There were no windows in this place. No cracks for wind to pass through, no sound of rain, no echo of life… nothing. Only stone, silence, and the pulsing void that wrapped around Haxar like a coffin built for the damned.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJg1Q1JJ92u
Rouma lay still not by choice. The seals etched into the floor of his cell glowed faintly, pulsing in rhythm with his breath. With each inhale, the magic tightened. With each exhale, it wrapped itself around him anew. There was no escape. Not from the cell. Not from the silence. Not from himself.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VWkG7AaWn
His chamber was lined with runes carved into the walls not designed to kill, but to torture. Not held by chains, but bound by layers of spells, rituals, and energies capable of twisting and suppressing the very fabric of Xhu. Haxar was the most dangerous prison in the realm, divided into eight sectors: the Ravaged Beasts, the Cursed, the Sealed, the Most Wanted, the Sinners, the Arse, the Glasyans, and the Seers. Among them, Rouma was one of the most feared.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn5XDgNG0Yg
He could not move.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVcMVnYmkig
But his mind… it still wandered. And what it saw there, in the silence of this stone tomb, was more agonizing than any torture Marcho had devised.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRV0rUZrK9F
Marcho.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSLFjnWI6cp
Even the name was a wound that never closed. The Head Warden of Haxar. Cold, merciless, calculated. Rouma’s only sound now was the echo of Marcho’s boots slow, deliberate, pacing the halls like death itself. Every visit was a ritual. Every word, a blade.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMn4Ttaw9bv
“You’re still breathing,” Marcho had sneered on his last visit, his voice dry like ash. “Pity. I had hoped your cursed soul would rot before your body.”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ixFrGCotB
Every act of torment inflicted upon Rouma seemed to bring him pleasure.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhG2WDUeAsX
Rouma hadn’t replied. He no longer spoke. Not to anyone. Not anymore.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlwrIgBCx4V
But that didn’t mean there was nothing left inside him.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrRWdiFLyO8
Beneath the layers of suppression, beyond the scars and silence, Rouma waited. The Xhu within him had not died it had only been forced inward, curled up like a serpent conserving its venom. Patient. Coiled. Watching.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGLjojGkj1m
They believed this was punishment. But this… this was preparation.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlQyfOGimQ4
And then… he felt it.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCWXzP2ibaN
Not as sound. Not as tremor. No.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQRQu9kBCgd
It came as a change in the very essence of the air. Something from beyond. Beyond the stone. Beyond the guards, the runes, and the seals.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr3wV4pKBoH
A presence.A will.A hunger.A demon.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGy9N5ZQny
He couldn’t even remember the last time he had felt it.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AuPNNCloQ
Pegwalsge.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe0aPb4F2TB
Even here in this hollow hell built to bury monsters and murderers Rouma could feel him. A wave from the deep of Xhu. A call. A recognition older than language.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNWvdwf2Alj
His lips, dry and cracked, parted for the first time in years.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZr3SGTjJSH
“…Brother?”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwijEGfakIP
The moment Pegwalsge’s Xhu touched his soul, time shifted. Silence was no longer just silence it carried an echo.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡporaGJDG1d
A memory.A scene sealed in blood, born from ashes…
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEAfT8syTaf
They had stood on a mountainside. The cold sky had draped itself over them like a gray shroud. No birds sang. No wind dared stir. Time itself had felt frozen.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqHT0ufAQyr
That day, Pegwalsge had told him that death was not an end.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKN04c0ZG5M
“Sometimes,” he had said, his hands soaked in blood, “A being dies while still alive. The heart keeps beating, but the soul… it begins to rot. And then, one no longer lives only forgets and regrets.”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX2AauFhHPc
Rouma had stayed silent. He had been young then. His blade had just tasted its first blood. But in Pegwalsge’s eyes, there had been something…
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu9VlSsj7mS
A fire.A light.A fate approaching step by step inevitable and irreversible.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHI1joeEB3c
“Men seek gods, and gods hide in silence,” Pegwalsge had said. “But what if silence calls you back? What if the void itself calls your name reminds you of who you are, and what your fate demands? That is when true destiny begins. What makes one human begins not when they remember… but when they don't fear to forget.”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxPJe7obHsD
And then he had looked at Rouma.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCSqjdH7szh
That gaze had branded the moment into his soul, as if nailed into time itself.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB0IhzXbYLQ
There was no destruction in it. Only inevitability.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOodmkAC69E
“You and I,” Pegwalsge had said, “Are not alike. You will be the one who flees your fate. I am the one who calls it forth.”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRuQpczrlKg
Now, centuries later, those words still echoed in Rouma’s mind. Even beyond the tomb-like walls of Haxar, that voice was just as clear. Just as absolute.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTIsCnr3M99
As Pegwalsge’s Xhu touched him once more, Rouma closed his eyes. A single drop slid down his cheek not a tear. It was the trace of a memory time itself had refused to forgive.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdee5RvqwJ
“If you’ve returned,” Rouma whispered within, “Then I have nowhere left to run.”
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRP42NHlJl0
When Pegwalsge’s Xhu seeped through the stone walls like a ripple, the seals trembled for the briefest moment.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0GJj5hM13J
As if the order of the cosmos itself was being reminded of a truth it tried to forget.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxAFzuc0UiJ
Rouma did not open his eyes. He didn’t need to.He no longer saw beyond the walls he felt.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIdqJyQmaHh
And now, something long buried within him began to stir.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzxazt0YIy7
Bond.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGeM3UtJnTz
He and Pegwalsge were not merely bound by pain.They were of the same blood.Born of the same fate.Two brothers. Two beings.
Shaped on separate paths but forged from the same source.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjMUvbkCLA5
Their Xhus, shaped across different roads, still knew each other.And now, that touch was awakening the sealed within.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLTMvFxRRs2
The seals began to ache.The ancient runes blurred for a moment.As if even ancient magic had lost its way in the face of this forgotten call.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy3YpFQsteo
A tremor began to rise within Rouma.Deep beneathwhere a dark, immovable mass had slumbered for centuries it shifted.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF5UfDNMdWj
He still appeared chained from the outside. His body did not move.
But inside… the Xhu was no longer asleep.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOjhh3QEsMb
It twisted and stirred, sensing the gaps between the seals,slinking into the tiniest fractures of suppression.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVEZ90pKmJ4
Pegwalsge’s echo drew closer with every breath.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9tiJisKAM9
A voice rose within Rouma not his own.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2XWzGwaVqq
An echo.Cold as Pegwalsge’s breath. Heavy as his silence.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSdhpFZ70Gz
Rouma’s fingers trembled.It was unseen but the universe felt it.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7MzOHNOrua
Beyond the dungeon walls, Marcho’s eyes darkened but he could not explain why.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAQ4dDdp585
For Rouma still appeared to be lying still.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzqM2FLTT87
But within…
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCxF6318U1W
something was trying to awaken.
32Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0vYKkyIbrO
That thing studied the seals, memorizing their weave marking their weaknesses, one by one and waited.Patiently. For the right moment.
ns18.220.137.35da2
