Chapter 25 – The Cracking Gate
The sky above the ruins did not move. Fog clung to the air like the dust of despair.
Lumina sat on the dry ground. Enver's body lay beside her, his breath shallow, barely audible. Black wounds crawled across his side—the mark of Maxcen's strike.
Verruksha emerged from the surface of a small puddle nearby. Her eyes no longer glowed as they once did.
"Alvaron," Lumina whispered. "He told you to stay here."
Verruksha said nothing.
"You broke me from within. Made me weaker. But it wasn't your will… was it?"
Still silent.
"How long will you stay inside me?"
"Until time peaks," Verruksha finally answered, her voice as thin as dust.
---
In the Sacred Land of the Ancient Spirits...
The earth trembled. Spirit trees fell one by one. The air burned a deep crimson.
The elder spirits stood motionless. Their eyes were blank. They were not alive. But they were not dead.
Only two figures remained at the center of that dimension: Ilior, and the Spirit Sovereign.
"Let me out," Ilior growled.
"No."
"You want history to repeat what never should have been written. Let it remain forgotten."
"You'll never understand how weak humans manipulate and betray. Their weakness is their greed."
Ilior lunged forward. A black strike swept across the sky.
The Spirit Sovereign countered with blazing yellow light. A blast cracked part of the dimension open. But Ilior laughed.
"You knew that pact was never fair."
---
A Flashback...
Lumina closed her eyes.
In her mind, a memory surfaced. A truth buried deep.
A man with vermilion eyes stood before an ancient stone altar.
"I swear... for the balance of this world, I need your power."
Ilior appeared in radiant form—pure and sacred.
"Half of my soul... for half of yours," he said.
But the moment power was granted, the ancestor activated a soul-draining seal.
Ilior fell. His body trapped within a crystal of bloodstone.
"You... traitor," Ilior hissed, before vanishing into the spirit lands.
---
In the Northern Tower...
The soul-map in Archon's underground chamber glowed dark red.
Raegar stood silently at the edge of the room.
"He's beginning to open the spirit path," Archon said.
"Are you sure?" Raegar asked.
Archon nodded. "If he fully opens that gate… kill him without hesitation. No need to wait for the Council."
Raegar didn't answer. But his hand was already clutching his pendant.
---
Back in the Mortal World...
The sky slowly darkened. Winds carried shards of the fractured spirit land.
Lumina stood. She looked at her hand. Her veins glowed—not with the light of purification, but the blood of something ancient.
"I'm not her," she whispered.
But a voice answered from within:
You are the one they failed to kill.
Let me out.
Let the world see who the true betrayer is...
Lumina let out a soft scream. She clutched her head, trembling.
Behind her, Enver's eyes opened.
"I'm late... but not done yet," he whispered.
---
In the Sacred Land, the Battle Continues...
Ilior bled.
The Spirit Sovereign was wounded.
But neither retreated.
In the distance, a small rift opened. A red light seeped in—from the human world into the spirit realm.
"That gate..." Ilior murmured.
"...is about to open."