The rasping voice echoed through the underground chamber like the last breath of something that should have died long ago.
"Intruders..."
Aeliana's grip tightened around her sword, her emerald eyes sharp with anticipation. Orion, for once, had lost his smirk, his stance shifting into something more measured. Evolis remained still, golden eyes glowing faintly as he let his sightpeel away the layers of reality.
The thing in the pod twitched.
At first, the movement was subtle, just a slow, unnatural shift of limbs, like a marionette waiting for its strings to be pulled. Then the hum of Etherion intensified. The red glow from the containment runes pulsed like a heartbeat, and a low, mechanical hissing filled the room.
The pod was unlocking.
Evolis' instincts screamed at him.
"This isn't right. This thing… it's not just reanimated—it's evolving."
The glass-like surface of the pod fractured, a network of cracks spreading outward in jagged, glowing lines.
Then the pod burst open.
A wave of Etherion surged through the chamber, momentarily distorting the air. Evolis took a step back, shielding his face from the gust of corrupted energy.
And then, he saw it.
The Abomination.
It was wrong.
Its form was humanoid, but only barely. Its limbs were stitched together from different bodies, overlapping in a grotesque patchwork of Dark Elven skin and pulsing veins of Etherion. One arm was grotesquely large, composed of several fused limbs, ending in too many fingers that twitched with unnatural life. Its chest was hollow, a gaping cavity where a heart should have been, instead filled with pulsing, writhing Etherion tendrils that crawled through its body like living veins.
But the worst part?
It still had a face.
A twisted, distorted version of what must have once been a Dark Elf. Its eyes were vacant, but its mouth moved as if it were trying to speak words it no longer remembered.
Then it turned its head toward them.
"You... do not belong here."
Evolis' entire body tensed.
This thing wasn't just alive.
It was aware.
Orion muttered, "Nope. Absolutely not. I vote we leave. Immediately."
Aeliana ignored him, her expression grim. "That's not natural Etherion. Something's keeping it alive."
Evolis had already been analyzing it with his sight, breaking down the foreign energy swirling inside it.
What he saw made his stomach twist.
The creature wasn't healing the way the Dark Elves from the battlefield had.
It was absorbing energy.
Even now, it was draining Etherion from the broken pods around it, stealing strength from the failed experimentsthat lay in heaps at its feet.
"It's not regenerating," Evolis realized. "It's consuming."
Orion exhaled, shaking his head. "Great. So it's not just some freak of magic, it's a freak of magic that eats other freaks of magic. Even better."
The creature took a slow step forward. The movement was unnatural, like its body didn't fully understand how to function. But with every second, it was adapting.
It was getting faster.
Evolis clenched his teeth. "We need to move. Now."
Aeliana's eyes flickered with understanding. "If this thing absorbs too much Etherion—"
"It'll become unstoppable," Evolis finished.
The decision was made.
They ran.
The Pursuit
The corridor beyond the chamber was narrow and winding, the old stone walls covered in inscriptions that blurred past as they moved.
Evolis could feel it behind them.
It wasn't just chasing them.
It was learning them.
Its steps became smoother, its movements more fluid. The walls trembled with each impact, dust and small stones falling as the creature gained speed.
Evolis twisted sharply at the next corner, extending his hand— space warped, momentarily folding the distance between him and his companions, yanking them forward in an instant.
The creature roared in frustration as it lost ground.
Orion let out a strained laugh. "Okay, okay, I take back what I said about your weird space tricks. Do that again."
Evolis didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because something worse was happening.
His sight was still active—and through it, he saw something no one else could.
Not just the creature.
Not just the corrupted Etherion surrounding them.
He saw the path ahead.
And he saw the barrier.
"Aeliana, Orion—!"
Too late.
They crossed the threshold.
Etherion chains, woven into the walls, reacted instantly.
The trap was sprung.
An invisible force crashed down around them, slamming into their bodies with the weight of a collapsing mountain. The corridor itself twisted, stone grinding and sealing them in with the weight of an ancient curse.
Orion cursed loudly, trying to push against the force, but it was too strong.
Evolis staggered, his Etherion screaming in resistance against the containment.
This wasn't just a trap.
It was a seal.
And the moment they stepped inside…
The door behind them vanished.
The creature slowed, standing just beyond the threshold.
Then it laughed.
A slow, rasping, guttural sound.
"Good..."
It wasn't chasing them anymore.
Because they had already fallen into its master's hands.
A cathedral of darkness.
Vast and open, with ceilings so high they disappeared into shadow. Towering pillars of blackened bone and Etherion-infused stone stretched across the chamber, carved with symbols that pulsed faintly with eerie crimson light. The air was thick, dense with the scent of decayed magic and something older, something wrong.
Evolis' golden eyes swept over the room, taking in its grotesque grandeur.
Massive stained glass windows, shattered in places but still intact enough to display haunting depictions of creatures that did not belong in this world, bathed the chamber in shifting hues of blood-red and deep violet. The figures in the glass—some humanoid, others monstrous—seemed to writhe and shift within their frames, as if watching, waiting.
And in the center—
A throne.
Carved from what looked like obsidian and bone, its edges laced with deep, pulsing cracks of dark Etherion.
A figure sat upon it.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Something between.
It was once an Elf—tall, regal, clothed in the remnants of ancient ceremonial robes that had long since faded and torn with time. But its body—its very essence—was decayed and twisted, wrapped in a lingering Etherion so deep, so unnatural, that it pressed down upon the chamber like a storm waiting to be unleashed.
The figure's flesh was partially withered, parts of its body overtaken by crystalline formations, dark Etherion pulsing through them like corrupted veins. Its fingers—too long, too sharp—gripped the arms of the throne tightly, as if it was struggling to remain anchored to this world.
And yet, despite its ruined state, its power was undeniable.
Aeliana's breath hitched beside him.
"This isn't just an experiment facility…" she murmured, her voice barely audible. "This is a shrine."
A shrine to something lost. Something forsaken.
Orion, standing at Evolis' other side, let out a slow, disbelieving exhale. "Yeah, okay. We are so far past 'bad idea' territory right now." His voice lacked its usual carelessness—forced lightness barely masking genuine unease.
But Evolis wasn't listening to either of them.
Because the moment his eyes met the figure's, something inside him twisted.
The golden irises of the figure, tainted with black Etherion corruption, flickered with recognition.
Not surprise.
Not curiosity.
But recognition.
As if it had been waiting.
As if it knew him.
And then—
It spoke.
"You… You should not exist."
A sharp pulse tore through Evolis' body. Not just his Etherion... something deeper, something primal. The space around him shuddered, a barely perceptible ripple distorting the air. The effect was subtle, yet undeniable, like the world itself was hesitating, trying to decide whether to accept his presence or reject it entirely.
For the first time since entering the chamber, Evolis felt the rules of reality slip ever so slightly beyond his grasp.
The stained glass windows flickered.
For a moment, the images changed.
Golden light. A figure standing atop a battlefield untouched by war. A throne behind him, one he refused to sit upon.
A voice whispered through the air, its tone teasing, familiar, but just out of reach.
"You ran."
Evolis' vision blurred.
A sharp pulse, like a fragmented memory, surged through his body.
The entity's golden eyes, tainted with black Etherion corruption, flickered with recognition.
The figure shifted, its fingers tightening against the throne, as if even speaking had drained something from it. Yet, its eyes never wavered.
"The golden child returns," it rasped, amusement and something darker lacing its tone. "The one who was meant to stand above all."
Aeliana stiffened beside him. "Golden child?" she whispered.
Orion's expression twisted into something unreadable. He shifted on his feet, the weight of the moment finally sinking in.
The figure on the throne leaned forward, its brittle voice like fractured stone.
"The one meant to stand above all."
The words coiled around Evolis like chains.
The words should have made no sense.
But Evolis understood them.
A memory. Faint, fractured, lingering at the edges of his consciousness, surfaced unbidden.
Voices speaking in hushed reverence.
A name whispered in awe and expectation.
A destiny carved long before he ever had a choice in it.
He inhaled sharply.
"What does that mean?" he demanded, his voice steady despite the weight pressing down on him.
The decayed figure chuckled, the sound brittle, like the cracking of old bones.
"You do not remember, do you?"
Its golden, corrupted eyes bore into him, as if peeling back the layers of time itself.
"The world awaited you."
"Prophets spoke of you before you could even wield a blade."
"The one meant to break the chains of fate itself."
"But what did you do?"
The throne pulsed.
The very ground shook.
Aeliana moved on instinct, her hand reaching toward Evolis' arm, whether to steady him or reassure herself, she wasn't sure.
Then she felt it.
The moment her fingers grazed his sleeve, a force rippled outward. Not an attack, not an intentional rejection... but something foreign. It was as if his Etherion, his very presence, had momentarily displaced her from reaching him.
Her breath hitched. Evolis didn't even seem to notice.
What the hell was happening to him?
Orion took a half-step back, shoulders squared, his grip tightening around his dagger. He was rarely afraid. He had stared down warlords, assassins, creatures from the void.
But this?
This was different.
This was history itself, staring back at them.
The entity exhaled, Etherion curling through the air like smoke.
"And now… you have returned."
A sick amusement laced its words.
"But do you even know why?"
Evolis' pulse thundered in his ears.
His Etherion rippled.
Something was stirring inside him, coiling in his bones, answering something long buried.
For the first time in a long while, Evolis felt a sharp chill crawl down his spine.
And deep inside, where memory and instinct blurred together—he felt it.
The truth waiting to be remembered.
The weight of what he had abandoned.