Echoes Of The Corrupted Veil
Previously on Chapter 14: No Mercy for Monsters ⚔️🔥
The battlefield was chaos — blood, ash, and screams. Kael, Nyra, and Aelina stood ruthless and unbroken. 💀🩸
They fought the venomous Cursed Children. 😈🦷
Kael's flames scorched 🔥
Nyra's dark fire burned 🌑🔥
Aelina's blade sang death 🔪🖤
Then the Healers arrived — divine light and fury. ⚡👼
Aris vs Aelina ⚔️
Lioren sensed Nyra's otherworldly power 🌌
Sylva tried to befriend Kael, who rejected her coldly ❄️
Kael spat bitter truth — the real monsters are lies. 🗡️🔥
Nyra burned with silent fury.
Aelina smiled at survival's cruel beauty.
A shadow whispered:
"They're not cursed — they're the answer." 👁️🗨️🌑
No peace — just the storm before the calm.
The fog wasn't just mist—it was memory, rot, and malice stitched into the air. It clung to the siblings like a living shroud, whispering in voices that weren't their own.
"You're nothing without them," hissed the fog at Kael. He bared his teeth.
"You'll kill them someday," it murmured to Aelina. She stared forward, unflinching.
"They will abandon you," it sang sweetly to Nyra. Her gaze flicked once to her siblings, then back to the void ahead.
No one flinched. Not anymore.
They had stepped into a corrupted dimension—one hidden beneath the village temple like a festering wound. This place was no mere ruin—it was an echo of a poisoned veil, suffocating everything in its shadow. The stone warped beneath their feet. The air was too thick with silence. The light bled violet, pulsing with every step they took.
And then they saw him.
Once a priest of light, now a towering figure draped in tendrils of shadow, his face melted into something half-human, half-nightmare. His presence was rancid, but his voice—somehow—remained maddeningly melodic.
"Ah… the triplets of prophecy," he purred. "The Chanter of Hollow Souls welcomes you."
Kael drew his blade, eyes cold. "You're about as welcome as rot in an open wound."
The priest chuckled, barbed and low. "I have seen the threads of fate, abominations. You are the unraveling. My master told me—'He waits beyond the Hollow Throne.' 'She who sleeps beneath the Weeping Star.' The world ends at your feet."
"Your master?" Nyra asked, calm and unreadable.
The priest tilted his head. "Even gods have nightmares… and they wait beyond the Hollow Throne."
He smiled wider. "But you—you, little flame—you will be the one who burns the world and grieves it after."
Then the attack began.
Shadowy tendrils lashed out, shrieking through the void. Kael moved like a storm, dancing between strikes, blade flashing. Aelina's knives spun with surgical fury. Nyra's lips moved quickly, chanting words that tasted like ash and iron.
The Chanter laughed as his limbs regrew faster than they could be destroyed. And then came the images.
Kael saw himself standing over Aelina, his blade deep in her chest.
Aelina saw a mountain of bodies, her boots blood-soaked, and a smile carved across her face.
Nyra saw herself alone on a throne of bone, a crown of thorns on her head, her siblings long dead and forgotten.
She screamed, and violet fire burst from her hands, roaring across the tendrils.
The priest opened his mouth wide—and the voices of the villagers spilled out. Ghostly figures emerged, mouths sewn shut, whispering prayers that drained warmth from the world.
"Save us… bleed for us…"
They clawed toward the siblings. One of them looked like a child.
Aelina hesitated.
Kael slammed into her, knocking her aside. "They're not real!"
Nyra chanted slower now, blood trickling from her nose. Her fingers trembled, but she shaped the fire anyway—fire that devoured the ghost-prayers, turning them to ash.
But something in her face had changed.
The Chanter shrieked and tore open, his body reshaping into a towering beast. His form bulged with muscle and malice—four arms, ribcage exposed, dozens of eyes blinking across his chest.
"I will hollow you out and wear your names."
He lunged. Kael took the brunt of the hit, his shoulder cracking under the impact. Aelina launched herself at the creature, her blade piercing two chest-eyes in one swift strike. Black choir spilled like shattered grapes as the beast screamed.
"NOW!" she shouted.
Nyra raised her hands, not like a child—but like something divine. The magic she summoned wasn't fire. It was void.
A sphere of pulsing black and violet light bloomed between her palms, seething with unspeakable power.
Aelina, panting, looked to her. "What did you lose… to wield this?"
Nyra's arms shook. The magic consumed the last of her strength. She collapsed to her knees.
"…I don't remember what she sounded like anymore," she whispered. "Our mother."
Silence.
That was worse than any wound.
Kael rose, shoulder bloody, face a storm of pain and fury. He drove his blade through the Chanter's last heart—the one hidden in the beast's spine.
The creature gurgled… and smiled.
"You've only hastened it… You are the end… And the gods will kneel… or be devoured."
He crumbled to dust.
And as the last breath of him vanished, a cold whisper lingered in the air:
"You will kneel… eventually."
Above them, the sky cracked.
A jagged tear of violet split the heavens above the temple. For a moment, it gaped like an eye. Then it vanished.
But they had all seen it.
The illusion around them shattered. The village returned. The rot receded. Warmth crept back into the air.
Healers rushed forward from the edges of the ruins.
Syla reached Kael, her hands glowing with divine light, hovering above his wounded shoulder.
"Try not to scream like a... "
"Like a what? Goddess of itchy fingers?"
She hissed. Aelina snorted.
Zephyrus tripped over a rock nearby. "Ow—seriously?"
"Should've stayed in your egg," Kael muttered under his breath.
Behind them, Nyra stood alone.
She stared at a fragment of stone. Glowing words etched themselves into its surface in burning gold:
What you kill today may own your soul tomorrow.
And far beyond the clearing, in the shadows between trees, a cloaked figure watched. A sigil—shaped like a weeping eye wrapped in chains—glowed faintly on their shoulder.
"See, boss? Told you they'd survive."
A second figure stepped beside them. Only a silhouette against the dying light.
"Good," came the voice.
Low. Ancient. Hungry.
"Let them grow."
:
🔮 Next Chapter: Whispers Beyond the Hollow Throne
The veil cracked. Something answered.
Nyra dreams of chained gods.
Kael hears a forbidden name.
Aelina starts to question who's really in control.
The hunt isn't over. It's only changed sides