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Chapter 97: The Seal
🕑 Added 2025-07-10 22:02:30 +0000 UTCEverything around Vivi seemed to move faster now. The fight in the middle of the room looked like a blurry mess of flashes of light. She couldn’t make out Aang from within the fray. Without ether empowering her, Vivi turned back to a lost child. She was a useless pawn that required protection.
Luckily, she received just that.
Aang grabbed her from the waist, dragging her away from the balls of ether. Vivi was in shock for a second, close to fainting from the lack of ether.
Seeing the crack in the throne, she flinched awake. “The throne!” she shouted. “There’s a passage!”
Aang was already on the move. He slashed at the throne. The crush runes destroyed the bricks, revealing a stairway down.
Lucius? Vivi called. Can you hear me?
“It’s a trap…” Lucius said. “A ritual… I think the boss is here…”
A trap? Glancing behind, skeleton warriors were running at her. More and more skeletons were charging them.
Aang was already descending into the throne. He hadn’t heard Lucius’s warning. Regardless, if they stayed up, they would die. She ran into the throne, after Aang.
“Good find,” Aang said. He stepped forward with haste, descending deeper into the tunnel.
“My spirit said this was trapped,” Vivi said.
“We’ll have to walk into it,” Aang said. “The skeletons behind will forget us after our presence gets far enough.”
The hallway, with no end in sight, was vacant of monsters. The air smelled like burnt meat. The brick floor was back, including the glow between the bricks. The color had turned from red closer to black. It wasn’t bright, but the dark glow offered just enough light to see the creepy faces lining the walls.
Demonic faces were embedded into the stone. Most were of the same species as Uundref. They were less humanoid and more disturbing than the demons of Zand. The faces’ horns were thick, and they had large teeth with bulky jaws, tall foreheads, and no facial hair. Each one showed their teeth, grimacing.
Humanoid demons were mixed in. The regular demons weren’t frowning or showing aggression. They showed humility, as if trying to hide in the walls they were carved in. Some were crying.
Vivi felt a chill. But she ignored her fears, focusing on the task at hand. “What about the Skeleton King?” she asked.
“We’ll leave it behind,” Aang said. “I don’t think the Skeleton King is the main boss. It was just protecting this path. Whatever is down here is either treasure, or the real boss.”
“We’re too weak to defeat the Skeleton King,” Vivi said. “We stand no chance against a main boss.”
“I can’t defeat it alone,” Aang said, speaking calmly. “I exhausted over eight thousand ether in that fight alone. I have under seven thousand remaining for whatever is down here. Let’s hope the main boss is easier to deal with than the Skeleton King.”
Fantastic… Vivi thought. She had never felt safer in her life.
Without Lucius, Vivi’s sixth sense slowly disappeared. The air felt heavy and eerie, but Vivi couldn’t tell where the feeling came from. She felt just like she did when entering Zand, before practice and before filling her ether reserves. All around, she felt weak.
However, she could feel Lucius’s presence at the end of the tunnel. He wasn’t in pain, nor panicked. His presence was surprisingly calm.
“Uh, Vivi…” Lucius said again. They were close enough for his voice to be clear. “I take it back. This isn’t a trap. I don’t know what this is. There’s something weird here. I can feel a presence.”
A presence? Vivi thought.
The tunnel ahead opened up. They stepped into a large chamber resembling a cathedral. The floor and walls were lit up with the black glow. The walls were barely visible through a thick fog. The burning black of the castle faded into the icy level as the dome roof reached higher. Vivi craned her head. The walls were covered in more creepy faces that reached all the way to the ceiling.
In the middle of the room was an altar. Five robed cultists surrounded it, kneeling in a circle. Lucius was strapped in the middle, his paws held down with rope on all sides.
Lucius! Vivi called.
“Vivi, something is wrong,” Lucius said. “Don’t step closer. They can’t kill me. I’m a spirit.”
A loud thump sounded from behind. Vivi glanced at the doorway to find themselves blocked. A slab of stone blocked the doorway. Once again, the exit was covered.
The faces on the walls moved. They opened their eyes, revealing bloodshot eyes. Every one of them stared down at the intruders.
“There’s someone here!” Lucius exclaimed. “I can feel them—a spirit!”
The ground beneath the altar rumbled. A feeling of hostile ether filled the air, strong enough that Vivi could sense it even now. The ether was coming from somewhere.
From below.
A bony arm shot through the floor, destroying the altar and sending Lucius flying. The fist was the size of a wrecking ball, and the arm was as long as three people. A second arm shot through the floor, followed by a skeleton’s head. The middle of the arena collapsed as the gigantic skeleton appeared from beneath. The cultists disintegrated to ether, dying from the impact.
Lucius recovered from the impact and flew down to Vivi. He was freed.
A red glow appeared in the skeleton’s eyes. The boss stared down at the invaders of its arena.
“A death tyrant!” Lucius shouted, uncaring that Aang would hear. “Run!”
