The earth beneath Goblin's Hollow had begun to bleed.
Black veins pulsed in the soil. Stone moaned when touched. And the War Altar steamed with heatless fire. Reed watched it all from the edge of the pit, his thoughts distant, cold.
"Whatever's under there," Shia said beside him, "isn't meant to wake."
"Then we wake it anyway," Reed replied. "But first—"
He pulled the crumpled scroll from Marseth's dead knight and pointed at the last line. A set of coordinates.
"Whatever this artifact is… it's not under us. It's hidden in the bones of the mountain."
Reed selected a handpicked group:
Shia, his blade and anchor.
Two elite Fang scouts, fast and feral.
Three Spine Units, for traps and glyph analysis.
One Maw brute, to carry and smash.
Nine of them departed into the storm, moving west beyond the Hollow, past the corpse trees and ash hills, toward the forgotten places marked only by whispers.
They traveled through dead woods, over poisoned streams, into lands the System refused to map.
"Where the world ends," a goblin muttered, "the gods sleep."
Reed didn't respond.
But he walked faster.
On the third day, they found it — a jagged break in the earth, overgrown with red moss and fungal growths that pulsed like lungs.
The entrance was a maw, half-collapsed, lined with teeth-like stones. Something old had clawed from the inside, long ago.
The scouts refused to enter.
Reed didn't ask.
He ordered.
The first hallway was lined with glyphs—not System glyphs, but something older, carved in a language that made the air vibrate.
The first Spine Unit tried to decipher them.
He burst into flame.
His screams echoed for too long.
Shia dragged his body back and used the remains to mark the trap.
They pressed on—only five now.
Further in, they triggered a gravity field that collapsed the ceiling on one of the Fang scouts. His legs shattered. His face peeled back as he tried to scream.
Reed silenced him with a stomp.
They moved deeper.
They came upon a room that smelled of rot and wet stone.
Inside: walls of flesh.
Pulsing, veined, living walls. Faces trapped within, screaming without sound. Eyes moved beneath the surface, following the group.
A Maw goblin vomited.
Then the floor blinked.
Too late.
The second Spine Unit fell into a pit of teeth. His body didn't even hit the bottom before he was shredded.
Shia leapt across with Wraithstep, pulling Reed behind her just as the floor blinked again.
"Thank me later," she hissed.
"I won't," he said.
At the heart of the temple, past doors made of bone and bone made of regret, they found it.
A crystal — suspended in air, spinning slowly, glowing with cold light. Inside, something moved — a shape with too many wings and not enough limbs.
[System Alert: Ancestral Artifact Detected — HERO CORE FRAGMENT]
Effect: Enhances Hero beyond System parameters.
Risk: High. Mutagenic. Potential instability.
Activation requires Host-Bonding.
Before Reed could reach it, the guardian stirred.
It wasn't stone. It wasn't flesh.
It was both.
A colossal amalgam of armor, roots, and forgotten names — no eyes, no voice, just blades for hands and a cage of ribs for a face.
It screamed once, and the walls bled.
The last Spine Unit died in the first swipe — cleaved in half, upper torso crushed into the wall.
The Maw brute charged it head-on.
Bad idea.
The guardian impaled him, then wore his corpse like a puppet, its limbs twitching with stolen muscle.
Shia vanished.
Wraithstep.
Six seconds.
She reappeared behind the guardian, dug both blades into its spine.
Nothing.
It turned. Backhanded her. She slammed into the wall, coughing blood.
Reed screamed and activated Devourer's Mark.
Bones burst from his arms. His back split, revealing more runes. His blood caught fire.
He charged.
He fought like a demon — blade, claw, bone, breath.
The guardian didn't scream. It simply resisted.
And then — as Reed faltered — the crystal pulsed.
[HERO SOUL COMPATIBLE]
Initiate Bond: SHIA?
"Yes," Reed said aloud, bleeding from the mouth.
The crystal shattered in mid-air.
Its fragments flew into Shia's chest.
She convulsed, screamed, eyes turning white, skin cracking open along her arms, glowing symbols surfacing beneath.
[HERO ASCENSION: IN PROGRESS]
Class Upgrade: WRAITHBLADE
New Skill Unlocked: "Phase Reaver"
Passive Gained: "Soul Split — Clone attacks can manifest for 3 seconds post-blink."
She stood.
Stronger. Quieter. Eyes like dead stars.
Then she killed the guardian in one blow.
With the temple collapsing behind them, Reed and Shia escaped with only seconds to spare. Two goblins remained—one dragging the other.
The crystal fragment inside Shia still pulsed beneath her skin.
But as they reached the outer ridge, the System screamed.
[CORE DISTORTION BREACH: ACTIVE]
Entity Awakening: IN PROGRESS
Estimated Time Until Emergence: 18 HOURS
Far in the distance, in Goblin's Hollow…
The War Altar cracked open.
And something looked back.
Not with eyes.
But with memory.