2024-07-22 10:30:34
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Chapter 393
The lower chamber smelled of cold stone and old ash. Even the air felt heavier here, weighted with centuries of unspoken intent. Caster Spellbound, now Magus Relan to most of the Tower, moved silently, boots scraping the polished stone floor only enough to echo faintly. Every step was measured. Every glance swept the room for subtle signs of disturbance.He had been here before, in a dream-like reconnaissance, tracing the ashfall signatures and hidden wards, but this time was different. The air carried a tension beyond the ordinary: the remnants of something alive, aware, and tethered. His Sixth Ring initiation granted him access to the lower vaults, but even the Council’s formal permissions felt like a pretense. The true danger wasn’t in the authorization; it was in what the Tower had buried, and what had waited.Caster paused at the center of the chamber. The portal frame below, Blackthorn-era, warped, and etched with half-finished runes, loomed like a skeleton of ambition. The
Chapter 392
The stone did not crack when Caster pressed his palm against it. It softened. Not like clay. Not like flesh. It gave way the way a memory does when touched too hard.Caster pulled his hand back at once. Dust drifted where his fingers had been. The dust did not fall. It hung, suspended, as if waiting for a cue.He stood alone in the narrow service corridor beneath the Tower’s lower stacks. The air smelled old. Not rot. Not mold. Burned stone. Burned time.A thin line of light ran along the floor, marking where he had traced the false wall hours earlier. Administrative wards. Layered. Careful. Designed to redirect attention, not stop intrusion.Someone expected curiosity. They just did not want it rewarded. Caster stepped forward and pressed his sigil ring to the stone again, slower this time. The ring dimmed. The wall sighed.A seam appeared. Stone folded inward without sound, peeling back into a recessed archway. No hinges. No debris. Just absence where matter decided not to argue.Be
Chapter 391
The first bell of the third watch fades while the Tower still sleeps. Caster stands alone in his assigned chamber, boots planted on cold stone. The lamps are unlit. Ash drifts in slow lines near the ceiling, settling into corners, then lifting again, as if caught in a tide no one else can feel.He closes the door. He seals it with a simple latch, not magic. The wards would notice magic. He breathes once. Then again.His right hand moves to the scar at his wrist. He presses two fingers there, hard enough to blanch the skin. The pain grounds him. He lowers his hand and draws a single glyph in the air with his thumb. It does not glow. It sinks inward, like ink soaking into cloth.The room does not change at first. Then the world splits. The stone walls gain depth, as if layered sheets have slid apart. The air thickens. Sound dulls. The faint hum of the Tower stretches, slows, and breaks into uneven pulses.Caster exhales through his nose and does not blink. Necro-spectral vision settl
Chapter 390
Ash drifted through the Upper Spine before the bells finished their second toll.It did not fall from above. It seeped from seams in the stone, slid from runes etched centuries ago, and gathered in corners where light bent the wrong way. Servitors swept it with silver brushes. The ash rose against the motion, then settled again when the brushes stopped.A novice froze mid-step near the rail. His eyes stayed open. Ash gathered on his shoulders. No one touched him.Two wardens approached with care. One spoke his name once. The novice did not answer. His lips moved. “The Covenant is bound by flame and dust.”The words came out flat. No emphasis. No breath wasted. Caster arrived as the wardens backed away. He raised one hand. They stopped. The novice stood upright, spine straight, hands at his sides. Mana shimmered under his skin, stable and clean. No corruption flare. No fracture lines.Caster stepped closer. “Can you hear me?” he asked.The novice blinked once. His eyes tracked Caster
Chapter 389
Ash drifted across the chamber in thin, uneven lines. Caster stood still at the center of his quarters, hands loose at his sides. The lamps were dimmed to a low glow. The wards hummed at a steady pitch. Nothing moved except the ash. It floated past his eyes.For a moment, it looked darker than before. Thicker. It gathered in the air and slowed, as if caught on invisible threads. One fleck brushed his cheek. Another settled on the edge of the desk. The ash touched the surface and spread.Black lines bled outward, thin and sharp. The texture changed. It flattened. It was stained. Ink.The chamber blurred. The sound of the Tower faded, replaced by silence so complete it pressed against his ears. The floor beneath his boots hardened into rough stone. The air grew colder. Older. Caster blinked once. He was no longer in the Tower.He stood in a narrow vault carved into bedrock. The walls were bare. No banners. No sigils. Just raw stone cut by steady hands. A single table waited in the c
Chapter 388
Ash brushed the stone floor before it touched the air. Caster noticed because it moved incorrectly. It drifted sideways, paused, then sank, like something deciding where to land. The chamber was quiet except for the slow tick of a cooling ward crystal and the faint hum of the Tower’s night ward cycling. No wind. No mana surge. Nothing that should move dust.Caster sat at the narrow worktable with his sleeves rolled to the elbow. A single lamp burned low, its light shielded by etched glass to prevent scrying. He had sealed the door himself. Three layers. Physical lock. Oath-sigil. Null dampener. The chamber felt smaller for it.Ash settled along the edge of the table. It did not scatter. Caster did not touch it. He leaned back slightly, chair legs scraping once before he stilled them. His eyes tracked the ash, not directly, but through the reflection in the polished steel plate beside his notes. He kept his hands flat on the table, palms down.The ash shifted. It gathered into a thi
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