Chapter 11:The Void Laboratory.

The air inside the Hunter's Guild's hidden laboratory hummed with the dissonant energy of the Void. Ancient runes glowed faintly along the walls, their pulsating light casting jagged shadows across the steel tables cluttered with arcane instruments.

Veythar stood at the center of the room, his fingers hovering over Flicker's smoky form as the juvenile Void Beast coiled weakly around his wrist. Its usual ember-like glow had dimmed to a sickly gray, its body flickering like a dying candle.

Kael, the guild's senior researchera-gaunt man with eyes like frosted glassa- djusted a brass apparatus above them.

"The Void Core'sresonance is unstable," he muttered, tracing the erratic pulses of light emanating from Veythar' chest.

"But if we can align its frequency with Flicker's, we might catalyze an evolution."

Thalion leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, his cursed vines twitching beneath his sleeves. "And if it goes wrong?"Kael didnt look up.

"Then the beast dissolves, and the backlash might tear Veythars Core apart."

Veythar exhaled sharply. "Do it."

The ritual began with a whisper of incantations. Kaels hands moved in precise arcs, coaxing the Void Core's energy into a controlled stream. The light seeped into Flicker's form, and for a moment, nothing happened.

Then**time stopped.**

Not metaphorically. Literally.

The air crystallized. Dust motes hung suspended mid-fall. Kael's outstretched hand froze, his fingers curled around a vial of liquid shadow. Thalions breath fogged the air in a perfect, unmoving cloud.

And Veythar? He could *move*.

Flickers body had expanded into a sphere of absolute stillness, its edges shimmering like fractured glass. Within it, Veythar saw the Void energy for what it truly wase- river of iridescent threads, each pulsing with memories

not his own.

One thread burned brighter than the rest. He reached for it.

The memory struck like a blade.

*Flicker, smaller, terrified, trapped in a cage of blackened iron. Valenor's gloved hands pressed a searing brand into its smoky hidea-dark rune that pulsed like a second heart.

"You will serve," Valenor hissed, his voice dripping with venom.

"Or you will break."*

Veythar recoiled, the vision shattering as Flicker *screamed* soundless, agonized ripple through the stasis field.

The rune. It was still there. Buried beneath layers of evolution, festering like a poison.

Time snapped back into motion.

Kael staggered, the vial slipping from his grasp. "By the Veilwhat *was* that?"

Flicker's form convulsed, its body surging with newfound power, Dark tendrils of shadow thickened around it, and its eyesonce wide with fearnarr owed into slits of molten gold. The juvenile Void Beast was gone. In its place stood a predator.

But the cost was etched into its flickering outline. Every pulse of its enhanced abilities drained its life force.

Thalion's voice cut through the silence. "You saw something."

Veythar met his gaze. "Valenor *branded* it. That runeits a leash."

Flicker nuzzled against Veythars palm, its form vibrating with a low, purring hum. It didnt understand. It only knew it was stronger now.

And it trusted him.

The weight of that trust settled like a stone in Veythar's gut. He could sever the runepurge Valenors corruptionbut the process might shatter Flicker's fragile form. Or he could leave it. Let the beast burn brighter, faster, *deadlier*-until nothing remained.

Thalion stepped forward, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "You dont have to decide now."

Veythars fingers curled into fists. "Yes, I do."

He pressed his palm to Flickers forehead, the Void Core in his chest flaring to life. "Hold still," he murmured.

The rune *screamed* as his light carved into it.

Flicker thrashed, its claws raking grooves into the steel table. The laboratory's glass vials shattered. Kael cursed, scrambling back.

But Veythar held on.

The rune shattered.

And for a heartbeat, Flicker's mind *opened* to him fully. Not just fear, not just painbut a whisper of something older. A presence, vast and starved, lurking in the depths of the Void.

*The Devourer.*

Its voice slithered through the bond: *"You cannot outrun what you are."*

Then the connection severed.

Flicker collapsed, its form reduced to a wisp of smoke. But its eyeswhen it looked up at Veytharwere clear. Unbroken.

Thalion let out a slow breath. "Did it work?"

Veythar didnt answer. His gaze locked onto the laboratory's far wall, where the shadows had begun to *move* on their own.

Sylviaris stepped from the darkness, her violet eyes alight with something dangerously close to approval. "Interesting," she murmured. "Youve just made yourself a threat."

Behind her, the guild's alarms began to blare.

The door burst open. A bloodied hunter stumbled in, his armor scorched."Riftin the lower districts! Valenor's unleashed a *Platinum-tier* Void Beast!"

Thalion was already moving, his sword singing free. "We dont have time for your games, scholar."

Sylviaris smirked. "Dont you?"

Veythar scooped up Flicker, its weight lighter than before. The beasts time-stasis ability was stronger nowbut so was its fragility.

And Valenor knew it.

As they sprinted into the chaos of the guild's halls, one truth burned brighter than the rest:

This wasnt just an attack.

It was a *trap*.