Chapter 38

  Raime’s lips thinned, after the first moment of shock his mind worked to make sense of this new piece of information. A god resides in the middle of the mountain. Something or somebody that these creatures venerate.

  I’ve been manipulated, again. He felt rage start to bubble inside his chest, like the magma inside a volcano. So that’s what I’ve been feeling all along. That rhythm in the stone, that pull deeper into the mountain—it wasn’t instinct. Wasn’t me. It was a hand on the back of my neck, pushing me forward. That’s why I felt the need to come here and explore the mountain, even if it’s not an objective or even something useful.

  The thought made his stomach clench. He drew in air slowly through his nose, as if the breath itself might anchor him.

  It’s the same trick again. The Administrator pushed me with rewards, with careful nudges dressed as destiny. This god—whatever it is—it does the same thing, only less skillfully. They made the path feel inevitable, like I chose it. But this time I have an idea at least of what to expect.

  He kept his face neutral, his posture calm. To defy openly would be to invite something he was not ready to face. Instead, he lowered his head slightly, letting his voice come out quietly but steady. “I heard the call. But why me?” He said while sending the meaning through a mental stream of thoughts in a similar way the guardian did, though less refined.

  The answer surged like pressure against his temples. Raime pieced the fragments of impressions together himself. Chosen. Marked. Anomaly. A thread woven into a pattern that required him to exist.

  Chosen. Of course. That word again. Makes it sound noble. But it’s the same story: I’m a piece on their board. They call it destiny so I don’t notice the chains.

  The weight against his mind deepened. Not probing with claws, but brushing, almost tasting the edges of thought. It wanted more of him. It wanted inside.

  Raime reacted instantly. He drew inward, pulling his Psionic Threads around his consciousness like a cloak. A web—thin, crude, imperfect—sheathing his mind in a psionic field of energy, crude and a bit wasteful, but effective. A technique meant to ward off intrusion.

  He had no idea if it would hold against something like this, but letting his mind remain open was unthinkable.

  You don’t get to see everything. Not again. Not like the Administrator. If I can’t stop the flood, at least I can narrow it to a trickle.

  Outwardly he let none of this show. He kept his body loose, his eyes lowered in thought rather than defiance. He would play along, give the impression of submission, even as he built barriers inside himself.

  He forced his jaw to unclench, forced his heartbeat down with steady breaths. Calm face. Calm stance.

  Can I just escape?

  His awareness unfurled backward, tracing the corridors he had passed. He brushed the minds he had folded earlier—and felt others. New ones. Guards. Positioned in places they hadn’t been before, tucked into alcoves, filling choke points. A web.

  He stretched farther, counting them like lanterns in the dark. Dozens. Too many.

  His lips pressed thin. They knew I’d get here. They’ve been herding me the whole time. Now the exits are sealed. If I tried to force my way back, I’d have to cut through all of them. They aren’t strong enough to kill me outright, but they’d bleed me, slow me, that would be enough as the guardian joins the fight…

  His gaze flicked briefly to the violet eye across the chamber, then back down. No. Against that one, I don’t like my odds. Not like this. Not trapped in their cage. Probably not even if it was a one on one duel, this guy feels like could wipe the floor with me for some reason.

  A cold line of sweat slid down his spine. Still, he forced his breathing even, his hands steady.

  At the same time, if the doorman is that strong, what can I do against his so called god? No, I need to go, all of this expedition was a mistake, I’m not going to let myself get dragged from the pan into the fire. But I need more information, and the right moment.

  He bowed his head a fraction deeper, not too much, just enough to signal willingness. His voice came quiet but measured, and he projected the same tone with his thoughts, cautious without sounding defiant. “Then tell me. What does your god want of me?”

  The violet light swelled, and the air itself seemed to thicken around him. The guardian’s eye did not blink, but its gaze pressed harder, and the chamber darkened until the crystals seemed distant stars.

  Another tide rose—images gathering like a storm at the edge of his mind.

  Raime braced himself, walls drawn tight around his mind. His heart beat slow, deliberate, every pulse an effort.

  The violet glow in the chamber deepened, swelling until it felt like the stone itself pulsed with a heartbeat not his own. The pressure in Raime’s head sharpened, and then the world folded.

  Visions bled into him, not words but currents of meaning. He glimpsed shapes—crowds of beings bowing as one, heads lowered to a brilliance at the center. Unity. A thousand voices bound to one will, disparate creatures bent into harmony by a singular presence. Their devotion radiated like warmth, like safety, though it pressed heavy as a yoke.

  A hivemind posing as a god… fuck this is much worse than what I feared. Raime’s thoughts were racing the same as his heart now.

  The next wave struck harder. Chains—not real ones, not yet—but abstract, glowing threads stretching across the Rift itself. They clung to mountains, forests, skies, tethering everything to something unseen. Invisible shackles, vast and unyielding. The System.

  Another impression seeped in, threaded with awe and desperation: freedom. Break the bindings. Tear down the order imposed from above. He saw a world unshackled, creatures rising together, the Rift no longer a cage.

  Then the visions shifted again. Himself. A lone figure in dark stone halls, light flickering around his outline. Anomaly. A thread set apart, fraying against the pattern yet woven into it all the same. His presence colored everything—small, yet pivotal.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Raime’s chest tightened. This is the role they want me to accept. The one they will impose on me.

  The pressure ebbed for a heartbeat, long enough for Raime to drag air into his lungs. He kept his head bowed, body still, but inside his thoughts churned.

  Purpose, freedom, destiny—always the same bullshit. Make me feel special, make me feel chosen. They’ve dressed it prettily, but I already saw this trick.

  Another surge pressed into him, softer this time. An invitation. A sense of warmth, of belonging, as if to bask in something greater. To step into the presence of a god that watched, waiting, deep within the mountain.

  “Come,” the guardian’s voice pulsed again, each syllable more like a drumbeat than a word. “Bask in the truth. Join our cause. It was meant. Anomaly. Chosen. Chainbreaker.”

  Raime’s gaze lingered on the floor, his face calm, but inside his instinct were screaming danger. He forced a long breath, lips barely parting as he whispered: “Never.”

  The word left him in a whisper, but it rang louder than any roar in his mind.

  The guardian’s eyes, vast and unblinking, did not flicker. Only silence pressed back. Silence and inevitability.

  Raime moved first.

  The spear-core of the Tetra Unum screamed free from its orbit, a streak of metal and psionic fury, every shred of will and strength he possessed driven into its flight. At the same instant, he thrust his consciousness outward, hurling the same psychic blow that had crushed the adult centipede days before. His head burned with the effort, vision shaking as he poured himself into the attack.

  The spear met its mark—and stopped.

  The weapon quivered in the air, frozen a hair’s breadth from the guardian’s chest. A violet barrier wrapped around the creature, translucent and thin, yet impenetrable. The mental assault fared no better; his will slammed against the guardian’s mind and found no purchase, as though he had hurled himself into the face of a cliff. Not even a scratch on its mental defences. A void of strength so far beyond his own that the idea of intrusion became laughable.

  Raime’s breath caught. It didn’t even flinch.

  His heart lurched once, then instinct screamed. He spun on his heel, tore himself backward, and ran. Levitation lightened every step, muscles drove him forward, the floor a blur beneath his boots. He didn’t think—thinking would kill him. All that mattered was motion, escape, the distant promise of the mountain’s mouth.

  Behind him, the guardian rose. Slow. Unhurried. A tide that had no need to rush.

  Four seconds of all-out sprinting brought him to the first resistance.

  Half a dozen guards clogged the intersection, their slick skin and spears catching the violet crystal glow. Raime didn’t slow. The Tetra Unum split with a thought, blades flashing forward in a lethal spread. Three bodies stood in the center—two fell instantly, their torsos carved apart, the third shrieking as an arm spun away in a spray of ichor.

  They broke formation, but their minds struck even when their weapons couldn’t. A tide of mental pressure crashed against him, four wills pressing, tearing, clawing. His vision swam, teeth grinding as pain shot like lightning through his skull. His mental web buckled, but held.

  No choice. He needed to act before they overhelmed him.

  Raime flung himself into the nearest, Thunk swinging in a brutal arc. The creature raised its spear too late—the haft cracked like kindling, the blow splintering bone and hurling the body aside in a ruined heap. The others lunged, but the Tetra Unum answered for him, blades darting back through their line, one skewering the armless guard, another carving open a thigh.

  He didn’t stay. Couldn’t. Raime barreled through the gap, momentum carrying him forward, his mind already dragging the weapon to reform behind him. A spear hurled after him with the force of a cannon shell. The Tetra Unum caught it in mid-flight, deflecting with a scream of steel, shards of wood and stone exploding into the corridor walls.

  Raime risked a glance back.

  The guardian stood in the wreckage of its own men, untouched, arm raised, a fresh spear floating by its side.

  If that hits me clean, the armor won’t even matter. The kinetic energy alone will pulp my organs.

  He turned the corner at full speed. He didn’t slow. At sharp bends he ran along the wall itself, kicking off to hurl himself faster into the next stretch. Speed mattered more than form. Still the resistance grew—more guards, more shadows, more eyes locking on him, every one a spike of pain in his skull. Their minds struck as one, forcing him to layer his defenses again and again. The web around his psyche groaned, fraying under the constant battering.

  He answered in kind, hurling blades at those who blocked him, smashing skulls with Thunk in passing, never stopping long enough to confirm the kill. They fell, or screamed, or staggered out of reach, but always more came. And behind, unyielding, the guardian followed.

  He had no illusions now. The thing wasn’t trying to kill him. If it had, he’d already be gone. Every spear it hurled, every attack that screamed too close to his back—they were measured. Testing. Herding. It wanted him alive.

  That thought chilled him more than death.

  And then—he felt it.

  A cavern ahead, vast, minds clustered in rigid formation. More than thirty. Waiting. The last open cave before the mountain’s exit. If he broke through, daylight lay beyond. Freedom.

  Raime bared his teeth. I’ll kill you all if I have to.

  He launched himself into the chamber—and the world went white.

  A barrage of psychic force hammered him from all sides. His thoughts shattered into silence, his mind a blank sheet. He stumbled, skidded, hit stone hard enough to roll. His ribs flared with pain, air bursting from his lungs. The agony snapped him back, dragging him upright, fury and survival flooding his system through the haze.

  He answered with violence.

  The Tetra Unum spun forward, a sawblade of death shrieking through the formation. Three bodies split in half in a heartbeat, ichor spraying high. He broke the weapon apart mid-flight, blades slicing outward to carve through limbs, spears, flesh. Five more staggered, wounded and dying. Raime shoved himself up with one hand, levitation catching, and flung his body into motion again.

  The wall of spears loomed in front of him—he jumped. Muscles strained, every fiber screaming, and his body soared like a bird. The guards stabbed upward, too slow, too bound by weight and earth. Below him, the Tetra Unum rampaged unchecked, carving ruin into the formation.

  At the apex of his leap, he saw it.

  The exit.

  Collapsed.

  Stone tumbled into stone, a wall of jagged ruin sealing the only path out. No light. No escape.

  Raime’s stomach dropped. Cold panic surged into his veins, sharper than any wound. He was trapped.

  “No!” The cry ripped raw from his throat.

  He landed hard, knees jarring, but rage burned away the pain. They wanted him chained? He would tear them apart first.

  His mind lashed outward.

  Probes stabbed at the guards nearest him, looking for weakness, cracks in the armor of their thoughts. He found one—and seized it. His will anchored deep, threading into their core. He planted a single command, a scalpel in the brainstem: Kill everyone not me.

  The guard convulsed, then turned. Spears plunged into former allies, ichor spraying as the line broke into chaos. Raime sent another tether, then another, forcing himself deeper into minds not meant to be touched. Every thread burned, every tether bled him dry.

  A wave of mental fury answered. Dozens of wills slammed into him, tearing open the cracks in his defenses. His skull felt aflame, blood hot down his face, his ears, his very eyes. His knees buckled, his vision painted red. Still he fought, dragging more into his grasp, hurling them at one another in blind slaughter.

  The Tetra Unum was merciless, blades piercing, slicing, rampaging, it couldn’t be stopped. Thunk smashed bodies aside like sacks of meat. Raime’s other arm swung too, catching a guard in the face with a backhand and pulping its skull and eye. Every strike an expression of might and rage.

  He thought he might break through. He thought, maybe, just maybe—

  And then the pain came.

  It bloomed in his skull like a flower of fire, petals spreading through every nerve. His mind tore open. He screamed, voice lost in the chaos, and fell to his knees, clutching his head as blood poured from every orifice.

  The guards parted.

  The guardian walked through. Calm. Untouched. The embodiment of inevitability.

  Raime lifted his head. His vision swam, body trembling, but his will still spat defiance.

  The guardian stopped before him. A single hand rose, pale and steady, and pressed against his head.

  “Our god will not be denied.”

  The words filled his broken mind, echoing like rattling chains.

  He collapsed onto the stone, his weapons clattering beside him, and darkness claimed him whole.