The tooth pulsed.
Kael could feel it even through the leather of his gloves—an oily warmth that sank into the flesh of his palm like a brand refusing to cool. The sigil etched into its surface writhed if he stared too long, as if it resented being looked at.
By the time he reached the temple's outskirts, the sun had vanished behind slate-colored clouds, though it wasn't yet dusk. The light simply… retreated, as if the temple drank it.
Black stone reared above the city like a rib driven into the sky. The closer he walked, the quieter the world became—no hawkers, no laughter, no footfalls but his own.
Even the root inside him paused.
Not from fear.
From reverence.
The Black Temple had returned.
The gate was open.
Not ajar. Open. As if waiting for him.
Kael stepped through.
No guards. No chains. Just silence and a corridor that stretched far too long for the space it occupied—its walls narrow and slick with dark moss that pulsed faintly, like veins.
He walked.
Past murals of things no human hand should have painted—bone forests devouring cities, angels blindfolded with flayed skin, towers unraveling into thread.
The deeper he went, the harder it became to breathe.
The air thickened. Grew heavy with rot and chanting that came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Voices rose in waves. Not human tongues. Not language.
Memory.
The kind etched into bone.
At the corridor's end, a door stood ajar.
Behind it—singing.
High and hollow. Childlike.
Kael stepped inside.
The chamber was massive—impossibly so. A cathedral hollowed from obsidian, its ceiling lost to darkness, its walls etched with screaming mouths frozen mid-prayer.
And at the center—
A dais.
And upon it—
A man.
Or what once had been one.
He wore a robe dyed the shade of dried blood. It clung to him like wet skin. His arms were raised, and in one hand he held a knife of bone. In the other—
A string of tongues.
Still twitching.
Children knelt in a circle at his feet, their eyes sewn shut. Their lips moved in unison.
"Hollow, hollow, hollow," they sang.
Kael didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
The man turned.
Eyes black. Smiling.
"Ah," he said, voice silken and wrong. "The Rootbearer comes."
Kael's grip on the sigil tightened. "You know me?"
The man stepped down from the dais, barefoot, each step leaving a smear of something darker than blood. The children didn't flinch.
"I know what grows in you. What writhes and whispers in the hollow places of your soul." His grin widened. "It chose you."
Kael didn't answer.
The man's smile vanished.
"I am Armin Karajzak," he said, as if the name should shatter walls. "And you are trespassing."
The root screamed.
[Warning: System Disruption Detected]
[Foreign Pattern: Karajzak-Class Contamination Attempt]
Kael staggered back as pressure stabbed into his skull—thorns made of thought, trying to pierce, to root, to corrupt.
But the root inside him pushed back.
A pulse of red erupted from beneath Kael's skin—veins glowing like buried coals.
[Root Defense Protocol: Engaged]
Armin hissed.
"You resist," he said, voice no longer silken. "Good. I prefer my offerings to struggle."
He raised his hand.
The children stood.
Their mouths opened.
No sound came out—but Kael felt it.
A scream that bypassed the ears and drilled straight into the marrow.
He dropped to a knee. Blood dripped from his nose. His vision blurred.
Then—
The tooth.
It burned in his palm.
Kael raised it high.
The sigil flared.
A wave of force burst outward. The children's sewn eyes burned with red light. One by one, they collapsed, twitching.
Armin recoiled.
"You bear the Old Mark," he spat. "You were meant to be mine."
Kael rose.
"You're wrong."
From his hand, roots unfurled—bloody, thorned, beautiful. They twisted around his arm, his throat, his eyes. They didn't hurt.
They crowned him.
And in that moment, Kael saw beyond the room.
He saw the true city—Spinedral, the name whispered into his mind. A city built atop a buried god. Its streets were veins. Its spires were teeth.
And the Black Temple?
Not a place.
A wound.
Still open.
Still weeping.
Armin Karajzak lunged.
Kael moved faster.
The blade in Armin's hand met the root-wrapped flesh of Kael's forearm—and shattered. Splinters of bone rained to the floor, hissing like acid.
Kael stepped forward. Placed his hand on Armin's chest.
And whispered, "Bloom."
The root obeyed.
It exploded from Kael's palm, piercing flesh and bone, rooting through Armin's ribs, his lungs, his heart. Armin screamed—truly screamed—as flowers of meat and vine bloomed from his throat.
Still, he laughed.
As he fell.
As the root dragged him into the stone, leaving behind only blood and teeth.
Kael stood in the silence.
The dais was empty.
The children were gone.
And from above, something vast exhaled.
[Synchronization: 35%]
[Seed Phase: Convergence Initiated]
Kael wiped the blood from his mouth and turned toward the door.
The temple had given him a gift.
And in the hollow that remained of Armin Karajzak's echo, something whispered:
"You've opened it now