The light from the altar swallowed Oran whole, plunging him into a suffocating void. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the forest. Instead, he stood in the middle of a vast battlefield, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and the cries of the dying.He recognized this place immediately it was the Plains of Jurok, where the last great rebellion of his tribe had been crushed. The sky above was a sickly gray, and the ground beneath him was littered with shattered weapons and bodies of his kin.Oran’s hands clenched around the spear he now realized he still carried. “Why this place? Why now?” he muttered, his voice echoing unnaturally in the empty expanse.A familiar voice answered, sharp and accusing. “Because you’ve never let it go.”Oran spun around to see a figure emerging from the mist. It was his brother, Kalen, the warrior who had once been his greatest rival and his greatest shame. Kalen’s expression was hard, his eyes burning with anger.“You abandoned us,” K

The path beyond the Veiled Sanctuary was shrouded in dense mist, twisting and winding like it had a mind of its own. The air carried a heavy tension, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Kaiza, Mina, and Oran walked in silence, their footsteps muffled by the thick layer of moss underfoot.Kaiza’s grip on the obsidian fragment tightened as he replayed the confrontation with his shadow in his mind. The cold, biting words still echoed in his ears, but he pushed them aside. There was no room for doubt now.Oran broke the silence, his voice tinged with unease. “Is it just me, or is the forest... watching us?”Mina glanced around, her sharp eyes scanning the shadows. The trees loomed closer than before, their twisted branches arching overhead like skeletal fingers. “It’s not just you. Something’s out there.”Kaiza nodded. “Stay close. Whatever it is, it’s waiting for the right moment.”The group moved cautiously, the mist curling around them like living tendrils. Strange whispers

The tunnel grew darker still as they moved deeper into the heart of the ancient labyrinth. The air was thick with moisture, and each step seemed to sink deeper into a chilling abyss. Kaiza’s hand tightened around the obsidian fragment, its glow casting weak shadows on the walls around them. The oppressive silence of the underground world weighed heavily on him, each crack in the stone and distant echo making his nerves burn with anticipation.The death of the creature, that monstrous amalgamation of shadow and stone, had only momentarily silenced the place, but Kaiza knew better than to believe they had escaped. The world they had stepped into was ancient, tied to forces much older than anything they had encountered, and the heart of the labyrinth was still ahead.Behind him, Mina’s cautious footsteps barely echoed, but he could feel her presence, her silent strength. She wasn’t just the girl he was sworn to protect anymore. She was something more. Something that tied him to his human

The echoes of their footsteps grew fainter as Kaiza and Mina moved deeper into the labyrinth, the pulse of the walls subsiding into an eerie stillness. The air, once thick with danger, now felt charged with an unfamiliar energy. Kaiza could feel a tingling sensation at the back of his neck as though the labyrinth itself was watching them, waiting for the right moment to strike again.Mina walked beside him, her expression unreadable, but he could feel the tension radiating off her. They had defeated the sorcerer, but the danger wasn’t over. In fact, it felt as though the labyrinth had only just begun to reveal its true nature. The dark sorcerer had been a mere pawn in a much larger game, one that neither of them fully understood.“What was he talking about?” Mina asked, her voice cutting through the silence. “About the future... about us?”Kaiza glanced at her, his jaw tightening. “He wasn’t just a sorcerer. He was part of something older, something far more dangerous. He’s been waiti