Ethan pressed forward through the winding tomb corridor, the Dragon Slayer Sword strapped across his back, its weight both literal and spiritual.
Every step forward tightened the Qi in the air.
Behind him, Elena walked silently, still shaken by the Sword Fairy's words. Her pulse was steady but her eyes were distant.
Elena,
Ethan asked quietly, what did she mean?
About your bloodline?
She hesitated then turned away.
There are names we don't speak anymore. Clans that vanished before the Sects rose. My mother used to say we came from one of them but I never believed it.
What clan?
Ethan asked.
She met his gaze.
The Virellen Clan.
Vane gasped from behind.
That clan was feared even by the Heaven Sect. They were the Sovereigns of Resonance able to manipulate frequency through voice, Qi, and thought.
They were destroyed, Elena continued. Betrayed. Hunted. My family buried the truth.
Ethan stared at her, the pieces falling into place the way she could silence pain, how her presence calmed beasts and herbs alike.
You're the last of them,
He whispered.
Suddenly, the ground shuddered.
The walls began to move literally shift and close.
Trap!
Vane shouted.
Ancient mechanisms groaned as stone doors slammed down behind them. The air filled with howling echoes. The passage twisted into a staircasespiraling downward into blackness.
At the bottom a sealed gate inscribed with runes that pulsed like heartbeats.
Ethan stepped forward.
The sword on his back vibrated wildly.
Aeliria's voice echoed in his mind
This is the Trial of the Dead Flame. Beyond this lies the core of the tomb and the forge that created me.
Vane examined the runes.
This isn't just a door. It's a memory seal. It'll force each of us to relive something from our past before it opens.
Ethan stepped forward first.
The runes ignited.
Suddenly, he was back in the fire the clinic, burning, screams echoing, his mother's arms holding him one last time as she shoved him through the iron door.
No,
He gasped, clutching his head.
But he fought through it steeling his mind with sheer will. The flames faded. The seal cracked.
Elena stepped up next
The runes turned pale blue.
She screamed.
Her body collapsed but her mind was somewhere else.
Ethan lunged to catch her, but her skin was ice-cold, her lips trembling.
Elena!
He shouted.
She didn't respond.
The runes brightened shimmering with internal lightning and then everything went still.
Suddenly, Elena's eyes snapped open.
But they weren't her eyes.
They glowed pure silver.
Her voice echoed, layered with another
The Virellen blood is not yet dead.
Ethan and Vane backed away as her body lifted into the air, cloaked in spiraling runes and pulsing sound waves.
Aeliria's voice cut through the silence,
She's awakening too soon.
If we don't seal her power her body may not survive.
And then Elena screamed a sound that shattered the walls around them.