played with floating violet orbs of light hovering above their palms.
Then time jumped.
The Nexus Core—a massive crystal at the heart of the city—pulsed irregularly. Too fast. Too strong. People ran. Screams. Walls cracked. The light that once illuminated turned into a hungering darkness—not the absence of light, but something active, ravenous. The Core imploded inward, not outward, creating a void that sucked everything toward a single point of nothingness.
And in the midst of that destruction—a figure. Standing before the Core. Not running. Not afraid. His hands were outstretched, and the Void bent to him. The figure turned, and his face—
Ren’s face.
Not exactly the same. Older. Harder. But that jawline, those eyes, that stance—a mirror from a different time.
The figure smiled. And the vision disappeared.
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Ren staggered back from the gate, breathing hard. His knees nearly gave out. Sera was instantly at his side, gripping his arm, holding him steady.
“What did you see?”
“Everything.” Ren’s voice was hoarse. “And someone who shouldn’t possibly exist.”
The gate trembled. The black stone ground open with a deep grinding sound that echoed through the corridor. It parted partially—a gap wide enough for one body, darkness waiting beyond it.
Then footsteps. From behind them. Many.
Ren spun around. Torchlight flooded the corridor—six, seven, eight armed figures moving quickly toward them. Dark robes, trained movements, efficient. Not bandits. Not faction soldiers.
Dorian’s agents.
He wasn’t chasing us. He was herding us here. The realization hit Ren at the same moment the first arrow whistled past his ear.
“Go!” Sera shouted.
The fight lasted mere seconds—Ren slammed the first two attackers with a wave of Void that shattered their torches and hurled them into the walls. Sera moved beside him, her knife finding the gap in the third attacker’s armor. A fourth arrow grazed Ren’s arm. The fifth and sixth were too close—Ren grabbed Sera, shoved them both through the gate’s opening, and—
The stone moved. The gate slammed shut with a final thud that shook the floor.
Total darkness again.
Their breathing echoed loudly in what felt like a vast space. Beyond the gate, the sounds of impact and shouts were muffled into silence.
Then, far below—light. Faint. Violet. Pulsing like a heartbeat.
Rhythmic. Patient. Waiting.
And from the darkness came a voice. Not a human voice. Not any language Ren knew—no identifiable words, no logical structure. Yet somehow, like water seeping into soil, its meaning pierced straight into his mind, bypassing ears and language, straight into raw understanding.
“Finally. You’ve finally come.”
Sera’s hand gripped his arm in the dark. Ren felt her fingers trembling.
The light in the depths pulsed brighter. Once. Twice.
Like a heart awakening from a very long sleep.