Chapter 133: Empty
The Turtarex isn’t unknown to me. While it charges, I’m reading its speed, stride length, gait.
Two seconds...
I spin toward the pillar. Drop to the ground. Plant my boots against the fractured base and trigger [Pressure Step].
One second...
My body rockets, skidding backward along the marble. I flatten myself as I slide, igniting Eventide in the same motion.
The Turtarex’s jaws snap shut above my head. I feel teeth graze my hair. The massive body passes over me—eight tons of momentum that can’t stop.
Sliding under, I sink Eventide deep. The blade drags through its soft underside, trailing behind my momentum as I pass the length of the beast.
The Turtarex, confused by the damage and unable to brake, hits the fractured pillar headfirst.
The sound is not a crash. It’s a detonation. Marble against bone at full speed. The impact folds the beast’s legs out from under it and it drops.
But I’m still underneath.
The tail comes down on my legs. Weight I can’t calculate and pain I don’t have time to categorize. It shoots up my spine in a white flash.
The pillar cracks twice, slowly, and then gives up.
Turtarex tries to stand once, but the impact makes it dizzy.
Seizing the opening, I roll sideways, dragging my legs free, and the pillar comes down.
Several tons of marble collapse onto the Turtarex in a single vertical drop. The scream it makes is brief—cut short mid-sound, like a voice interrupted by a hand closing over its mouth.
Dust and debris blast outward. A chunk of stone catches me in the side on the rebound. Big enough to make me spit blood.
I cover my head, waiting for the kinetics to settle.
When I open my eyes, I can’t see anything. Dense white dust. Marble powder everywhere.
I get up slowly and check my OXI.
[OXI: 874 / 1,600]
Significant damage. I look for Rhayne through the haze.
She’s kneeling behind Oliver. Her nose is bleeding. The Void Link is still active—I can feel it pulling at me.
She shared part of the damage... damn...
"Disconnect. Now..."
She nods. The cold under my skin drains out. My outline settles back into my own body.
I turn and look at the wreckage behind me.
The Tide Turtarex is still alive.
Pinned under the collapsed pillar, its limbs twitching, trying to push itself up and failing. Completely spent. Damaged and tired.
"This thing didn’t die..." I mutter.
I walk toward it. The huge head is moving slowly. Side to side. The eyes find me and follow every step.
Something strange passes through them. Past rage, past pain. Something that wants to be a message.
I feel it land in my chest and push it away.
We need to finish this before it gets back up.
I climb onto the cracked shell. The surface shifts under my boots—plates that used to be welded shut now separated by fracture lines from the pillar’s impact. I find the seam between skull and body. Ignite Eventide and sink the blade down through the spine.
The Turtarex takes one last breath.
Lets it out and stops.
The silence that follows is total. The sanctuary absorbs the death the way it absorbed the dark—without echo, without residue.
[Reward: +43% to Rank Advancement (Kill)]
[Current Rank Status: 42% → 75%]
Forty-three percent from a Rank B. Solid. Nowhere near a gap-level kill like taking down a Rank Abyssal, but a serious chunk of progress.
[Loot table available.]
I dismiss the notification. Oliver first.
I climb down from the carcass and walk over, feeling my leg pull with each step. The tail did something down there—muscle, tendon, something in between. It’ll hold for now.
"How’s it going, partner?"
Oliver is lying with his head in Rhayne’s lap. He opens his eyes. Visibly exhausted. Dried blood in the corner of his mouth.
"I keep wondering..." He coughs. "...every time, how you have..." He breathes. "...so much knowledge and experience."
"Let’s say I’ve had a few lives... like a cat."
I bury the truth inside a bad joke and serve it with a straight face.
Oliver tries to laugh and immediately regrets it. "Don’t make me laugh, boss. It hurts like hell."
"Can you stand?"
"I bought some medicinal herbs in the Blue Light District. For the group. Give me a minute." He reaches into his inventory and hands the herbs to Rhayne. She starts working on him without being asked—crushing leaves between her palms, pressing them against his side where the swelling is worst.
"Herbs aren’t potions. Take it easy. Don’t push. It’s over."
Oliver just winks at me and leans back.
"Lola? You okay?"
No answer from behind me. I turn.
Lola is standing near the altar at the far end of the hall, Lullaby already set down on the floor beside her. She’s completely absorbed—staring at the glacial crystals and the kinetic sculptures, her head tilted, eyes narrowed. One hand hovering over a sculpture that rotates in slow circles without any visible mechanism driving it.
"Yeah... but this is weird..." She thinks for another second, reaches closer, then pulls her hand back. Her fingers curl into a fist at her side. "Weird like Uncle."
I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a diagnosis. With Lola, it could be either.
She steps back to Lullaby, presses a button, and the weapon autofolds into its carrying case with a precise mechanical hiss.
I walk toward the altar.
And I see it.
Set into the crystal structure, a book rest. A cradle for something to sit in. The exact same design as the one where I found my Codex, in another life, in another sanctuary.
But it’s empty.
Maybe there’s more than one. Maybe my father—
"Hello, Chosen One."
The same voice. Everywhere and nowhere. Ancient, velvet, and female. The sanctuary resonates with it—the crystals on the altar brighten a shade, the kinetic sculptures pause mid-rotation, and the pale lightning above the dome holds still for a full second before resuming.
"You have passed the trial of the chosen."
A pause. The lightning above the dome flickers once.
"Touch the altar to initiate the synaptic connection."
I look at the altar. At the empty book rest. At the crystals pulsing with blue light.
I look back at my squad.
Oliver on the ground, being patched. Rhayne with blood on her face and steady hands. Lola standing beside me, staring at the altar with her head tilted, waiting.
I reach out my hand.