Five minutes passed after the Empire entered.
Then the strongman's voice rang out again.
"Lionheart Kingdom. Second."
Michael's eyebrow rose slightly.
He did not know how the order had been arranged. If he had known, he would have realized earlier that this was one of those silent privileges that ca with being the kingdom that discovered the ruin.
Though it was uncertain whether this could truly be called a benefit. Being second ant earlier access.
Earlier access also ant first contact with whatever dangers were inside.
A double edged gift.
The Lionheart group shifted.
The fifteen nobles ford up as they had been instructed.
Three lines.
Three teams.
Five people each.
The strongman lifted his hand again.
"Rember what I said," he called, voice steady. "If you do not want your group to be separated upon entry, keep contact as you enter. Do not leave gaps."
Then the Tenth Prince moved.
Group Two went first.
Then they vanished.
A short pause followed.
Barely a breath.
Then the signal ca again.
"Group One."
Michael moved imdiately.
Arianne guided her Fla Lion forward, closing in beside him. Lucien, Cedric, and Alaric tightened their spacing without needing to be told. Michael did not speak.
He simply extended his mana outward.
A thin invisible tether, light as silk, wrapped around their presence.
Arianne felt it first. Her posture tightened subtly as the connection brushed her senses.
Lucien blinked once, then steadied.
Cedric's hand went to his sword hilt out of instinct, then relaxed.
Alaric's gaze sharpened, a faint flicker of surprise passing behind his smile.
Michael stepped up to the portal.
The green light reflected in his eyes.
For a brief mont, he could feel the ruin's boundary resisting him.
Then he walked through.
The world folded.
Sound vanished.
Space twisted.
His mana tether stretched, holding the others close.
Then the light took them all.
The clearing outside disappeared.
Deep within the ruin, far from the eyes of those who had just entered, another scene unfolded.
A grand structure of stone sat at the center of a silent basin.
It did not look like sothing built by human hands.
Its walls rose like jagged cliffs, layered and uneven. Pillars were fused into the fra rather than placed, and the ceilings arched in natural ribs, like the inside of a petrified beast. Veins of pale crystal ran through the stone, pulsing faintly with dim light that did not warm the air.
Everything about the place felt ancient.
Inside the building, there was no wind, yet the air moved.
A crawling chill slid across the floors like sothing alive.
In the darkness above the central hall, a sound echoed.
It resembled laughter, but not the laughter of a person.
It was the kind of sound one might hear in a nightmare and wake up drenched in sweat.
The sound rolled through the stone hall, struck the pillars, and returned as a distorted chorus.
Then a voice followed.
"Finally," it whispered.
"After hundreds of years, I can finally leave this place."
The faint crystal veins brightened for a mont.
The voice breathed again, and the darkness seed to shift.
"He truly thought he was clever," the voice continued, almost amused. "He believed his precious tad beasts would outlive ."
A low, bitter chuckle spread through the hall.
"As if they could."
There was a pause.
Then the tone changed, a quiet acknowledgnt layered over the
mockery.
"But I will admit it."
"That bastard was smart."
The crystals dimd slightly.
"He knew that if none of his precious beasts survived, this place would collapse on its own if that ever happened."
The voice exhaled.
"That was the intention."
Irritation seeped into its tone.
"But what he did not expect was for it to beco a spatial realm."
The words carried heavy resentnt.
The voice fell silent for a mont, then spoke again, lower, almost
depressed.
"Even after I took control, I could not leave."
The crystals flickered faintly, unevenly.
"It is ironic."
"This is the only place my soul can endure without a body after so
long."
A pause followed.
Then the voice hardened.
"Yet it is also a cage."
The darkness rippled, and the hall seed to tighten.
"Fortunately," the voice said, and for the first ti there was
sothing like satisfaction in it, "soone stumbled upon the runes."
A faint tremor ran through the stone floor.
"Through that crack, I tasted the outside world again."
The voice sounded almost hungry now.
"But the body that ca was too old."
Disgust colored the words.
"Wasted flesh."
"A decaying vessel."
"I did not like it."
Another pause.
The presence within the hall shifted.
The earlier resentnt faded, replaced by sothing colder.
It had waited.
For centuries it endured in silence, conserving what little power its
fractured soul still possessed.
When opportunity finally ca, it did not seize it recklessly.
It adapted and disguised the forgotten battlefield.
A treasure site.
A temptation.
It allowed rumors to spread through the cracks of the world. It
permitted scholars to discover fragnts of ancient markings. Then it allowed the realm to be forcefully opened.
Kingdoms poured their resources into stabilizing the gate.
They believed they were exploiting an opportunity.
In truth, they were feeding the cage.
The entity had imposed only one true restriction upon the realm.
Age.
Under thirty.
That condition was not random.
It was deliberate.
Young bodies carried vitality. Flexible foundations. Untapped
potential. Souls not yet worn thin by decades of use. They were easier
to overwrite. Easier to mold. Easier to consu without imdiate
rejection. The entity had no intention of claiming a decaying vessel.
It required sothing strong.
Sothing refined.
Sothing that could endure the weight of its existence without
collapsing.
And beyond the body, there was sothing else it required.
Nourishnt.
A faint laugh echoed once more before fading completely.
Silence returned.
But it was no longer the silence of abandonnt.
It was the silence of anticipation.
The grand stone structure stood unmoving, its walls as natural as any
mountain cliff. The towering pillars cast long shadows across the central chamber. The ceiling arched high overhead, lined with veins
of pale crystal that pulsed in slow, asured intervals.
Like breath.
Like a heartbeat.
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