[Fin's POV – Soul Chamber Beneath Elmer Academy]
The air didn't just shift, it collapsed.
A violent, silent implosion of presence, like the entire chamber had suddenly been vacuum-sealed. Yorz reeled back from the console, her eyes wide. Even she hadn't expected the force of it. Her half-missing hand gripped the edge of the machine as well as it could as she steadied herself.
Saelira gasped, dropping to her knees, arms wide, as if embracing a divine wind.
The siphon erupted.
Violet turned to gold.
Gold to black.
And then...White.
Blinding, searing white poured out of the machine in jagged bolts, lightning without sound, arcing up toward the suspended form trapped in the centre of the chamber.
Me.
My body convulsed once.
Then again.
Then froze.
The chamber plummeted into a cold so severe that it cracked the stone beneath the siphon. I couldn't feel it due to my resistance, of course, but I could see frost building up around the machine and throughout the chamber. Frost raced across the walls in violent, spidery bursts. Every torch blew out in the same breath. The air turned solid with it—bitter, frigid, and sharp as knives.
Yorz flinched, wrapping part of her cloak around her face.
Saelira trembled, but she smiled through chattering teeth, still on her knees. "He's coming… he's here…"
The shackles holding me sang.
No, screamed.
The bracer lit up like a dying star, pulses of cursed energy and something darker — older — flashing in sync, tangled, mismatched, then forced into rhythm.
And my mouth opened.
Not voluntarily.
My jaw unhinged, wrenched apart by invisible hands, and a sound crawled out of me — a guttural, fractured growl that didn't belong to any human language.
Something had entered
Not kindly.
But like it was claiming a house it had always owned.
The light swirled faster now, drawn from the entire room, soul siphon pulling from every corner, even Helga's prison began to dim, the glow around her flickering violently.
Then...
BOOM.
A shockwave of black and white light tore through the dome.
[Third Person POV]
The glyphs exploded with light.
A shockwave of energy rippled through the chamber, slamming outward from the siphon's core. Torches lining the walls extinguished instantly, plunging everything into cold, pulsating darkness.
A low, humming drone filled the air, like the earth itself groaning.
At the centre of it all, Fin's body convulsed mid-air, back arched unnaturally as the bracer on his arm pulsed faster and faster, veins glowing black beneath his skin.
The ritual had succeeded.
He was no longer alone in his body.
Helga watched it happen.
Her cage was gone, shattered in the moment the soul siphon surged; her fall managed to wake her up. But she couldn't move. Not out of injury. Out of horror.
Her hands trembled. Her heart, for the first time in decades, truly stuttered.
Because the thing floating above the dais wasn't Fin.
It looked like him.
But something in the posture, the tilt of his head, the cruel curl of his lips. She knew that face.
Had carved that face open once before with her own hands.
Kael'ven Morvayne had returned.
And now he wore her son's body like it belonged to him.
The hybrid's eyes flicked open.
Not Fin's.
Not really.
They glowed with a deep, boiling black, flecks of crimson swirling in slow, deliberate spirals. His limbs loosened from the shackles, floating down as if the very air bent to his will. Boots touched stone. Steam hissed out from the cracks beneath his feet.
His head tilted. A slow, serpentine smile spread across his face.
Then he spoke.
Not in a voice Fin would ever use.
"Mm… colder than I remember. But I suppose death does dull the nerves."
A tremor pulsed through the siphon again as he raised his hand, fingers flexing experimentally. The bracer on his wrist sparked once, then dimmed, as if it, too, recognised who was in charge now.
Fin's voice fought through clenched teeth, raw and trembling beneath the surface.
"You... don't get to wear me."
Kael'ven blinked slowly, amused.
"Oh? You're still here. How… persistent."
He smiled wider, not even looking at Helga.
Then his gaze turned down toward the base of the platform, where two figures waited.
Yorz stood as she always did. Straight-backed. Silent. One hand was still bleeding from where the soul key had branded her skin. She didn't flinch when he looked her way.
Kael'ven inclined his head faintly.
"Yorz. You've kept your end of the bargain."
Her lips barely parted to respond.
But then...
"Oh gods, you're here!" Saelira burst in, her voice breaking into the silence like glass on stone. "You came back! Just like you said, just like you promised!"
She stumbled forward, hands outstretched, eyes brimming with tears as if she were a child greeting a parent long returned from war.
"I-I followed everything! I kept the faith! Even when they mocked me. Even when they said it was madness. I—I knew you'd return! I knew!"
Kael'ven looked at her.
Paused.
Then blinked.
"…And you are…?"
Saelira froze mid-step.
Her face twitched.
"I-Saelira. You-you said I was part of your soul. Remember? You said I was chosen."
Something fragile broke in her voice.
Kael'ven's smile returned, slow and cruel, but smooth as honey.
"Ah I kid, yes. Saelira."
He said the name with exaggerated care, like testing how it tasted in his mouth.
"My little ember in the dark."
Saelira's knees nearly gave out.
A whimper slipped her lips as she clasped her hands to her chest, trembling.
Kael'ven stepped toward her, only a step, but it was enough.
"You did well," he said, tone indulgent and warm. "Faith is the purest proof of devotion. And you, dear girl, proved yours. I am… impressed."
Saelira's eyes went wide with joy.
"Th-thank you," she whispered, tears running freely. "Thank you, thank you, thank you—!"
"But," he added smoothly, "there is still much to do."
She nodded so hard it looked like her neck might snap.
"Yes! Anything! Anything you want—say it!"
Behind them, Yorz's gaze remained fixed on the siphon.
She hadn't moved. Hadn't reacted.
But something in her eyes twitched at Kael'ven's words. Just once.
Kael'ven noticed.
Of course he did.
"Don't worry, Yorz," he murmured. "I haven't forgotten you either."
He looked between them both.
"Two pawns. One faithful. One… useful."
Then, louder, a voice echoing like a god made flesh:
"Let us begin."
Kael'ven, through Fin's body, flicked his wrist towards the machine.
Another pulse ripped through the siphon.
This one was different.
It wasn't a flare of light or a hum of magic; it was a quake. A violent, bone-rattling surge that shook the entire chamber like it was gasping for breath. The runes along the walls cracked and spat sparks. The soulsteel veins etched into the ground glowed white-hot for a moment… then dimmed.
The bracer on Fin's arm, Kael'ven's arm, began to shudder violently.
Sparks jumped across its surface, its edges warping like molten metal caught in a forge's breath.
Kael'ven looked down at it with mild interest, like one might regard a wasp crawling on a wine glass.
Then, without warning...
CRACK.
The bracer exploded in a shower of shards.
Metal, bone, and soul-forged energy erupted off his forearm, the pieces vanishing before they even hit the ground. Gone. Vaporized. Like it had never existed.
Kael'ven didn't flinch.
But Fin, still screaming inside, felt it.
His one tether, gone.
Above, a beam cracked loose from the ceiling and smashed into the dais. Rubble fell in thick bursts, spraying shards of obsidian across the floor. One chunk the size of a wolf crashed down near Helga's cage—
Only… she wasn't inside it anymore
She'd managed to crawl away.
First a breath, then a twitch.
Her eyes fluttered open to chaos. Blurred figures. Screaming pressure. The taste of blood on her lips.
But it was him she saw.
Kael'ven.
Standing in her son's skin. Wearing it like a silk glove. Smiling. Breathing. Alive.
"No…Fin," she whispered.
Her arm barely moved. Every nerve felt flayed. Her leg bent the other way. Her shoulder was still dislocated. Her ribs, cracked. Her fingers, raw.
But she began to crawl. Every inch forward was agony. Her nails scraped stone. Her vision blurred. But she crawled.
Because she saw it.
Just there.
Half-buried under a pile of broken stone, glinting faintly beneath the dust and blood—
Her golden greatsword.
She didn't gasp. Didn't cry. Didn't scream.
She just dug.
One hand at first, then both.
Stone by stone, inch by inch.
The glow was faint, but it called to her. The same way it always had. The weight of vengeance. Of promise. Of a job unfinished.
Kael'ven hadn't seen her move yet.
But when he did…
Helga's breath came in short, jagged bursts.
Every inhale burned like fire in her lungs, every movement lit up her nerves with white-hot agony. Her right shoulder was still dislocated—she couldn't even lift the arm properly. Her left elbow buckled under her own weight. But she didn't stop.
She couldn't stop.
Not while that thing wore her son's body like a trophy.
The greatsword's golden edge peeked out from beneath the rubble, no more than a shimmer under layers of cracked obsidian and soul-scorched debris. Close. So close.
She reached out, fingers trembling.
Then the first rock gave way—and with it came the pain.
Stone scraped across her palm, tearing open scabs that hadn't healed. Her skin split at the seams, her hands shaking violently as she pushed aside broken rubble with raw, clumsy force.
Blood was smeared across the floor.
Still, she moved.
Her fingernails caught under the edges of broken rock. One snapped with a wet crack. She didn't flinch. The next one peeled back, ripping the quick with it, and still she clawed forward, sobbing silently through gritted teeth.
Her lips bled where she bit them.
Her breath hitched with every jolt of pressure on her ribs.
But none of it mattered.
Not compared to what she saw standing in the middle of the room.
Not compared to him.
That thing that dared to smile with Fin's mouth.
That monster who should have stayed dead.
Tears blurred her vision, not from grief, but fury. She would not die here. Not like this. Not watching that... thing devour her son from the inside out.
She screamed through her teeth, the sound half-choked, more beast than woman.
And then her hand touched it.
Metal. Familiar. Solid.
Her fingers closed around the hilt.
It pulsed faintly in her grip, like it remembered her.
Like it had been waiting.
Her body wanted to collapse.
But her heart?
Her heart began to rise.
...
[Fin's POV - Void Realm]
The farmhouse burned
Not with fire, but something else, its walls crumbling in slow, silent collapses, every plank unravelling into splinters of ash and ink. The void chewed it apart like something bored.
I stumbled down the hallway, one arm braced against the wall. My steps dragged. The floor was no longer wood—it was nothing. Just memory fading fast.
"Kael'ven!" I shouted. "I'm not done with you!"
No answer.
The air turned cold again.
Not the chill of winter.
The chill of emptiness.
The living room snapped inward like paper folding wrong. I slammed into the shifting edge of the wall and landed hard on the dirt...
No. Not dirt.
Snow. Blood-soaked snow.
My eyes widened.
This place…
Dark pines towered overhead. The air was heavy. Still. Suffocating.
The forest. The one where I'd killed the dire wolf.
It was the same.
Except the corpse wasn't there.
It stood.
Tall. Towering. Wrong.
The Dire Wolf's ribcage was split open, its form stitched with shadows, soul-flesh leaking like black smoke. Its skull gleamed—cracked but whole, its dead eyes burning with the familiar glow of someone else wearing its skin.
Kael'ven's voice came, low and rich, from the wolf's maw.
"So this is your last sanctuary."
I backed away.
My feet slipped in the half-frozen blood.
"Really, Fin," he purred, "a forest? A rotting memory of a panic attack dressed up as a victory? That's where your soul feels safest?"
The wolf moved.
I didn't even see it. Just the crack of impact, then I was airborne.
I hit a tree spine-first. My breath exploded out of me. I rolled, coughing, clutching my ribs. Something broke.
Again.
"You're pathetic," Kael'ven's voice echoed, calm and smooth through the beast. "You think power makes you worthy. That pain gives you purpose."
The wolf lunged again.
Claws raked across my chest.
Soul-pain tore through me—not physical, but deeper. Like someone carving out my insides with a name.
"You were weak then, Fin. Weak when Gina aborted that child without telling you. Weak when you pretended you were fine."
I screamed. Tried to move. The forest spun.
"You cried in silence, remember? Like a coward. Walking alone down that street, hoping someone would check on you. But no one did."
Another blow.
My legs buckled.
"You let them treat you like an accident. Like a placeholder. And then you agreed with them."
The wolf pounced again.
Fangs like blades sank into my shoulder, dragging me down.
"You've always needed someone to tell you you're worth something. A woman. A System. A lie. You're a collection of borrowed strength, clinging to relevance by spouting quips and crying when it doesn't work."
I tried to push back.
My cursed energy sparked.
But it fizzled.
Snuffed out like breath in the cold.
"You were supposed to learn. To rise. But all you've done is flail. And fail."
The next hit shattered my cheekbone.
I couldn't scream anymore.
Couldn't think.
"You think I'm here to take your life, Fin?"
The Dire Wolf leaned down, Kael'ven's voice heavy in my ear.
"No. I'm here to show you that you never had one."
...
[3rd Person POV – Soul Chamber Beneath Elmer Academy]
The black light emanating from the siphon danced along the walls in jagged patterns, flickering like a stuttering heartbeat. The hybrid figure at the centre.
Then his fingers twitched.
The creature inhaled.
"…The boy resists." Kael'ven's voice rasped out.
He looked down at his own hands, flexing them. The flesh shimmered, soul-energy crackling beneath the skin like lightning trapped in glass.
"Longer than most," he mused, as if surprised. "Stubborn little roach."
He turned.
His gaze landed on Yorz.
The guildmistress of the Hand of Yartar stood by the edge of the console, her one good hand hovering inches above a glowing switch. Her expression was steel, no fear, no regret. Just resolve.
She attempted to press down on a button in secret.
Or tried to.
Kael'ven didn't move.
But her body stopped.
Mid-action. Frozen.
The lights in the chamber flickered again, violently this time — as if reality itself shuddered at what had just occurred.
Then, slowly, he raised one hand.
Fingers extended, palm tilted slightly upward.
And Yorz… rose.
Not of her own volition.
"Tch, tch, naughty naughty Yorz." Kael'ven wagged his finger.
Her limbs hung limp, her body dangling like a marionette cut from its strings. But she screamed, not aloud, not physically. Her soul screamed. A wail that vibrated through the chamber like a cold wind, brushing across the stone and sending glyphs flaring in protest.
Kael'ven didn't blink.
"Soul magic is the only real thing you know," he said, his voice calm, almost bored. "This is the truth. The kind only a few in existence have ever truly grasped."
He closed his hand slightly.
Yorz's spine arched. Her legs kicked uselessly in the air, her cloak flapping like a dying bird.
"I do not need arcane chants. No circles. No conduits. I reach through the veil itself, because I am the veil."
His fingers curled tighter, as if cradling something invisible.
"And this…"
He turned her midair, angling her to face him.
"This is what happens when you barter with powers you cannot comprehend."
Yorz's mouth opened, but no words came.
Only her eyes moved now, wild and white with pain as her soul was forcibly manipulated, stretched, and suspended. Not torn. Not broken. Just held.
"I can feel you're intentions, Yorz, though I expected a betrayal much sooner"
He walked forward, spitting at the ground below her.
"Funny thing, soul magic. It uses another's soul to empower your own. You can influence matter, send out waves of destruction and yet the biggest problem was the fuel." Kael'ven chuckled, "That's why I created the 'Cult', people are idiots. You draw on their need to be loved, the need to feel wanted; and you've got thousands of souls for the taking, with each one vying for my love."
Kael'ven tilted his head slightly, watching her struggle. Like a puppet with no strings left to cut.
Then he smiled, and his hand snapped shut.
Yorz dropped like a stone.
But instead of hitting the floor, she slammed into a lattice of burning red lines that shimmered to life mid-fall. A dome, seething with soulsteel, curled upward around her, bars bending from nothing, weaving in an instant into a flawless, sigil-carved cage.
A soul prison.
Just like Helga's.
Just like Fin's.
Yorz struck the bottom hard, coughing as the impact finally caught up to her body. Her arms trembled beneath her, barely able to hold herself up as the prison shimmered into completion around her. She gritted her teeth, already dragging herself upright.n.
Kael'ven stepped forward and stopped at the edge of her prison.
And smiled.
It wasn't mocking.
It was devouring.
"Oh, Yorz," he breathed, as if tasting her name like wine. "You always thought you were the one in control, didn't you?"
He tapped the edge of the cage, a light ping of nail against soulsteel.
"All those years. Playing queen of your little thieves' guild. Wearing secrets like armour. Hiding your little obsessions under pragmatism and careful cruelty."
He leaned forward.
"Helga."
The name alone made her breath hitch.
Kael'ven saw it.
And he fed on it.
"You tried so hard to keep her close, didn't you?" he purred. "The little stray with a spine of steel. You brought her in, taught her how to kill, how to lie, how to live like you."
He chuckled darkly.
"And yet… she left."
His voice dropped, almost wistful.
"She walked away from your empire. From your hand. And where did she go?"
His eyes gleamed.
"To me."
Yorz's fingers dug into the floor of the cage, blood beading where her nails split against soul-infused steel.
Kael'ven continued, voice silk-sharp.
"She raised my son. Fed him. Cared for him. Taught him to fight. Protected him like a mother. Loved him like a mother."
He tilted his head.
"Something you could never do."
"Shut your mouth," Yorz hissed, her voice ragged.
But Kael'ven didn't stop.
"You were so close, you fool. You were halfway there. Obsessive. Controlling. Possessive. The perfect soil for corruption. If you'd just asked me back then, I might have given her to you. Let you leash her. Keep her like a pet."
He smiled wider.
"But instead, you let her go. And in doing so… you gave her to me."
He straightened.
"The irony tastes divine."
Yorz snarled, dragging herself upright despite the way her body shook.
Her voice cracked, rage cutting through the prison's hum.
"I will kill you. I don't care what you've become, I don't care how much of him you wear. I'll tear it off with my teeth if I have to. But I swear to every god that listens, I will kill you."
Kael'ven stared at her in silence for a moment.
Then laughed.
A deep, echoing, effortless sound, a sound so devoid of fear that it chilled the walls themselves.
And beside him…
Saelira laughed too.
Not quite the same.
Higher pitched. Wild. Like a child mimicking her father's approval.
"See?" she beamed, clapping her hands like a delighted fan. "I told you they were all jealous of us. Of our family. But they're too broken to understand it. That's why we're chosen. Right, Father?"
Kael'ven barely acknowledged her, eyes still locked on Yorz.
But his smirk lingered.
"That fire in your voice," he mused. "I see now why she liked you."
He turned, already walking back to the siphon.
"Do you think she'll mourn you when you die?
He merely paused and raised one hand, fingers outstretched, then closed them slowly.
The cage pulsed once.
Then it began to shrink.
At first, the shift was subtle. Just a tightening of the lines, a soft whine of pressure building.
Then Yorz felt it.
Her eyes widened.
The bars were closing in.
"No," she rasped, slamming her fist into the wall. "No, you don't get to do this. You don't get to—"
The cage shrank faster now, the soulsteel reacting to Kael'ven's will like water to gravity. Every rune flared violently, the heat and pressure intensifying until Yorz's knees buckled beneath her. Her body was bent forward now, back hunching unnaturally just to stay inside the compressing space.
Kael'ven started walking away, his back to her.
The cage continued its death crawl inward.
Yorz screamed.
"YOU COWARD! YOU SICK, THIEVING BASTARD—SHE WAS MINE!"
The soul prison pulsed, now barely tall enough for her to sit upright. She twisted against the walls, elbows slamming against the sides as her voice cracked with desperation.
"HELGA WAS MINE!"
Kael'ven's mouth twitched.
He turned back — not hurried, not even interested.
Just entertained.
And laughed.
A slow, deliberate, guttural laugh that filled the chamber like rot. It echoed off the glyph-stained walls, bouncing like cruel static in the thick air.
"You hear that, Saelira?" he called lazily over his shoulder. "She really was more far gone than you."
Saelira giggled, clapping again like a child at a puppet show.
Yorz's fists pounded against the walls, now bloody. Her bones cracked as the prison drew tighter, her left shoulder visibly dislocating under the pressure. Her breathing hitched in ragged bursts, fury and fear melting together into a raw, human terror.
"I'LL RIP YOU OUT OF HIM! I'LL RIP YOUR GODDAMN SOUL OUT WITH MY TEETH!"
Kael'ven watched.
No response.
No mercy.
His hand closed further.
The cage was now the size of a coffin.
Then a box.
Then a crate.
Yorz's voice had become a ragged gurgle, her mouth red with blood as the soulsteel pressed into her ribs, her spine. Her arm bent the wrong way. Her head forced down into her chest.
The crunching over bones never stopped.
Not until the soul prison was compressed to the size of a human skull.
Then a fist.
Then a stone.
And finally...
A cube.
One centimetre square.
Kael'ven flicked it towards him and rolled it between his fingers once, admiring the weight of it, the pressure of her soul, her fury, her obsession, crushed and compacted like a relic. He smiled, just faintly, as he sniffed a red energy from the cube and flicked it to the side.
It clinked against the dais, then lay still.
And Kael'ven… continued toward the siphon.
"Now," he said smoothly. "Where were we?"
...
[End of Chapter]