Chapter 35: Whispers Beneath the Conclave
The wind howled across the jagged ravines as Ashen and his group moved deeper into the highlands that marked the last border before Gloamspire. The sky overhead churned with fractured twilight, neither fully day nor night. Here, at the edge of known civilization, the very air trembled with resonance. Chaos threads wove faint patterns across the land—visible only to those attuned.
Ashen marched at the front, his aura pulsing faintly with Planet-level resonance. With every step, the bond with the world's magnetic field deepened. His body felt lighter now, faster, more responsive—like the land itself had accepted him. Around him, the terrain blurred, and he could hear the whispers of ley lines beneath his feet.
"This place... it remembers," Revyn said quietly from behind. "Old wars. Sealed rituals. Things best left buried."
"And yet we go there willingly," Keyven muttered, adjusting the weight of the glaive strapped to his back. He had grown more serious since Val'kyr, his Mid Martial Realm cultivation tightening like a coil of spring steel.
Kaelis remained silent, his gaze ever forward, shadow-woven cloak fluttering like smoke. Ashen still couldn't get a full read on his cultivation, but there was no denying the power the man wielded in silence.
The path to Gloamspire led them through a chasm called the Maw of Dust—a sunken expanse of eroded stone and petrified trees. As they crossed, Ashen paused. His gaze flicked upward.
Above them, etched into the canyon wall, was a glyph. Old. Scarred. Faintly humming with chaos.
Kaelis moved beside him. "That's a warning. The Conclave doesn't like visitors."
Ashen stared at the glyph. It pulsed once, and in that moment, he felt a flicker of recognition—not from memory, but from something deeper. Instinct. Dragon instinct.
"They'll know we're coming," he murmured.
---
They reached Gloamspire by dusk. A towering bastion carved into the mountain itself, the ancient stronghold jutted like the fractured spine of some celestial beast. Lightless windows stared down like hollow eyes. The entrance—a narrow crevice flanked by stone totems—seemed more like a wound than a gate.
A single figure awaited them there, robed in veils of mirrored silk, face hidden behind a half-mask of obsidian. Her presence was still, but not passive.
"You walk under the echo of ruin," she said. Her voice was both melodic and unnatural, as though it reverberated across layers of time. "State your intent."
Ashen stepped forward. "We seek sanctuary and answers. The Veiled Conclave knows of the Stellar Chaos lineage. I carry its echo."
The woman tilted her head.
"Then you are a danger... or a key. Come. But speak no lies in Gloamspire. The walls whisper them back."
She turned and disappeared into the shadows, not waiting to see if they followed.
---
Inside Gloamspire, the air was heavy with memory. The walls breathed faint light through veins of crystallized leyline fragments. Silent monks drifted between massive pillars, their faces hidden, their footsteps soundless.
They were taken to a chamber carved into a spiraling descent—its center dominated by an obsidian disk inscribed with interlocking runes. Ashen felt it pulse in time with his heart.
The veiled woman reappeared at the far side of the room. "This is the Circle of Ascendants. Here, we unearth truths too dangerous for the outside world. You wish to understand your connection to the Dragon. We will begin with what you carry."
Ashen glanced to his companions. Revyn gave a subtle nod. Keyven folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Kaelis vanished into the shadows behind a pillar.
Ashen stepped onto the disk.
The runes ignited.
A flare of sensation tore through him—not pain, but unraveling. The boundary between his thoughts and his deeper instincts thinned. Images flickered across his mind: stars collapsing, a black-winged dragon soaring across nebulae, chains forged from planetary cores.
"He saw the end of time," the woman said. "Your dragon. He was not simply powerful. He was bound to entropy itself."
Ashen gritted his teeth. He saw more now—the Stellar Chaos Dragon's essence not just as a beast of war, but as a guardian of imbalance. A regulator. A destroyer of stagnation.
"He was betrayed," Ashen whispered. "By those who feared his truth."
The woman nodded. "The Conclave remembers. And now that power stirs again... in you."
---
After the ceremony, Ashen rested in a meditation alcove. The revelations still echoed in his mind. More than anything, it was the accelerated comprehension stirring. Not just knowledge, but instinctual clarity. He could see the weaves of space-time now, thin filaments dancing at the edge of perception.
And he understood how to touch them.
He reached out, not physically but spiritually. The threads of reality shimmered, and he pulled one.
Space warped.
Only slightly—just enough to bend the alcove's boundaries. But it worked. A grin touched his lips. The Stellar Chaos Dragon's gifts weren't locked behind combat.
He was learning.
---
Later that night, Kaelis approached him beneath the lantern-lit arches of the Gloamspire terrace.
"We're not safe here," he said.
Ashen raised a brow. "I thought the Conclave welcomed us."
"They tolerate us. Because they fear what you are. And because they want to use you."
Ashen stood. "Then what do we do?"
Kaelis glanced toward the mountain beyond the stronghold.
"We go deeper. The Conclave's archives are sealed beneath the mountain—forbidden even to its elders. But if we want the truth... about the Cult of the Devouring Star, the fall of the Chaos lineage, and the dragon's full legacy... that's where we need to go."
Ashen didn't hesitate. "Then we go tonight."
---
They moved through the stronghold in silence, evading the gaze of the silent monks. Revyn and Keyven joined without question, trusting Ashen's resolve. With Kaelis leading, they reached a sealed chamber behind the altar of echoes—a forgotten path beneath Gloamspire.
Kaelis wove his shadows through the sigil-lock. It hissed open, revealing a spiraling stair that led into pure black.
As they descended, Ashen felt it again: the call. Not from the dragon, but from the past. Echoes of pain and triumph. Of forgotten wars. Of betrayal.
And far beneath, he felt something else.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not a presence from the Cult. Nor a guardian.
But something old.
And it remembered the chaos in his blood.
---