The Sovereign-V2: C44: Not a Door, a Throat

The Sovereign-V2: C44: Not a Door, a Throat

The passage opened abruptly into a small, roughly circular chamber. Three dark archways yawned before them, identical in their oppressive blackness, exhaling breaths of stale, colder air. The junction. Haruto’s fallen support beam wasn’t here; perhaps it lay further down one path, or perhaps his intelligence was flawed in this buried labyrinth. The growls intensified, seeming to come from all three passages now, layered with a new sound, a faint, skittering
click click click
, like chitin on stone, emanating from the right hand arch. The air vibrated with predatory tension.
Shiro swept his light across the three choices. Left. Middle. Right. All identical. All suffocating. All promising death. Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to claw its way up his throat. Ninety seven heartbeats bled away, and Aki felt impossibly distant behind layers of stone and shadow.
Which path?
His Polaris scar
FLARED
. Violently. Not a controlled beam, but a sudden, searing burst of white light that flooded the chamber, banishing the shadows for a blinding instant. It wasn’t directed by his will; it was a reflex, a stellar instinct screaming a warning. The light burned brightest, hottest, focused directly on the
middle archway
. For that split second, the beam didn’t just illuminate the dark passage; it revealed the faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of disturbed air near the threshold, like heat haze over a grave. A psychic tripwire? A pressure plate keyed to life? The flare died as quickly as it came, leaving afterimages dancing and Shiro gasping, the agony in his wrists spiking white hot.
Simultaneously, Kuro’s corrupted arm
JOLTED
. The grey translucence surged towards his shoulder, the cold fire within blazing with painful intensity. A wave of profound, soul numbing cold radiated from him, frosting the slime on the chamber walls instantly. The static shrieked, then cut off into a terrifying silence. He stumbled, clutching the corrupted limb, his storm grey eye wide with shock and sudden, visceral recognition.
"The stone…"
he gasped, staring at the middle archway.
"It…
resonates
… with the mark. The Star Breaker’s touch… it’s
strongest
there."
The path wasn’t just dangerous; it resonated with the very void that was consuming him.
Corvin didn’t react to the flare or the jolt. He simply stood, a pillar of absorbed darkness. His void stone ring pulsed once, a deep, unsettling
THOOOM
that resonated in their bones. It wasn’t a sound of direction, but of confirmation. A dark harmony with the peril Shiro’s star had revealed and Kuro’s corruption had felt.
No words were needed. The message was etched in stellar fire, void resonance, and chilling certainty. The middle path was the vector. The trap. And the only way forward.
"Middle,"
Shiro gritted out, forcing his trembling legs to move, his scar pulsing with a dull, persistent ache. He stepped towards the shimmering threshold, the light from his palm steadying, probing the gloom beyond. It revealed a passage even narrower than before, the walls pressing in like the ribs of some colossal beast. The floor sloped downwards slightly, covered in a thicker layer of viscous, black slime.
Kuro followed, his breath pluming white, the grey translucence in his arm pulsing with the rhythm of the stone beneath their feet. The resonance was a physical pull now, a cold hook in his marrow.
"Feels like walking into the wound,"
he muttered, the static scratching his voice.
Corvin flowed behind them, silent once more, the void stone’s thrum a constant, ominous heartbeat in the suffocating dark. They entered the middle archway.
The passage constricted immediately, forcing Shiro to turn sideways, his braced arm scraping against slime crusted stone. The ceiling dipped lower, jagged outcrops threatening to snag cloaks and skin. The air grew colder, damper, the scent of decay stronger, undercut now by a faint, acrid tang like ozone and spoiled meat. The only sounds were their ragged breathing, the relentless
drip… drip… drip
of black water from above, and the skittering
click click click
that seemed to follow them, just beyond the edge of Shiro’s light.
The ward stone’s pulse, muffled by stone before, now throbbed through the walls.
Thump… Thump…
No longer a distant countdown, but a deep, resonant drumbeat felt in their chests, syncing with the dripping water. It was stronger. Closer. Aki was near. But the growls had faded, replaced by an eerie, watchful silence. The skittering sound paused.
Twenty Seven.
They rounded a sharp bend. Shiro’s light fell upon a sight that froze the blood in their veins. The passage ended not in a wall, but in a ragged tear in the mountain’s flesh. Beyond the tear, bathed in the deep, bruise crimson glow emanating from a massive, pulsing rune stone set high on a vaulted ceiling, lay a vast, shadowed chamber. The source of the ward stone’s power. And standing sentinel before the tear, silhouetted against the crimson light, were three hulking shapes.
Not Void Hounds. These were larger, hunched, their hides not fur but plates of dark, glistening chitin that reflected the ward light like wet obsidian. Multiple sets of glowing, crimson eyes, devoid of pupils, fixed on the intruders. Claws, long and curved like scythes, scraped against the stone floor with that same, horrid
click click click
. Mandibles, thick as a man’s wrist, slowly unhinged, revealing rows of needle sharp, dripping fangs. The air filled with a low, chittering hiss.
Akuma’s guardians. Not waiting in the dark.
Guarding the threshold.
The mountain’s heart beat faster, the path to Aki stretched before them, bathed in crimson light, but barred by chitinous horrors born from the deepest frost. The ninety seven heartbeats dwindled, each
drip
of black water a mocking echo of time running out.
Shiro, Kuro, and Corvin stand at the nexus where the Conduit split. The echoes of Akuma’s chilling ultimatum,
"Choose wisely, little sacrifices"
still vibrate in the frigid air, a serpent coiling around their resolve. They’ve chosen the middle path, the one that
felt
like Aki, a pull deeper into the mountain’s suffocating embrace.
The middle path swallowed them whole. The jagged rock walls, slick with primordial condensation, pressed closer than the others had dared. The air wasn't just cold; it was
stealing
, leaching warmth with a sentient malice that gnawed at exposed skin and seeped through layers of wool and leather. Kuro’s breath plumed like smoke from a dying fire, Shiro’s a fragile ghost beside it. Only Corvin seemed untouched, a shadow given form, his eyes reflecting the single, relentless point of light ahead: the ward stone clutched in Shiro’s white knuckled grip. Its crimson pulse was a living thing now, hammering against their senses.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Seven beats since the split. Each one echoed the frantic rhythm beneath their ribs, a morbid counterpoint to the slow, heavy
drip… drip… drip
of unseen water.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, the infringement.
The passage, narrow and treacherous, suddenly yawned open.
They stumbled into a vastness that stole breath and reason. The chamber was a cathedral carved by forgotten giants, its vaulted ceiling lost in a profound, velvet blackness untouched by the faint, source less luminescence clinging to the floor. The walls, however, were alive. Ancient runes, carved deep into the obsidian rock, glowed with a sickly, internal light, not warm gold or pure silver, but the pallid green of drowned things and decaying bone. They pulsed faintly, arrhythmically, like the last gasps of dying stars scattered across the void. Dead constellations mapping forgotten dread.
And at the far end, dominating the cavernous space, stood the door.
It wasn't merely large; it was a blasphemy against the mountain itself. Framed in black iron that seemed to writhe with frozen, tortured forms, the door was pure, polished obsidian. Its surface wasn't smooth; it was etched with a web of wards so complex, so densely interwoven, they seemed to writhe under the shifting, corpse light of the runes. Symbols pulsed with a deep, bruised purple energy, throbbing in time with the ward stone’s crimson beat, but slower, heavier, older. Malevolence seeped from it, a psychic pressure that made Shiro’s teeth ache and Kuro’s hackles rise. The air tasted of ozone and grave dirt.
"The Spire door," Shiro breathed, the words swallowed by the chamber’s immensity. Hope warred with terror in his voice, his knuckles bone white around the stone. Its light painted stark shadows on him face, highlighting the exhaustion, the fear, but beneath it, the unyielding core. Ten beats pulsed against him palm.
Kuro scanned the oppressive gloom, his hand resting on the worn leather grip of his sword. His jaw was a hard line, eyes narrowed not just against the dimness, but against the crawling sensation on his skin. "We’re close," he growled, the sound rough. "But something’s
wrong
. Silence this deep… it’s a predator holding its breath." He shifted, the scrape of boot leather unnaturally loud. The
drip… drip…
seemed to pause, listening.
Corvin stood slightly apart, a study in stillness. His gaze wasn't fixed on the door, but on the writhing wards and the decaying runes. His silver ring, usually a subtle presence, vibrated against his finger, emitting a low, subsonic
thrum
that resonated in the marrow. "The path splits," he murmured, his voice a dry rustle that somehow carried. "Not just stone, but fate. The shadows whisper. Akuma’s trap isn’t just closing…" He tilted his head, listening to the silent scream of the wards. "...it’s
alive
. And it knows we’re here."
Thud.
Eight heartbeats. The ward stone flared, its crimson light momentarily overpowering the sickly green runes, casting monstrous, leaping shadows that seemed to claw at the distant ceiling. The
drip… drip…
resumed, faster now.
Drip drip.
They moved forward as one, drawn to the door like moths to a flame that promised annihilation. Each step echoed, a tiny defiance swallowed by the chamber’s hungry silence. The temperature plummeted further, frosting Shiro’s lashes. The pressure intensified, a physical weight pushing down, making the air thick and hard to draw. The obsidian door seemed to absorb the weak light, becoming a deeper, more absolute void framed by the writhing iron and the pulsing wards.
Thud.
Nine heartbeats. Shiro gasped, the stone’s pulse now a physical blow against his sternum. The crimson light was almost blinding, painting the entire chamber in stark, bloody relief. The
drip drip
accelerated to a near staccato
drip drip drip
. The sound wasn't water. It was too thick, too resonant. Like blood hitting stone from a great height.
They were ten paces from the door. Its sheer scale dwarfed them. The wards blazed with sudden, violent intensity, the bruised purple light flaring into an actinic violet, etching the complex symbols onto their retinas. Corvin’s ring
screamed
, a silent vibration that shook his entire arm, the
thrum
deepening into a physical ache in their teeth.
Then, the mountain
moved
.
It wasn't an earthquake. It was a convulsion. The chamber walls
shuddered
, ancient rock groaning like a beast roused from slumber. The glowing runes flared from sickly green to a blinding, bilious yellow, their light strobing erratically, casting the scene in a nightmarish, flickering tableau. Dust and fragments of rock rained down. The
drip drip drip
became a frantic drumbeat, a frenzied tattoo against the stone floor.
The obsidian door began to grind shut.
Not slowly, ponderously. It
slammed
inward with terrifying speed, tons of enchanted stone and iron shrieking against unseen mechanisms. The wards exploded outwards, not light, but pure, malevolent
force
, a wave of deep violet energy that hit them like a physical wall, throwing Shiro and Kuro stumbling backwards. Shiro cried out, the ward stone almost torn from his grasp, its light stuttering wildly. Kuro roared, bracing against the invisible onslaught, his sword half drawn.
The door crashed shut with a sound that was less noise and more the
ending
of sound. A final, deafening
CRUNCH
that reverberated through bone and soul, silencing the drumming drip, the groaning rock, even the frantic pulse of the runes for one terrible, suspended moment.
Silence. Thick, suffocating, absolute.
Shiro caught himself against Kuro’s arm, his breath ragged gasps, eyes wide with shock, fixed on the seamless obsidian wall where the door had been. The ward stone pulsed erratically in his trembling hand, its crimson light weak, frantic.
Thud... thud...
The tenth heartbeat hammered against his palm, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone.
Kuro met his gaze. His face, etched in the residual, fading glow of the runes, was a mask of fury and grim determination, the scar pulling tight across his cheek. No words were needed. Trapped. Sealed in with the source of the nightmare.
Corvin stood rigid, staring not at the sealed door, but into the oppressive darkness
around
them. His ring wasn't humming anymore. It was
vibrating
, a high pitched, almost inaudible whine that set teeth on edge. The dying rune light painted his face corpse pale, his eyes wide, not with fear, but with a dawning, chilling comprehension.
Drip.
The sound, solitary and heavy, echoed in the new silence.
Drip.
Closer now. Much closer. From above? From the walls? The source unseen in the consuming dark.
The chamber walls
shuddered
again, less violently, but with a horrible, organic
rippling
motion. The fading runes flared one last time, a final, gasping emerald scream, revealing for a fractured second the sheer, impossible scale of the space around them, and the slick, obsidian surfaces that seemed to be…
breathing
.
Thud.
The eleventh heartbeat pulsed from the stone, weak but insistent. The
drip drip drip
resumed, a hungry counterpoint, echoing from multiple points now, closing in from the encircling, living dark. The mountain’s heart wasn't just beating faster.
It was waking up. And they were locked inside its ribs.

.
!
V2: C44: Not a Door, a Throat