Chapter 24 - The Heartbeat Altar

My acceptance of the Leviathan's command sealed my fate within K'tharr. The surviving expansionist warriors were taken into custody by Thalassa's loyal Choir guards, their fate uncertain but likely grim. Elara lingered, her expression a mixture of scientific curiosity and perhaps a hint of concern, but she knew this next step was mine alone to take. "Record everything, Kaelen Varis," she murmured before melting back into the shadows, presumably to continue her own research or observe from a safer distance.High Priestess Thalassa wasted no time. The Leviathan's command, though terrifying, had also imbued her with a renewed sense of purpose, a potential path to salvation for her people and her god. "Follow," her mental voice instructed, softer now, devoid of its earlier suspicion but heavy with the gravity of our task. *"The path to the Heartbeat Altar is not physical, but resonant. Match my frequency. Stay within my wake. Stray, and the abyss will claim you."She turned and glided towards the central shaft, the source of the Leviathan's overwhelming presence. The loyal Choir members formed a protective circle around the shaft's edge, their chant resuming, not the soothing lullaby from before, but a deeper, more powerful harmony – a song of guidance and warding, meant perhaps to shield Thalassa and me during the descent, or to appease the still-aware Leviathan.Thalassa stepped into the shaft. She didn't fall, but descended slowly, borne downwards by currents of pressure and resonance I couldn't fully comprehend. Her ancient consciousness pulsed, creating a narrow corridor of relative stability within the overwhelming psychic field emanating from the depths.Steeling myself, I focused on her resonance signature, aligning my own Pillar frequency with hers as best I could. It felt like tuning a delicate instrument in the midst of an earthquake. Then, taking a leap of faith, I stepped into the shaft after her.Instantly, the pressure became unimaginable. It wasn't just physical weight crushing my body, but psychic weight crushing my mind. The bio-compounds Elara gave me strained, my bones felt like they were grinding together, and my vision dissolved into swirling darkness. The Leviathan's presence was absolute here, its vast mind an ocean threatening to drown my tiny spark of consciousness.Only by locking onto Thalassa's resonant wake, a narrow thread of stability in the crushing chaos, did I maintain coherence. It felt like being towed through a black hole. Time lost meaning. Space distorted. All that existed was the pressure, the darkness, and the guiding frequency of the High Priestess.Downwards we plunged, deeper and deeper into the abyss, far below the city, far below the known caverns, towards the very core of the World Pillar where it anchored itself against the Maw.Just as I felt my consciousness fraying, the point of dissolution nearing, the descent slowed. The pressure, while still immense, lessened fractionally. A faint, deep, rhythmic pulse began to penetrate the psychic darkness – the Heartbeat.We emerged from the shaft into a space unlike any other. It wasn't a cavern, not truly. It felt like being inside a colossal geode, its walls lined with crystals that pulsed with a deep, internal light synchronized with the Heartbeat. The light wasn't visual, but resonant, perceived directly by my senses. The air, if it could be called that, vibrated with pure, fundamental energy.In the center of this crystalline chamber pulsed the source of the Heartbeat – the Altar. It wasn't a structure, but a point of convergence, a singularity where the Abyssal Mariana World Pillar's core frequency manifested most purely. It pulsed with a slow, powerful rhythm, the very lifeblood of this section of reality, radiating immense stability and ancient power.But even here, at the Pillar's heart, I felt the strain. Faint discordant notes marred the purity of the Heartbeat. Cracks of dissonance spiderwebbed through the fundamental frequency, echoes of the Leviathan's restlessness, the distant decay of Luminora Prime, the cumulative stress of millennia holding back the Maw.Thalassa glided towards the pulsing Heartbeat, her form seeming almost translucent in the resonant light. "Listen, anomaly," her mental voice whispered, filled with reverence. *"This is the true song. The frequency of foundation. Feel its strength. Feel its sorrow. Feel the discord that threatens to shatter it."I focused, letting my resonance sense merge with the Heartbeat. It was overwhelming, beautiful, terrifying. It was the sound of reality itself, the fundamental vibration holding this world together. I felt its immense strength, the power that anchored a continent against a black hole. But I also felt its weariness, the accumulated damage, the growing fractures.The Leviathan's presence was here too, not as an oppressive weight, but as an integral part of the equation. Its consciousness was intertwined with the Pillar, a symbiotic relationship where the Pillar provided stability and the Leviathan provided… something else. Life? Pressure? A necessary counterweight?"The Great Dreamer and the Pillar are one," Thalassa explained, sensing my confusion. *"The Leviathan's dreams maintain the pressure that counteracts the Maw's pull, stabilized by the Pillar's structure. If the Pillar fails, the pressure containment breaks. If the Leviathan wakes fully, its raw power shatters the Pillar. Balance. It has always been balance."Now I understood. The Choir's Rites weren't just about soothing the Leviathan, but about maintaining this delicate balance between the god and its foundation. My Pillar resonance, by strengthening the foundation, had indirectly helped soothe the god."The song is failing," Thalassa continued, her voice laced with sorrow. *"The discord grows. The balance falters. The Great Dreamer commanded you here. Show us, anomaly. Can your resonance truly reinforce? Can you learn the true song and help us mend the fractures?"She gestured towards the pulsing Heartbeat. The implication was clear. I needed to do more than just listen. I needed to interact. To merge my resonance with the Pillar's core frequency, here at its source, and actively try to smooth the dissonances, to reinforce the structure from within.The risks were unimaginable. A mistake here wouldn't just kill me; it could destabilize the Pillar, trigger the very catastrophe we were trying to prevent. But the Leviathan had commanded it. Thalassa expected it. And deep within me, the resonance key felt… right. This was what I was sensitive to. This was my path.Taking a shuddering breath against the immense pressure, I focused my entire being on the Heartbeat Altar. I let my consciousness flow outwards, merging with the Pillar's core frequency. I didn't try to change it, not yet. I simply listened, learned, felt the intricate, ancient patterns of its song, the deep rhythm of its existence, and the painful, discordant notes of its sorrow.This was the true test. Learning the song, and then, perhaps, finding a way to help it heal.