Chapter 30 - The Price Of Power - The Hollow Village Arc Part 2

"You can run from the past, but it will always catch up with you. And when it does, you'll finally see the cost of what you've left behind." — Rei

"An Obsidian Legion," I muttered, my grip tightening.

"An Obsidian what?" Akira frowned.

"Another name for a Shadow Cult squad," Tanish said flatly.

The leader snarled. "Stop acting like we don't exist!"

Tanish vanished. A flicker of movement—then he was behind the leader.

"Shut up."

Steel flashed. The cultist's head hit the ground before his body registered the loss.

Tanish exhaled. "I don't have time for this."

A blinding flash erupted from him. The flash of light swallowed the tunnel, stark white against the endless black. For a moment, everything was still—then the wet sound of bodies hitting the ground echoed through the cavern.

As the light faded, the cultists stood frozen. No—what was left of them. Headless bodies teetered before crumpling, blood pooling across the stone.

Tanish exhaled, lowering his arm. "Too slow."

Akira let out a low whistle. "Remind me not to piss you off."

I barely heard them. My eyes locked onto the old man, still kneeling, still unmoving.

Then—he spoke.

"They moved the seal..." His voice was brittle, fraying at the edges.

Something was wrong. I stepped forward. "What do you mean?"

The old man didn't respond. His gaze drifted past me, into the darkness.

Then—he started laughing. A cracked, hollow sound.

"They were never trying to break it," he rasped. "Just... relocate it."

And then, beneath us, the stone trembled.

Not a quake. Not a collapse.

Something was breathing.

The air thinned. A deep, guttural exhale rumbled through the tunnels, slow and ancient, vibrating through my bones.

I froze. That wasn't the wind. That wasn't the cave shifting.

That was alive.

Akira backed up, hand tightening around his weapon. "Tell me that was just my imagination."

Tanish didn't move. His gaze locked on the old man, who was still laughing—soft, breathy, as if he'd already accepted something we hadn't.

I grabbed his shoulder. "What the hell are you talking about? What seal?"

His eyes met mine, wide, sunken, terrified. But he grinned. "You're too late."

The stone beneath us pulsed. A heartbeat. Slow. Deep. Rising.

Tanish's blade was in his hand before I even saw him move. "We're leaving. Now."

But the old man shook his head. "There is no leaving."

The air shifted.

Then—something exhaled again.

And this time, it was closer.

It gave in.

I barely had time to shout before we were falling. The cavern swallowed us whole, rock and dust rushing past in a choking wave. For a moment, there was nothing but weightlessness—then the hard slam of stone as we hit the ground below.

I coughed, shaking off the impact, my ears ringing. "Everyone still breathing?"

Groans echoed around me. Akira cursed. "Barely."

Aiko pushed herself up. "Where... are we?"

The dust settled. And then, I saw it.

A colossal stone statue towered before us, half-buried in the cavern floor.

No—not a statue. A person.

Chiseled with impossible detail, its features were eerily lifelike, as if frozen mid-movement. The figure's head tilted downward, arms resting at its sides. Cracks ran along its form, thin as veins, pulsing faintly with something I couldn't name.

A deep silence pressed against my ears.

Luka exhaled sharply. "What is this?"

The old man—somehow still alive—shuffled forward on weak legs. His gaze locked onto the stone figure, and for the first time, his voice wasn't laced with laughter.

He whispered.

"The Forgotten One..."

Something deep within the cavern groaned. A noise too low, too ancient, to be anything human.

Ren tensed. "Tell me that thing isn't waking up."

The old man turned, eyes alight with something between reverence and horror.

"It never slept. Its consciousness is still there... Listening. It was sealed 12 years ago, by a sorcerer."

(Unkown location)

The Jade Assassin's voice was sharp, his words cutting through the air like a blade. "Kurayami, are you sure about this? There's no turning back now. Don't make the same mistakes I did. You had people who stood by you—people who would've followed you to the end. You've already made a choice that cost you everything."

Kurayami's eyes narrowed, and a seething anger rose within him. "Doubt? You think I'm going to hesitate now? That's for those who still think they have something to lose. I left that behind long ago. Men hesitate because they fear the cost of their choices. I've already paid mine. What stands before you is not a man seeking answers—it's the answer itself."

Rei stood unmoving, his gaze steady, unfazed. "You think you've paid the price? No, Kurayami. What you've done is trade one loss for another. The real cost doesn't show up in the moment of choice—it lingers long after, in the things you can't undo, in the things you can't forget."

Kurayami's jaw clenched, but Rei's words continued to hit their mark. "You think you've become something beyond it all—above it all. But all you've done is run. You traded everything for this. You think you're strong, but all you've done is destroy everything you ever had, just so you can avoid facing what you really are."

Rei's voice grew softer, but the weight of his words only grew. "You had people once, Kurayami. People who saw something in you. You had something, once. But you chose this. You think that's power? That's not power—that's fear. Fear of being held accountable for what you've done, fear of the person you used to be. You think you're beyond regret, beyond mistakes. But you're just running from the past, hoping it won't catch up with you. But it does."

Kurayami's hands trembled, but he forced himself to hold steady. "I don't need your pity, Rei."

Rei's gaze sharpened, the edge in his voice growing sharper. "It's not pity. It's the truth. You can't outrun yourself. The past you think you've buried? It's right here, inside you. It's not gone. It's never gone. You think you can leave it behind? Fine. But it'll catch up. It always does."

Kurayami flinched, but only for a second. He shook his head, pushing Rei's words away. "I made my choice. And I stand by it."

Rei stared at him, his eyes filled with something heavy. "You think you're standing, but you're just stumbling, hoping the ground won't fall out from under you. You can fool yourself all you want, but you'll always know what you gave up, what you destroyed, what you've become. You're not free, Kurayami. You're trapped."

Kurayami stood still, the air between them thick with the tension of unspoken truths. He clenched his fists, trying to push down the gnawing doubt that Rei's words had stirred within him. For a moment, he almost seemed to question everything—his choices, his path, his purpose. But he quickly suppressed it, hiding behind the anger that had been his shield for so long.

Rei watched him, silent and unmoving, until the stillness seemed unbearable.

Finally, Rei spoke, his voice low, but no less cutting. "You think you've escaped the consequences. You've buried the past, but it's right there, always waiting. You can pretend you've won, that you've become something greater, but in the end, it'll always find you. You can't outrun what you've done."

Kurayami's breath quickened, the words hitting closer to home than he wanted to admit. His lips tightened into a thin line, but his eyes betrayed him. Rei had struck a chord, even if he refused to acknowledge it.

Rei stepped back, his gaze locking with Kurayami's one last time. His expression softened ever so slightly, but there was no sympathy, no pity. Just a quiet resignation.

"So be it," Rei said, his voice calm but edged with something deeper. "If this is what you choose, then... so be it. Your path is yours to walk. But know this—there's no going back from here. And no matter how far you run, it won't change what's already been lost."

Rei turned away slowly, his figure casting a long shadow in the dim light. "You'll face it, Kurayami. Eventually. And when you do... you'll know what it really means to pay the price."

With those final words, Rei disappeared into the shadows, leaving Kurayami alone with the weight of his choices—and the quiet realization that some truths could never be outrun.

(Back At The Village)

There were a few people chanting a spell to a statue, probably 10 feet.

They stopped and looked at us.

The ground gave in.

The air was thick with an unnatural hum as we stumbled into the cavern. The sight before us turned my stomach. The villagers—once lively, now dead—lay in twisted heaps, their bodies drained of chi. The life had been sucked out of them, leaving only husks. They had been used, their essence harvested for something far darker.

A strange chanting echoed off the stone walls. It was rhythmic, hypnotic, reverberating through the cavern like a pulse. The villagers' lifeless bodies were stacked in a twisted pyramid at the base of the stone statue—no, person—towering before us. It was an unholy offering, a ritual taking form.

I could feel the weight of it in my chest, pressing down. The words—an ancient incantation—spoke of power, of a deal that came at a horrendous cost. The statue was not merely stone; it was the shell of something more.

"We have to stop this," Akira hissed, his eyes scanning the scene, weapon ready. "This... This isn't just some local magic. This is something bigger."

Tanish clenched his fists, the air around him crackling with suppressed energy. "We stop them, or we're part of the sacrifice."

I could barely breathe as the full scale of what we were facing began to sink in. The villagers' chi had been siphoned, fueling whatever twisted ritual was in progress. The statue before us wasn't just a monument; it was the focal point, the vessel that would house something—something ancient and powerful.

The chanting grew louder.

"Focus," I said, my voice steady despite the dread curling in my gut. "We fight now."

But before we could move, a ripple of energy surged from the statue. The ground trembled, and I swore I could hear the statue groan, as if waking from an eon-long slumber.

"We're too late," Aiko whispered, her voice thin with panic. "They're going to release it."

The figure's eyes, once just stone, seemed to glisten in the dim light. Slowly, they moved—the cracks on the stone deepening, glowing with a pulse that matched the rhythm of the chant.

And then, the ground beneath us shattered.

With an earth-shaking roar, the statue cracked wide open. It was not stone that tumbled to the ground, but flesh—blackened and twisted, veins pulsing with unnatural power. Something was emerging from within it, something old and hungry.

Tanish moved first, leaping toward the nearest cultist, his blade cutting through the air in a blur. "No more time for games," he said, his voice cold and lethal. He slashed again, and the first cultist crumpled, but they kept chanting, unaffected by the bodies falling around them.

"We have to stop them from completing the ritual!" I shouted.

But as we moved, something in the air shifted. The chi within the cavern pulsed, thickening. The ritual wasn't just near completion—it was feeding off the deaths. And with each life extinguished, its power grew stronger.

The air grew heavier, thick with dark energy. The Forgotten One was waking—and it was hungry.

Akira's eyes locked on me. "We take them down now. Or we won't have a chance."

Without another word, we launched ourselves into the fray.

Tanish leapt and unleashed a huge wave of Ikari temporarily immobilising his target.

The cavern trembled, the very earth beneath our feet quaking in response to the rising darkness. The chanting from the cultists reached a fever pitch, and the air grew thick with an oppressive, suffocating energy. The bodies of the villagers, drained and lifeless, lay in heaps around the altar, their chi now feeding into the dark ritual.

I could feel the power growing—rising like a storm, darkening the sky above us, warping the very space we stood in. The Forgotten One stirred, the massive stone statue that had once been inert now flickering to life, its cracks glowing with veins of blackened energy.

A deep, guttural growl emanated from the stone, a voice that seemed to echo from a place beyond this world.

"You are too late." The words crawled through the air, chilling every bone in my body. "I rise, and all will fall."